On My Desk......on a Wednesday

Well, not much has changed on my desk since last week. I still have my Pippijoe fabric and my WIP crochet from Brown Owls....

Just a couple of new additions - instructions for creating buttonholes on my sewing machine and test buttonholes on calico. I made machine created buttonholes for the first time on Monday for the handbag that Steph is receiving as part of my 100th post giveaway. I will post photos of the bag once Steph has received it in the mail. There was a lot of swearing and unpicking and instruction reading and calico testing and tea drinking involved in the creation of those damn buttonholes!

Finally - bits and pieces cut ready for my Mirabel Softie!

Thanks to Kirsty for hosting, I can't wait to check everyone else's desks this week.

Eat Cake - part 2

I had a very happy happy birthday yesterday. Thankyou so much to everyone who left me a birthday comment or sent me an email. You all made my day!

I spent most of the day eating! I started off with coffee and cake for beakfast at home (very nutritional I know). I met up with my mum and my sister for lunch and we went to the Mambourin Cafe. I had Thai Chicken Patties for lunch and then Orange and Poppyseed Cake for dessert.

Then for dinner, Mr CurlyPops and I went to Josephs at the Mansion Hotel. I had a Roasted Chicken Breast with Prosciutto, Asparagus & Sun Dried Tomato and then Hazelnut Semifreddo with a Caramel Sauce. The food was absolutely delicious!

I wish it was my birthday everyday!

In other news, I've finally finished some WIP bibs that have been waiting to be finished for a few weeks. The fabric above and below is from Retromummy. I'm going to enter them in Corrie's Fat quarter giveaway competition.

The vintage puppy print below is from my soupy win over at Pip's.

I'll be back later in the day for 'On My Desk'.

Eat Cake!

So, it's my birthday today!
I'm going out for lunch and I'm going to drink lots of nice coffee and eat lots of nice cake. Yippee!

Random Fours

I've been tagged by the lovely Melanie from Kimono Reincarnate. She has a fabulous blog with lots of Japanese inspiration as she is living over there at the moment. Definitely worth checking out if you haven't already!

I'm going with the random fours tag:

Four jobs I've had

Waitress

Quality Co-ordinator

Office Manager

Systems Administration Manager

Four movies I can watch over and over

The Breakfast Club

Steel Magnolias

The Sound of Music

The Man from Snowy River

Four places I have lived

Penshurst

Dunkeld

Maryborough

Bendigo

Four TV shows I love

Brothers and Sisters

Moar Gardening / Dry Spell Gardening

Project Runway

Property Ladder (UK version with Sarah Beeny)

Four places I have been on holiday

Torquay

Caloundra

Tasmania

Port Macquarie

Four of my favourite dishes

Spaghetti Bolognese

Beef & Black Bean with cashews

Chicken and Bacon lasagne

Porterhouse Steak (medium rare)

Four websites I visit daily

Ebay

Herald Sun

Realestate.com.au

Lots and lots of blogs!

Four places I would rather be now

At the beach

In a cafe drinking nice coffee

With Mr CurlyPops

Back at Uni

This is.......my favourite book......sssss

Well I couldn't choose just one from my overflowing double packed bookcase......
I love reading, I love books, I can't throw any of them away!

My early favourites were anything from Enid Blyton.....sadly these are the only two that I have left......(I've moved house a lot in my life)....

Looking at the handwriting, I'm guessing that this might have been around grade 5 or grade 6!

My high school favourite was definitely 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. This was an english text maybe in year 8 or year 9 and this is my old original copy.

My next favourite is 'Cloudstreet'. This was a gift from one of my cousins when I was in hospital a few years ago. It's a sentimental favourite because of the lovely inscription....

But...this is my all time favourite!

The inscription in this book is from when we lived in a little town in Western Victoria in 1979 (when I was in grade prep).

This book was published by the Australia Council as part of the International Year of the Child in 1979. It was made for kids so that they could look back on how things change. More than 10,000 Australian children submitted their information and a broad selection were used in the final published book. I pulled it out of the bookcase just a few months ago for a re-read and a chuckle.

I've included some photos of the inside so that everyone can have a read!

Thanks to Dees for the great theme this week and to Angela for hosting this great meme.

Happy Sunday!

More kiddies crafting

More babysitting today so here are a few more things that we have made this weekend with some of the ideas from the 101 Things to Make book that I found at the Op Shop for 50 cents.



I thought that these were lovely button bracelets but I was informed that they are actually knuckle dusters (inspired by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).

It's a bit hard to see in this photo, but these are cardboard headbands. The boys used the decorative hole punches to punch all around and then we made wool twisties to stick on as long pieces of hair. They looked really funny when they were wearing them...

We made some grey pom poms to turn into mice (just need to buy some googly eyes to stick on) and then I made these girly pom poms while the boys were making necklaces.

Once they finished their jewellery making today, they packed all the necklaces into an egg carton and went and knocked on some of the neighbours doors to try to sell their home made jewellery. Not one neighbour bought anything! Oh well, at least they demonstrated their entrepreneurial skills!

Just stuff

There's been a lot of babysitting happening this week and not much crafting.

My nephew and one of his schoolfriends are at my house today so they've been getting into my bead and button stash. This is my nephews creation.....I think he's going to give it to his mum.

I'm not really making anything, just adding clasps and catches and re-sorting the beads every time they get mixed together (even though I have told them one hundred times not to mix the beads). Ah the joys of crafting with kids! At least I'm not cleaning up paint and glue (although it is still quite early so that just might be next)!

On My Desk......on a Wednesday

On my desk today is.....

Mirabel heart pincushion made by Kitty
Beautiful screenprinted fabric received in yesterdays mail, bought from Pippijoe
Sketches of my Softie for Mirabel (yet to be started)

Check out who else is playing over on Kirsty's blog!

I am not a Crochet Master!

I had a lovely time at Brown Owls on Monday night. Jess and Aunty Pat tried to teach me how to crochet but I'm going to need lots and lots of practice!

Luckily we had some other crochet masters on our table who were extremely helpful when I got stuck so a special thankyou to Steph and Lara and to Corrie who helped me to get started. It was also lovely to see Libby and Christie again and to meet Jess who was all the way from Canberra! In the photo above, the owls nest and the granny square were created by Steph. My crochet talents only extended to the sad looking mis-shapen blue piece of double crochet!

Thanks to all the Brown Owls girls for another wonderful night out!

What kind of flower are you?

I found this on Nicola's Daisies....

I am a Sunflower What Flower Are You?

"When your friends think smile, they think of you. There is not a day that goes by that you can't find something good about the world and your fellow human."

Peter Rabbit Pillowcase Winner

Mr CurlyPops has drawn another winner from his trusty sombrero (there was no spinning involved this time, he just reached in and picked a winner).........and the winner of the Peter Rabbit Pillowcase is Michelle from Leni & Rose!

Michelle, if you would like to email me your snail mail address, I will pop the pillowcase in the mail tomorrow.

Mr CurlyPops finally finished making me a coat rack and installed it thisafternoon (piece of offcut wood from the shed.....ikea hooks bought for $2 on Ebay). Now I have somewhere to store all my handbags....yah!

This is........my latest discovery

Anyone who has been reading this blog would know straight away what my latest discovery is!

My Clover Bias Tape Makers that I bought from Clegs.......

......and then this is my next discovery, crochet supplies to take to Brown Owls tomorrow night.
Brown Owl has asked me to bring crochet hooks in size 3s, 4s and 5s. I wasn't sure what that meant but I found 3mm, 4mm and 5mm so I'm hoping that's correct. Can someone please let me know if it isn't so I can pop back into Spotlight tomorrow and exchange them.

Thanks to Angela for hosting this lovely meme and RheLynn for this weeks theme. Hope everyone's having a lovely sunny Sunday!

Smurfs and UFO's

My 9 year old nephew came over to my house after school during the week while I was making these smurfy t-shirts for Moo Moo and the yet to be born twins. I told him that they were Smurf T-shirts and he just looked at me blankly and asked "What's a Smurf?".

How do you explain a Smurf to a 9 year old who has never seen the cartoon? Ummm, well they're these little blue men and one lady and they wear white hats and pants, except Papa Smurf becuase his are red, and there was a bad guy name Gargamel and he had a cat named Azrael and you could buy the figurines at BP back in the late 70's & early 80's. That's about as much as I could remember.

Thank goodness, I had IQ installed on my Foxtel a few weeks ago. I'll have to tape some episodes and educate the boy!

I just googled the Smurfs and there is a new Smurf movie in production, due for release in 2009 and 2008 is the 50 year annivesary of their creation.

The lovely vintage Smurf fabric was part of my soupy prize from Pip. Cheap t-shirts straight from K-Mart!

And finally, a UFO (unfinished object) is now an FO (finished object). Six more blankies for the twins that I finished off lastnight.

And the Sombrero says the winner is..........

I asked Mr CurlyPops to draw a winner from the sombrero. I told him to close his eyes, spin around 10 times and then put his hand in to choose. He only spun 3 times and then he was too dizzy but he picked a winner!

.....and the winner is DREWZEL!

Thankyou so much for all of the lovely comments that were left for my 100th post and thankyou to everyone who answered my nosey questions (I'm a bit of a snoop) and entered the giveaway.

So Drewzel, if you would like to email me your snail mail address, I will get to work on a lovely apron (edit - that should be handbag....sorry!) for you and go through the stash to add some other little suprises!

Have a lovely weekend everyone......

A Week of Pillowcases - Day 5

Sorry about the false advertising in the post title.
This was supposed to be day 5 of the week of pillowcases, but after visiting 2 op-shops today, I couldn't find even one pretty pillowcase.........

So instead, this is what I did find. Some wool......why?......I don't know......I can't knit......but it was very pretty wool and I'm going to learn how to knit at Brown Owls soon!

This lovely brown floral Jacqui E skirt in my size!

This embroidered skirt (not in my size) but with potential for an apron or a handbag or some cushion covers......An orange corduroy skirt (also not in my size) but perfect for another project. I love corduroy and this is a gorgeous colour!

A really cute embroidery book with some simple how to's and this sweet little kids craft book called '101 Things to Make'.

I'm going to keep this book for when my nephews come to visit for a bit of crafting fun.

.......and finally, here are the entries for my 100th post giveaway. They're in the sombrero, ready to draw when Mr CurlyPops gets home from work. Good luck to everyone who entered!

.....and last but not least, thanks so much to Kirsty for her lovely week of pillowcases and to Pip for hosting the week....I had lots of fun! I can't wait to make one of those peg aprons!

A Week of Pillowcases - Day 4

I'm joining in with 'A Week of Pillowcases' over on Pip's blog hosted by Kirsty.

So far, it's been lots and lots of pillowcasey fun!

This one is another op-shop find from a few months ago. It's a home made Peter Rabbit pillowcase. It has the print on one side and then just a plain cotton fabric on the underside and it's not quite a rectangle.....one of the sides is a little skewed.

Anyhoo, I don't actually have a use for this pillowcase so I would like to give it away to someone who can use it for a project.....any Peter Rabbit fans out there????

To enter, just leave me a comment and I will draw a winner on Sunday and pop it in the post on Monday!