Holiday crafternoon plans

New paint from Riot Art & Craft...



Blank raw wooden beads from Spotlight ( have been looking for raw beads for AGES!).



New necklace! ( made a couple for some home made Christmas presents!)






LOVE the copper metallic paint! other colours have a nice matt finish, rubbed with a bit of beeswax furniture polish to make them smooth. Bought more beads & paint at Lincraft sale in Bendigo this week, ready for a crafternoon project catching up with friends in the holidays!

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Merry Christmas everyone

Best wishes for Christmas, have a safe and restful holiday, with ( hopefully) time for some holiday sewing & crafting. I am planning on reading lots of books, making some new summer tops & skirts and playing lots of board games with my family ( there might just be some new games under the Christmas tree!).

* And the magpie up date - Bilbo has started flying lessons, he can take off from my arm & fly about 2-3 metres to the ground now. Trying to catch bugs and practising by stalking leaves and sticks and picking them up. Talks ALL the TIME. And refuses to go to sleep at night until he has had a cuddle & dozes off sitting on my lap!


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Busy busy busy ...its that time of the year again

...when everything speeds up and there are just not enough hours in the day. Like this morning, I picked up the paper from the front lawn, opened it and suddenly though " it just can't be Thursday again, I don' t think I even read last Thursday's paper yet!"
I did manage to do a very quick bit of sewing on Monday night - a home made gift for my son's piano teacher. She is a big Elvis fan, so I made her a " record" placemat/ pot mat,


I had just treated myself to the " Mollie Makes" Christmas special last week, and when I saw this pattern, I knew I had to make one for Christine-



I think it looks even better with the Elvis fabric -left over from making a bag for her Christmas gift 2 years ago! I added a black dot for the centre " hole" - I think it makes it look more record like. I will definitely be making more of these! When I started it my H asked if I was going to make a set, but I said at this point I will be happy to get at least one sewn up ready for the next day!


And the other thing that has kept me busy lately -


Meet Bilbo, who I found on the side of the road last Monday, barely able to walk, I think he fell out of his nest a bit early. Hence the name Bilbo - as he had an unexpected journey!


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Cook book find, cake baking, and current sewing projects

The JediKid (also known as "The Tall One"; or " Shorty" courtesy of my Dad!) turned 15 last week. So I baked a cake, & my H decorated it. Perfect for a geek/ nerd teen...



( shown with an actual controller for scale & design!)
The tradition in our house is that the birthday person gets to pick where to go for dinner. The birthday boy did suggest Vue de Monde (as if!) ,... but settled for curry at Kake di hatte in Lygon St instead. We parked in a side street and had just started walking to the restaurant, when I spied a pile of books on the front fence of a small block of apartments. A sign on the fence said something like " try a new recipe - free cookbooks, please take". How could I resist?



The cupcakes book is really just fancy smancy ideas for decorating cupcakes, so I might donate it to the opshop. A couple of recipes in the Philly cheese " simply heaven" books look good. Always looking for a new cheesecake recipe to try!
I finally got some sewing done this week, first time in ages the overlocker has been out. I picked up this little retro sewing table a while back, and although I have to store it outside ( in the outdoor loo in fact!) and bring it in the house to use, it is the perfect height for sewing, I don't need to have an extension cord across the floor, and it frees up the dining table for cutting out etc. The bracket for the other side table bit (on the right side) is missing, but I don't have the space to put that bit up anyway.





And what did I sew? - three more scoop tee's of course! i love my last stripe/ print combo one so much, I made a spot/ stripe one, shown in progress here. Will have to remember to take photos if the 3 new tees for next time.



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Chicken love

We have 2 chooks at the moment, one "new girl" Lily, the only surviving "baby" from January, and Amy, who is about 3 years old I think. We let them out in the garden on the weekend, I have to fence them off now the veges are planted, or they would dig everything up!
They still have a fairly big grass area beside the shed to explore, plenty of grass and weeds to eat. But no, they both wanted to be in the same little patch of bare dirt next to the bunny hutch, both having a dirt bath. They were in there for ages, and had such a lovely tine that when they were back in their run hours later, I they had a thorough preen, then sat on their perch "purring".













You can see the dirt all over their backs and wings! They step on each other, and kick dirt over each other (and all through the bunny hutch & her water bowl too!). Happy hens indeed!

Sour cream and ginger cake

Thanks to seeing a recipe over at The Second Hand City the other day ( from a Kyle Kwong cookbook) we have been eating this yummy cake for dessert -


Super easy to make, and all stuff I already had, with a couple of shortcuts like finely chopped buderim naked ginger instead of grated raw ginger, and cream soured with lemon juice instead if sour cream. I was fascinated to see how the cream poured on top of the cake mix before baking would work out, it kind of sinks to a lovely gooey centre in the bottom centre of the cake.

Ginger & sour cream cake
185g butter
1 cup muscovado sugar
3 eggs
7cm piece of ginger, grated OR 6-8 pieces of naked ginger
1 1/2 cups SR flour
2/3 cup sour cream
1tbspn raw sugar

Preheat oven 170.
Line 22cm round tin with baking paper.

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs 1 at a time.
Add ginger, blend til smooth.
Fold in flour, mix well.
Pour cake mix in tin, make indentation in top of mix.
Pour in cream, sprinkle with raw sugar.
Bake 50 min or til cooked.

Enjoy!

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Cup Day Craft

Watching "Have you been paying attention?" on tv last night, I was enchanted by the crochet flower necklace that Cal Wilson was wearing. Half awake/ half asleep this morning, I was thinking about random craft/ sewing ideas before getting out of bed, then I remembered the necklace. And I remembered buying a selection of these crocheted flowers from the discount table at Spotlight a few years ago -


The colours are a bit "meh" really, which is why I have never done much with them. But now I have a box of fabric dye sprays, so now they look like this!



Plus once sprayed, they become a bit stiff, so it gives them a better shape & structure. Once they are all completely dry I will play around with making a necklace. But first I am going to bake a ginger and sour cream cake, saw the recipe this morning over at the second hand city and it looks delicious!

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