Shadow Shot Sunday

A beautiful March sunrise through our bedroom window. I took a billion photos 'cos the light kept changing, but I think these are my favourites.

Ooops I forgot to add the link to Harriet's blog where you can see heaps of other shadow shots.

My Creative Space

Yesterday I found myself with a couple of spare hours before Khye came home from childcare. I had just fed Maya and she was in bed. I walked into the kitchen… …and sighed at the state of it.

I went to the lounge… …and shook my head at the trail of toys.

I stepped into the hallway… …and rolled my eyes at the mountains of washing.

I looked into the study… …and groaned at the piles of mess.

I walked up to the bedroom… …and tsked at the unmade bed.

I felt really tired at the thought of it all, so I threw my hands into the air as if surrendering to the mess and said “Bugger it all, I’m going to sew!”

So I did! I unpacked the sewing machine, and sorted my cut out bits of fabric from last week into colour piles, and started sewing … for all of about 10 minutes. Sigh… Maya decided she didn’t want to sleep after all and she wasn’t content playing on the floor. No she wanted cuddles and how could I pass up cuddles with my gorgeous little girl!

Thank god for Mums though. Mine arrives in about half an hour for a few days and hopefully I can get this house sorted out while she’s here.

There was another more successful sewing session earlier in the week. Maya was asleep and Khye was outside helping Daddy mow the lawn. It gave me time to sew up the dinosaur tail I had promised to make for Khye. It worked out really well using green fabric and the fringe from a green wool shawl. And Khye loves dinosaur dancing in the garden!

The rest of my creative space this week is filled with thoughts of pincushions and retro somethings.

Check out Kootoyoo for other creative spaces.

My Place and Yours

Pink… I didn’t think I had any pink in this house apart from fabric and Maya’s clothes. (It’s pretty difficult to avoid pink when there are girls about.) But when I went looking, I did find some pink.

Pink wool blankets on our (unmade) bed.

Pink cross stitch that my sister in law made for me many years ago, hanging above my sewing desk.

Pink teddy pastel painting that Mum painted of my favourite teddies when I was little.

Silk scarf painted by mum 22 years ago, that I used to wrap a canvas and hang in Khye’s bedroom.

Pink indian sari patchwork given to me by a good friend for my 30th birthday. (not a very good photo I know)

Oh yeah and pink door handles throughout our house.

Visit hello owl for more pink!

Op Shop Treasures

I found some exciting treasures this week at my regular op shops, a couple of new op shops and the Saturday garage sales. There were 5 garage sales within walking distance of our house this week and Maya and I enjoyed a nice sunny morning walk hunting for treasures. My favourites this week are these beautiful vintage skittles and cute wall shelf.Unfortunately there was one skittle missing, but the sellers at the garage sale think that they will find it in their clean up. They have my phone number so hopefully I hear from them. Fingers and toes are crossed!

Another favourite are more floral sheets to add to the collection. I can feel a quilt a-brewing…

And yet another favourite from this weeks treasures are these books. Kaffe Fassett was a huge inspiration for me back in high school – actually he still is very inspirational and I love his work. I cannot believe I found this book for only $3.

The other two books are from the 1960’s and 70’s. I love these birds from The Stitchery Book.
And these softies from the Handicrafts book.

Hope you all had some great finds this week too and I’m looking forward to visiting Her Library Adventures to check them out!

Shadow Shot Sunday

Beautiful weather we have had lately. Beautiful for washing. Beautiful for shadows!

Visit Hey Harriet for other beautiful shadow shots.

My Creative Space

Thanks for your comments last week. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one juggling lots of things and trying to find a good balance between them all. I am trying to limit my computer use to one hour a day. We’ll see how it goes… How much time do you guys spend on the computer?

This week started out so promisingly. Khye asked if we could make some muesli bars. “Is that a good idea mummy?” he says in his 3 year old talk. “What a fantastic idea Khye!” So we mixed all the dry ingredients together. Khye was being a Really Useful Helper (just like Thomas the Tank who is a Really Useful Engine) and used his spoon to stir everything in the bowl. It was looking so yummy, so colourful, so promising…After mixing with the wet ingredients and smoothing the mixture into the tray we put it in the oven. That’s when things went wrong. I forgot to put the timer on. About 2 hours later I noticed the oven was still on. Another couple of seconds and I remembered the muesli bars were still in there too…No more needs to be said.

On the sewing front though, I did manage to get a stack of cutting out done.
Hopefully next week’s creative space will see me sewing this lot up.

Head over to Kootoyoo for more creative spaces.

Stormy photos

Wow weren’t the storms in Melbourne wild? Out here we were only hit by the edges of the storm – bit of lightning, thunder, heavy rains and luckily no hail. But we did have some amazing clouds whipping up around us.
And here is another stormy photo from a couple of months ago that I just thought I’d share.
I’m playing along with Shadow Shot Sunday, but I don’t know that my shadow photos are going to stack up against Harriet’s and everyone else’s beautiful photos. I’ll give it a go anyway and keep my eyes peeled for beautiful shadows during the week.

Op Shop Treasures

Its been pretty quiet this week at the op shops. In fact I spent less than $5! (Sean is happy!) But I did find a few little treasures.

This cute musical birdie for Maya’s room. I love the colour, I love the music and I love the fact that it plays for ages!

Another piece of clothing for Maya and some more fabric (background).
The jumper is acrylic but I love the pattern. Just need some cooler weather now! And I love the little orange flowers on the fabric.

And lastly I found this teeny tiny half finished patchwork. The sides of the hexagons are only about 1cm long! It comes complete with paper hexagon templates, tiny fabric scraps and hexagons already tacked and ready to sew together. It’s a lot of work for something so little, but I plan to finish it – it’s on the long list of projects to do. Maybe I’ll finish it 2020…

Head over Sophie’s for more treasures.

My Creative Space … or lack of

I love blogging. I love updating my blog. I love reading other blogs. I love visiting other very inspiring Creative Spaces. I love reading about Vic’s op shopping and garage sale adventures and the bargains she picks up. I love playing along with Sophie’s Flea Market Finds, showing off my finds and being excited and jealous at the same time over other people’s finds. I love reading Tif’s poetic blog posts, admiring her beautiful work and her amazing house. I love reading my bloglist to see what other people are up to. It inspires me and motivates me.

But now I almost despise the computer because the more I blog and read, the more I am inspired and motivated, but the less time I have to be creative. I’m still trying to find that balance and it’s particularly difficult when you also add housework, a toddler and a baby to the mix. So many things to do, so little time. When I finally get some time to myself, I don’t know where to start. Yesterday when I had a spare half hour, what did I do? I cleaned up the stationary draw! I guess at least I can find working pens now, but really that was way down on the list of things to do. So how do you guys do it? How do you fit in the fun creative bits?

Anyway, at some stage between all the loads of washing, the demanding toddler and the hungry baby I did find a few minutes this week to sew the long awaited ears onto Khye’s fabric rocking horse.

Not very exciting or inspiring I know but I did get to use needle and thread. I started making the horse way back here and I still have to finish the reins and the saddle – maybe that’ll be part of next weeks Creative Space!

Oh yeah, I did also make a bus with Khye the other day – I can count that as being creative too!

For other much more interesting Creative Spaces head over to Kootoyoo.

Fun things to do with kids #3:- A Bus

I was about to throw this biscuit packet into the bin (the recycles bin of course), when I had a sudden thought of "I can't throw this out, look at those great little compartments, perfect for sorting or something." After a couple minutes I decided it would make a great bus for Khye!

We made it together - Khye chose the wheel colour and he did the taping, while I did the cutting and as you can see by the photo it was pretty simple to make:
- tape 4 plastic bottle lids as wheels to the biscuit tray
- cut out a rectangle of cardboard the same width as the tray to make the windscreen
- cut a smaller rectangle hole on one end of the cardboard so the bus driver can see out
- cut a piece of clear plastic from some discarded packaging and tape to the cardboard to make the windscreen "glass"
- tape the entire windscreen to the biscuit tray and voila!

What fun, creative things do you do and make with your kids? I’d love to see your ideas and creations. I’m always looking for new things to do with Khye.

PS. Start saving all your plastic bottle lids. I use them for sooo many things. They make great wheels, eyes, lights, heads, ears, for threading, mobiles etc.

And don't forget the Baby Show Ticket Giveaway!