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Showing posts from July, 2012

Making a chipped plate look better!

I bought a whole heap of dinner plates, bowls and side plates from Ikea when they were on special one day - all in purple! They look fabulous and I love them (but then I like all things that are purple so its not that much of an endorsement!) Like all dinnerware, they get a bit of rough handling in the wash sometimes and end up with a few chips and knocks in them. When the plate is white - its not a big deal as the crockery underneath is white as well. When the plate is purple glazed only - the chip stands out like... a lot! When I set the table all I can see these days are the chips on the sides of the plates and bowls. A few people have said - "throw 'em out and get new ones" (It's not like they were expensive ones) but I have resisted as there is nothing wrong with the plate - I mean it still holds the food off the bench and enables you to get the food to the table with out getting your hands burnt or covered in food - so they still do the job they were meant t

Star card book update

As promised - here is a quick update of the Star Card Book that I am making for a friends birthday present. I have had all my papers and glues and punches and goodness knows what all over the dining room table all week and as a result we haven't been able to eat at the table. Our Chinese student likes to sit at a table to eat and won't eat with us on the couch - which the others are thoroughly enjoying - and disappears into her room to eat at her desk. In order to prove that we do have some table manners - I finished up the messy parts of this card (the bits that require glue, glitter and scrap bits of paper spread all over the place) and cleaned up the kitchen table after a ten and a half hour day at work. (And then we went and got takeaways as I couldn't face cooking a single thing else) She has just informed us that she is off to the "Golden Coast" for the weekend with the school for a cultural excursion - Ah well, I really should've cleaned up a bit e

Scrub turkeys in your back yard!?

Last year sometime the neighbour came over and asked if one of our chookies had disappeared. I had a quick head count and said, "No, why?". She explained that she thought she had seen one of them in the undergrowth in her garden. We went hunting and eventually discovered a Scrub Turkey chick scurrying around. We were quite pleased to be able to add scrub turkey to our collective awesomely biodiverse backyards and over the next few months excitedly reported sightings in the Poinciana tree, on the fences and general scurrying around. And then it disappeared and we forgot about it. Last week at about 6am my chookies went berserk. I leapt out of bed and rushed to their pen (dressed glamorously in my purple bed sox and untied dressing gown) to see what was the matter. From their sqwarking, I had assumed a cat or dog had got into the pen - but when I got there, there was nothing to be seen. No intruder of a feline or canine variety - not even a chicken. I called to them and

Hand Made Star Card (or book) for someone special!

I have a very good friends 40th birthday coming up and wanted to give her something special... Like most of us she either has all the things that she needs or she has the ability to just go and out and buy it as the need arises. I could buy her some expensive alcohol, perfume or even a day spa (she was one of my bridesmaids, so price isn't an object here!) But I still wanted to give her something that was tangible - something she could hold, see and show to people. I had been wrestling with this idea for a while and then one afternoon the crafty neighbour dropped in with this crafty magazine and there on the cover was a star card! One look at that and I knew that's what I wanted to make for Narelle. Here's what I did... (Warning... this is a long and complicated post with lots of how to photos- if you are not crafty, this may not appeal...) First I selected some base card to use as the primary decoration - these are all 12x12 scrap booking card. Then

Practical Charity - Kiva Loans!

I'm a fairly community minded type of person and always end up donating a fair bit of time and money to various causes. I am studying in this field and over time have come to enjoy helping those who want to help themselves, in more practical ways. For one of my Uni assignments, I had to write a report on a development organisation (that is an organisation that helps move a community forward by education, physically building something and/or empowering the people). One of the organisations I looked at was called KIVA. Kiva is an organisation that helps you lend money to entrepreneurs in developing countries. We have similar organisations here in Australia (NILS - No Interest Loans Scheme) but an individual like you or me, is unable to donate money to the scheme to help people buy a fridge, fix their lawn mower or washing machine and improve their life. With Kiva, you can pick who you would like to help, what enterprise you would like to support in whatever country you choose

Home Made Lemon and Salt Body Scrub!

Over the last few days we have been painting one side (yes - just one side) of the house. A few years ago we decided that we would take a week off in the middle of June and each year we would paint one side of the house. (and yes - we are a bit late this year!) It works quite well as it doesn't take us a week, we actually finish what we set out to do and inevitably get other maintaince jobs done as well. After we did all the preparation work we were both covered in dust and grot and paint flakes and mud and other things we didn't want to examine toooo closely making heavy duty showers the order of the day for the pair of us. The husband bought and used the gritty grot remover soap - Solvol - But I recalled seeing on someones blog somewhere about a homemade body scrub that was yummy enough (for her sister in law) to eat and thought that would be much nicer! So while the Husband was in the shower - here's what I did... Had a quick look in the Blogoshpere for the recip

Book List Update!

I read a fair bit and recently I created a book list page on my blog to share my thoughts on various books with those who also like to read. I have to return a whole lot of books to the library this week and so I thought I had better update my book list before I forgot the book details and never got around to sharing them with you all. So, if you are reader yourself - have a look at what I've been reading and let me know what you thought of the same books and what books you recommend me to read as well! To have a look at my book list click here or click on the page tab at the top of the blog. Happy Reading!

Recovering Christmas Crackers to match your table colours!

We were having a Christmas in July themed birthday party and I managed to get the job of being responsible for organising the decorations for the table. I had a quick look through my own decorations and decided on a snowflake theme because I had a fair bit of this left over from last Christmas. I had some dangly snowflakes, bought a snowflake mobile and found some snowflake sprinkles. I ordered some green and white helium filled balloons with Christmas and snowflake images on them and thought I was almost done. What I needed next were some snow themed green Christmas crackers. After trawling the shops for Christmas crackers for a while, it became blatantly obvious that I wasn’t going to get any from a retail outlet and turned to the Internet for help. I found the perfect crackers on e-bay – in “Assorted Christmas Colours” (green, red and white in the picture) – at a very reasonable price. Yay! They arrived in good time in one piece. They were pink though. I was

Plastic Potato Bag Apron!

Some of my jobs involve doing quite a few dishes. Industrial amounts of dishes. And being a bit shorter than the average person means that I have to lean practically into the sink in order to wash all these dishes. This leads to getting a wet waistband that ends up rubbing on my tummy and being uncomfortable. I thought about this and decided that what I needed a plastic apron. I went to the shops to look for a $2 Apron and discovered that they didn't exist. I could find kid size ones for $10-15, but they don't make plastic aprons in my size. So I decided to make one. I looked at those $2 plastic table cloths to make myself an apron out of but thought they may be a bit flimsy. Then I remembered I had some really cool plastic potato sacks from another job... And so decided to have a go at making a very basic apron from them!  Here's what I did... Found a selection of plastic potato and chook food sacks... I cut one bag open to make it as wide
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