New Year, New Room

After a nice long reprieve, Operation Room Swap could be put off no longer.  Steve decided that Cheyenne had to move into the front room because her room at the back (that she’d had since she was born) was too cramped and far too cold in Winter.  We decided it would need to be done during the holidays, since there was a lot of shuffling of furniture and the front room needed to be painted before that could happen.  Cheyenne picked out the paint colour she wanted for her new room.  A nice pink called Paper Daisy.

Cheyenne spent a week on holiday with Nanny and Poppy at a caravan park, so we took advantage of that week to get everything done. 

The "before" shots of the rooms.

First we had to move everything out of her old room. For the better part of a week we had to live with her bookshelf in the hallway, her dismantled bed in the rumpus and the rest of her furniture in the lounge room. Then I had to empty everything out of my craft room and move it into her old room.  Then the hard work began. 

Over the next few days, while Steve was at work, I sugar-soaped the walls then got stuck in to the painting.  I would highly recommend not painting on the two hottest days of Summer if you can help it …especially with gloss enamel for the trims.  That stuff is not my favourite at the best of times, but in stinking hot weather it is tacky and nasty and a bugger to apply.

Walls done. Now for the trims...

By the end of the week it was ready to move her furniture back in, including the new tallboy we’d bought her.  Steve had been worried that the pink paint was too dark, but it’s a nice contrast to her white furniture, and hopefully she’ll be happy with it for several years.  The trick will be trying to get her to keep it tidy.  So far, so good.

Fit for a princess.

 

I would also like to add, that despite my reservations, I’m rather pleased with my new craft room …even if it isn’t quite finished yet.

Steve even surprised me by attaching some pieces of alloy angle to each cube, so my over-desk shelf could finally be installed.  Only took him about 5 years, lol.

Cat Lady

I'm not afraid to admit that I am a "cat person".  Steve is not.  I guess you're either a cat person or a dog person.  Dogs are nice and all, but I'd rather have a cat.  This of course, means we have a stalemate situation in our house.  While both Cheyenne and I want to get a kitten, Steve is dead against it.  You might think that two against one should mean something.  It doesn't.  As much as I want to get another cat (since my beloved Zephyr passed away last year), I'd prefer to have a peaceful home life, so to keep Steve happy, we haven't got a cat.  We haven't given up, though; we are still working on him.  Maybe one day he'll give in.

I bought this cat pot plant holder ages ago because it was cute.

It sat empty on my potting table ever since I bought it, for one reason.  The pot is so damn small (just 7cm in diameter) I wondered what I could plant in it that wouldn't get pot-bound too quickly.

Recently, I decided that maybe a small ornamental cactus might be ideal, because, A. you can get quite small ones, and B. cacti are better suited to me because I often forget to water my plants.  So, despite the fact that the local Bunnings had a nice selection of small cacti, I believe it was fate that decided which one I chose.

Not only was this one the right size, but it was covered in "hair" (which fits with the cat theme).  It was flowering when I got it. It gets a ring of pink flowers around the top, which is kinda cool, since none of my other cactus plants have ever flowered. But the best part?  It's called "Old Lady" cactus.

So now I have an Old Cat Lady that isn't embarrassing.  LOL.

O is for October, a month of "O"s

O is for nearly Over.

This means that all our birthdays are done and dusted for another year.

Cheyenne turned 8 in September.  She celebrated by having two of her friends sleep over (OMG, sooo won’t be doing that again for a few years!), and by getting her ears pierced.  (O is for just a tiny Ouch.)  She was very brave and had them done one at a time.

I turned 38 a week and a half ago; which is a rather unremarkable milestone.  About the only remarkable thing about it is that I was on Fraser Island at the time, lol.

O is also for the Big Four-Oh…and also for Old (Bahaha, I had to put that in). Yep, Steve turned 40 just last week.  You know you’re getting old when your idea of a birthday bash is a quiet bbq with a handful of friends, lol.

O is for Overdue.  Trip to Fraser Island, that is.  Finally, after all these years of going to Rainbow Beach, I have managed to actually go to Fraser Island for a holiday.  Technically, I have stood on the shoreline of the island a few times when we’ve gone over in the tinnie flicking for flathead, but that isn’t “visiting Fraser Island”.   At the Rainbow Beach Fishing Comp earlier this year Steve won (well, technically his dad did, but it was Steve’s fish) barge transfers and one night’s accommodation for 4 adults at Eurong Resort.  So we paid for 3 extra nights (they didn’t charge us any extra for Cheyenne) and went over with his parents.  The plan was to do the touristy stuff, so no fishing rods were taken. (shock horror).  Although Steve has been to Fraser Is. many times on fishing trips, he hasn’t gone to most of the tourist spots, so this was a first for him as well.

 Amusing ourselves with self-portraits on the s-l-o-w barge trip, lol.

 Ocean views from our top floor balcony!

We stopped at the wreck of the Maheno (along with every single tour group and carload of backpackers on the island), went to the Champagne Pools (so named because of the frothy bubbles when the waves hit the rocks) and drove up the Eastern beach as far as Nkala Rocks. 

  
We stopped several times at Eli Creek, which was fabulously icy and refreshing on the hot days.  Most of the freshwater creek is only knee deep but there are a few deeper holes you can take a dip in.

Another day we did the Southern Lakes Scenic Drive and then on to Lake McKenzie, where Steve and Cheyenne went for a swim, but the rest of us decided it was too chilly. We also walked along the boardwalk beside the creek at Central Station.

 The sand is so white at Lake Birrabeen and the water is crystal clear.

  

The above sign post cracked me up.  

Don't even think about camping on the edge of Lake Boomanjin.   

(Actually, as this lake is not crystal clear, has no nice beach and is, to be honest, pretty swampy and manky on the only side accessible by road, I don't think the sign is really neccessary.)

 Lake McKenzie has crystal clear water and reflects the colour of the sky.

We saw dingoes (although not as many as you’d expect), whales in the distance (I sooo need a better camera with a telephoto lens *sigh*), a starfish in a rock pool, and a camera-shy echidna hurrying across a track.   

Someone had carelessly discarded some fish frames on the beach, attracting a dingo.  We pulled up alongside to watch it.  A handful of gulls circled, trying to steal some fish.  One got a little too close and the dingo asserted its claim on the fish.  While we watched, it jumped up and snatched the gull out of the air.  Once it was satisfied that the gull was dead, the dingo calmly returned to the piece of fish.  Let that be a warning to other gulls. Don't try to steal food from a dingo.

We were blown away by the amount of devastation caused by the recent bushfires.  Such a huge area of the island is now black and ghostly. Luckily, a lot of Australian native plants need fire to regenerate, so the area won’t stay black for long.  The grass trees seem to be the quickest to recover.

All in all, it was a lovely holiday, albeit far to short for my liking.  It is so nice to go places and actually see something other than bait and fishing gear.

Weekend Sewing Project

...well, maybe a long weekend.

So I’ve been sitting on this project for…   oooh, nearly two years now, and seeing as I was in a creative mood last Sunday, I thought I might finally get on with it.

There seems to be a trend of "re-styling and re-purposing" at the moment.  Everywhere you look, crafty people are turning one thing into another thing.  May as well join the bandwagon, right?   To tell the truth, I was already planning on using Cheyenne’s old kindy sheets for this project, way back when I bought the laundry hamper.  I mean, what else was I going to use them for?  She did use them (as sheets) once or twice when we went camping, but she really is too big for them now and they don’t fit her camp stretcher.  It just seemed a waste to chuck them out and not do something with the material.  But hey, now I can seem trendy and say I’m re-purposing them, LOL.

So, it’s a cheap and not-so-cheerful laundry hamper from a bargain shop.  Cost me about $14.  Ugly plain linen bag complete with dodgy, el cheapo stitching and unfinished wood – you know the ones I mean.  All it needed was a new bag (courtesy of Cheyenne’s kindy sheets), and a lick of paint and it would look fantastic in her bedroom.

I love the floral pattern and colours in this fabric.  I fell in love with it at the time when I got it on sale at Spotlight. So much so, that I think I got some in blue tones as well…  * note to self - hunt through material stash *

After much grumbling and swearing, I gave up trying to un-seize the lift on my sewing cabinet (last time I was packing up my machine, the lift got stuck about a third of the way down, and now it won’t go back up again either!) and just made-do.  Just as well I wasn’t sewing something huge that I needed the extra table space for!   The bag is such a simple shape that it all came together very quickly and I only really had to stop and think when I came to do the buttonholes on the tabs.  OMG, the last time I sewed a buttonhole was in Home Ec at high school.  Thank goodness for my Bernina instruction manual, haha.  Result?  Four perfect buttonholes.

With nothing left to do to the bag other than sewing on the buttons, I turned my attention to painting the frame.  Cheyenne’s bedroom furniture is white, so I was determined it had to match.  Quick trip to Bunnings for some spray paint (yes, you're right, I'm too lazy to fiddle around with a paintbrush) and I was ready.  First, the primer. No problem there.  Now the top coat...  Two coats of white later and I could still see patches of the primer showing through. Seriously?  I could be re-coating forever…  Time to rethink the colour.  I sewed on the buttons while I thought about what colour would be more likely to give a nice even coverage.

I decided to go with a bright pink paint, which would pick up some of the colours in the fabric. That meant another trip to Bunnings in the morning.  *le sigh*   Naturally, it rained all day, which put a stop to painting.  My “weekend project” had now stretched out to three days!  Thankfully, yesterday was fine and I got two coats of pink on the frame.  Touch dry in ten minutes, my arse!  Not even after 20 minutes!  After retouching a few touch marks, I set it to dry overnight.

 Yes, pink was a great choice, I think.

Ta Da!

Finally, it is finished. Yay! My "weekend" project only took 4 and a bit days!  Although Cheyenne will be using it in her bedroom straight away, it will match even better with her room décor when she moves into the front room at the end of the year. After we paint it pink, that is. And after I move my craft room out and into her current bedroom… and don’t even get me started on that!

(I’ll leave THAT for another post)

Oceans of Fun

“Have you started your project yet? You’ve known about it for a couple of weeks. How are you going to get it finished on time if you haven’t even started?”

Sound familiar? Seriously, I think I’m beginning to sound like my mum. Oh the horror! LOL.

Welcome to 2RS semester 2 assignment. Environment Dioramas. They had to choose between a Natural, Social or Built Environment and build a diorama. The even had the boxes supplied for them. I’m sure Cheyenne chose the biggest box. No shoebox for her. Oh no, that would be too easy. She ended up with a file box. Which then sat untouched on our lounge room floor for about two weeks!

She decided to make an ocean diorama. With that initial decision made, she figured there was no rush to get started. In an attempt to try to motivate her, I raided my craft cupboard for things which she might find useful.

Cheyenne knew she wanted to have starfish made from kitchen sponge (not sure where she got this idea from, but they do look pretty good), rocks, seaweed, coral, anemones, jelly fish, an eel and of course, fish. She didn't think she would be able to draw fish that looked like fish, so we compromised and I printed out some pictures she could colour in and cut out.

This was all well and good, but she couldn’t start putting it together until the painting was done first. After much nagging by me she finally got stuck in.

The bottom and three sides of the box had to be painted blue for the water, and the fourth side was smeared with PVA and covered with sand (from her sand pit). In lieu of real rocks (which may have been a tad heavy and tricky to glue down, LOL), we grabbed a few smallish chunks of styrofoam from the Great Mountain of Styrofoam behind Steve’s brother Brett’s shed. Don’t even ask... Trust me. These chunks of styrofoam were painted a sandy colour and glued into the box. Coloured pipe cleaners twisted together became seaweed, coral and anemones, and poked easily into the foam. Yet another good reason to not use real rocks, LOL.

I’d saved an individual pudding container “just in case” (yes, I’m genetically predisposed to hoarding, LOL) and this became the jellyfish, with kitchen string for tentacles. Cheyenne was unsure how to make the eel. After a bit of thought, I suggested a wiggly balloon, stuffed with cotton wool, with googly eyes stuck on.

Much fun can be had with an assorted pack of googly eyes, LOL.

All that was left to do was to decide where to position the star fish, shells and eel, and where to hang the jelly fish and fish by their fishing line. 

...Oh, and write up a materials list and draw up the plan (which, of course, was supposed to be done first, but hey, whatever, it’s grade 2 not high school).

 

The finished product.

As practising in front of Steve and I was deemed to be “too embarrassing”, I was unsure how her presentation would go. They were to be marked on how well the construction "followed the plan" (ROFL), their discussion of their strengths and weaknesses and general oral speaking skills.

This afternoon I asked her how she did and what she said. Her reply? “Good. I just said some random stuff.” Good grief!


Her teacher reassured me that she did do quite well, apart from not making eye contact. Apparently she was too busy facing her diorama, pointing out its features, LOL.

Collection or Obsession?

Ah, Lego. You never really grow out of it. In fact, I still have an ice cream bucket full of random Lego from my childhood.

Back then the Lego men (there were no women) came in city characters or space men (they may have just started to do a limited range of knights as well). They ALL had the same yellow heads with the same smiley faces, and that wasn't really a bad thing. It was just they way Lego men were.

Somebody at Lego finally came up with the idea of updating the figures. They now have awesome facial features. No more boring smiley face, lol.

Last year I was waiting in a checkout line at Target and saw a box full of packets of individual Lego figures in what appeared to be a “lucky dip” type arrangement. I bought one just to see which one I would get. That was Series 1 of the Minifigures. Had I known that in Series 1 each of the 16 different figures had individual barcodes, I probably would have gone back the next day to find the ones I wanted.   I didn’t.    I never saw another box of that series again.

Earlier this year I noticed a box or two of what turned out to be Series 3. (Not sure why I never saw any Series 2 figures.) This time I was determined to get several of them. I guess you could say I became obsessed, lol.

I spent a lot of time, in various stores, squeezing foil packets to try and figure out which figure might be inside. Random shoppers would give me odd looks (naturally) but several were intrigued enough to actually stand there and help me squeeze packets! (Lego had wised up that the identifying barcodes reduced sales because people only bought the ones they wanted, and they now had no obvious identifying marks). After many wasted hours a nice lady told me that, although they all looked the same, there were apparently some Braille-like dots on the back of the packs which would help. Five minutes on Google and I had the code breaker, so I managed to get the Fisherman, Biggles, Snowboarder and several others.

Series 4 has been harder to find. They were released in April but don’t seem to be stocked at the usual places.  The Braille dots are a wash this time round (damn you Lego), so I have gone back to squeezing packets again.  sigh...

At long last I have FINALLY found the Hazmat Guy that I’ve been searching for.  The expression on his face is priceless.  

Now I just have to find the urban skateboarder…

...sigh.

This could take a while.

Slack!

I really didn't think it had been that long since I last posted.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered my last post was in February ! February... Seriously ?

It isn't that absolutely nothing has happened since then, it's rather that it has all been so mundane and not worth blogging about. (well... that and the fact that Facebook games have kind of sidetracked my life, lol)

I promise I will try to make more of an effort from now on.

Not right now, obviously, because I'm off to do a bit of shopping and meet a friend for sushi. Mmmmm... sushi :)