Winter Chills

Winter definately let us know it has arrived today!
With the temperature not going above 13'C, a real chill in the wind, and the torrential downpours, there was no doubt cold times lay ahead. Not coming from somewhere with snow and all the problems that come with it, I do wish we could have a white winter to go with the low temperatures. Mia asked this morning why if  it was winter now, why we did not have any snow. She could not understand that just cos winter on the ABC kids shows always has snow, in Melbourne snow is an absoloute rareity.
Days like this mean very little gets done around here as there is always something someone has lost, has taken off someone else, wont share with someone, and then there is the constant hunger problem - when's lunch, when's dinner, I'm hungry - you know the drill.
After a day of being shut in the house watching the rain, we took a break in the weather this afternoon as a chance to take the dog to the park and stretch some cramped legs. (This is only after one day - wait till mid winter when it can rain for days on end).

legs stretched

wait for me....

searching for 4 leaf clovers

playing in the autumn leaves - even if they are a little wet

exercise for Toby

My Creative Space

Well after a late night finishing the leather cuff last night I was greeted by this view out of my weather window early this morning.
The ground was as white and crunchy as the sky ( our first frost for the season) 

This is the view from my kitchen window and is the best way of telling the weather for the day ( perhaps I could rent it out to the tv weathergirls as their prediciton method is fairly lousy). The large maple tree is my season indicator tree and in the big white space next to it is a huge gum tree ( normally visible) that is my wind  indicator.
I love fog and the thicker the better. To me it is mystical and magical. It always makes me think of the movie Brigadoon and on the really pea souper days my inner child hopes I might stumble on my own magical town buried in the fog.

By the time Mia and I returned from Playgroup this morning the fog had lifted to a beautiful, albeit cold, sunny day.
That meant I could use the natural light to take some photos of my new cuffs and play with all the manual settings on my camera. (Depth of field is my favourite)

After lunch I decided to sort out the zipper stash and with the organisational skills of a 2 1/2 year old this is what we ended up with.

so now my challenge is to turn the above into the below.

 

Now it is off to make some of my famous chocolate muffins. Sarah's friends at school have requested some for snack tomorrow as even though their mums now have the recipe they apparently dont make them taste as good.

As it is creative Thursday, pop on over to Kootoyoo and check out what other crafty people are up to.

Cuffed Up

With the hlep of a couple of spare hours today, tonight mystery hours have been very productive. TWO cuffs completed and ready to go. 1 is the bubbles one I pinned out last night and the 2nd is a zipper strip cuff on leather. Again a very large learning curve working with leather and hot glue. Am wondering if there is a glue better suited to gluing things to leather tha normal hot glue. The cuff is now sitting under several phonebooks, chopping boards etc to keep it presses while it finishes drying tonight. I am also happy to say no new hot glue burns tonight - Shock horror, I might actually be getting the hang of this thing. Yay me!.
Here are tonights accomplishments....

Bubbles...

Leather cuff......

Now to find an outlet for all this zipper jewellery I have building up apart from my shop on madeit.

Mystery Hours

Once again the post meant for Tuesday is not written until after midnight. Oh how I could do with some extra hours inserted between 11pm and midnight.

With the design for my second cuff constantly on my mind, it was a long day before 'my' mystery hours came tonight. My girls give the time after they go to bed, when the dishes are done, house tiedied, everything ready for the next day and other half is happily installed in front of either his computer or the TV with remote in hand, the name of mystery hours because according to them this is when new things or clothes just appear. In thruth between 10pm and 2am (that is my absolute deadline if I want to be able to function the next day) is my time to sew, craft, hot glue, soothe the glue burns (which are getting less) and basically let the creative juices flow.

Tonight was the new cuff. Instead of twisting zippers this time I wanted to recreate a 'doodle' that I think everyone has done at one time or another. You know the one where you start out with a few big circles and fill in all the between gaps with ever decreasing circles until the whole area is filled with masses of circles.
This is the scribble that prompted it all.

and then translated into zippers....

The larger circles looked a little empty so some of the extra circles I had made were used to break them up a bit.
Now firmly attached to the polystyrene with many, many pins, the fun part of tacking the design to the felt begins. I am getting a lot faster at the whole process though. The last cuff was a very fast learning curve.

I did also whip up a new dress for myself from one that had sat in the wardrobe since the 80's. I bought it the last time the Military theme was big and had the extra long military vest to go over the top and break up its greyness. Scary to think I could hold onto something so boring for so long. This year as a first day of winter thing, I gave up waiting for long grey 80's dresses to become fashionable again and transformed a boring grey full length dress into a empire line, just above the knee dress. I forgot to take a before picture but just imagine an ankle length dress with the waistline on the actual waist and the obligatory 80's shoulderpads. ( These were the first to go).
Here is what it became...

I know it doesn't look much laying down but the only full length mirror in the house is in my daughters bedroom and she is sleeping peacefully. I do like how I fluked the flash to be where my head should be.
I am also hoping that it may look ok over leggings etc as a tunic style top as well.

Simple Wonders

I am truly brought back to earth by my youngest daughter and shown how the simple small things can make children happy.
We went to Story Time at the local bookshop this morning and the main story was 'My Mum has X-Ray Vision' by Angela McCalister. Before the story each child was asked if their mum had a super power. My darling Mia when asked what my super power was, answered with the following, "She can turn the tv on without a remote". Others were, ' she can cook dinner really fast after we have been to swimming' and 'she always knows just what I want in my sandwiches'. Children are so sweet when they are little.
After the story all the children got to make their own pair of x-ray vision glasses.

When story time was all done it was off to the coffee shop for our customary Hot Chocolate and Babycino with orange sprinkles and marshmallows. My hot chocolate must be shared once the babycino is gone as 'yours is much bigger than mine mum so therefore you must share'. It doesn't count that I am much bigger than her and therefore get a bigger drink.

On a me note, I finally finished the cuff  and I must say I am very impressed with how it has turned out. I have been putting off finishing it off as I didn't want it to not be as good as I imagined  it would be ( confusing and rambling arent I - did I actually make sense?) Well I needn't have worried. It is better than I had imagined. I am now inspired to see how far I can get on another one tonight.
Now the only challenge is to find somewhere to sell them that will actually make me a decent amount of money for the time that goes into these.

Lazy Days

Oh how nice it is to be able to sleep past 5.30am on a Sunday. Not having a market to be at today was sublime. The fact that it was raining and blowing a gale just added to the snuggliness of the bed - add to that the cuddles I got from Mia.

Rain - I love it - but not at a market

Even the dog enjoyed me not being at a market as he got a walk on a Sunday morning - The rain did not halt him for a second. The bath when we got home to remove his new mud coat however was not the perfect end to his morning.

Linda at Craftaholics Anonymous has a post today on what it is to be a craft-a-holic and to prove to myself that that title did not fit me, I decided that there was going to be no 'work' done by me today and instead I would spend my Sunday off enjoying the family and everything that entails. I think however that I am a craftaholic as even as I was cooking the chilli mussells for lunch and then watching both girls play horses and riders, designs for new cuffs and possible clasps and then where to source said clasps as I had no idea what the types were called or if they existed, were pushing their way through until I had to jot a couple down on the phone pad notebook.

Craft Supplies Lament

Ho Hum. Tonight I find myself very disappointed with the lack of crafting supplies Australia has. I would love to find ......

1. Freezer paper - but no - only available online ( I only want a small piece to experiment with and I dont want postage costs for something so minimal), 

2. blank aluminium cuffs - again no - available only online from the USA in packs of 12, - I want to experiment with a few different sizes but do not need 50 extra cuffs,

3. Toile fabric - but no - aparently no-one wants this any more and it has gone out of production and supply here, 

and the list goes on. 

What is a girl to do with all these wonderful tutorials out there and then the great ideas that follow on from these only to find that the materials needed are not available in Aus. AAARRRRRRGHHHHHH!!

I think Mia's expression sums it up perfectly - and the tiredness too.

My Creative Space

Well today sees me trying to finish another zipper cuff to go in my madeit shop. The design has been pinned to the foam block and tacked on the to felt backing. Now only the invisible stitching, topstitching and adding the closure remain. I wish it would all happen tonight but I think it will get the better of me. I tend to go crosseyed after a couple of hours staring at stiches on zippers.

So in pictures....

This...

becomes this......

NB: this is a printout of a photo to see if the design looked alright wrapped around a wrist.

While browsing today why not pop over to www.kootoyoo.com and check out what other clever people are up to.