Flea Market Find

This week I found a kettle at the local Oppy. I liked the print on it and thought it would be handy to use as a planter.  My herb garden has had a rough time of late with all the grubs and insects so my thinking was that it would be a hell of a lot harder for a slug to shimmy its way up the kettle. When I need some fresh coriander, the kids can grab the kettle by the handle and whiz it into me in the kitchen.

 Drilling holes into its stainless steel bottom for some drainage was slightly tricky.

Not satisfied until I've completely rearranged the garden table, I spent an hour or so mucking around and killing time.

There you have it. A little herb garden made from pre-loved finds and bits and pieces around the yard.

Sophie has lots of treasures over here if you'd like to play along.

5 to 1 on the yellow duck!

I'm not a gambler but one can't help but be compelled to put on a wager when it comes to the Festival of the Sea's Annual Duck Race. Each year we buy a duck for the kids, they provide the race name and we wait for the day to arrive where they all get hurled off the Barwon Heads bridge and race for their little plastic lives. 

For a week the kids coached their ducks. It was a tortuous, unrelenting regime of swimming, sky diving and jet propulsion. With every fibre of their being, Spotty Wot and Scrambled aimed to be the absolute best in their field. They had achieved their physiological peak and were physically confident. 

Charlotte was the first to say goodbye. As she kissed Spotty Wot I heard some last words of encouragement: 

Charlotte "What are your legs?"

Spotty Wot: "Springs, steel springs"

Charlotte: "What are they going to do?"

Spotty Wot: "Hurl me down the river". 

Charlotte: "How fast can you swim?"

Spotty Wot: "Good question, not that sure, my hole at the bottom is unreliable, may take in water....(he trails off)"

Charlotte: "GET IT TOGETHER MAAAAAN, How fast can you swim?"

Spotty Wot: "Oh, as fast....as fast as a Korean-made plastic yellow duck!"

Charlotte: "And how fast are you going to swim?"

Spotty Wot: "What's with all the questions? I'm a duck for goodness sake, ducks can swim.... (he senses Charlotte's mercenary-like stare) OK, OK, as fast as a Korean-made plastic yellow duck!"

Charlotte: "Then lets see you do it".

Whilst Spotty Wot and Scrambled waited in their temporary hold (a rather crude docking station for such well-tuned, athletic poultry), we positioned ourselves near the river ready to scream our lungs out.
 
An odd thing happened.  

Rather than hurling the ducks off the bridge, a small blue craft (which we affectionately call Iggle Piggle's boat) dumped them over the side. The crowd was uneasy and confused. What on earth is going on here? And then it seemed to dawn on us all at once - the tide was going out so the ducks had to be released down stream.

Unfortunately the wind picked up and an onshore breeze pushed our ducks into the hands of bored children who had decided to jump into the river fully clothed.

I chose to turn my head whilst my daughter and her friend gathered up some of the competitors.

Canoes and volunteers then made the mad dash to stop the ducks from swimming under the bridge and into the bluff where they would be sure to meet a perilous end in the mouths of sharks or boat propellers. I think secretly they were all hoping to make it back to their homeland in Korea.

Finally, a winner was proclaimed. Some Irish duck well trained for wet weather racing. A little saddened we didn't make a place, we waved good bye to our ducks for another year and Charlotte promptly had a melt down when realising she couldn't take Spotty Wot home.

Flea Market Find

My mother never ceases to amaze me. She is such the opportunist and always seems to be in the right place at the right time. This week she visited me bearing gifts of the gorgeous kind. She picked up this table at a garage sale for $5.00.

The table had an old wooden knob which we replaced. I'm strongly thinking about painting it, but what colour? What do you think? Note the shrine above the table. That was put there by the original builder/owner when his wife passed away. When we renovated the house, I had firm views that to touch the shrine would be of poor taste and bad karma. So it stayed.  I've tried putting vases in it or pictures but it doesn't seem to work. My mum was suggesting buying a statue of some kind and painting it a bright colour to put in the shrine. So I will ponder this whilst I stare at the table and work through what colour to paint it. 

For some more flea market finds, head over to Sophie's.

Keeping it real

I'm grateful for Saturday morning's...

homemade pancakes with way too much maple syrup

 

and cooking in my pajama's!

Keeping it real on a Saturday morn

What are you grateful for? Head over here for some simple gratification.

My creative space

A rock, a hot glue gun and a doily. Seemingly tame instruments for crafting you'd think. Unfortunately not...a cautionary note that one blogger was hurt in the making of this story.

This story begins when browsing through the beautiful posts of Kootoyoo and settling on Kirsty's gorgeous light display inspired by this art installation. With inspiration in hand, I scurried off to find what I now refer to as the instruments of torture.

 It started off okay. Wasn't that difficult to find a nice looking rock. I rummaged through my stash of doilies and found the perfect one. How hard could it be to use a hot glue gun?

With doily stretched over the rock, I trimmed off some of the edges to avoid too much overlap on the underside and then plugged in the gun. I whacked in the glue tubes and started pushing out the glue. I hadn't thought of how I was going to keep the doily stretched and in place whilst the glue hardened so thought I'd just use my hands. Bad move. Hot viscous stringy glue stuck to my fingers and burnt the first layer off. I didn't feel it instantly but by the time the pain registered with my brain, I had glue on almost every finger. I ran around like a lunatic trying to find something to take it off but I was completely unprepared and could only wait until it cooled down. By the end of this torturous project, I had blisters all over my fingers and a pretty rock which I have no idea what to do with! 

For more creative spaces with far less pain, head over here.

Flea Market Find

My flea market find this week is a little ripper. I'm sure you've all experienced that feeling when you quickly scan the shelves of your local Oppy and make a premature judgement call that there is nothing there for you, only to dig a little deeper into the pile of inconspicuous 'stuff' and be elated with your find. 

So this week, I did just that and whilst burying through a floor full of wicker baskets, I came across this one. The basket itself is in great condition but the moment of elation came when I opened it up to find it full of vintage picnic wares. Orange flasks, salt and pepper shakers, napkins, cups and plates...it was all there. 

I promptly handed it over to the kids and we all set to work making an impromptu picnic in the backyard.

After all, we had seriously dehydrated stuffed puppies to feed!

For more flea market finds, head over here.

Grateful for....

The pristine beaches we are privileged to call home

The innocence of childhood - blissfully unaware of the big bad world

The beauty of discarded glass reshaped by nature

Creating simple art that reminds us of those precious days spent together

Thinking of all of those recently affected by the Japanese Tsunami and closer to home, everyone in Oz and NZ still working on re-building their lives after the floods and earthquakes.

For more gratefulness, head over here

my creative space

Was wondering around the streets the other day (hmm, this post is already sounding suspect!) and came across a local homewares shop. I was instantly drawn to the Kaiku fabric by Marimekko and walked out of there with 2.5 metres of it!

Now I appreciate that I'm cheating a little here because if this was truly my own creative space, I would have stretched that fabric myself! However, 2.5 metres was just too daunting and I really didn't want to damage the fabric with my clumsy, trigger happy hands so I called in the big guns and got my local framer to help me out.


I would love to show you a close up but I'm having terrible trouble getting 'image insert function' to accept a portrait size photo as it will only convert them to landscape! Weird. If anyone has an inkling why this is happening, please enlighten me.

Does ironing the fabric count for anything or at least having the creative vision? 

For GENUINE creative spaces, head over here.

My creative space

 I've had lots of fun this week creating. I've had this idea for quite some time however it's taken me a little while to source the right material. I'm not handy with a needle or a sewing machine for that matter, but I'd like to think I make up for that with the small creative contributions I make to our home. Bright and bold colours are starting to take over my bond white walls, and I'm loving it.

I love the old Masonite clipboards and found some at Officeworks for about $2.00 each. I bought some Velcro dots (the removal kind that you can easily take off a wall without damaging it), and then convinced my husband to help me hang them on the wall. His job was to ensure I hung them on the level with exact spacing (I capatalised on his fastidious approach which usually drives me nuts!).

One clipboard slowly became two, then three...you get the picture (no pun intended).

With all five clipboards in place, I then printed off some posters which were generously donated as downloads by Leanne, a friend of Make it Perfect. I plan to mix them up with some photos to give it a bit more balance but for now, the posters work well. 

My young children love them and it's a great way to encourage them to read. 

 For more creative spaces, head over here.