Raspberry slushie!!

OMGoodness you HAVE to try this. Grab yourself a bag of frozen berries (raspberry here), put them in your processor, add some icing sugar and whizz up...yum yum.
So refreshing.....

For an extra treat, drizzle some melted choccy over the top....devine:)

Living Craft Mag

I love this magazine!!
The link is here to the site and info.

I buy it quarterly and I have made quite a few things from past issues.
Sorry this issue is a little bent, it has been in my handbag and when I am waiting for the kids at tennis or dancing..I whip it out for a read.

I had to show you all the picture on the back cover...CUTE TOTALLY!!!

My backpack!

I was standing at dancing the other day and I had an idea of making myself a backpack. After much thinking of design, I looked down at my feet there was Mollies ballet bag ( from Nana).

And guess what it was a perfect design.

A couple days later with Mollies bag, a tape measure, paper and pen, I designed and then made this backpack.

I love this fabric..it came from Tas's fabric destash

Bag modelled by Mollie

With the flap opened and a peek at the inside fabric. The ribbon drawstring works well, with the addition of a wooden bead.

Inside fabric came from Sandy's destash sale

I am really happy with it! A friend and I are going to have a stall at a local market in December, so I am tempted to make a couple up. I might have to research how to make adjustable straps though.

Off to cut another one out now!

No words today, just a picture

Our newest neighbours

You may remember a Sunbird nest we had a couple years ago...well, we are lucky to say we have another one!!

This one is in our BBQ area, hanging off our fairy lights.

Here it is, all finished, ready house a baby sunbird.

And during construction, here is the sunbird hard at work.

There were two birds working on this nest. I can't wait to hear the 'chirp chirp' of a baby bird!!

Mollies newest creation...

After researching in our encyclopedia and on google, Mollie built
'The Sphinx' Finished off with a Pyramid behind it

LOL..cute hey! :)

Gothic messenger bag

This is my attempt at a Gothic inspired messenger bag for my sister...made in July (I think), I forgot to share sorry!

Pattern: my own, I made it up!
Fabric: black drill, deep red velvet for inside and embroidered black fabric for front and back (from SL)
Embroiders: Urban Threads
The embrodiered fabric is very lightweight so I added black drill as backing

Inside with a pocket

Inside front of bag, embroidery is called Black Angel.

Inside of flap
This was really fun to make and my sister loves it. I have another to make up in the next week!

Growing Crafty Kids

Here is an article I wrote for the Crafty Mamas Group blog.
Click on over and check it out!

French Baguettes

You have to make these..they are devine!! We ate alot of baguettes when we were in France and this recipe comes pretty close.

The secret is long rising time..overnight if you are organised. For dinner I usually get it to a dough and rising after breaky and then forget it till about 4pm.

* 1 T yeast
* 1 T sugar
* 1 T salt
* 5 - 6 cups of bread flour
* 2 cups warm water

Mix yeast, sugar, salt, water and 4 cups of flour till a sticky dough forms.
Then knead in the rest of the flour to get a soft and satiny dough. I usually end up using 5 cups of flour.

Put it in a oiled bowl and let it rise for at least 2 hours (or overnight)

Divide dough into 3 or 4 ball and flatten out into a oven shape and then roll up tightly to form a log. Roll the log back and forth to lengthen.

Put them onto a oiled baking tray and sprinkle water or brush surface with a beaten egg white. Slash the tops diagonally at 10cm intervals and let to rise till double size
Put the oven on to preheat to 220'c.

Bake for 20 - 30 minutes till crisp and golden.
Eat warm and if you have leftovers, toast in the morning is delish.

I hope it all makes sense..it is very easy!

Now what is in the sunroom?

I have learnt..never leave a clear space as you can guarantee it will be filled real soon!

They packed up the slot cars and look what arrived in its spot.
An F1 racing circuit


With 12 cars and drivers (yes we have ALOT of lego in this house) on the starting grid

All ready for the start...

Mark Webber (Aussie driver) is in pole position with Ferrari in second!

And the ALL important pits :)

He has been playing with it for days....

I wonder what the next creation will be :)

Garden Children

I have had a gnome doll design in my head for a while now and on the weekend decided to make them up.
Here they are, two gnome dolls. We have named them Willow (boy) and Fern (girl) :)

Their clothes are made using bamboo velour (silky soft) hand dyed by me and felt boots. They are filled with wool fleece, hands and face are tricot.
They measure 30 cm in height and weigh 180 grams.
They have sculptured faces - little nose and mouth.
I am really happy with them.
I am working on fairies next:)

For those who need it!

Image from freecommenttags.com

And for one special person in particular...

Working in The Shed!

On Sunday Lucas and Dave spent a couple hours in the shed, woodworking together!

Dave working on train stations and Lucas filing 'something'. He just loved filing lol...

My the end of the hours, Lucas had made a box. I owe you all a photo of the box. I am guessing there will be many more hours in the shed to come :)

Garden Children

I have had a gnome doll design in my head for a while now and on the weekend decided to make them up. I have made a Willow doll before but he needed a little pattern tweaking

Here they are, two gnome dolls. We have named then Willow (boy) and Fern (girl) :)

Their clothes are made using bamboo velour (silky soft) hand dyed by me and felt boots. They are filled with wool fleece, hands and face are tricot.
They measure 30 cm in height and weigh 180 grams.
They have sculptured faces - little nose and mouth.

Fern

Willow

A close up of Ferns sculptured face..cute!


I am really happy with them!!

Spotty Olivia

This is our ALL time FAV dress pattern. It is so quick and easy....

Pattern: Farbenmix Oliva - the dress part
Fabric: Michael Miller Knits bought at Crafty Mamas


And a cute HUUPS embroidery finishes it off!

Thanks for looking!! :)

Banana cake with crumble topping into muffins

Recipe here . Instead of pouring the mixture into a cake tin, I divided it into muffins pans. These are delishes!!

Fridays is Rustys Market Day

I love going into Cairns early Friday morning to buy our fruit and veg for the week!

Here is our fruit for the week. See a couple mangoes in there..yummmm! Those will be the last mangoes I buy as we have two trees full in our orchard.

Only in the tropics!

Would you hear this conversation
Lucas 'Mama, we are going to play in rain'
Me 'Righto, don't forget to put your swimmers on'

And here they are..playing with their off road lego vehicles through the puddles in the rain.
Straight afterwards, an hour in the pool


No threat of cold, flus from playing the rain here..it is TOO HOT!!

Our guard dog!

He looks scary doesn't he..our 45kilo puppy!! lol

Farewell Gift

To a very special family from our homeschooling group!
And nothing says 'Remember the Tropics' like a little tie dyeing!!

It is a piece of white homespun I tie dyed and then backed with some bought blue homespun. I added a cotton batting in the middle for some strength too.

They could use it as a wall hanging, lap quilt, picnic rug..whatever they please. As long as they remember us when they use it :)

Goodbye!! You will be missed!

HOME SWEET HOME meets Mini Cavaleros!

I really love this machine embroidery flag set design by Luzia Pimpinella and available through HUUPS
Sorry about the poor photo..I find getting a photo of the full set difficult!

A close up of the flags

I am not a person who particulary likes skulls BUT I love this fabric!! After using it for this set for my sister, I HAD to buy more.

How groovy would it look in a bag. And I gotta say it...I love the pom poms too!

Rainbow Made picture

By Mollie

How bizarre!

I walked out the front door on Friday to get the mail and I noticed something in the lawn.
On closer inspection, I found this.....

A GIANT mushroom. Mollie and her friend think it is a fairy circus tent!

Comparison to my hand

And yesterday, it looked like this..

Yep, a brain!!

Weird hey..I will take a photo of it today..I haven't checked it this morning :)

And the boys have been busy too

Setting up, playing, redesigning, playing, maintaining, racing, developing Dh's SCALEXTRIC slot car race trackYes this is in our sunroom..right where our dining room table is SUPPOSED to be lol.