HOME again

Im a total fail at blog updating these days, but what can ya do :)

You may of noticed a few changes.  We have moved from VIC back to QLD in the last week or so, for me it was actually an easy decision in the end, family vs no family and having your family and friends around wins hands down each and every time.  And so we semi packed up and headed home.  House was placed on the market and we said goodbye to country living and hello to a capital city once more.   I return to work for third term teaching at Caboolture East until end of year where i have then applied for a transfer into a school closer to the childrens hospital to coincide with Emilys start to school and having to have as many appointments as she can outside of school hours and with traffic and everything else to consider it made more sense for us to live and work closer to royal childrens in bris.

The week before we were coming home i had the decision to head back to uni and study a fine arts and visual culture degree.  Am i scared, oh yeah, but i cant wait too  So with that in mind i started art journalling to remember that which i had learnt previously and to just start creating again so its a habit for august when my course starts up again.

heres what i have so far.  Ive seen many journals, and mine is very much a working document, one half i have put aside for experimenting, practise draws, ideas, anything and everything to do with whatever is happening on the pages in this book.

 so my first page was inspired by my decision to go back to uni..:)
curtain university degree completely external for the next three years here i come, eek!!!

 I would like to put this up in one of the girls rooms, or a version of it anyway.  but again inspired by my own personal growth.

 experimenting with masking fluid to paint flowers using watercolours, and the day we made the decision to come home.

 more about coming home.  I saw the map used on blue bazaar and i just couldn't get the idea out of my head, but what can ya do.  so thanks to that person, killer idea, that very much spoke to me at that point.

 my knowledge tree, and the decision to go back to work full time and getting my contract job until my school comes up next year.  it all happened pretty fast.

 Do you have a hero?  i do, Emilys surgeon Christopher Coombs is quite the amazing man, a hero in my eyes in every sense of the word, for without him I don't quite know where emily and her arm would be.

 about being home, seeing family and loving everything about it

 hoping to inspire my students, who have their own hard luck stories to share, i want to bring them a little art in the form of their own journals

 heh, about the weather!! its so beautiful up here right now.  But this is actually a trial run of a painting i hope to do for emilys birthday.  i will share the final product because i have a few changes in store.  There may even b a repeat of it for my niece who turns one very very soon

Took the kids to the surrealism exhibit at GoMA on tuesday and the next few pages are about that influence.  The gallery is fantastic with its childrens activities and we will be back their frequently!!!!

so there you go.  Today i have been playing with gel mediums and texture paste, will share over the next few weeks.

a crochet rug.

i'd like to tell you this was an easy project, but going around in a circle is so not. its a little lumpy in places, but its flat enough for the floor
here she is with her floor mat in her room! lol, and yes i did sew non slip squares into the back of it. The colours match her wall quilt.
colours are a bit off, her room is far to sunny in the afternoons to get a good true shot of it.
i edges it with an edge Mel goodsell sent me towards on attic 24, one of my fav crocheting blogs. A bobble edge or something like that. its a little lumpy but not so that you will catch your feet on the rug itself.

and heres my next project just started. the perfect to make in summer blanket, cause its only little squares..:) this will be single bed sized when finished. in the distant distant future! lol the pattern is also from Attic 24 so check it out (excuse the pic, took it with the sun and my iphone, was far to lazy to get the big camera out heh)

www.attic24.typepad.com

a moment in time

time spent together, hanging out on australia day...:)

my garden!

my tomatoes to date, how sad is that!!!!

we have either had way to much rain, or not enough sun or the temps just haven't been right.

three organic cherries..:( they smell good but. they will go in my pasta tonight.

Now i have no idea whats going on with the other type, they should be so much bigger than this, can anyone explain?? i might fertilise. I did it before quite while before all the rain. So i don't know.

On the plus side of the garden, the potatoes have gone nuts, i hope they harvest well when its time..:)

just one moment in time

ok well more than one moment this week, heh, and with words, i can't post with out them, sorry about that. not much crafting to share this week, but im still working on ems floor mat, its so nearly finished.

out side my side door, the door that leads to the area we term our backyard. is a very very old rose. The first year we lived here i think i got a rose, and the next year a few more and so on it goes. This year the bush is going crazy with flowers. its so nice to see it come back to life!

I have no idea when this rose was placed there, but keep in mind my house was built in 1876!

its a beautiful rose, that comes with that old fashion rose scent that seems to be missing in new roses.

emily is going a little holiday crazy i think, you know that point where its so time for school and after school activities and swimming lessons to start again?? its so time for that to start again let me tell you!

they are sick of the art equipment i bought and have used most of the good stuff as they refer to it, the holiday away is done, christmas is over and the toys while still fun have lost there shine

yeah its time for school to start!

15000 visits

wow, thats nice

thanks for visiting

One moment from our week.

Making it up as they go..:)

its amazing what happens with a little time

i haven't posted a scrapbook page in a very long time, and not because i didn't want to share, simply because i had not touched a piece of paper, combined with a photo in a very very long time. I quite literally lost me. i just didn't want too. I missed and still do the social aspect of my craft so very much. Those days were you sit with friends and produce five good pages and you laugh and tell stories together, eat stuff you shouldn't and end up having a damn good time. I miss those trips. I miss those nights. I miss my friends. The laughter and silliness that made life fun. I would so very much love a weekend away like the old days.

anyway, by no means my best work. That remains of the cover of an old scrapbook creations issue. But here is my babies in their christmas pic of 2010. Sorry about the photo of the page, i hate flashes and i just wanted to blog, and get my feelings out there. My therapy so to speak.

It took me quite the while to get this going and i moved things around for hours before the glue came out, and then it sort of just fell together in a way i liked and that was it, done. I still have the bug, thankfully i bought new printer ink today, so im off the locate the photo paper that would be at the bottom of a pile somewhere in my scrapbooking stuff long forgotten in the waste land that was most of 2009 and much of 2010 as well.

Reef HQ Aquarium

When we visited the Aquarium on Monday, lilly was very taken by the Turtles and the Turtle hospital on site, that we were able to visit. We have spent much of our day today, researching sea turtles, in particular green, which were the type they had whilst we were there. We have written story boards and then we finally sat at the computer together and went through the video footage we had and pieced it together into a movie made by lilly..:) we have burned it to dvd for her to take to school as part of her what i did on the holidays show and tell..:)

edited to add

this email lilly received back from REEF HQ about her movie

Dear Jones Family,

Thank you for sending this home video through to us. I have sent it around to all our fabulous hard working staff and volunteers who spend their days making Reef HQ a great place to visit. Spreading key messages of importance of keep the Great Barrier Reef great! Our Director and Curator, Aquarists, Interpretative/Education and Marketing Staff very much enjoyed the presentation.

Very impressive work it makes all our hard work worthwhile. Particularly when we see a child of seven not only learn so much during her visit but also share the message with others who have not had a chance to see first hand how important our Turtle Hospital Facility is to the further research, protection and conservation of these magnificent animals.

So glad you enjoyed your visit. We have some very exciting redevelopment happening over the coming months (infact work commenced on Wednesday) with a new get up close to the reef creatures area upstairs and learning and play area for the children and also an extension to our Turtle Hospital. So should you visit Townsville again please come back and see all the new exhibits and spaces.

Regards,

Sandra

lilly is quite chuffed with it..:)

just one moment

i plan to post a photo every friday of 2011. just a snippet of my week. Our week. With no words, except for this week..:)

This is what our week looked like, we spent it in Townsville with my mum and her husband and my grandmother. i will come back and do a post with more pics of our holiday, i just feel a little strange doing it right now. its not the time for a cheerful post about holiday fun with so many suffering.

my heart is in Brisbane, as many of you know thats were im from. In fact the town in which the school i taught in is underwater. Many of my friends in the area are cut off, and feeling the full effects of this disaster. My own parents reside in the area also. Though are overseas so we know they are safe and sound. Im hoping for all your sakes that the water resides quickly with minimal damage.

a bean bag

Emilys room renovations continue. A bean bag.

http://myhomespunthreads.blogspot.com/2009/02/bean-bag-chair-tutorial.html

heres the pattern i used, it was very easy!

The cover comes off for washing and i made my inner out of calico. She does say an 100 l bag of beans, I nearly got two bags, i wish i did, i will be adding probably another half bag of beans to the bag when I make lillys

I added the handle in extra so that it was easy to move around. It is going to be part of a reading corner in Emilys room, with a few pillows thrown in. ATM she is carrying it everywhere with her!

Colours we picked matched her wall quilt.

And if you look carefully you will even find a bird just under the handle..:)

KIcking back in her bag watching TV.

It was no cheaper to make a bag, actually it probably cost me more, but the balls are completely sewn in! Little fingers can not make holes and spread them around the house. I think it took me longer to clean up the balls that missed the bag opening than making the whole thing, every time i moved something i found more of the little buggers.

currently on my crocheting hook, i work slowly at it each and every night. The mat for Emilys reading corner. Im sure you can see the colour theme emerging! Lets just say crocheting in a circle, little bit of an art form all by itself, once you just past the first little bit, there is no pattern, its kind of hope for the best and lay it flat every round to check! I will probably end it with three bands of each colour, trying to decide on finishing with scallops or not. They would be red, but I can't make up my mind currently. I shall probably let the owner decide!

Wendy the bird

Well the quilt is hung in emilys room and against purple walls it looks so much brighter too. She loves it. Its on a curtain rod with rings and clip, pegs on the end. I didn't want to sew loops into the back of it, with the scallop edges already i just could't do it. It covers so much of her wall, its a fantastic way to brighten a room.

I have to thank Janelle for her pattern and her pattern writing skills, its all super easy to follow and that in the end gives a product your happy with too. Emily has picked Janelles candy quilt for her bed as well, and im kind of pleased about that. I will get to that one shortly.

This is a wendy bird, the pattern to this softie is a free downloadable one from lollychops.com

Wendy is easy and quick. I strung the three of them together and then hung them off emilys 10 foot high ceiling. Its safe to say im never getting them down again! lol also should of taken pics before i put them up there. im not tall enough.
i have another wendy to share soon, this one will be on a bird swing. Emilys room is starting to take shape, obviously her bed quilt is yet to come, but i have a rug on my crocheting hook for the floor and some art for the other wall as well as some bunting to pop up somewhere. Some nice pink boxes for her toys as well. A few other bird type softies as well.

Little Blue Birds

I started this quilt in 2008! I even shared that very centre panel. And then i spent from then and until now, SLOWLY working on the hand stitched panels. They took me forever. and we had a few mishaps along the way, including my lovely children helping out by cutting up a piece of red spotted material for the corner stars. Needless to say the spots on two corners are different! And at one point my dear husband helped me tidy up the lounge room and placed a half complete hand stitched flowers panel in parts unknown? How do you lose a piece of material that long? I have no idea, but we did and I have never seen it again. Completely gone. I wasn't a happy camper when i had to stitch it again. It sparked this particular project being put away for quite some time.

This year my kids started swimming lessons, and lilly little athletics, and i spent hours bored to tears after the first few weeks, im bad i know, but you can only watch so many long jumps before you go insane, so i started taking my sewing with me, and because of those hours i finally finished all the hand stitching. After that it took no time at all to get this complete and good to go.
I used bamboo batting, its so lovely to work with. i was so worried about quilting this and seriously through about sending it out to be done, but didn't and while its not perfect only a quilter would noticed, and well we are pretty rough and ready around here so it fits right in. And im kind of glad that i did the whole thing.

Heres some of the details.

I think there is pretty much an even spread of hand and machine stitching to this quilt.

Anyway there you have it. This was a Janelle Wind block of the month quilt, that clearly I didn't do in the seven months or so that I was receive packets of material and patterns.

This is for Emilys room. Its leading the way in a room renovation for her all themed around this quilt. I will share the other bits as I get them up. Some im still in the middle of getting organised. And her bed quilt I haven't even started. But its coming...:)