christmas

We made it through christmas, infact we had the nicest christmas ever.  The weather was amazing, we got lovely presents and we had a swim at the beach and a swim at the nearest school pool and ate yummy food and it was all very chilled out and happy.  It was so hot that husband and oldest child and sweet dog slept out on the deck, until it started to rain at 5am.

 inflatable orcas waiting for a dip.

above, my ten year old secretly made me this rather lovely sun dress, all by herself with no help from anyone and it was decided by all that it was much nicer than anything else I have in my wardrobe.

above, my older child drew this cool cartoon picture for me and husband, a brief history of family so far, from me and husband courting, to children, work, pets and moving house.  The last picture is left blank, 'cause we don't know where we are going.  I do feel happy when my kids get creative, they amaze me with their cleverness. 

a much needed refreshing dip.

Hope you all had best christmas's too.

hearts and clouds top

some of my fabric from Spoonflower was this hearts and clouds large scale print.  This was the trial piece and I changed the colour of the hearts to be less orange and removed a couple of bits that didn't quite work and balanced out the design slightly.  I had ordered a yard of fabric and so I had to make something small.  I wanted to make it on the bias so that it would hang nicely and also I liked how the design worked that way.  I used a bit of old cotton denim that I had in my stash, for the top of the top and some vintage lace, which you can't really see.  So I made this top, modeled by my daughter, who is more camera friendly than me.

 I may have to take these again, but I felt it would be good to put something at least on this poor neglected blog.

Happy Christmas to you all, have a good one folks, be nice to one another.

house for sale

I have been very neglectful of this blog, and in my defense, we have been getting our house ready to go on the market.  It is now as ready as it will ever be and is looking rather lovely I think and we are wondering why we want to move, especially as it is now coming into summer and the weather is putting on a great show.  Here are some photos.

(edit). house is sold after one week on the market, we will be homeless in 5 weeks time. on to adventures new.

heart shaped leaf

ON the way home from school today my daughter found a perfectly heart-shaped leaf.

it's kinda cool I think

lazy Sunday afternoon

We had beautiful sunny weather over the weekend, and on Sunday afternoon, the children wanted to go to the river for a swim.  It was very lovely, the water was cold so I didn't go in, but I did have a little paddle with the dog, who also doesn't swim.  I think the river stones hurt her feet, and in fact she needs some little doggy swim shoes.  Does anyone know if such things exist?

 our scraggy scavenging desert dog rummages around the rocks while my daughter finds a sweet dog to  play with

tan suit

I bought a tan suit at the salvation army shop a couple of weeks ago.  It was quite nice, the main selling point was in fact that it was a Hobbs tan suit and it was $15NZ and it was the perfect size apart from the skirt being a bit long.  In the great train of things happening at the house, my daughter did a styling and modelling shoot for me with her friend, using all my stuff.

 Models: Ruby and Beth.

I made a new blue dress

I made a dress out of some of my Spoonflower material.  A friend had craft night at her house which got me motivated to get a start, I took along my duct-tape dummie, an old sheet (for pattern making) pins a pen and some scissors.  I got a little carried away, having an audience, and was a little gung-ho with the pattern making and scissors and new fabric, but it all turned out ok in the end.  I made some covered buttons to go on the back of the dress which I liked and had a go at shirring, which I also liked and must do again some time.  Today my older child had the afternoon off school, so I badgered her and her friend into doing some styling and modelling for me.

There was great pouting and preening going on and fun was had by all.
I also had my photo taken for the style section of the local paper, whilst wearing this dress, which made me happy, especially as my husband had joked to me that this very thing would happen before I left the house.
They also did a styling of a nice suit I had bought at the op-shop, but that is another post.  

purple dress

My ten year old made a dress over the weekend, with a little technical knowledge thrown in from my side.  But the design and sewing were all hers.  She is great on the sewing machine, and when I did sew a bit up for her, she made me unpick it so that she could do it herself.  Ha ha that will teach me to interfere!

We had a photo session in the garden amid the drift-wood arbor (as I like to call it).  

She found a big fat red ribbon in my ribbons stash, and decided it was just the perfect thing to finish it off.

10 minute sketch-Roses

I found roses growing over the fence from next door, lots and lots of them, and they smell lovely.  I grabbed the ones that were freshest and also found pink geraniums and some gorgeous blue daisies.  And while I was cooking fish-fingers I did a couple of sketches.

These were done with a thick, running out, Sharpie,  but I am quite pleased with them.  

There are roses every-where in the neighbourhood at the mo, I would quite like to take my secateurs on daily walks with me to whisk a few roses into my pocket, but then I might get spotted.

cardboard table football

My ten year olds home-work assignment this week has been to make an arcade game out of cardboard boxes.  I didn't really get it, I mean "how does that work?"

Her team of three decided to make table football, so off I went to the back of Briscoes to the cardboard recycling bins to find large boxes.  I was wearing a skirt which was not appropriate for climbing up and hanging over 5 foot high metal recycling bins, but I sacrificed my dignity in the name of education and hopefully nobody got a glimpse of my thighs, or worse, as I made my quick dive over the edge to grab cardboard.

here's the wee goalie.  Bamboo from the garden.  It's rather beautiful really, and she got to use her hot-glue-gun which she got for her birthday last week (we never had one before so it is quite exciting).
They will paint it at school this week, and I did my best not to interfere, which I find hard, but am capable of.