Christmas Traditions...

Making Christmas Cookies is a time honoured tradition in my family. Every year as children we would love making and decorating cookies with my mum and make ourselves sick on cookie dough and icing. This year is no exception, my belly hurts..... I made, chilled, rolled, cookie cut, baked, cooled and iced these three plates of Christmas cookies in between feeding the baby, bathing the baby, cooking dinner, eating and settling the baby.... Also managed to wrap the presents and tidy the house...

I think I have done well... time to relax...

Merry Christmas to everyone in blog land! Thank you for all your wonderful comments, kind thoughts and wishes...

It's a Boy!

Introducing Cohen Lowry...

Born 11 December 2008

4280g / 9 pounds 4 ounces

51.5cm long

38cm head circumference

Cohen was born after 36 1/2 hours labour and with all the scary words that you don't want to hear during a labour - like epidural, distress, forceps, caput, temperature, infection, episiotomy, tear, special care nursery etc. But after two nights in the hospital mum and bub were both cleared to go home... We are all doing really well. Cohen is gaining weight and passed his first GP and health nurse visits with flying colours. We are enjoying every minute...

Daddy loves his little boy...

... and this little boy loves his baths.

Thank you for your messages and emails with their lovely wishes! They were greatly appreciated.

(So transmission has finally resumed... and may have done so earlier except we had to change internet providers again... we are in a black spot apparently...)

Waiting is nearly over...

There may be a delay in transmission for a few days before we return to our regular programing... So here is a shocking photo of hubby and me while going for a walk in the park... look at the size of my belly! :)

Dead cart club...

(40+ weeks Progress: Still waiting for bub...)

Amy of badskirt blog fame has another hilarious blog that I have been laughing along with, the dead cart club, to which she has added my contribution... You should hop on over if you want to know the story of this cart...

Eye Spy something in my garden...

There are a lot of things that Eye like to Spy in my garden - the kneeling lady statue next to the ornamenatal grape vine, the temple goddess statue, the growing Buddha's belly bamboo, the peach tree when it is in bloom, the water fall... but hidden in amongst it all, in more of an 'eye-saw' than an 'eye-spy', you will find on the wall inside the garden shed the following... And just above this and to one side...

Which were discovered after we brought the house... So cute don't you think? Have you ever found any little treasures like this after moving into a house? I'd love to know...

Cindy is hosting Eye Spy Sunday and this weeks theme was brought to you by CurlyPops.

PS- Don't forget about the Pay it Forward give away...

A Week of Collections - Day 6...

Buddharūpa is the Sanskrit and Palin term used in Buddhism for statues and models of the Buddha. So here are some of my Buddharupa... some were gifts, others I found, all of them I love for different reasons...

Beautiful serene or laughing faces... Study and the cultivation of wisdom...

Layers of symbolism and meaning...

I'm guessing a lot of you will have a Buddhist statue too... and they all have a story...

Pay it forward...

The rules:

"I will send three people who leave a comment on this post a handmade gift within the next 365 days. I am willing to post anywhere in the world, so don’t let that stop you from commenting. The catch is that you must have a blog and be willing to do the same thing…."

As one who loves to enter blog competitions (but is yet to win one, unless this counts) I love this idea of craft begetting more craft, begetting more craft etc. and being shared around the world... bloggers are generous and loving people after all and it only seems fitting to join in and share...

Natasha from Haines is paying it forward from Shel who payed it forward from Amanda...etc. So I will receive a piece of handmade goodness from Natasha (yay!), who will receive something from Shel, who will receive something from Amanda...etc. I am currently thinking of what lovely little handmade pieces I will craft for three bloggers who comment and wish to pay it forward to another three crafty bloggers... So let me know if you are in, and if more than three people comment your names will go into a hat! (Or I may just be flexible with the number 3, as it seems Natasha and Shel have been!) Feel free to hint at your potential gift if you have seen a particular craft on my blog that you like...

Projects...

Due date: today. Progress: none. Mood: impatient and excited. Projects to keep me amused while waiting: coming along nicely. Project two: nearly finished... only a few rows to go! Here it is, project two, vintage twist wool scarf which shall probably be worn by my beautiful twin sister while she swans around America, the UK and Paris for a month in a weeks time... Especially proud of first attempt at little squares effect at each end using knitting and purling stitches... Project three: Our first stockings... When it got too hot yesterday to continue knitting I decided to make hubby and me our first ever Christmas Stockings. So out came the felt, the fusible and some white cotton. I decided to try to iron the fusible to some cotton and then make snow flakes out of it like you would with paper, and it worked! Now hanging on Christmas tree...

Project four: Running out of things to do again, so another trip to Spotlight this morning, yes, on my due date! Thought I could have the baby next to the rolls of flanalette, as I started to get some very strange pains and couldn't walk, so just stood there awhile, pretending to contemplate the fabric! Pain passed, no baby, so I made it to the isles of wool... Christmas present in the making in this fat sage wool... and some fat black wool for once this is done...

Hmmm, how many more projects can I fit in before baby comes?

A Week of Collections - Day 5...

Today's subject matter for A Week of Collections -

small bottles (full) of alcohol from around the world...

I can't lay claim to having collected these bottles, some of them are even older than I am, we actually inherited the collection when no one else really wanted it... love the Nessie bottle and the Scotsman's cap... I think these two would have to be my favourites... What do you drink to celebrate Prince Charles and Princess Di's wedding? English Cherry Brandy of course!

And how cute is this? It is about the size of your pinkie finger...

A Week of Collections - Day 4...

I have realised a few things so far during a week of collections... Firstly, I am not as bad as I thought I was at collecting, I collect stuff, but not so many of the same kinda thing that I am going to get locked up... Secondly, after watching Antiques Roadshow yesterday, I realise that I clearly collect the wrong kind of things. One lady had a collection of vintage dolls, the scariest looking one of which was worth around $10,000!

Also, Poppytalk is collecting images of peoples collections and has a Poppytalk Collectors flickr group.

And just typing in "collections" on flickr will return many weird and wonderful images such as these...

Hownowdesign

girlhula

bricolagelife

leclairjosh one two one three

Stayed tuned for more collection goodness/madness and check out Amity Ville who is hosting this week of collections...

A Week of Collections - Day 3...

Bangles and bracelets, I love you, especially if you are in colours like red, green or black. You can be shiny, carved, plastic, glass, wood, fabric, stone... but if there is something about you that draws me to you, you may become a part of the collection... Oh, and brooches, especially vintage brooches...

(a few from the collection, brought all over the world, from Singapore to Italy)

A Week of Collections is hosted by Amity Ville

Project two continues...

Image from LIFE photo archive

(This pic I took)

Project one...

Project one is finished

OR

How to make cushion covers...

Take one cool fat quarter recently found at Craft show... Add 1m of brown fabric, purchased yesterday at Spotlight... Add 6 cover-yourself buttons... A pinch of cotton thread... Take two much loved cushion covers ready for retirement... Create pattern in your head and use old cushion covers as a guide for size... Cut out brown fabric, realise you should wash it in case it runs... Once washed, dry and iron... Cut fat quarter into thirds and hem the longest edges... Iron fusible to the back of fat quarter fabric and position on largest squares of brown fabric... iron on... Sew over hems to attach permanently to cover front... get tricky and sew up one side of each of the trees on the fabric and along the occasional branch so that it looks cool... Hem brown fabric for backs and create a wide hem on one half of overlapping fabric... Lay pieces together and double stitch the whole way around the outside, then trim off corners... Turn the right way, insert cushion, admire handiwork.... Repeat for hubbies cushion cover...

Cover buttons with left over fat quarter fabric...

Sew onto wide hem, where it overlaps...

Pat self on back for having finally replaced cushion covers...

Sit on couch, using new cushions, and take up Project two from the coffee table...

A Week of Collections - Day 2

(Again, to be read out loud in best David Attenbrough voice...)

Here we see that this collector feathers her nest with a range of photographs taken from her travels. This curious behaviour is again quite common to collectors, although not always recognised as text book collecting behaviour. One can often find little blank wall space in such a nest... It is thought that collectors do this in order to remind themselves of past experiences and possibly to bring them joy in their nests...

Collectors will quite often have a collection of framed photographs that they will keep, despite having no further room for them...

Check out Amity Ville for more collections...

A Week of Collections - Day 1

There is always a meme lurking on the web, waiting to be found and giving me an excuse for another blog post... Amity Ville is hosting 'A Week of Collections' and I'm sure most bloggers have at least one or two collections on show or hidden... So drop past Amity Ville's blog and join in, I want to see what you collect too! Read the next part out loud in your best David Attenborough voice... Here we see some of the collector's things in their native environment. It is clear this collector likes "stuff", and likes to treasure hunt at the beach and while walking through parks, this is common of many collectors. These treasures end up around the collector's dwellings, in this case on the top of this bookcase - here we find fossils, seed pods and shells amongst the photo frames and dried flowers... The collector is just about ready for bed, so we shall try not to disturb her and will check back in tomorrow to see if we can detect any other collecting behaviour...

Two new projects...

Doctors appoinment this morning and she said bubba will probably come next week... so off to Spotlight to get supplies for two new little projects to keep me occupied... What will they be...

So many cool coloured wools... it was hard but I eventually picked this "Vintage Twist", but I don't even know how it will look once it is knitted!

Will keep you posted... have a great week!

I spy... what I want for Christmas

Cindy at bugandpop is introducing Eye Spy... to replace This Is... Which is great, as my scheDUEL post, which was to replace On My Desk... didn't auto post today for some reason... Make sense?

What I want for Christmas... would be to have the available funds to buy my loved ones lots of beautiful presents that they deserve for being the beautiful people they are.

(Maternity leave + baby on the way = isn't going to happen...)

So here are some pretty things that I wouldn't say no to, I may just feel a little guilty about receiving, if the previously mentioned beautiful people were wondering what I would like...

Vintage cellulose red pair of kissing flying birds brooch

Letterpress SKETCH Book

Small Red Pomegranate vase

Eye spied these on etsy...

I love op-shopping...

...for babies knits... Inspired by Melissa's beautiful hand knitted jumper for her boy, but unable to really knit anything myself, I thought I would cheat and share with you instead some lovely knitting done by complete strangers that I found in op-shops. I'm not even sure which are hand knitted and which are machine knitted, as none of them have any tags or labels! This is the first thing I brought when I found out I was pregnant, I was so excited and nervous that I hid this from hubby 'til I was past 13 weeks! Handy for a summer baby I know, but for $2... There are so many cheap tiny little knits out there, but I knew I had to restrain myself and go for bigger things so they would actually fit bubs come winter. How cute is this set - jacket, booties and two beanies - $4...

Can a boy wear this? May have to put it aside for next time...

This is lemon yellow, and so cute...

I have to show you these as well - cute little vintage shoes I found that hubby swears no child of his will be wearing!! I love them, even if they are just nursery decorations... Why can't boys wear pom poms?! And while I am show-and-telling I would like to share last nights cooking adventure. Hubby and I are not the most experienced cooks but we are learning. We have been trying out new recipe's and what better to make than your favourite take out? So madras curry powder and shiitake mushrooms went on the shopping list... I'd like to know who looked at these and then worked out they were edible... And together we made our first Singapore noodles... they were yum!