Bangle gardens

I often catch myself daydreaming about what my next creation may be.  On occasion my daydreaming is interrupted by a bolt of inspiration.  My latest inspiration is these bangle pendants.  Apart from the chain and the wire these pendants are made from opp shop finds, secondhand beads (that I store in jars in the linen cupboard) and the occasional piece from an old chandelier.

I have made them exclusively for Handmade Highstreet.  If you are a local to Brisbane and love all things handmade go and say hi to Kath.

Sweet potato

Over the past few weeks I have been patiently cultivating sweet potatoes in our pantry.  After carefully tipping them out on the floor and covering them with a variety of cans, packaged goods and anything else I can get my little fingers on.  Okay, so I was picking up all the stuff that the kids had dropped on the pantry floor and found a sweet potato that had sprouted.  I added it to my veranda garden.

My veranda garden is just an old bookshelf.  Here you can see the sweet potato  looking beautiful in an amber glass vase.  If you too want to grow on all you need to do is place it in a container sitting over (not in) water.  It will grow like a vine and even flower.

My bookshelf garden is also somewhere to keep broken crockery.  This includes my 'I like boring things' Andy Warhol coffee cup (my husband broke the handle).

On other potato related news I found that my boys have placed potatoes on their bedroom window ledge???

It turns out that they were feeding the possum.  As you can see he has made himself comfortable over time even modifying the louver to suit himself.  Every morning he returns to his spot and is fast asleep by the time the boys are waking.

I asked the boys why they were feeding the possum potatoes.  They did it so that the possum would eat the potatoes and leave the sweet potato alone.  They are my little sweet potatoes.



Did somebody say elephants?

I am loving making these elephants.  The idea come to me out of the blue one day.  As I made up the pattern they only have two legs (no patience with gussets).  I love being able to use the various pieces of material that fill my cupboard and I love combining the different colours.

This is my latest herd that came with me to my stall at the West End Twilight Markets.  They are made from ....................

An old skirt, opp shop material and terry toweling saved from an altered dress.

A second hand sheet, off cut material, pyjamas and an old skirt.

An old dress, material left over from making shorts, an old tea towel and hand me down material.

An old tablecloth, secondhand sheet and offcuts of IKEA material.



Saint Veronica's

On Saturday I did one of my most favourite things.  I walked to our local opp shop (or in this case, thrift shop).  There are a number of reasons why this is one of my most favourite things to do.

The first is that our local thrift shop is everything that I love in an opp shop.  It is run by a number of devoted grey haired ladies.  They understand the balance between raising money for their charity and providing value for money for the community.  The shop is crammed packed full to the rafters but orderly enough that there is some order to the chaos.  The shop also has a lovely community feel.  One of the ladies that I hadn't seen in a while remembered that I make jewellery.  I left my details so that she can bring in some bits and pieces from home that she thought I could find a use for.

The second is that I always find something to use for the things that I make.  On this trip I bought some awesome bits and pieces for jewellery.  I also found some material that is destined to become an elephant.

The third reason this is that I like to treat myself to coffee at the nearby cafe.

Here we are enjoying a late breakfast.  As you can see she is more interested in the paper napkin than in the organic muesli with yogurt and bush honey.

The last reason is that I love walking the streets of our neighbourhood.  I always see things that put a smile on my face.  One of things that never fails to put a smile on my face is seeing chickens free ranging in front gardens (see earlier post).

Daughter number 2 is learning thrifty ways from her mother and had the presence of mind to bring the paper napkin home with her.  I am expecting some sort of wonderful creation from her for my market stall.

Installation art in our backyard

One of my sons asked why I take so many photos.  There are so many things that make me smile, I answered.  The following is a photo of some installation art that has appeared in our backyard.

The work of future street artists maybe?

Grounded In Vegas comes to Facebook

I am excited. It is a new year, my batteries are recharged and I have a million ideas about things that I want to make. It is Saturday morning and I am already planning a trip to our local opp shop to see what treasures I can find for future creations.

In addition to getting back into blogging I have ventured back into the world of Facebook. It took a while but www.facebook.com/GroundedInVegas has come to town.  The following is what I use for its profile photo.

To me this photo is a good representation of what I like to do.  The design for this came to me day out of the blue (as most good ideas do).  I use second hand materials as much as I can.  This rabbit consist of material from a table cloth, sheet, children's trousers and off cuts.  The skirt was made from a fabric that I bought from a fellow stall holder at the West End Twilight Markets.

The buttons eyes were a true find.  I have lost, somewhere in the house, my button jar (I am sure that we all have one).  I hate buying buttons when there seem to be so many old buttons available for use.  I have started a new button jar but for this rabbit I just didn't have the right style in my meagre collection.  So off I went to opp shop land in hope.  And my hope was rewarded ten fold.  I found a cushion cover for $1 that had 16 of these babies decorating it (it was otherwise an unremarkable cushion cover).

I did sell a couple of my rabbits last year that were destined for Christmas presents for some lovely little girls.  This one came home with me and is now owned by one of my lovely little daughters.

Are your arms warm yet?

I love making things.  On and off I have had a go at selling the things that I make.  My last foray into selling was late last year.  I had a stall at the wonderful West End Twilight Markets.  I had some success selling jewellery and handmade toys.  During the recent break I took the opportunity to do some knitting.  Crazy I know with it being Brisbane summer.  But it is such a slow process that if I don't start now I won't have much to sell in the cooler months.

I am really into arm warmers.  I find them super sexy.  It may have something to do with exposing your shoulders.  Here I am modelling my latest creation.



My photographer husband took the above photo (as I asked him to do).  He then suggested that it would be more aesthetically pleasing if the photo was taken in front of the bamboo (as opposed to in front of my cook books).

While I was knitting these particular arm warmers I was catching up on the latest posts on my friend's blog in Latvia.  The winter images provided me with inspiration. Then this post grabbed my attention and I have been obsessed ever since.

It wasn't long before I was off to Spotlight and the local beading shop.  There wasn't a huge range of colours to pick from in 3ply yarn.  Unless of course you were looking to knit a baby's matinee jacket.  But I did manage to come home with the following.

So how did I even know that I needed 3ply yarn (and size 10 seed beads and 1.25mm knitting needles).  I found a knitting pattern on the Internet.  As soon as I saw the following pattern on http://www.knitty.com/ I was in love.

Dearest Mook, I know that they are not grey with red and green beads but I am hoping that before too long I will be sending them your way.

P.S The photo doesn't really do the colours justice.  It is more like salmon, apricots and moss with little red berries.

I love my wife (enough to get her name tattooed on my arm anyway)

I have finally added a profile photo to my blog. You will probably recognise it as a tattoo. Those of you that know us may even recognise it as one of my husband's earlier tattoos.

Even though you can't see it, the mermaid is holding a scroll with my name. She is looking a bit faded these days but I love her Vegas feel.

IKEA tragic

Here are my two darling daughters in their bedroom relaxing.  You will notice how neat and tidy they keep their room.  Almost looks like an advert in a furniture catalogue.  Hang on!  That furniture looks familiar.  Is that a price tag attached to the pink bad, the chest of drawers, the rug?

Okay, we stopped at IKEA on the way home from the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary.  After dropping the boys off at Smaland us girls enjoyed a bite to eat in the cafe and a wander around the children's department.

I must say that I was relieved when the kids were finally old enough to go to Smaland.  I always felt like I was some sort of IKEA tragic when I walked around the store with them yelling out 'their somewhat Scandinavian names'.

Let's try something different

So, I decided that I would try something different today.  There are only so many times that I can say (or in my case yell) 'leave your brother/sister alone' or 'stop making that noise' or 'I am not your slave' or 'how would I know what you feel like eating' or 'don't think that you are bringing that into the house' or 'I just cleaned that room' - you get the idea - the list goes on.  So I decided that toady a day trip was in order.

We almost didn't make it out of the house.  Shoes that were difficult to find (disappearing shoes may be a future blog).  Arguments over breakfast (I'm not buying you food as soon as we get there).  Have you brushed your teeth?  Yes you need to change into clean clothes (no you can't wear the same t-shirt that you have been wearing for a week).  But leave the house we did and off we went to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary.

Oh the excitement of sitting on a rock.  Son number 2 is being his usual charitable self to daughter number 2 and letting her share his rock.

The delight of eating ice cream.  Yes this is the face that she makes when she eats.  It is hard to capture in a photo but she always looks very serious, almost angry when she eats.

And yes he always poses for the camera.

The thrill of sliding down the slide over and over again.  You can see in the photo the coffee that I was trying to drink at the time.  Unfortunately she could not master scaling the mini rock climbing wall arrangement that they had going so after a quick wizz to the bottom of the slide I had to lift her back up to the top.

Did I mention the sheer pleasure of digging in the sand?

And the impossibility of getting four children to all look at the camera at the same time.

We gave up in the end.

By now you may be wondering where the 'wildlife' part of our day went.  You may be thinking 'surely they have rocks, ice cream and sand within walking distance of their house instead of having to drive for over an hour south'.  Well the kids did manage time for the kangaroos.  This actually was son number 1's favourite part of the day.  He loves animals and especially loved how soft their fur was.  Daughter number 2 was in 'monkey see monkey do' mode.

Daughter number 1's favourite part of the day was the high ropes (which were pretty cool if you were tall enough, of which only the two eldest children were).

Did I mention how exciting it is to climb on rocks while waiting for your brother and sister who are on the high ropes?

Not convinced

In case you are not yet convinced about Japanese plates I have another beautiful example for you. This one came from an opp shop that I have only recently started visiting in Annerley.

It may be a little more difficult to source yourself one of these. The inscription reads Superior Underglaze - Made in Japan. Although a quick search of the Internet lists other plates with the same inscription.

I have a thing for Japanese plates

I have a thing for Japanese plates. Not the beautiful plates with intricate designs. No, I love the plates for every day use that are made in Japan. Below is a photo of my latest purchase.

This beauty is Electra Stoneware - Luna 9011. A quick search on eBay revealed that you too could own the exact same plate for around $10.

we miss you magic land!

Where do you go when it is school holidays, the house feels like it is shrinking and there is no escaping the kids? The Gallery of Modern Art, otherwise known as GOMA. We are absolutely blessed to be walking distance of this amazing building. Although if you ask my children they would beg to differ. Not about being blessed but about it being walking distance.

One of the brilliant things about the GOMA is the Children's Art Centre. One of the current exhibitions is 'we miss you magic land!'. It is a fantasy world created by Pip and Pop. They used cake decorating tools, sugar, glitter, modelling clay and mirrors to create the most magical wonderland.

The photos don't really do the art work justice but will give you a glimpse at its beauty.