Bloggy Break.

Just so you know, so you’re not distraught or worried for my whereabouts (as I totally know you would be…), I’m having a bit of a bloggy break.

From…. NOW.

Playing With Dolls.

Punk & I have been playing with dolls today – I got my first ever Blythe yesterday (Isis, look away now) and am officially in dolly love. She’s not even my ‘first choice’ girl – she is STILL on lay-by, but oh my she is lovely, and so much better than my fakie basaak in so many ways… so I gave her (the fakie) to Le Punk, who, in the course of an afternoon, managed to ‘scalp’ her three times, pull of a leg, frizz up her hair & cover in chocolate chip muffin. Quite obviously, she is adored.

As is my girl, just a bit more… sedately.

I have named her ‘Vida’ after the main female character in my favourite Richard Brautigan novel, she is a ‘Milky Way Sugar’ Blythe, which reminded me of another of Richard Brautigan’s novels ‘Watermelon Sugar’, so, I mean, of course I’d name her something from a different book entirely….

Her gorgeous ensemble above was a gift from an old friend, who I am now convinced has some sort of sixth-fashion-sense, because a more perfect dress for Vida I cannot imagine…

…and the ‘phase’ has only gotten stronger. It is actually quite hard to explain… not to anybody else that likes Blythe, they already ‘get it’, but to someone who wonders what the sudden attraction to a somewhat unconventional looking doll (or any doll for that matter) could possibly be for a grown woman… and I’m sure more than one of you reading this is asking yourself that…

…and honestly… I don’t know what to tell you, except that playing with this thing today has been really, really fun…!

I must be sick.

I finished & posted my postcard for the Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap when I was supposed to… like…. on time… like… yesterday.

AND it was hard. Harder than I thought it would be anywho, the combination of what is essentially a tiny canvas, my original ideas just not looking right & trying to sew with paper & cardboard while screeching to the Punk “ONLY DRAW ON THE BLACKBOARD!” made things harder. I hope the recipient likes it… it’s a rather childish take on the theme (time), but I’m not really one to get too deep & philosophical… especially on a postcard.

More Magnificent Mail…

The weather is dismal here today – not at all the weather I was after for taking lovely pictures of something special that arrived here last week, but it worked out for the best, ooohparently, because it has made for some authentic action shots, as dark as they may be…

A while back I was whinging about wanting a quilt, I still want one, a big one, for our bed, and I will continue to whinge about it, until I pull my finger out and make one, but in the meantime I have something super sweet to tide me over when my quilt longings get too much… an adorable vintage sheet lap quilt from Deb.

For no reason.

She just made it & sent it. For us.

Touched, I am! I think it is a bit of a not-so-covert quilt maker’s conversion kit, a bit of “Look, this was so easy I just whipped it up & posted it, you can make one too!” action, she’s even put up a great tute on making MY quilt, so you can have one too, ‘cause you’re not having mine! (Or, if you really can’t find the motivation, she’s giving a quilt away!)

I say ‘mine’, oh, if only that were true! It has been unceremoniously snavelled by Miss Punk – I was waiting to know the sex of Bubba 2 before I gave it to her because it would have been perfect in a baby girl’s nursery *sniffle* – but now it’s hers & she knows it.

I told you it was cold – I had the quilt in Punk’s room on the ‘reading chair’ (formerly the ‘crafting throne’) and came in to find her quietly set up beneath it with a good book or seven, and then, just as I turned on the computer to blog this, she trudged past me, quilt in tow, and resettled on the sofa for some cartoons.

Thank you Deb, I don’t think I could really say those words enough to convey how much I really appreciate the thought & effort from someone I only know through blogland, I feel so incredibly lucky to have connected with people like you, sharing, generous, kind & creative people like you, it’s amazing, really.

(PS, that cute pink ‘jammie monster’ on Punk’s chair is a bit more mail-goodness, I bought it from Sam of Jetta’s Nest & looooooooooove it too!)

Pincushions – Incoming.

I’ve been dying to show you the awesome that lives at my house now in pincushion form, I was waiting on the last but Mr Mail System seems to have eaten it… no matter, wanting more after already receiving such goodies is a bit greedy, I admit.

I LOVE the pincushions I received from my dear bloggy friends, love them too much to stick pins in them… so they are adorning my mantle piece instead!

I should have taken pictures of each with their extra-goodies-in-the-parcel glory… but I didn’t. Two had chocolate in them. CHOCOLATE. If you think this preggers lady was about to neatly arrange her goodies for a photo shoot and leave that poor choccie languishing in despair, well… you don’t know me very well yet. That’s why none of my parcels were sent out with chocolate in them. Seriously – how does one be around it, and not eat it?

Right!

On to the awesome!

First to arrive was this beauty from Rachelle of Ted and Agnes, with chocolate (why can’t I get that kind here Rach….?! Why must you tease me so?!) & some lovely fabric….

…my fakie Blythe Paige has been using it as a cushion… it goes with her dress, I think!

The next to arrive was from Lovely Lola (Did you know that her name isn’t really Lola?! I know… I can’t get my head around it either… I refuse to call her anything else…), with MORE CHOCOLATE… *ahem* Not that chocolate is all I care about, oh no, but it makes opening the mail that much sweeter… (boom boom!)

It has a chicken on it. A red chicken. Need I say more? Need I?!

And last but most certainly not least, this beauty arrived from Jo. Jo outdid herself here, I’m sure you’ll agree – Not only did she make the most wonderfully cute wee Russian doll/red riding hood hybrid for me, but IT FITS ON DISPLAY PERFECTLY. Even The Boy said so, and he’s not really one for admiring pincushions… She also spoiled me silly with extra awesomeness – RED buttons, yellow doily lushness, the sweetest covered tape measure, a hat for The Punk… there is surely more I’ve missed because I was a wee bit overwhelmed!

Thank you my darlings for playing along, I had a blast and I adore all this handmade pretty that I get to look at every day now… and…. *sniffle* think of you! (Pass the Kleenex, won’t you?) 

I’ve got even more mail-goodness to share tomorrow, do you hate me?

….

 

…bubba 2 is BLUE!!!

Oh. Yeah.

If you ever find yourself in this hideous no wheat/gluten predicament, you might be feeling kind of glum – but take heart kids, ‘cause choccie mud cake will surely cure what ails you (okay, maybe not, but it will sure make you happy for a bit..), and if you’re in Oz I can personally vouch for the Woolies gluten free mud cake & ganache mix.

Oh. Yes.

Look at it will you? What a specimen! I’m kind of ashamed to say this, but I am crap at ‘normal’ baking. If I were to make a mud cake from scratch, or even a regular one from the regular cake mix aisle, it would not look like this. It would be sunken in the middle or burnt around the edges or something, I just really, really suck at normal baking. HOWEVER, this cake has proven my long held suspicion that I’m quite alright at ‘weird’ baking. Never had I enjoyed baking more than when I was whipping up vegan cakes, cookies & cupcakes – probably because they actually turned out AND tasted nice. And now this.

I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised. If I’m going to be good at anything, it’s kind of obvious that it won’t be something regular… oh, also, if you do find yourself in this predicament, and I certainly hope you don’t, but if you do, and you have a hankering for weetbix, especially since your wee one is digging in to a bowl full with abandon, and if you are pregnant, which lets you get away with this sort of thing, then a slice with cream is pretty damn good for breakfast.

Or so I’ve heard.

Coming Along…

So the craft/play room is coming along quicker than I thought it would, mostly due to the fact that I am cutting every corner imaginable & doing a rather shoddy job if I do say so myself…

Opshopped wallpaper – stuck down in parts with PVA glue…

One coat (Might do another… one day…) of blue mis-tint paint, fake grass strewn across the SAND that was under all the erupting tiles…

…blackboard paint… another one coat wonder…

Chair that was here when we moved in, desperately needs a funky cushion…

And there you have it.

There are a few more things to do, cosmetically, like do something about the cement floor, paint my chair, put up a dividing curtain, make a cushion or seven & PUT UP A SWING (sorry… bit excited about that…), but I like it so far. Sure it could be done a bit more…. conscientiously, but I’m kind of desperate to get sewing again!

Flea Market Finds…

 

More here!

Cravings.

And I’m not even talking about the weirdo pregnant woman cravings like ice-cream with pickles or jam & lettuce sandwiches… I’m talking about bread.

Sourdough toast, salad rolls on sesame seed buns, toasted cheese sangas, English muffins, wraps…

I want them all, but I’d settle for one… or a bit of one…

A whole lot of you have been wondering why I’ve not told you whether bubba#2 is pink or blue – the short answer folks is because I have no idea myself. My ultrasound was cancelled last week so that I could spend five and a half hours wanting to kill myself out of boredom in the Emergency room of a hospital an hour away. Before you fret – I’m alive (surprise!) & there is nadda wrong with bubba#2, but I do have a big ass ovarian cyst that just won’t quit that my doc thought might be causing the horrid pain I’ve been having… turns out though that it doesn’t hurt at all, and whatever does hurt is a mystery to the medical profession. Having been through all this sort of thing before for an issue that took years to correctly diagnose, I was loathe to cancel my scan to traipse off to ER with a letter from my doctor, but I did it, like the sad rule follower that I am, and had my fears confirmed – I would be sent home still in pain after being poked, prodded, stuck with needles & left for loooooooooooong periods of time without even an old copy of Golfer’s Monthly to keep me company.

Bum.

So, I promise I’ll tell you the exciting news as soon as I know, but for now, I’m just going to whinge about bread…

The Boy told a rather non-plussed me about something he read about a woman who had stomach/chest pain that nobody could diagnose who took herself off wheat for two weeks & discovered her pain disappeared, she had celiac disease.

As anyone who has ever had an undiagnosed, unyielding pain would know – you are willing to try anything, no matter how unlikely, to get rid of it, so I thought “What the hey…” and have been off wheat & gluten since last Friday. And I haven’t had the pain again.

I don’t know whether to hope for it to be a coincidence (because if it is… well, what IS the matter?!) or to be glad I can never eat anything delicious again…

If I continue for another week pain & gluten free, The Boy says I should go on a wheat binge to see whether the pain comes back… but it really hurts too much to risk that! I will talk to the Dr to see whether there is a more scientific way, but in the mean time I will continue to dream about flying slices of vegemite toast, or running along the beach with background music soaring as a loaf of country grain bounds toward my outstretched arms…

(Click pics for links… and what do you know… searching for pretty pictures of yummy bread has not made me feel any better… you learn something new every day…)

My Creative Space.

What do you know – I’ve actually been ‘doing stuff’ this week! Trouble is, the main thing I’ve been ‘doing’ is painting things in the play/craft room, and I have no pictures… if you think I’m trudging out there in the cold in my PJs you have another thing coming.

The other thing I’ve been doing, or at least, did last night, was some work on a fakie Blythe that came in the mail, she’s a clone called a Basaak & actually the reason I’ve got a hankering for a proper Blythe.

She’s really pretty great, much better quality than I was expecting, like I was going to reroot her hair but I like it as it is, so I have contented myself with customising (*coughs*wrecking*coughs*) her face. It’s all good except for her lips… but you can only see the horror close up. On one hand I’m glad I tried this with a fakie & not a proper doll, on the other I am cursing myself ‘cause I quite like the fakie…

Oh well.

What’s Kirsty up to this week, do you think? Go see, & share your space while you’re at it!

Opping sans opshop.

Punk & I mooched over to Gran’s yesterday & discovered that she’s in the early stages of planning for a garage sale… I have been waiting for this!

I spent ages making a big mess of all her carefully packed bags & compiling a nice mountain of goodies to bring home with me, lovely. I love how she’s priced every little thing, even if that means writing 10c on a little circle of paper & sticky taping it on (I should get her some sticky dots…), & how she’s justified the ‘steep’ prices, like writing ‘Very Old’ before the lofty $1 on a box of dominoes (which I bought…).

I left her with strict instructions to keep any new bags of goodies aside for my perusal, promising in return to help with the garage sale when she holds it. Like I said I have been waiting & waiting, she’s not had a garage sale since we moved here, and since she’d been taunting me with stories of rather regular sales beforehand, well, it’s about time!

I remember hanging about at her garage sales when I was little – and lugging a tonne of stuff back inside ready to take home with me, the best find being a massive box of my Uncles’ old ‘Mad’ & ‘Cracked’ magazines – god I loved those & read & re-read them for years!

Even if she does nae go ahead with the sale, as I have a sneaking suspicion she might not, it was so fun laughing with her about all the weird stuff she’d found, not to mention coming home, yet again, with a bunch of cool Nanna plunder.