Gone Fishing

Happy Christmas everyone!

I'm blogging off for a week or so. I look forward to reading your post-season blogs,and to see the pics of what you baked, ate, toasted, visited, wrapped and unwrapped.

Eye Spy...a burst of colour

We met this gentleman at the zoo recently. I particularly like his waistcoat, and hey! it's Bellgirl Blue.

I am playing Cindy's new Eye spy ... each weekend. This week's theme has been chosen by Flossy-P and is Eye spy ... a burst of colour.

Corporate Free Christmas: t-shirts for the kids

I've finished all the kids' Christmas presents!

The littlies are getting t-shirts with Australian animals, made with freezer-paper stencils,


and the slightly bigger ones are getting Star Wars t-shirts: see my tutorial on making inkjet t-shirt transfers.

I'm still waiting for supplies from an Etsy seller for the adults' presents...

Corporate Free Christmas: Making it Pursonally

I've sent off my first Corporate Free Christmas parcel! This one is going to England to my dear friend George, who is the Bug's godmother. The parcel includes:

• 'Paris Kitty' Purse, made with this Nicole Mallalieu kit at Nikki's workshop last weekend
• hand-printed card, printed with craft paint, using stamps cut from a sweet potato and a carrot
• hand-printed wrapping paper, printed with a stamp-pad from the newsagent, using a stamp carved hastily from a plastic eraser (Would anyone be interested in a tutorial?)

I'm not interested in making my life difficult, so I'm really just going for a less corporate Christmas, and hope to avoid spending time in large shopping centres.

Simple two-colour freezer-paper stencil

I'm stenciling along towards my Corporate-Free Christmas, and my latest t-shirt is for the Bug. He saw the stencil and said "Fish!", so I consider it a success.



You can see my stenciling step-by-step here. Hop along to Hoppo Bumpo's blog to join the Freezer-Paper Stencil-Along.

And thanks for the paper, Taccolina!

Veg About: garden update

The only spot in our garden that's sunny enough for vegies is under the neighbours' giant gum tree. With water restrictions, sandy soil and root competition from the tree, it's hard to provide enough moisture for them.

This year I've decided to grow the veg in self-watering troughs on the site of the former vegie patch. I've planted around them with drought-loving flowering herbs like thyme, lavendar and catmint. The herbs look and smell lovely. They also they attract pollinating insects, and confuse the predatory ones that come to eat my veg!

The zucchini are doing okay, although not as well as they would in the ground, if they had enough water.





The lettuces and spring onions are doing really well. Lettuce goes to seed and turns bitter if the water runs out, so this is a great way to grow them.




The Bug's pot is growing well, and one of his Tiny Tim tomatoes is nearly red. The strawberries are dragging their little feet, so they might not be getting enough sun. To the left is rocket, grown from seed. It's really simple to sow, and shoots up as fast as a rocket!

The beans and tomato seem pretty happy, but the tomato (Tumbling Red) is very slow to start fruiting. Aargh the anticipation!

I'm having a Veg About, if you'd like to join me and blog your patch, leave a comment letting me know and I'll add you to the list in my sidebar.

Lazy Ladybird Garden

This special lady dropped in for a garden visit. She's perched on the parsley, which has gone to seed.

Our home has a low-intervention (lazy) garden. That means I rarely use chemicals, including those labeled 'organic'. Instead, I plant local natives, let herbs flower and go to seed, and invite in the birds, insects and animals.

At the moment in the garden we've got birds, bees, lots of insects, a couple of lizards and a bat. They eat plants, pests, seeds and each other. I stand back and let them sort it out. It's less work for me that way, and it's free.

Sometimes my plants get a bit eaten. I try to be philosophical about it. If a bug doesn't want to eat my vegies, I'm not sure that I do either. But possums, if you're reading, keep away from my broccoli!

Eye Spy- somthing in my garden

Here's a fun new meme from Cindy from Bug and Pop. It's called Eye spy, every Sunday each weekend. This week's theme, from Ms Curlypops, is "Eye spy ... something in my garden".

Here's my garden studio. Actually, it's the Bug's studio. Oh alright, it's the Bug's new bedroom. He shares it with Maisy. And Mummy and Daddy. Yes, this is our house.

What's the best thing about it? Is it the fact that I got it at a garage sale for $10? Is it that it was delivered by a troop of small children? or that it's small enough to tie to the top of an ancient Mazda 121 and take anywhere?

I think my favorite thing is that it has a view of the vegie patch. From every room , in fact.

Purse Frame Choir

On Saturday some bloggy crafty ladies did a purse frames workshop with Nikki, the artist formally known as Nicole Mallalieu Design.

Here is Taccolina's pic of our purses: (from left) BigCat, Bellgirl, Reenie-Sue, Taccolina, and CurlyPops.

When they were lined up like this with their mouths open, Nikki said they looked like a choir. The question is: what are they singing? The Beatles, "Money (That's What I Want)"? Ritchie Valens, "Framed"? Bing Crosby, "Pennies from Heaven"?

Any suggestions?