Inspiration!

Although it feels I haven't been overly crafty of late, it's not true... I have been, only that it's been half finished projects. I have half a hat sewn up, I'm tossing around boyish designs on flickr for an upcoming birth (unknown gender) but they aren't screaming YES to me just yet. I've been crafting with the toddler and wrecking alongside her (again half finished pages - not fit to show yet) The knitting is no existent (my night-time knit-a-jo has gone & I'm hoping it returns again soon.

So I've put all the usual crafts on the thinking back burner and got stuck into the next week of Deck of Me challenge!

Prompt - Inspiration Found

I started finding stuff and thinking 'this inspires me' from buttons, to wool, ribbons, fabric, scrapping embellishments - they all inspire me to attempt making pretty things. My first attempt at collage type art - but really, honestly is it ok? I like it and I guess that counts.

(don't mind the finger at the bottom!)

I'm off to eat some of my fresh bread and bake up a batch of cookies and maybe a slice. Heck why not do some muffins while I'm at it. Hope your enjoying your Wednesday!

Strip Poker?

Just a few more deck of me... whipped up today!

Prompt - Shoes

This one had me stumped as I'm more a bag lady - not quite a shoe lady... Anyhow the song "these boots are made for walking" got stuck in my head, which got me thinking of the time my hubby and I were walking up Queen Street Mall and his boots had a blowout, it was hilarious and I still giggle at the thought of it! But with every moment comes Karma and karma came back to bite me on the rump threefold :o next time I was walking up Queen Street Mall pushing a pram along, my thongs blew out... not much fun to be on the receiving end of the laughter - thank you very much!

Next Prompt: Missing

Missing my pop, the back of this card is plain journalling.

Quilt #5 ~ 2009

Well this little quilt has been hanging around for a while now. I meant to have it finished to give away my DD's birthday, but with all the party prep, I just didn't have the energy of the time to get it finished. Since then, it's been pushed to the back of the pile - not sure why... as I absolutely adore the finished product & will be sad to see it go tomorrow :(

Anyhow today I decided NOTHING else gets done until I tie in the ends of the quilting, so I sat with a coffee, Angel playing on the Big TV while I tied and weaved in the ends.

~ Little O's Quilt ~

Go & Check out the little man himself on the quilt here

Well at least this gets me doing the washing!!! LOL

The journal & myself are off to the country this weekend ~ stay tuned for more wrecking

Sneak Peak

 

On the mail truck to Melbourne... can't wait to receive & get started on next months fabrics ~ gaining confidence now (watch that come back and bite me on the bum...)

Head Colds and Easy Crafts

Seems with my head cold, I cannot concentrate on anything too in-depth... this leaves my sewing up the proverbial creek until I get half my brain back and can make head and tails of easy instructions. Finally after nearly unpicking the whole darn thing, I managed to finish my RR block and it is spot on 12.5" YAHOO! Now to cut out my partners fabrics... eeek!!!

In the meantime while the head is slow, I'll share some more wrecking  and card playing that's happening.

~ Color this entire page ~

with some colour bleeding through from the throw something page, I built on this with my wet/dry pencils ~ in the hopes the shower may make it loud & proud!

~ Tear Strips and Rip it up! ~

I found these cool 'stamp' markers from Coles for only $2.50. I bought them for Miss K's arts and crafts box but am loving them too much to share! LOL

 

Another playing card for the Deck of Me challenge... Prompt was Love ~ awww...  

 

50 in 09 ~ reading challenge

WOW. I've just sat for the last hour to finish the final 40 pages of Book number 23 on my list "The Bronze Horseman" although only 637 pages, it was typed in super small script (hence taking so long to read those final 40 pages)

This was given to me for my birthday from my best friend K who said everyone she knows that reads it loves it and loves the main character Alexander. To be perfectly honest, he wasn't Edward... which is probably a good thing considering that Edward was a 1900's vampire and life with him, though certainly would be as volatile as being with Alexander, in my opinion would have been easier.

Alexander, don't get me wrong, there was nothing wrong with his character and in the first 1/2 of the book I really liked the way he behaved. He did the admiral thing by both the young heroine Tatiana and her family, a true gentleman. However I didn't like the way he was portrayed during the 2nd half of the book... without giving too much away incase you haven't read it and are planning on reading it - I found he was too domineering, self-centred and up himself (for want of a better word) but he did redeem himself in my eyes and I found myself crying as I finished reading the final pages.

As far as characterisation goes, although I found the male hero Alexander too up and down for my liking, the heroine Tatiana was true throughout. She stole my heart (not in that way) just in her sheer strength and attitude throughout. She has fire and wasn't afraid to use it either ;)

Now for the storyline, WOW, toward the end of the first half I found my vision was blurring with tears that I could only read a page at a time before having to put it down and walk away. I'm a bit of a history buff, but it's been many, many years since studying history and I don't think I've ever read too much into the Russian history around WWII - gosh it really makes you thankful that we live in the world of today. I mean sure there are bad stuff happening at every corner, but living through the war in Leningrad, surrounded by the germans, with minimal food rations (200gm of black bread a day) no electricity, water, and minimal wood for fires. It's just heartbreaking to think about.

At least in this day and age ~ I can walk to my cupboard and bake a 500gm loaf of FRESH WHITE BREAD, or I can walk to the local store and buy as many loaves as possible. Just makes me very humble and thankful to be born on the other side of the century and world!

Next book on the list ~ To Kill a Mockingbird. If I can finish that one in a week, I intend to do an online Creative Writing course starting next week... eeek...

Making a list & checking it twice...

Yesterday I wanted to achieve these:

On my list
- make it perfect sunhat
- Cut out my block for RR & sew but need to unpick it!!!
- Cut out 2nd block for RR & sew
- Sew up another frenchy bag
- Cut out a swing top for K to test the size
- Knit my scarf
- Think of some quilt designs for upcoming births
- list some items on ebay (books / dvds) still have to list the books & other stuff!

Didn't get far.

Instead I succumbed to the dratted head cold & spent most of the day moping about on the couch with my little girl. We did manage to unearth the arts & crafts box and I let her loose with it all while I did more wrecking.

The title page! Instructions to doodle over the top of it.

Borrowing my daughters glue pens :)

This page is a WIP, needs more wet/dry pencil shading before... 

I can follow the instructions on this page :o

Crochet ~ first project!

I finished it! My first attempt at crochet & hey I think it's pretty darn good!!! A granny square, round and round and round once more. Final size is a grand 39" square (sort of... it's not quite square, as it tends to pull in along the edges) all the ends sewn in last night - gosh they are so easy to do compared to quilting!

Tis' now residing on the toddlers Princess Bed ;) and I think she loves it as much as me!!!

Very impressed with myself! 

Round Robin Update

Can you call it an update when you haven't started it yet? I am off to cut my block this afternoon - in the meantime I thought I'd share a sneak peak of my tester block! It's nearly 12.5" (well one side is spot on but the other is about .1 of an inch under... with a bit of stretch it can be 12.5"!!! Something I will have to account for when using the real material!

Here's my sneak peak!

 

This other block is the one I originally wanted to do, but after cutting it out and sewing it up it was less than 11" even though EQ6 told me it would be 12" finished. Turns out that 5 blocks WILL NOT go into 12" no matter how hard you try and make them! LOL So all that stuffing around for nothing and I'm most sad - I really did love this block! I'm thinking I might make some new cushions for my sewing room with these two completed blocks!

The pin fabric is a couple of fat eighths that my mum picked up at her LQS - just because. Thanks mummy, I love them!!!

 

Felting

No - not me... remember my birthday outing? I had mentioned receiving some money to buy myself something nice but I didn't expand on the present itself - that's because it deserved a post on it's own!

A gorgeous felted bag that she knitted up and felted especially for me!

This gorgeous friend has been knitting for many years, but like me has only recently taken it up again and trust me when I say she will fast overtake me at the rate she's going as she doesn't stick to patterns... she's already made two beanies for her family and done them from her head to what she thought worked best. Something I just couldn't possibly do!!!

Thank you so much L ~ I love it heaps!

Coffee Mmmm...

Many, many years ago as a teen, I was taken into the 'big smoke' with my darling Nanny & we ordered a coffee (mum you should remember this story well...) this was back in the day before Cappuccino's became a popular past-time (hey if they were popular before, don't blame me - I came from the country where cafes were few and far between) so this one time, we ordered ourselves a coffee and asked for one cup to have 1 sugar and the other to have 2 sugar. Turns out the lady musn't have understood my nan (who is a laryngectomy and speaks with a servox) as the coffees came out laden with sugar - I swear there must have been 4 odd sugars in it... it made me ill. So ill I couldn't face coffee for the next 5 years! It wasn't until I became an office worker and the appeal of a coffee to get me through the long days returned and I started drinking it once more.

Hence began my new found love affair with caffeine.

Since having a baby in 2007, a latte while out became survival. One of which I could not get buy without and what started as maybe one or two a week, fast became daily survival. One a day. At the current rates - it was costing me a fortune hence why we bought our shiny our coffee machine. But alaso my caffeine intake has again increased to TWO per day which is playing havoc with my health (but that's another whole story)

BUT you know what - this is my only vice. I don't drink (rarely) I don't smoke (ever) so I figure caffeine can be my one weakness... Clark Kent (*drool*) has one small weakness - why can't I?

So your asking... where is this going? Well opening up my copy of Wreck this Journal the page told me to pour, spill, drip, spit, fling my coffee at it... WHAT? How could I cope wasting my daily latte on 'art'

I waited till there was a mouthful left and with much sadness, I poured it on the page...  

 

But something was missing... what's a cappuccino without the chocolate sprinkles...

 

Then finally ~ my masterpiece, hung out to dry overnight - I am loving the shape it's formed... a bit like a butterfly with a love heart in the centre!

More Cards

I've not done much sewing, quilting nor knitting over the last few weeks ~ slack I know and I really do need to get moving on the RR swap as deadline is fast approaching...

I have however been doing more on the deck of me (I am time wasting probably, but I like to think of it as procrastination at it's best! plus brushing up on some more skills)

Week 3 ~ I am... 

 

Using two favourite fabric scraps, the I am is embroidered (I sooooo need to work on my handsewing skills!!!) the note says 'woman... wife... mother... daughter... sister... friend... I am ME

C. Creative

A. Ambitious

R. Reverie

Do you know how hard it is to find a descriptive word starting with R... I ended up reading the whole section of the dictionary to get this one. 

 

Week 4 ~ Symbol you love

 

Well this one was easy. If ever I get a tattoo - it will be of this symbol... one day I will do it! It's a Kryptonian Symbol as seen in my all time favourite TV Show Smallville... (*drool... thinking of tom welling for a moment*)

 

Week 5 ~ Ephemera from my week...

 

Apparently ephemera is disposable. Ticket stubbs from public transport etc. Stuff that is useable for a short time only. Well considering I go NO WHERE. This is all I had. A ticket stubb from 2006 (a concert pre-toddler!) and as it was sitting in my weekly tray awaiting a spot for it, I thought I'd use it for this card!

Hopefully next post will be sewing related... maybe?

Deck of Me...

I like to browse many blogs, on my many travels around cyber-land I seem to click on link upon link upon link and usually find myself in a completely different path to my type of creativity & I find myself saying in a whiny voice "I wanna do that too"

Last year I stumbled across Embers blog which had a link to her "deck of me challenge" ok so this has already been run and she is now currently running another challenge (which I fully intend to do if I finish the deck of me) anywho... your probably wondering why I'm wanting to do this NOW when it's over and done with. Well there is a reason, the reason being I was sick to death of tripping over my scrapping supplies in the spare room and I threatened myself that I would sell them all... this thought hung around for a couple of days until I needed to start raiding the stash of pens I have for my wreck this journal project. I realised when rummaging through my stash I have A LOT of stuff ~ I'd be silly to sell it, problem is I never seem to be able to do full page albums (I have in the past, but now I'm feeling scrapping stagnant) so I thought this little card challenge was just perfect... as it's done on a playing card (I've used a pack of jumbo cards) I can start small and hopefully it will give me an oomph to get over the line and start bigger pages once more!

So week one prompt: Something you are proud of... 

Answer ~ my daughter!

*******************************************

I was so into it by the end of this one, I immediately started week 2!

Week 2 prompt: What is powerful to you...

Answer ~ Friendships

Now I'm off to complete the third week! And just maybe there might be some sewing blogged about soon... maybe???

Picasso Headquarters

While my very own little picasso went crazy with her paints earlier today...

Mummy took the opportunity to do some more wrecking... journal style :)

 

The initial plan was to fill water balloons with paint and pop them with darts (as seen in one of the scenes of The Princess Diaries)

No darts.

Oh well, I decided to try using a skewer from the kitchen instead, but as I had nowhere safe to throw it from I just started by jabbing the balloons. They wouldn't burst ~ grrrr!!!

So I grabbed some rocks from the garden and with my toe holding the book opened in a precarious position (trust me when I say my aim at any throwing type sports is none to straight and rather deadly... I know of only one speed - fast!!!) I started pegging them at the book and aiming for the balloons. Some hit, some didn't. Miraculously my toe went uninjured!!! What Fun!

Even the toddler came wandering over to have a look and thought it was quite a sight to see mummy throwing rocks, something I tell her every day not to do... (whoops)

And of course the dog had to come have a sniff.

I probably could have done more balloons and I really, really need to loosen up even more... but gosh this was a fun project! Try it - I know you wanna!!!

50 Books in '09

30 June marked the 1/2 way point of the 50 books in '09 challenge & although I am falling slightly behind on the challenge, I'm not too perturbed as I am still really enjoying it! I am also loving following what the other ladies are reading and getting new ideas to add to my already overflowing 'to-read' list :)

Book Number 22 was a mouthful and a delightful read. At some points I did find myself reading a page over and over before it would sink in - but soon enough it would pull me in again & I'd be trying to read just one more letter before bed each night!!! It really made me think of times during and after WWII and realise how lucky we are to live in a society like today's (although sometimes my nan, having lived thru WWII {albeit in OZ} would disagree and say it is worse nowadays!) Anyhow - I thoroughly enjoyed this story and at times found myself smiling along with each of the letters. The ending was so-so... I felt it sort of ended abruptly and I wasn't too sure of the last little bit when the story is sort of narrated by one of the other characters... but definately worth a read if you get a chance!

Here's my 1/2 way list in all it's glory! Bring on the next 28 books!!!

22/ The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

21/ The Friday Night Knitting Club - Kate Jacobs

20/ Bridget Jones Edge of Reason - Helen Fielding

19/ Bridget Jones Diary - Helen Fielding

18/ How to make a journal of your life - D Price

17/ Inheriting Jack - Kris Webb & Kathy Wilson

16/ Voyager - Diana Gabaldon

15/ Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon

14/ Cross-stitch - Diana Gabaldon

13/ The Quilters Apprentice - Jennifer Chiaverini

12/ Breaking Dawn - Stephenie Meyer

11/ Eclipse - Stephenie Meyer

10/ New Moon - Stephenie Meyer

9/ Twilight - Stephenie Meyer

8/ Family Baggage - Monica McInerney

7/ The Bad Mothers Handbook - Kate Long

6/ The Undomesticated Goddess - Sophie Kinsella

5/ Salvation Creek - Susan Duncan

4/ The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

3/ Bare Bones - Kathy Reichs

2/ Those Faraday Girls - Monica McInerney

1/ 3 Wishes - Liane Moriarty

Craft Zapped

Usually I feel a zap, which is followed by crafty goodness...

Today I feel zapped, zapped of any crafty goodness...

I've just spent an hour and a half at Spotlight walking around in a daze... I didn't do anymore than glance at the wool :o actually I lie, I did spend considerable amount of time poking through the bargain basket and picked up some sweet wool for $1.99 a ball - destined to become an overdue birthday scarf for my sister in law!

Photos to follow...