some dogs have all the luck

and some dogs are also not supposed to be on the bed, but what can you do.

washi tape wizard wand

As mother to a junior wizard and dragon slayer I'm always having to pull wands out of my well,  let's just say 'sleeve'. Chop sticks have long been a favourite so I thought I might try and pretty one up with a bit of washi tape and some mummy magic of my own. The slightly transparent tapes are great for building up colours and overlapping patterns. I just started by wrapping the plain and darker coloured tapes around a bamboo chopstick (at a slight angle) and then layered with different tapes from there. I love the mix of colour and pattern, Merlin thinks it's rather fabulous as well.

Mantelpiece Monday

Something a bit different today. I have a few of mantelpieces in the house and this one is in the back dinning room. It's really just two nooks on either side of a chimney but it's a nice spot to display a bit of Euro pottery and folk art. This collection is a mix of West German and Italian. The small folk art plates are Russian and the big ones off to the side are Rosemaling. I tried to take some snaps of the other half of the mantel but the little light I had made it almost impossible to get anything that wasn't fuzzy. Feel like playing along? Why not show us your mantelpeice (or mantel substitute). Just take a pic and leave your link.

mini quilt-o-rama

This is my first ever quilt, it is very small but it is finished and I have it on good authority that the occupant's Ada's dolls house love it. I used a bunch of left over fabric strips from a rag wreath I made last year. I sewed the strips together and then cut them back into strips and then sewed those strips together again. Straighten it up, cut a piece of material for the back, give it an iron, pin it, sew your bias tape and viola! quilty goodness.

Next up is nice little tapestry rug for the living room.

early morning stitch session

Sleep was a bit hard to come by last night, not sure what was up with Fred but he was super unsettled and kept crying out. I pretty much gave up on trying to go back to sleep after 4 and went and played in my studio, sewing mini doll house quilts and mucking around. Two things struck me in the early morning silence, the back room is freezing and I really need to clean the widows.

I'll show you some pics of the mini quilt later.

because pants are for boyzez

Ada announced as she was getting dressed the other morning before Kinder that she will no longer wear pants because as she puts it 'pants are for boyzez'. The wee thing has never expressed the slightest interest in what she wears unless it's a costume (junior nerdburger). I've loved being able to dress her however I please and for the last four years there has not been so much as a murmur of mutiny, apparently the honeymoon is over.

So, given that pants are out of the equation and skirts and tights are in, I've been using it as an excuse to get in a bit of sewing time. Three skirts down and four more cut out and in various stages of completion. I've also started a couple of pinafores and a vest, very industrious yes? This should keep a particular pickle happy...I hope.

Mantelpiece Monday

Morning Citizens! Today's Mantelpiece Monday is all about green and brown, with lot's of wood , glass and ceramics. I have quite a collection of antique glass bottles collected from old bottle dumps. I have a bit of a thing for brown glass in particular, it reminds me of burnt toffee. The Ginseng vases are a favourite, the one at the top sitting next to the ink wells was pulled out of a 120 year old mine works on the West Coast of Tasmania. My folks were involved in a local history group and we would spend our weekends working off old maps and lease documents trying to find old mining settlements. I dug that vase out of the dirt around the foundations of an old fireplace. Both of the inkwells Also came from old mining works, the ceramic one is Indian and would have to be the prettiest thing I've ever found.

 In the centre of the mantel is a green uranium glass protea vase, a gift from my Aunty. The ceramic pot with the gum tree relief is one of my mums, I used to go to her pottery classes and remember helping put one of the handles on that pot. At the end of the mantel, sitting underneath the rather old bunch of kangaroo paw is my strangest hard rubbish find ever. This weird, pineapple-esque pot was found chipped and left on the footpath outside a mansion in Toorak. The whole piece is incredible and has been made from hand, normally these types of pots would be made from a slip and poured into a mould, but this is a formed piece with each of the little spikes being put on by hand. I have NO idea how old it is, but I can not believe it was sent to the pavement for a couple of chips. 

What's sitting on your Mantelpiece (or mantelpiece substitute) today? Feel like showing off? take a pic and leave your link.