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We've had a lovely morning down at the Gold Coast City Council Australia Day Fair this morning celebrating all that's Aussie!
It was incredibly hot, muddy, sweaty and smelly (it's still a country town with camels, sheep, dogs, horses, pony rides and a rodeo) but a huge amount of fun! (Miss M's fabulous summery skirt by Susan)
Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!
This is my kitchen chicken, Claude, posing with some wheat grass that we planted at a GoMA kids activity two weekends ago and have been faithfully watering each day.
A great activity for kids, you basically wrap some paper (this happens to be someone's art manifesto) around half an empty toilet roll, stuff it with shredded paper and sprinkle some wheat seeds on the top. This can be done for any seeds and then the whole thing transplanted to the garden later on!
My mum gave me Claude two years ago for Christmas and I just love him. He sits on my kitchen bench ogling all my culinary creations with his googly eyes and makes sure Mr B does a good job of washing up. My friend Mr G also loves Claude and gives him a scratch every time he comes to visit. Claude looks annoyed about it, but secretly loves it. I think the thing that I love about Claude is that even though he's a chicken, he looks remarkably like my Boston Terrier, Zeb...
Twins, don't you think?
My other Boston, Max is the supermodel of Boston Terriers...she's a diva...
...and not so chicken like.
I bought it a few weeks ago from Borders, but here's my favourite pages of the September 2008 edition (we're a bit slow to get all things French here in Brisbane!) of Marie Claire Idees...
This story was about innovative and creative ideas with wood. I love the hat stand and the wood strip paneling on the wall.
These pages feature the work of artist Maissa, who does amazing object boxes with all manner of insects, plants,shells, miniatures, figurines, religious symbols and even some incredible anatomy displays.
I think this is my favourite story about clever uses of silhouettes - Those 3-D photo frames have caused me to ponder on the stack of Ikea frames sitting in my linen cupboard...
And this is a kind of 'woodland' themed story about things you can do with nuts, pinecones, bark and seedpods...who would have thought? My favourite picture (not here) is of some lovely real acorn caps and stalks fashioned onto tweed fabric acorn nuts, with some felted leaves and made into a pin cushion!
*Sighhhh* I lurve Marie Claire Idees...
If you haven't already, check out the 'cute and kooky' Bob Boutique located in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. It is an independently owned, real bricks and mortar store, which is curated with 80% independent Australian artists, crafters and makers of all things fabulous. Make sure you sign up for their newsletter and catalogue here.
I received my catalogue in the mail this week and I am positively dribbling with the crafty retail possibilities that are laid out before me! The catalogue is beautifully produced and a work of art in itself. I think a little present to myself (after all, Valentines Day is coming up) might be in order...(or is that, on order?)
Jacqui over at Blooming has a fantastic tutorial for how to shop on Amazon Japan...so now there is no excuse not to have some retail therapy and add to your collection!
Japanese Crafting has also been updating a lot of new books and other crafters projects lately, so if you haven't popped in over the last month, have a look at this fantastic Japanese crafting resource for inspiration or check out a book you might want to buy for yourself!
Last week I bought this fantastic fabric from Hollabee as she is moving from her Etsy shop (there's still some bargains to be had if you're quick!). I just love these soft colours and am thinking of some lovely cushion's for Miss M's room reading chair.
I've also FINALLY updated my 'craftjuice made this' photo album (over there on the right hand navigation) so hopefully you'll see some great new completed projects in there for 2009!
If you like knitting and a cup of tea, here's an extraordinarily talented crafster from Noosa here in Queensland, Australia!
Loani Prior is an amazing knitter and such a lover of wild tea cosies, she's written a book all about her amazing creations! There is NOTHING I love more than functional crafting and I would adore to own one of these fantastic tea cosies (goodness knows there I no way I could knit one!)
Have a look at her amazing blog The Grand Purl Baa and you can buy her book here (or if you are overseas, go to her blog and see the list of stockists on the right hand side) and make one of Loani's 24 wild creations yourself!
Yesterday at Spotlight I found this fantastic kitcheny cotton in the bargain bin for $8/m (half price!) - but when I went to pay for it, it was only $5 a metre! Lucky find! I can't find this fabric online anywhere to link, but it is by West 22nd and called (can you guess?)...Cooking Utensils.
I love the colours in this but don't have a project in mind yet. Perhaps an apron? Oven mits?
And here's finally some nice pictures of the new sheet bag I made for Miss M for day-care this year. Its a bit flash for a sheet bag, but I can't help myself. I'm going to sew a strip of the same fabrics onto the top of the sheet so it all matches.
And the lining (shhhh...and a secret pocket)
I used Amy Butler fabrics (I mentioned which ones a few posts ago) and the top, straps and pocket is some of the material Mr B gave me for Christmas. I based it on the pattern for these bags, but basically made a big rectangle and angled the sides up the top. It actually looks like a big milk bottle, I think!
This year for Christmas I gave Mr B a Momento book of our last trip to Tokyo, Japan in 2007. I used the Momento product software which I found super easy and very nice to use. It was easy to upload and order the book as well. I made a 48-page book, which was A4 landscape and linen hardcover with a printed dust jacket. It is a beautiful product. The only fault I have is that with the laser/digital printing, the colours of the photos are a teeny bit washed out. But that can be compensated for by boosting up the photo saturation I think. I am more than a bit picky (some would call it freakishly anal) with things like that as I look at stuff like that in my job, but really, the result is beautiful and printed on nice heavy paper stock too.
The content was from our holiday blog Hanami Happiness - I think it was one of the first blogs I'd done. I think its such a lovely record of our holiday, which we think is the best holiday we've ever had. Miss M was only eight months old and started to crawl when we were on holidays. I can't imagine her now sitting in a stroller all day, although back then she was quite content and as now, happy to perform for whoever was watching her!
There are other photobook products such as this, this, this, this and this. (Note that these are all Australian sites.) Some of these can get quite pricey (my book was just under A$200), but I think you pay for what you get and for a one-off personalised book that can be passed down to Miss M, I was very happy with the value for money from Momento.
There is also the lovely site Blurb where you can make a book and if you want to, sell it! They just print on order. I've seen quite a few crafty bloggers who have made their own books this way.
They are a commitment to do - the one I made for Mr B took me about two weeks and then another week of fiddling...all up about 60+ hours work I'd reckon. And a warning to all your perfectionists like me...you need to set a deadline to 'finish' it, or you can fiddle forever and never upload it!
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