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.

birth of an island

This book came from a school gala last weekend.  The birth of and island by Millicent E Selsam, Illustrated by Winifred Lubell.  1959.  It's about the island of Krakatoa near Java.  There are lots of lovely illustrations in this style but these are the ones I liked the best.  I thought they would make nice cushion covers.  My daughter said that we had too many cushion covers already but she doesn't know what she is saying, because I'm sure there is no such thing as too many cushion covers.

 above, the arrival of fruit pigeons, which brought figs to the island.

beautiful

Fairy tales

This weekend saw the start of school gala season.  I went along to one down the road from our house, I usually check out the clothing stall for bargains but I got there a bit late this time and so went to the book stall to see if there were any nice childrens books.  I found a book with  an amalgamation of fairy tales and poems and the pictures must have been collected from many books as there were lots of different styles even within the same story sometimes.

 I always love the foxes, they are well dressed and naughty.

 I never knew it was custard that red riding hood was carrying, if I was the wolf I might have snaffled those first, I am rather partial to custard.

and all the fabric in this sleeping beauty story (edit, sorry this is obviously beauty and the beast, not sleeping beauty)  is just gorgeous.  I need to make a more in-depth study of it some time soon.