Pink Whimsy

University

               

This semester I have decieded to go back to uni.  I am doing an subject called "Narrative in the Creative Industries"!!  If you think that it is all a bit wanky then you are right.  But the tutor I have, Adrian, is so well meaning in his own passive sort of way that it is endearing rather than irritating.  Plus I am starting to enjoy the lectures and the information is much more universal than I first thought, so I must say that I am enjoying myself.

botox baby

I have a giant pair of wrinkles between my eyebrows.  They have just arrived on my face in the last 2 or 3 months, I can't remember having them before.  These two ghastly beasts of squinting, deep thought and frustration have made their presence permanent.  Rudely,  they have taken up residence on my face without any prior consent, I believe them to be squatters.  Unwelcome infringements on my youthfulness.  I want to hand them a notice to leave, in other words BOTOX!!!!   Oh am I desperately tragic or am I just a woman in our world, where youth and appearance are paramount and worldliness and experience are put out to pasture.  And truthfully, I am just not ready to eat grass.

resolute

             

Sorry I have been away.  To tell the truth not alot has changed in my life since the last entry.  I am still fighting against the current when it comes to keeping house, although on the bright side, I think I am finally getting better at laughing at the domesticity of it all.  As a child my mother said that I was the messiest kid she had ever seen.... if she could see me now, doggedly working away at it, desperate to make it shine and gleam.  Somehow I think that maybe I was destined for greater things than vacuuming and laundry,  that all this cleaning drudgery is killing off the part of me that is ambitious and exciting.  Or am I just scared by how fast this life is moving along, disappearing  into middle age.  OH but it isn't all gloom and murk.  I have my great kids, my degree, my art, terrific friends and family and a partner that accepts me for me and loves me wholly despite my eccentricities (which have scared off many a suitor before!) and A really messy house!!  So I have come to a resolution! I am going to stop making a clean house my life's work and just make it part of my life.   I think my new thought process will mimic a fridge magnet I once read " DULL women have clean houses".  Here's to not being dull!!!

house work

       

I have been cleaning my house continually for the past three days and things just seem to stay the same.  I am trying this new thing of being really organized, so my home runs like a well oiled machine.  My main concern about this new goal of mine is that I am just too lazy to be efficient.  Maybe I need a feather duster and a saucy maids apron to get the job done!  You have to love Elvgren, he's bringing sexy back.  Any how, I must get back to my list of chores.  After all cleanliness is next to godliness, or is that a big fat fallacy, I will let you know after my house is clean!

Craft Show

I went to the stitches and craft show on Friday and picked up a heap of fat quarters.  Some for a black and white quilt I want to make and some others just for the loveliness of them.  I wasn't as excited as I have been at previous craft shows but I think it's because I know what I am looking for and what I like so much more than I did when I first started quilting.  My tastes have refined.  I am however just as excited about the fabric,  so here is some of the fabric that I bought.

These are for a black and white quilt that I am going to start any day now.

These fabrics were bought for their loveliness only.

My house

I have been feeling a bit tired of my surrounds.  As I mentioned in the URGES post, I have been having itchy house feet and I feel like shaking things up a little to fall back in love with my house.  SO I deceided to put together a post that was about my house.  To be precise,  my favourite parts of my house.  These are some photos of my favourite things, bright copper kettles and brown paper packages tied up with strings excluded.

    

This is the back of one of my kitchen chairs.  I love my kitchen.  It is an original 50's eat in kitchen and when its clean I love love love being in there.

This is my back steps.  The umbrella is an italian one from the 1970's that I bought for $5!!  The floral gardening gloves are hopeful to see dirt one day.

These are my lovely candle sticks, thrifted silver platers and the street sign that my partner James and I stole when we were nineteen.....all on top of my low boy that I keep all my crafty stuff in.

These are my paper dollies that I made for an exhibition I was in last year and my fav lamp with plates that belonged to my dad's mum.

   

I bought two of these cane chairs for a song and lovingly restored them.  This one is in the corner of my living room, with my two of my favourite cushions, the one at the front I made.

    

Here is cumfy corner of my home.  The quilt made by me with all of my favourite vintage buttons quilting it together, and the photo that our friend Steve gave to me for my 30th.

    

QUACK... thrifted wooden ducks that live next to my microwave.... and sometimes thanks to the kids, in the microwave!

My front yard .... we spend so many hours playing out there.

This is the corner of my room that I sit in and enjoy.... I love this colour combination.

This has been cathartic and I have definately really enjoyed finding, photographing and showing off my homes little corners.... my feet are not as itchy anymore.

 

urges

         

Do you ever get the urge to move???  Just to pack up your things and try a new home, filled with fresh possibilities?  I love my house sooooo much but at the moment I am salivating at the idea of moving to a new environment.  I have been looking at real estate.com everyday, looking at not only around my area but at Melbourne as well.  We have no intention of moving to Melbourne right now, so I don't think that anything this drastic will come to fruition.  Maybe I just have itchy house feet.  I have had them before.  We have been in our place for just over one year, and there are a lot of things we would like to do but being renters we have to put the brakes on, which is very frustrating.  I have actually been looking at rather run down houses to move to so that if I did something like rip up the carpet and paint the floorboards, the owners probably wouldn't care. Or if I wanted to change the light fittings and paint the kitchen the palest of pinks and the bathroom pastel apple green they wouldn't mind.   I might talk to my real estate about getting rid of our carpet and polishing up or waxing the boards underneath.  That might calm down the moving itches and urges.  And I would have lovely, easy floorboards to clean.

Crafty mummas

One of my favourite past times is looking through blogs.  I will look at blog and then link through to another one from their list of recommended blogs and then another and another and on it goes.  I just love it, in fact I just finished doing it.  I must say that the best thing about blog surfing, is finding a wealth of talented women and mothers out there, just doing their art and craft whilst juggling the demanding life that is being the matriarch of a family.   I feel a kinship of sorts with the people who write these blogs, people I have never met.  An understanding.  It is greatly inspiring to see what other people are doing in their creative and home lives, proving that quotidian does not equal dull.  I am intoxicated by the joy of motherhood and domesticity oozing from these pages.  The excitement of a few stolen moments with the sewing machine.  The heaven that is a great thrift buy.  The thrill of vintage.  Oh my what fun!!! 

Here is a quick glimpse of a new cushion I am making, the floral aqua fabric on the petals is the result of one of my latest second hand store runs.... it isn't finished just yet hopefully before the end of the week.

             

   

Am I GOTHIC?

Anyone who knows me, knows that the word "gothic" makes me cringe if it is used in any other context than to describe architecture.  But I have found the most beautiful handmade jewellery website that uses the word "gothic" in its title.  I was looking on Google images for vintage bows, like you do, and up popped this image.

      

Beautiful isn't it, and something I would definitely wear.  So I became intrigued and left clicked on the image, I found Decarabia Gothic Jewellery. 

    

Now this has me kind of worried.  I like something that is tagged "gothic".  Have I always been "gothic"?

                

I really like black, skulls, and Edwardian burlesque glamour like Dita von Teese but I hate bats and tacky pseudo vampire imagery.  Maybe I am "Fancy gothic"?? The kind of "gothic" you have when you remove pimply teenagers hanging out in the mall in trench coats from the equation.

      

Or maybe I am not "gothic" at all.  All I know is this jewellery kicks.

FATTYBOOMBA

     

I have just finished watching the biggest loser finale!!  Oh some of the contestants looked unrecognisable, transformed.  It has inspired me to take my own weight loss alot more seriously.  No more of this haphazard post-baby weight loss, I am getting serious!!  And after I lose weight I may even show a photo of myself on this blog....maybe.  In the mean time, to the gym.