Paper-cup posies

I was DESPERATE to get some fresh air today.  It is the last day of the school holidays (woop!), but the weather has been decidedly cloudy and awkward lately, so getting the kids out has been a bit of a non-event.  Generally, the last couple of days has been a continuing cycle of surfing Netflix, watching old Dragonball Z eps and Sophie asking me to print off unicorn colouring pages.

The Mister forgot to pick up a carton of cream when shopping the other day, so I unanimously and all on my own decided we would walk to the closest supermarket to get some.  As expected, this suggestion was not met with unbridled enthusiasm, partly because the weather still looked decidedly iffy, and because 'walking is boring'.

However, Sophie is easily persuaded into walking almost anywhere by shoving a paper cup into her hand so she can collect 'stuff', be it sea-shells, rocks, seed-pods, and in today's case, flowers.  She fancies herself as a bit of a walking florist, keeping an eye out for pretty looking weeds and council-verge flowers, with the odd specimen snatched from bushes straying over fences, and always, ALWAYS about a half dozen spears of lavender from the far side of our neighbours' garden (shhhh!).

She does pretty well with her selections (and non-selections; if there is anything resembling a bee close-by, she is out of there).  We try and name all our flowers with their proper names - in the bunch we collected today, we have bouganvillea, rosemary, a dandelion and lavender, but some we do not know the names of, and they have been given their own names, like 'stickflower' and 'seedflower'.

It's interesting how paper-cup posies vary from season to season, the one in the photograph above was taken last October, and looks a bunch different.

We keep a small sleeve of cheap paper cups in the car so that wherever we are, we can throw together a new posy, and see just how different they can be from place to place.  If we think beforehand that we might be doing it as an activity, Sophie sometimes gets her textas and stickers out, and decorates her 'vase'.

 

 Pretty!

(I would like to say that making our posy was the one thing that made our walk [on which we did end up getting wet] less boring, but I will admit to committing a slight bribery with a cupcake from the local bakery ;) ).

Checking in.

I have been making little wings for little tunics this week.  In between looking after a sick small, treading the mill at the gym (!) and doing the general domestic duties gig.  I'm hoping to have a small selection of clothing for sale by the end of the coming week.  Did  you see the shop thingy in the sidebar?  Feel free to have a bo-peep.  I'm really not expecting to sell a single thing, but I've had a fun time making little clothes.  It all looks a bit Blyton-esque, actually.  That wasn't done on purpose, mind, but I like how it looks so far.

I have to take a break from sewing for the shop so that I can make a few things for Sophie and myself and write up some new tutorials.  Yes, TUTORIALS!  Remember those?  I'm not sure that you miss them at all, but I do.  I know I said it a couple of posts back,  but there will be a new one soon.  No, really, there will x

Yep, all of those.  I love my kids to bits, but the end of the school break can't come soon enough.

I don't know what I'm doing.....

This space has been a bit quiet of late, and I'm sorry for that.  I have this little fancy that I'm going to make up some kids clothes and other bits and pieces and open a little etsy or Big Cartel store and sell them.  I have no illusions that I will make thousands from doing it - really, I'd just like it to be able to pay for itself and perhaps a bit extra to finance some of the kids' taekwando lessons.  You know, fabric and fighting fees.

So, I've been sewing up little things, set up an instagram account, set up another facebook page and another blog, all with the intention of leaving this one behind and heading full tilt into my new project.  Because, I thought, I can't possibly do both.  If I'm spending all my free days sewing up goods to sell, I won't have any time to make up new tutorials or any other of the fun stuff I do here.

And that sort of saddens me.  Because I love doing this.  And I miss it already.

I may not have (and have lately, not had) the time to write up tutorials, but still want the option to be able to do that, especially as I have had piles of ideas, and lots that would complement the clothes I plan to make.  I could write up tutorials on the other blog, but to be frank, the idea of starting all over again makes me feel terribly mean, as if I'm abandoning everyone who has supported and followed along on my adventure here thus far.  And, as I'm sure has been mentioned in passing a hundred times before within these pages over the course of the last four years, I'm very lazy.

Besides which, when the kids and I make bird heads out of cardboard boxes, we want to be able to show them to you without them looking like they were placed on another blog by mistake.  Although I love making kids clothes, and hope that I can sell some, I've kind of worked out that I still need my space for all the other things I love to create and share.

So, my blogging journey is about to take a bit of a turn - it might be a temporary detour, or turn out to be something more concrete.  In the next few weeks, you will see a shop link in the sidebar, which will direct you to my (Etsy or Big Cartel) store (I've not decided which yet).  My store is called on june or janet (the Maker*land moniker didn't really fit my wares, and I've learnt that it is actually the same name used by other pages/websites - I didn't want there to be any confusion).  It'll be a bit like being my own sponsor, I suppose.  I've changed my Instagram account to @makerlandblog and it will incorporate both my shop and what I do here (with a couple of happy snaps of the kids and sunsets thrown in for good measure).  I'm putting the kybosh on the other blog, but will keep the new facebook page (feel free to visit it and click that 'Like' button).

I hope you'll bear with me during this time.  It's a bit of a transition and one I hope will happen smoothly.  I want to share everything I'm up to, but at the same time, I don't want to be shoving my new venture down your collective throats and for this blog to become about promoting my store.  I may share one or two photos here and there so you can see what I'm up to, but will leave the hard sell to the store's facebook page and Instagram, which you can visit if you're interested.  That's the plan anyway, we'll see if it works.

And what's to say my store won't be an epic fail and all this worrying was just a big waste of time and words.  In fact, that's the most likeliest scenario yet.

It's midsummer....

...and it's 44 degrees celsius, and everyone's grumpy.  We were set to spend the morning at the beach, until the ranger came and closed it because of sharks.  So I spent the day taking photos.  Unfortunately, there's no relief from the heat tomorrow either.  And, as luck would have it, I have to crank up the oven and bake a cake for this one's birthday on Monday.  Maybe I'll just buy ice-cream instead.

Happy Thursday

Sitting and knitting

It has been sooooooooo cold the past few days.  I've taken my knitting sticks and yarn, found a nice spot on the dining room floor where the sun streams in through the window, and have just plonked myself down and clicked away.   I'm making a quickie scarf for Sophie, and as you can see, it's  nothing too complicated, as I am having to get up and down quite frequently to wipe little runny noses and find clean hankies for bigger ones. 

It turned out to be one of those days...

This has got to be the most perfect quote for this picture.  William Shakespeare must have encountered my daughter in one of her former lives.  She has had a face like a thunder-cloud all day, and has been twice as loud as one.  Ha!  I'm turning this into a postcard, and then sending it off to all my friends and relations.

Ahhhhh, peace.  And thank goodness for bed time. 

The last plum...

...drats!  I wanted that.

Happy Valentine's Day

Holidays are over *sad*

His cheese bun may think it's something to smile about, but I miss Cameron terribly when he's at school :( 

Oh, look...

.

 ...there's that lovely smile again.

Yay, it's school holidays!

A three-eyed spot monster drawn by Cameron (aged 7) using his new pens

Cameron's dance-card has been full over this school break thus far; he's enjoyed a scientific sleep-over with his Joey Scouts mob, water-slides at the local aqua rec-centre, ten-pin bowling and today, he's off to the a local indoor playground with a vacation-care group.  And it continues over the week-end and next week, with visits to museums, the movies, dinner with relatives, a play-date with friends, a sleepover at Nanna's, and a birthday party.  Phew!

We had a free day yesterday, so we all went out for churros and coffee. Cameron spent some of his pocket money at Smiggle, settling on a huge pack of crystal gel pens that come in every colour and smell like fruit salad.  These are quite the in-thing in his class at the moment, and he was very pleased at saving up enough money to buy his very own set.  Well, he still owes me five dollars, but good effort.  And I love a kid who saves up to buy stationery! 

Usually, he prefers to draw with (one of my) pens, which means his sketches are blue and black and rather bland, so it's lovely to see him drawing with lots of colour for a change.  Even if it is slightly disconcerting that he sniffs at his paper every thirty seconds to see what his drawing smells like.

Making headway

I'm back at work this week, which is not a happy fact.  I enjoy being at home with the kids, cooking and making things, even if one child is constantly underfoot pulling my kitchen apart while the other is chatting incessantly about Iron Man.  Even on a bad day, it's just so much more tolerable than attempting  to keep warm in a freezing store, carrying 16 kilogram boxes down a ladder whilst trying hard not to topple to your death, and then hoping you don't get mugged in the car park by some high-on-whack loser when it's time to go home.

Even though my week off was marred by some wild weather, a couple of lengthy power outages and a weakened heart caused by Sophie performing some death-defying tricks on the dining room table, I'm happy to report that I did get things done.  Firstly, I finished Sophie's coat.

 

   

This was mostly completed about a week ago.  The main delay was getting the buttons for it, because I was too terrified to drive to Spotlight in the cyclonic weather.  When I did finally get there, I found the *perfect* buttons.   I'm really pleased with how it turned out.  When Paul saw it, he said we should rename Sophie Madeline and teach her to speak French.  Righto, good luck with that.  I'm having enough trouble teaching her how to speak English - her vocabulary consisting predominantly of the word "Ta", along with the occasional "Wheeeeee!" and "Boink".   Oh, and "Daddy".  No, no mention of me :( 

Here it is with the shooting star pin I made a little while ago.

I made more t-shirt tights for Sophie.  Geez, I think she's getting a little bit spoilt.  No wonder she acts as if she rules the entire world.  It's time for some boy-things, I think.

And, in other exciting news, I cleaned out my room.  Whoopee.  But, really, this is a HUGE deal for me.  I discovered that there is in fact a floor under all my junk, and I picked over the entire carpet, so the kids can now walk freely about without impaling their toes on stray pins.  And, I found my overlocker!  Yippeeee!  You know you've got real problems when you lose an appliance which is as big as a small child. 

Batten down the hatches....

...a major storm is crossing the coast at the moment, one that we've been warned about since mid yesterday.  This one has come hot on the heels of damaging winds and storms we were subjected to on Sunday, which left tens of thousands of homes without power for a considerable time.  We were lucky enough to have ours restored after 21 hours.  But many are still without power and will have to withstand this awfulness in the dark.  Cameron's teacher has sent him home with a letter, informing us of a likely school closure due to the severity of the forecast storm, and possible damage it may cause.  It is all a little bit scary.

As I type, the wind is howling past my window, and causing things to clank and shudder and bend and creak.   But we've been told the real fun will start at about ten o'clock and endure for several hours.  We have our emergency kit, and really-important-phone-numbers at the ready and we are prepared for what will probably be a sleepless night of peeking out the window, watching debris flying down the road, and consoling freaked-out children.   The joy of winter!

As we may well lose our power again tonight, I thought it might be a good idea to fill our tummies with something warm and comforting.  Paul and I are somewhat carbohydrate-conscious during the week, saving the starchy stuff, for the weekend.  But I thought what the heck!  Potatoes and dumplings tonight!   

 

With all those carbs loose in my system, I am ready for anything!   But hopefully, not something like running around the neighbourhood picking up pieces of my house.

Ooooo, it's starting to get really wild now.  Good luck and best wishes to everyone.  All that's left to do now is to sit and wait.  And knit!

My children...

...are driving me stark-raving bonkers today.  They are generally great kids and I love them dearly and with all my heart, but this is one of those days that I could easily trade the pair of them for a glass of red and a bag of chips.  Seriously.

What Autumn tastes like

I've made this more times than I can count in the past few weeks.  Well, not quite, but rather alot. When you're frying bacon, toasting pine nuts and roasting sweet potatoes all at the same time, your house smells insane.  Add baby spinach and a home-made garlic and basil mayonnaise, some crusty oven-warm bread and a glass of red, and it is dangerously close to perfect.  It all tastes even better when the air is getting crispy outside, and you're closed up in your cosy little home wearing a pair of striped woolly bed socks, listening to Laura Fygi's Rendez-vous, all while having nowhere else to go.  Heaven.

Autumn, you took forever to arrive and you're leaving in three days.  Don't go!  If you never went away, it's true that I would be the happiest girl on Earth. 

Happy Wednesday before Easter.

According to Cameron, the best part of Easter is nearly over, before it's even begun.  Confused?  I am, always.  Because this is what he does to me on a daily basis.  Bless him.

Race against the clock

I'm in the process of making the kids their own Easter bunnies, but my schedule this week is turning into a nightmare by the minute and I'm worried I've left it too late.  Ooooo, I'm so cross at myself!  Why do I never learn this lesson?  Will this mess be sorted by Easter Sunday??

 

I sure hope so! *fingers crossed*

Sophie May is 1 today!

The cake says so! 

But, gosh, how did that happen?  It seems like only yesterday she was a compliant little bundle, sleeping lots and occasionally blubbing if I was late with a feed.  Now, she's a small, unstoppable force of nature (albeit, one of the cutest kind!) that has a holler that can drown out the sound of lawnmowers and whose favourite thing is to sneak up on our poor, old, clueless dog and grab tufts of fur from her rump.  Ohhhh, Sophie May!   I love you, squiggle!

I also have to say a BIG thank you to Cameron, who had his tonsils out just yesterday, for helping me with the cakes this afternoon.  He plonked those stars on perfectly.   You are a trooper *kiss* !