Land of the lost tennis balls

I had a bit of a clean up today and came across Jack's stash of tennis balls. I thought we were going through quite a few, but it turns out they were mostly all under one cupboard. So I got them out for him and he set about putting them all under various low furniture. I managed to get this photo before he lost them all again.

Cupcakes and trousers

I remember being told by my friend that she didn't like the facebook cupcakes because you cant eat them. I came across the most amazing cupcake site, Cupcake bakeshop, that actually shows you how to make the cupcake so you can eat it! So if your keen on making one of these chocolate cupcakes with strawberry icing, click on the link above...

I also found a tutorial for 10 minute trousers that I thought would go well with the 90 minute shirt I linked to in an earlier entry. I should mention that these are for children, although I guess you could apply it to adult sizes. There are a few other great little how-to's at Made by Petchy that are worth looking at if you want to make your own baby bibs, bonnets, sun dresses (in case one of my friends has a baby girl)

Its raining

It has been raining here heaps. Everything has filled with water and is overflowing, which means a busy time collecting water samples to make sure everything is okay. But the worst part is living in a unit with a dog. Twice a day he gets soaked through then waits till he is inside before he shakes mud and dog water all over everything. Jack is definitely not a house dog. He should be outside wallowing in his mud puddle, not left alone to sit on my white bedspread. A bedspread that now has a brown dog shaped splat in the middle. And he looked so innocent when I got home too...

In the meantime I have found a cute little cupcake thingie I know Dez will like. If I was a better knitter I would knit one of these for her.

But I must warn you that one day I may learn to knit more than just a basic knit stitch, then I will be making up one of these things and posting it out to Tumut, or maybe I could adapt it into a knitted cupcake hat and then she could wear it around town (Thank you Cherry heart for the handy tutorial in strange knitting speak that explains how to make one of these sweet cakes).

I also came across a great idea for displaying kids drawings. Normally I would google straight past something like this, but since so many of my friends are having kids now I thought I might add it to my ramblings. How does she... seems to be made up of contributions from heaps of different people and has some great ideas for all sorts of kid related projects. The best one (I think) is about the tooth fairy. Since most of my friends kids are all just getting their first teeth it is perhaps a little premature, but I think it is a great idea. I won't explain it here, I'll let you click on the link and read it for yourself. I love the boy version of a 'pirate tooth fairy' instead of the traditional girly 'tooth fairy', makes you think they would nick the tooth and hold the child hostage for more...

Distracted by shiny things

Today I did a good thing and karma rewarded me. I took a pile of paper to the recycle bin and found some off cuts of shiny cardboard. I was shocked when I heard myself say 'you cant throw that out, I can use it for something'. I then had the grace to be embarrassed since I wasn't alone during my moment of scabbiness. To be honest I am not sure what the something is. I was thinking I could do some shiny gold hearts to go with the red ones I made a few weeks ago, or a gold chain out of loops, or turn them into a trendy coaster (How about orange has a great tutorial on making woven coasters out of magazine pages, and it works out pretty well. I am using some to stop the tins in my cupboard leaving rust marks everywhere).

Anyway, I was thinking that it would be great to have something to shove all the little bits of fabric and thread that is produced while making tiny little hexagons. Quite by chance I stumbled across the perfect thing, and I wasn't even looking! The Pink Penguin has a tutorial for making a fabric basket. I am thinking of making a fabric basket out of fabric to put all my fabric off cuts into so they don't end up everywhere. Ah, more things to add to my to do list...

New and improved

I have finally gotten around to adding a list of my favourite blogs to the sidebar. I have a feeling this will get fairly long since I was able to add quite a few in just one short afternoon of googling. At some point I am sure I will organise them somehow, but for the moment they are all just jumbled in together.

Anyway, as mentioned earlier it is finally raining here. Which is great, except it is almost impossible to take photos. I took heaps yesterday afternoon, and this is the only one that kinda worked out... Hear that? Thats the sound of photographers everywhere falling off their chairs. Well I did say kinda...

Life on the edge

I am living life on the edge and posting this during an amazing thunder storm. I guess there could be lightning too, but I dont know because I have closed all the curtains for the night. Its the first lot of rain for the last few weeks which is great, it has hardly rained this wet season. Or perhaps I should call it the slightly damp season. To the left is a picture of the harbour with a storm coming up. I love how vivid the bay went.

Anyway, it appears I have almost recovered from a very monotonous week of training at work. I spent most of the weekend feeling like my brain had been replaced with lumpy mashed potato. So I did the only sensible thing I could think of, tried to do my uni work. It didn't really work out so I made a few patchwork pieces instead.

This is my first attempt at doing patchwork and I happily cut up a couple of shirts I used to wear when forced to work in an office. I am still forced to work in an office, but at least I get supplied with a uniform. Actually when I think about it, this is a very expensive piece of patchwork. Anyway, I found this pattern made using hexagons, so I think I will have a go at copying the idea. Yes, shamelessly copying someone else's idea. See I'm not artistic at all, I get it all from google (instructions for making the hexagons using a paper template can be found here)...

Yay! Magazine day

It was magazine day today. The one day each month that I am able to get all the magazines I have developed a strange addiction to. I love the newsagent logic that I came across when I asked when a particular magazine might be coming in. I was told that the magazines are a kind of 'job lot' and they don't really have the ability to order magazines in. I said that it was a shame since I had started reading this magazine and was looking forward to the next edition. The lady smiled and said 'thats okay, we'll order it in for you'. Hmmm....

Stress and biscuits

I came across a definition of stress that I think is extraordinarily... or perhaps I should say eerily close to how I was feeling today;

"the confusion created when one's mind overrides the body's basic desire to choke the living daylights out of some jerk who desperately deserves it"

Or my own definition that replaces 'choke the living daylights' with 'hit repeatedly over the head with a stick in time to each syllable of what I am saying' but its not as catchy. I don't want to post something about how crap today was, or how it ended with me walking back to the office and getting fairly burnt in the process. Needless to say there was a lot of "stress" (as defined above, with either of the alternate actions) involved.

Photos, photos everywhere

I finally figured out how to compress photos so I can post them. Its a bit embarasing since it is actually fairly easy. Here is Jack watching the budgies flapping around...

He will sit there all day watching them, and they seem to know this.

And here is a close-up of the paper cut-outs on the window. I can't remember where I got the images from, they are silouettes of pictures I have saved while googling. If I find the original site I'll post a link to them.

I have become a bit of a fan of paper cutouts lately and came across this interesting idea for used paper rolls...

Its sunrise

For a while last year I was happy joining in with a drabble website, until it disappeared one day (for those who dont know drabble is a short story exactly 100 words long, the rules depend on whos making them up on the day). Luckily I am too lazy to count how many words I had, and I saved everything in a word document so it could be automatically counted. Which means I still have them even though the website I posted them on is gone.

I mention this because I stumbled across a web page, Velvet Verbosity, that encourages people to drabble. So I thought I would post a drabble every so often as a bit of a change from my rants and non-existant photos that are still too large to upload.


Theme: Its sunrise

Jenny pushed herself to wake up in the darkness. There was no alarm set, just the driving desire to find out. She wiggled out from the thick warm blankets into the chilly predawn air. She pulled on a jumper over her nightdress and the pair of jeans she wore the day before. Carefully so no one would hear she crept through the dark house. Once outside she sat down to wait, her knees tucked up under her jumper. Light spilled over the horizon and the firm knowledge that she knew; there was no loud, booming crack of dawn, just sunrise.

Trucks are not toys

I spent most of the day driving around doing general investigation. This mainly involved looking at all the things I had been promised would be done, only to find no one had been anywhere near the task let alone actually completing it. So it looks like I will be out there again soon to remind these helpful people that the task still requires doing, and yes I will be checking to make sure it gets done.

In my travels I came across what I like to think of as the toy yard. It makes me think of a particularly pedantic child lining up all their tonka toys...

I have also come across a great blog that shows how to make some really cute boy's t-shirts out of Dad's old shirts. I understand that in some cases there would be screams of protest against this, but when the child is to young and naive to protest why not make one, force them to wear it and take a photo to taunt them with later? Seriously though, Made is a great blog (and Dana explains how to do puffed sleeves if your feeling a bit Anne of Green Gables).

Extra afternoon post

I have just stumbled across the most amazing car in the universe. I know my cupcake loving friend will just die when she sees this...

Yes!!! Its a cupcake car!

I know my friend is looking for a new car, and I thought this would be great. I bet no one in Tumut is driving one of these babies! You can even pick the icing, how great is that?

Lunch time is an illusion

This blog seems to be rapidly turning into 'what I did in my lunch break'. I don't know if I should worry that this short amount of time seems to be the most interesting part of my day. Still, I am indebted to my only comment so far for inspiring me to fill today's lunch break with pointless activity.

Yes, I am talking about the picture to the right. I spent my lunch break doing that. I was pretty happy with the end result and plan to clandestinely print it up at work and stick it on my wall. I think its an improvement on the 'you don't have to be crazy to work here...' poster.

Cut and paste

Its amazing the things you can do in your lunch break, aside from eat lunch. pfah! Why waste your time eating when you can make pointless paper thingies? I stumbled across a blog made by someone who clearly has more time on their hands than me. If you like a bit of cutting things out of paper and folding it into stuff, toy-a-day.blogspot is a great place to waste your lunch break. I couldnt help myself and made a little bender (a character from futurama for anyone not 'in' with the kids) that sits below my monitor calmly puffing away on a cigar all day. A great mascot for working in the Health, Safety and Environment department!

Busy busy

Today was another day of procrastination. Actually, when I think about it the last three months have been too. I am avoiding the mind numbing task of writing my masters thesis. I can only imagine the boredom of the poor person who has to mark it if I am having troubles writing it. Still, I managed to write a bit today so I don't feel too guilty about my excessive time spent googling, reading and generally avoiding everything I am meant to do. Its at times like these I think of Douglas Adams' quote;

"I love deadlines. I love the wooshing sound they make as they fly by"

In the mean time though, I found a great site full of crafty things. I love the big headed elephant! (you will probably need to click on this link to see what I am talking about). Then to finish off a busy day of... not much really, now that I think about it... I took the dog to the beach to relax. Hmmm, well I am sure the dog had a busy day with watching the budgies flying around. He certainly seemed relaxed at any rate.

A new day, a new blog

As part of my advanced procrastination abilities to do something that I wouldn't ordinarily do when I should be doing something I dont want to do, I have started this blog. It seemed like a really good idea early this morning, until now. Staring at a blank page with the task of writing something it all suddenly seems like a lot of work.

Anyway, I thought I would make the attempt at posting something fairly regularly to share... well stuff in general. To make a start on this plan, I thought I would share a link to an interesting blog full of fun stuff to look at. This is where I got the idea for a paper heart garland which I think looks really nice hanging up on my book case...