Doll House Yum!

                                        Just saw this on Design Sponge and had to share!

                                                           Edible doll house furniture!

                                            I defy Claud to turn her nose up at those babies!

              Apparently it's a commentary on the disposibility of  modern design/furniture or something, but

                                                                         Imagine...

                                                                      a birthday cake,
                                                          a giant doll house birthday cake,
                                                                   with edible furniture!

                                                          I HAVE to get that waffle iron.


                                Speaking of edible things, my braided rug project has gone pear banana shaped.

                                        Hard to digest. I forgot to lace it against a straight edge on one side.
                                                      So it's an unpicking I will go this week.
                                                                         Argh. etc.

                             Lesson: always lace the rug both on a flat surface, and against a straight edge.

Anzac day

We remembered them at the memorial service in rangiora today, with what seemed like the whole town.
My maternal grandfather served in the navy and spent long periods in iceland ("we hated it because none of the local women would talk to us") and the usa where he got copious tattoos and fathered a daughter about whom he knew nothing until 1982!
I know nothing much either of my paternal grandfathers service, he too along with his 8 brothers were all in the navy. Only 2 of them made it home.
The photo is of barry, my elderly neighbour. He was in j-force who liberated prisoners of war and cleaned up after the atomic bombs in japan. He just cried when we asked about it. He was 19.
And sophie scholl. I've just finished reading her biography. She was beheaded by the gestapo aged 21 resistance work in germany.

Imagine.

I haven't whined once about how overworked i am today, though i'm sure normal service will resume tommorow.

Food my kid refused to eat this week

                                                                     An instagram essay.

i'm a real weirdo, with some things. are you too or is it just me? for example, i don't like the lights on at this time of year, when the sun actual rises and sets close to the time we rise and set. i've got this half-baked idea that it's good for you, you know, to 'experience' the changes in light at as the sun rises and sets, and so we start our days scrabbling and squinting around in the half dark, and end them, or Claud's anyway, watching the sun set. It quiets her in a way nothing else does, and it's so soothing for us after all the rush and stress (of trying to dress, cook and eat in the dark, and live with a weirdo). 

another weirdo thing is Claud's eating. we've never forced or bribed her to eat or drink, nor castigated her for not doing so. she never had puree or spoon feeding. it's based on a weirdo theory i developed after 10 years work in an eating disorders clinic. my theory is called 'no food rules' rules. an interesting pattern emerged quite early on where she would eat very little for a week or two, then have a growth spurt, then eat stacks. she's in her not eating phase again. we like it in a weirdo kind of way cause i get into making 'tempting' food and then she doesn't eat it and we fight over who's having her leftovers for lunch the next day instead of fighting with her over her not eating it.

and, did you know you can only follow a limited number of blogs, not as in, 'gaw'd i follow all these blogs but i don't have time to read them' but as in 'you've reached your limit and can't like any more'? well it happened to me so I deleted millions of blogs from my feed, but not yours of course, and since then I've been filling up on foodie-esq blogs, and cooking from them.

i made this cake today

and this hummus

and this is the husbands new favourite 

do you go through blog phases?

 i've not been around long enough to know (1 year this month!) but i'm thinking, is it seasonal?

 I was all into interiors blogs a couple of months ago, but now Apartment Therapy's ceaseless posting is driving me batty (f**k your 'small, cool' spam-bot style blogging) but yes I still have room in my heart/following cache dodad for THE best interiors blog ever.

 i've cooled on craft blogs, and have frozen out fashion.

i just want food and funny. and perhaps weirdo. and defo books.

any recommendations?

Maptastic thrifty finds

  Straight from the geography teachers drawer, circa 1960-something.

 I like this world map stamp as a maptastic bit of decorative treen, but I'm also thinking wrapping paper; Claud colouring in-geography lessons, and, maybe, even, wallpaper...!? 

Nah, I'd never get away with it, much as I'd like!

What would you do with it?

Found these too, the very next day.

gorgeous colours and thick paper, took me age to date it to 1978

(when the Ellice is. became Tuuvalu but the Gilbert Is. had not yet become Kirabati-in 1979)

just one of a pile, yuss!

Isn't this one a sweetie

And while we're on the subject, have a look at what the op-shopper extrordinaire 

Kylie sent me a wee while ago.

A map table cloth!

Which, as maps do, provides important geographically information.

(I live slap(per) bang where the fastest girls reside!)

As for poor Kylie

Thanks darl!

Sharing at Sophies

My Creative Space-American Braided Rug

The American braided rug is under way

The course was great, and already, only two days later I feel like I'm really getting the hang of it.

The strips of wool blanket are folded in on themselves, like a bias binding, as your braiding. The fold opening is always to the left, and it's braided tight. The lacing  is done as you go, row by row. I'm quick on the straights but so slow on the corners. You lace using a bodkin. Bodkin. Great word. I had heard of them but had no idea what one was. It's like a needle with no point.

I'm going to warm up the rug with this fawn in place of the beige after another round.

Then maybe pink, and red (if I can get an old red wool coat of something similar),

It's so relaxing.

Which is good as it will take at least 6 weeks, working on it a bit each day, to make this one for in front of the fire. (Then I'm going to braid one from old towels for in the bathroom; make one in bright colours for Claud's room and...)

But right now I'm just looking forwards to having it big enough to sit on as I braid in the next couple of weeks.

Sharing at Our Creative Spaces

A blanket rainbow

Just in the nick of time, I found some wool blankets for my american braided rug course on Monday. From the Salvo's who have had a demolished-due-to-the-earthquake hotels-worth of blankets donated. Not super-cheap but absolutely immaculate, really good thick quality, and in an array of colours (though I'm still desperate for a pale grey one, the one in the pile here is more of an army green/dark grey). 

Whilst I was there there, tired, kid wrangling, grinding my teeth, there were two young guys theatrically wrapping themselves up in the blankets laughing. One of them was very good looking, tall and tanned. it cheered me up watching them. My brain invented a winter-toga party to explain the lunchtime enthusiasm for blankets (they didn't look the rug weaving type). Until they were charged the special price of 50c each. The homeless price. 

Another good reason to love the salvo's.

Sharing at Sophie's

FYI Katie Fitzharris ceramic/fabric creature

For those people who asked, these ceramic/fabric creatures were made by Katie Fitzharris, a New Zealand potter. You can see more of her work here; and here (man, I'd love one of those ones), and her contact details are here.

I would have loved her work anyway, it's so tactile and interesting, (especially seen in the context of a traditional pottery exhibition full of  more traditional ceramics) but both pairs have personal resonances for me too-the empty arms of the first pair; the second pair the tamest from a show focused on twins, all the creatures hung about with red threads which I walked into shortly after miscarrying twins.

My Creative Space-Picture Arranging

I've finally finished off this picture arrangement  

We'd been putting off rehanging stuff until the earthquake damaged had been fixed, but its looking like that will be years away. It took ages to do, yet it looks so easy when you see these kind of arrangements in magazines. Clearly there is an art to it. And I'm at the finger painting level. We also have to use a hammer drill to get nails in the poured concrete wall. I think it looks a bit top heavy, but it is good to have white space behind the pottery and stuff. i might also move the pottery/fabric hanging creatures and put a little something more colourful there instead. What do you think? Do you know any good places on the interweb that guides you as to how to these kind of mass picture hangings well? PLEASE let me know if you do, we still have a slew of pictures we picked up in out gallery lounging/disposable income days which have to be hung since we need the front bedroom for a hopefully not in the too distant future 2nd kid.

That crack matches one in the kitchen behind the wall. According to the assessors its not structural?!

I've also had a brief clean-up play with the cool glass box thingy i op-shopped. Not that fussed about this arrangement, but defo going to do something with the red, white, blue and gold...

Sharing at Our Creative Spaces.

A winters worth of wood

This afternoon I stacked a winters worth of wood. I love manual labour, when it’s infrequent and seasonal. A quick sift through the woodshed floor for sleepy hedgehogs, then I got stuck in under the pressure of impending rain and darkness. The thing I love about manual labour is the same thing I love about craft, when your hands are busy your mind can wander. The first layer I packed tight, methodically, imagining I was dry-stone walling, hoping my invented technique might prevent the stack from collapsing in the event of an aftershock. The logs were sprinkled with ladybirds, all still, whom I presume from their bright colour were hibernating rather than deceased since its far too cold for them to be gadding around in their summer dresses.

Brain, eyes and hand had it down pat by the second layer and I could masterfully throw the logs into position with precision and ease. The mother of a willful toddler I marveled at the supernatural obedience of these logs which; as if a split tree eager to reunite they reached for each other mid air and clung on.

My mind got to thinking coal versus wood. From a coal mining family, coal for me was all about the sound and cold mornings. The ritual of pre-dawn fire making; the rattly 'rarking' of the ashes, the shocking scrape of coal shoveled, its fierce falling clatter into a metal bucket, all silenced by the ringing clang of the 'coal house' door slammed shut. It was as ordered and mesmeric as a Japanese tea ceremony.

Wood feels warmer in a way, friendlier because of its familiarity even though there's a world of difference between these wild splintered pine logs and the smooth sun-faded patina of my oak dining table. The autumn palette of leaf fall though subdued post mortem continues through winter in the wood pile and the fire. On those damp afternoons when low fog and drifts of soon to be illegal wood smoke mingle creating eerie shifts in sight and light, like ghosts of bonfires past, even woods smokiness seems a boon. Marshmallows are best toasted over wood embers, chestnuts over coals. The consolation for the manuka tree coming down in our garden is the promise of caramelized, wood-smoked fish. Either way you can't cook or curl up, with a thick book, and scorch your skin till it looks like corned beef by a heat pump.

By the third layer I was tiring and under the pressure of a kid due to wake and drizzle. The rain was good, cooling me off. Then, job done, when I was kneeled aching by the hearth waiting for the kindling to strike three ladybirds scuttled suddenly towards me. Faster than I've ever seen them move, they hared across the log escaping the flames. Spooked, ("ladybird ladybird fly-away home, your house is on fire and your children will burn") I swept them onto the hearth, heart pounding, then scooped them up and out into the lavender hedge where the more sensible hedgehogs hibernate. That hedge by the door is convenient for the repetitive log dusting that will be part of the rhythm of fire-making around here from now on.

More 'cool -from-crap' to come'?

                     here are some recent items i op-shopped with definite 'cool-from-crap' potential.

this shadow box with a suggestion of doll house about it is either going to display/store colourful rolls of cotton, or the teeny-tiny stuff that Claudine get's given that's always lost down the sofa/up the vacumn cleaner

with this brass encased glass box I'm either going to make a diorama of my own (ala emily henderson), or turn it into a terrarium thingy

and this doll house shaped advent calender in puke-green WILL be the advent calender of 2012, after a serious make-over

Hopefully after this lot i can put aside the doll house/miniature fetish and move along!!!

Sharing my second hand finds at Sophie's and praying to the thrifty gods for some blanket finds this week for my american braided rug project x

Autumn Easter Eats Sweets

You know your a northerner down-under when your craving bonfire toffee at easter.

I D.I.Y'd some, easy as, and it's blummin marvellous.

Serving suggestions:-

1. eat whilst staring into a fire.

2. suck don't chomp or chew.

Happy topsy-turvey easter x

Show us your drawers

it's taken us the best part of a year to complete this renovation. the before pictures are on a back-up disk somewhere but suffice to say it was in a sorry state of repair having been used for storage of nails in a shed on the farm for at least 20 years. think pigeon poo, broken drawer fronts, dints and dirt.

Well worth the effort it's scrubbed up beautifully, used up the remnants of washi paper I'd been hoarding and is a brilliant crafts material storage/child entertainment unit.

If you really like this here's a 'D.I.Y' version you can make for yourself.

this card, customised by moi to matchy-matchy, came from the Two Squirrels pop-up shop before they went online, photo by Warren I think.

Simply buy 30 and line them up 6 x 5 on a wall

heh!

anyway...

More Creative Spaces here x

American braided rug making course Oamaru

If you think you know anyone else who would like to learn how to make AMERICAN BRAIDED RUGS, feel free to forward this email.

The course will be held in beautiful, coastal, historic Oamaru, at the Harbour Street, Victorian Precinct in the Victorian Wardrobe theatre annexi

Hullo everyone,
The braided rug course details are below
Look forward to seeing you on these day(s)

If it is too difficult for anyone to attend the second day, I can spend the afternoon carrying on for those who wish so that you can learn lacing.
The reason for having 2 days with a gap is so that you can go home and carry on braiding, then bring back your work and we learn to lace and watch a rug being born
Regards Anne

There is the possibility of a craft evening being set up for all interested persons, to carry on learning new crafts or polishing up old crafts.
If you know of anyone who would be interested in this, please ask them to let me know as I am trying to work out what we can offer.


Stage 1 16th April 9.30 to 12.30
Stage 2 19th April 9.30 to 12.30

Course fee $20.00, material costs $10.00
Please bring, scissors, morning tea.
Tea, coffee, milk and biscuits provided
I will bring some material that you can use to start with if you want to use it,
Otherwise you can bring your own fabrics too.
I prefer to use woollen material, but never buy it new, try scavenging the op shops for old woollen skirts, jackets, blankets etc.
Other materials can be used if you find something you like.
Lacing bodkin and thread will be provided plus handouts with hopefully all the information you will need.
This is a recycling/repurposing craft and as such that is how I will teach it.
I think you will all enjoy yourselves and the magic starts when we start to lace the braided fabrics.
A transformation from a plait to a rug really happens.
Also its amazing watching really ugly fabrics or plain dull fabrics, mix with other colours and come alive.

So who's coming to join me?

Cripes! Better get down the oppy sharpish on a blanket hunt!