3 is my magic number
3 is my magic number. I really like it for organising elements in artworks, craft things and sewing. Here are 3 of my top 3s.
3 things I’m looking forward to…
1. Our holiday in England this Christmas
2. Spending time with our friends and family or at least talking on the phone to those who are far away
3. Taking time to do craft and designing things
3 things I dream of doing
1. Opening my own craft store
2. Being able to go on a ’round the world’ trip for as long as we wanted
3. Owning our own home or better, a farm (that bit is a total dream – no chance!!)
3 things I want to improve
1. Make my scrapbooking more professional looking
2. Put more effort into my etsy and madeit shops
3. Our bank balance!!!
holidays, scrapping and stuff
Very excited at the moment, we have decided to go to the UK for Christmas! We have our flights booked and I’m currently busy in some of my spare time planning things. Hopefully we’ll be able to go snowboarding in the New Year in France or Switzerland. Can’t wait! I hope Mr Petit loves it as much as I love England and Europe.
I have been doing A LOT of scrapbooking at the moment, have really been neglecting my sewing and shops on etsy and made it but I’m just loving scraping presently. I’ve been doing the Little Scrap Booking Shop’s 52 Pick Up challenges which are really really great.
On school holidays at the moment too, although still have plenty of school stuff to do. Went to school today to work on my Level 3 Teacher application with a couple of other teachers who are doing it. Such a lot of messing around but I guess long term it will be worth it! Still plenty of planning for next term left to do too. Arrrggghh…hope I fit in some more scrapping time!
snuggle pup
It was minus 1 when I went to work yesterday morning, and I suspect it was colder over night. I felt a bit sorry for Lizzy, her kennel is nice, she has a big dog bean bag in there and has a ‘curtain’ over the opening so the cold air is kept out, but below freezing is pretty darn cold. So last night I whipped up this cute, reversible, padded dog coat. She managed to keep it on all night and hopefully was a nice temperature. I adapted the pattern from this site, the pattern is for tiny dogs but it was easy to draw up on a big dog scale.
Lizzy modelling diamond pattern side
Lizzy modeling check pattern side of her stylish jacket
our little bakery
My class had a great day today, we looked at the chemistry of baking bread – lots of fun and we made lots of observations about chemical and physical changes in baking. Here is our lovely golden bread….
My student's little bakery - yum!
creative spaces
I used to think I had quite a bit of scrapbooking stuff, but I have recently seen some fellow serious scrappers’ hangouts and I have realised I have pretty much nothing by comparision. So, shouldn’t feel too bad next time I click and buy something hey? Here’s some piccies of my work area. It’s in a wierd alcove in our tiny lounge (can’t wait til we get to move into a house – hopefully it will be ready soon!). I like being here because I can still listen to/watch tv, talk to Mr Petit, be near the fire and be near the kitchen (for cooking stuff and for coffee!). I included a pic of my computer desk too cos lots of craft stuff uses it. I also have a lot of fabric and sewing stuff in the spare room, but I only get that out when I’m having a sewing frenzy because it just takes up too much space!
My crafty corner
My workspace - so good to have a proper desk, until a little while ago I was still using a wobbly camping table
Box-a-ribbons (I bought a $10 bag of pieces at the local scrap shop this weekend as I was sick of not having much choice)
paper flowers, buttons, inks, stamps, other 'stuff'
pens, tools, glues, rhinestones, some brads, chipboard, random stuff
my sewing machine, the bin, bag of chipboard lettered, bag of acyrlic paint, camera cables, sewing box
scrap-a-licious weekend
Well, what a busy weekend. I’ve been doing The Little Scrapbooking Shop’s monthly cyberscrap. Certainly been challenging and fun. These are my accomplishments…
card challenge - make a card with ribbon backgrou, 3 hand drawn accents and follow the sketch provided
Layout challenge - follow the supplied layout sketch and include some 'crapola' from the subject/s life that means something to them/the topic
This was a 'how to' challenge - we were given a tutorial on how to design your own bling accents and make them. This is my effort.
This layout had to use at least 4 colours of the rainbow, a mosaic feature and the phrase 'always look on the bright side of life'
The hardest page - we had to scrap an photo of our feet and include journaling. we also had to get some design inspiration from a photo montage from monty python
So have I had time to do anything else this weekend? Well on Friday afternoon we had a couple of beers at the pub and I played my first game of darts, which I was not very good at but had fun anyway. We also went over to Collie to Woolworths, which was pretty boring but the drive over there and back was nice, the rain has made everything sooooo green it almost hurts the eyes!
meat, felt, scrap
Well, I got motivated a did one scrapbooking page – not posting it as it was about a work accident Mr Petit had and the title has swearing in it. But I like how it looks, and no surprises that I incorporated some doodling! Some craft I can show you is two felt badges I made this morning as demos for a kids’ workshop I’m doing at our local telecentre on the school holidays. Cute I reckon.
Felt Owl
Felt brooch circle thing
I’ve been busy making a stew in my slow cooker. It’s about 8 degrees outside and I reckon it will be a perfect night for a slow-cooked masterpiece. It’s bubbling away at this moment and it smells soooo yummy. I suggest that you get a slow cooker if you don’t have one because they are cheap to buy, are great for cooking cheap cuts of meat and you can put stuff in it before you head to work and when you get home at night, dinner is cooked. This is how I made this stew. The quanities make about 4 serves.
Check your vegie crisper for vegies (especially those who are on the way out). Roughly chop and chuck into the bottom of your slow cooker. If using any frozen vegies, leave them to defrost before you start cooking. I've used carrot, celery, mushroom, cauliflower and whole pickling onions. I like to put in about 4 cups of vegies, the more the tastier though, just guess how much to chuck in.
Spread diced beef (cheap cut is fine) and roughly chopped bacon on top of the vegies - I used about 1/2 a kilo of diced beef and 2 short cut rashers of bacon
Secret weapon - chilli. These are from my garden, the bonnet one is mild and the poker is medium. Cut the stems out and I get rid of about half the seeds (keep some for some boom) and slice the chilli finely.
Flavours - a few bay leaves (remove before serving, the chopped chilli, teaspoon of peppercorns (i use the variagated colour type), teaspoon of paprika and 1 tablespoon of vegie stock powder.
Sprinkle your flavours evenly over the ingredients already in the slow cooker.
Add a good 1 and 1/2 glasses of red wine (any old stuff will do, even that bottle you stuck in the fridge and meant to get around to drinking) and the same quantity of water.
Stick on the lid and set on low for about 7-8 hours or high for about 4 hours. This is how it looks after about 2 hours of cooking, it will eventually go brown and the meat will be melt in your mouth. If you are home, you can give it a stir every so often. If you need to thicken it up at the end, cook with the lid off for about 1/2 an hour, or if you are in a hour, mix a teaspoon of cornflour with a little water to make a smooth paste and add to pot and stir until thickens slightly. Serve with crusty bread.
cold and busy
I have been so busy over the past month or so with work, I can’t get over it. Too much to do and just not enough time to do it. We’ve been to Perth a few times too, at least that has meant I’ve had plenty of time as a passenger to do some knitting – finished lovely brownish scarf pictured and started on a pistachio tone scarf. Both scarves are rib, but I’m using smaller needles for the green scarf and doing K1, P1 rather than K2, P2 in the brown scarf which has made it quite bulky and stretchy. Live and learn anyway. Loving knitting, I know scarves are hardly tricky but they really jazz an outfit and are easy to make. Good tasks for driving anyway.
my lovely new scarf, nice knitting don't you think?
I’m learning just how cold it gets here – and caught my first cold of the year, not liking THAT too much. I’m afraid between work, being sick and family things I have really been neglecting my shop, hopefully the world will settle down in a few weeks and I can get back to it. Finger’s cross anyway.
football, morality and some cool things
I’m not a huge sports fan, but I quite enjoy watching a decent game of AFL (a recent development in my interests) and I really think that sports players have a huge role as models for children. However, I was really ANNOYED at the weekend when I watched the West Coast Eagles game. I really noticed the incredibly pathetic contact between players (shouldering each other, pushing, and generally acting like puffed up little peacocks). This irritated me on two levels, the first being that it’s just so unnecessary, they are standing waiting for the ball to be played and they are just being so negative. I know they want to win, but this is hardly the kind of behaviour that we would think was acceptable for our children, so why should their heroes be acting like this. On another level, it makes me even further irritated that the television stations chose to feature this footage, surely not every set of marked players are acting like this and would good sportsmanship not be the thing to be featuring??? It really makes me wonder what the AFL and the media are thinking is ok behaviour.
The whole Matthew Johns thing is bugging me too, but for different reasons. It is disappointing that these footballers thought this kind of behaviour was ok (and that it seems like sex and bonding does come up a lot with teams in the NRL) and it’s a bit disturbing that these people are huge role models, especially in the eastern states. However, I really am getting annoyed with the media outlets that are demonising Johns. I really don’t get why this NZ chick has so much credibility. She had consensual sex with a group of footballers. Dumb. What did she think was going to happen? She made the choice too. I just don’t get why a) Johns has basically had his media career destroyed and b) the media seems to feel so sorry for this woman. I didn’t watch the 4 Corners presentation, but I’m actually really disappointed that the ABC (my favourite station) gave this story such credibility. I think it sounds like some money-hungry skank trying to cash in on the media’s desire for pathetic salacious gossip. Makes me soooo annoyed. I wonder what Johns did to someone at either Nine or the NRL to have him made the fall guy for this. He made a morally questionable decision but I think the whole thing has been seriously manipulated by the media and this woman.
Ok, rants over. I’ll try and relax and enjoy the football on the weekend without focusing on the parts that annoy me!
How awesome are these cool things? (Well, you’d probably like them more if you are a WCE lover).
West Coast Eagles Casserole Holder
And do you think you’d catch many footy fans in these? I might wear them to the footy for a laugh.
Football Earrings
compulsory relaxation
I am about to go on some self-enforced relaxation. I’ve noticed I have a really, really bad habit now of not relaxing on a Friday afternoon. Before we moved, I always relaxed on a Friday afternoon. Typically, I’d finish work early, stop via my friend’s shop (where I worked on Saturday mornings) – which was right next to a pub so I could buy us some take away beers and then we’d sit out on the back patio and chill (although one of us would have to get up and serve a customer if they came in, but Friday’s were quiet generally). Then I’d cruise home, freshen up and when Mr Petit came home we’d go to some friend’s place for dinner/beers or go down the pub. It was easy.
But now it’s hard because we don’t really know that many people yet and I seem to accidently spend Friday’s cleaning or working back late. But not today. I’m about to get my current book, a beer and some crackers and sit out in the patio to read until it’s too cold out there. I’m feeling chilled just thinking about it. What are you doing to relax this afternoon?
