Tuesday 30 April 2013

Weekending...













Walks on the beach, picking up bugs, bookshops, baking, pumpkin soup for lunch, my AWESOME new jeans (thanks asos.com), monkey husbands, homemade comfy pants and sliding at the park.

Hope your weekend was fun xx

Sunday 28 April 2013

ANZAC Spirit

 Home made poppy crowns
 Waiting for the start of the march
 Waving the flag
 Bagpipes (my mum's favorite :)
 There's my dad, in the middle of the photo (he served in the army before I was born and trained with the SAS)
 Proud :)


 Looks forward to seeing Opa march every year
 flyover
 My girls with Opa (my dad)

 Lunch at Dome has become the after march tradition.
We just had ANZAC Day here is Australia. A time to remember and reflect on the soldiers that keep us safe. A day to be thankful.


Friday 26 April 2013

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

We are big in this house on that motto "reduce, reuse, recycle". It is because of that,that our house is full of crap! If there's bulk collection we can't drive past and not pick things up. I mean it gets crushed and dumped in landfill otherwise. Currently we have 3 dvd players, 2 laptops, 2 desktops, 3 speaker sets and a big LCD tv. We purchased none of them. They are found or given to us by family. Just the other day there were 6 power tools on the side of the road, one still in plastic wrap! The girls have so, so, so many toys again from bulk collection. We hit jackpot the other day, a kindermusik teacher had obviously decided to stop being a teacher and we scored tambourines, xylophones, maracas, 30 odd hula hoops, 8 wooden hobby horses and a box of dress up fur tails. It's crazy! But I digress (as I always do).

At the moment I'm trying to grow veggies from scraps(recycle). I've rescued some scraps from our compost bin to try and grow new plants from them! There's been some fails and some successes. Here are a few that I'm trying at the moment...

 The carrots looked like they were going well, but that black mold got the better of them and the shoots started to die.
 The sweet potato has been going nuts! One of the shoots is about 60cm long! I just cut the potato in half today to get two plants out of it. If it's still happy in a few days I'll plant this one.

 My pineapple top is looking good, can you see the little stubby roots starting to grow??
 Beetroot. This is going great too. I'll have to plant it pretty soon.

I gave lettuce a go too, but that just rotted. Pinterest fail that one! I've also just started some celery and we'll have to see how that one goes.

Do you grow veggies from scraps? What else can I give a try? What fails have you had?

:)


Tuesday 23 April 2013

Zeeeebra! Contact Stencil Tee

I know this is old news, but I never got to try out freezer paper stenciling when it went a little viral in the blogging/crafty world. In Australia freezer paper is near impossible to find, and if you can find it, VERY expensive. I tried ironing glad-wrap between two sheets of baking paper a few years ago and that did NOT work very well.

Fast forward to now and I thought, why don't I just use contact paper?? duh. I'm sure there are many, many other people that came to this conclusion before me, but it was a new idea to me and I thought I was pretty clever!

So I put together a little tutorial for those of you that are a little bit behind like me :)

Contact Stenciling

Start by sketching up a picture of what you want to put on your tee.

I went for a zebra because it would only need two layers of stencilling and wasn't too detailed (plus my little one LOVES "africas" as she calls them!).
Trace your sketch onto a piece of contact. I did mine a little backwards and only drew the outline to start with. Cut out the main picture with a craft knife. On mine it was the outline of the zebras head.

Peel off the backing and stick the contact onto your tee.

Put some paper or cardboard in the tee to prevent the paint seeping through to the back. Paint in the first layer.

Go back to the piece of contact you cut out of your first stencil. This is when I drew in the stripes. Cut out all the details that you want on your next layer. On mine it was all the black stripes on the zebra.

Make sure you keep the bits you cut out that you want to stay white, like the nostrils on the zebra.

Once the first layer of paint is dry, stick down the next layer of your stencil, don't forget those little bits in the middle you want to keep the background colour, e.g the nostrils of the zebra (If you do forget to do this, you can always go back afterwards and paint the details back on individually. Then paint in the gaps between your contact.

Wait for the paint to dry completely.... (or not I peeled mine back when it was still slightly tacky because I couldn't wait!)



Peel off your stencil and voila! Contact stencil zebra!


This is when you can paint on any extra details that you either forgot or were just too small to cut out. I've painted in the white parts on the zebras eyes and added some pink detail in as well. Depending on the fabric paint you used, you may need to give it a quick iron to set it :)

I think I may have started something.....



Sunday 21 April 2013

Lovely Lemony Goodness!

Facebook is a wonderful thing isn't it? I "like" a group on there called Freecycle, and through this page another page was born after a few people were asking about swapping fruit and veggies that are grown in the backyard. This page is called Food Swap Perth. The idea is if you have any surplus of fruit or veggies or herbs from your veggie garden you post on this page what you have and what area you're in. Then others can come along and say "Hey you've got lots of lemons, I've got lots of basil do you want to do a swap?"
BRILLIANT! I think it's such a great thing. I know there are a few things I cannot for the life of me grow (ahem lettuce) and others that just go nuts to the point where I can't possibly use it all!

The reason I'm telling you this (other than if you live locally go and join!!) is the other week I did a swap. It was rather exciting! I gave a huge bunch of basil and some thyme and received a bag of lemons. My poor lemon tree is just not a happy camper and has one lone, very green lemon on it :(

I have all sorts of plans for these lovely lemons. So far I have made lemon and poppy seed muffins, a lemon tart that I took to my mum and dad's house yesterday for morning tea, and used the leftovers to clean my very dirty microwave! Have you ever tried that? Put some lemons that have been juiced, so it's just the scraps, in a bowl with a bit of water. Put the bowl in the microwave for around one minute and leave the door closed for another few minutes when it's finished. When you open the door the lemon steam should have softened all the baked in muck from the sides of your microwave! All you need to do is wipe it out with a damp cloth. Added bonus: lemon scented microwave!

The big lemon tart was devoured before I got a chance to take a pic, this is a little one I made as there was too much mixture for just one! Recipe found here. It was delicious and devoured in a very short period of time!

Tuesday 16 April 2013

Easter, better late then never...

Since I completely forgot to do a post on Easter I'll just do a quick bunch of photos!! By bunch a mean A LOT!

















Easter crafting. Failed gifts. Easter bunny visits at school. Hot cross buns. Rabbit cupcakes. Easter bunny visits at home. Egg hunt. The girls haul this year. Even I got a visit from the Easter Bunny. Lost tooth. Bike rides. Attempted backyard camping ( Eva and I made it til 11pm, Chloe and Sean til 1.30am...) and family picnics.

Hope your Easter (all that time ago!) was fantastic too :)