Land of the lost tennis balls

I had a bit of a clean up today and came across Jack's stash of tennis balls. I thought we were going through quite a few, but it turns out they were mostly all under one cupboard. So I got them out for him and he set about putting them all under various low furniture. I managed to get this photo before he lost them all again.

Cupcakes and trousers

I remember being told by my friend that she didn't like the facebook cupcakes because you cant eat them. I came across the most amazing cupcake site, Cupcake bakeshop, that actually shows you how to make the cupcake so you can eat it! So if your keen on making one of these chocolate cupcakes with strawberry icing, click on the link above...

I also found a tutorial for 10 minute trousers that I thought would go well with the 90 minute shirt I linked to in an earlier entry. I should mention that these are for children, although I guess you could apply it to adult sizes. There are a few other great little how-to's at Made by Petchy that are worth looking at if you want to make your own baby bibs, bonnets, sun dresses (in case one of my friends has a baby girl)

Its raining

It has been raining here heaps. Everything has filled with water and is overflowing, which means a busy time collecting water samples to make sure everything is okay. But the worst part is living in a unit with a dog. Twice a day he gets soaked through then waits till he is inside before he shakes mud and dog water all over everything. Jack is definitely not a house dog. He should be outside wallowing in his mud puddle, not left alone to sit on my white bedspread. A bedspread that now has a brown dog shaped splat in the middle. And he looked so innocent when I got home too...

In the meantime I have found a cute little cupcake thingie I know Dez will like. If I was a better knitter I would knit one of these for her.

But I must warn you that one day I may learn to knit more than just a basic knit stitch, then I will be making up one of these things and posting it out to Tumut, or maybe I could adapt it into a knitted cupcake hat and then she could wear it around town (Thank you Cherry heart for the handy tutorial in strange knitting speak that explains how to make one of these sweet cakes).

I also came across a great idea for displaying kids drawings. Normally I would google straight past something like this, but since so many of my friends are having kids now I thought I might add it to my ramblings. How does she... seems to be made up of contributions from heaps of different people and has some great ideas for all sorts of kid related projects. The best one (I think) is about the tooth fairy. Since most of my friends kids are all just getting their first teeth it is perhaps a little premature, but I think it is a great idea. I won't explain it here, I'll let you click on the link and read it for yourself. I love the boy version of a 'pirate tooth fairy' instead of the traditional girly 'tooth fairy', makes you think they would nick the tooth and hold the child hostage for more...

Distracted by shiny things

Today I did a good thing and karma rewarded me. I took a pile of paper to the recycle bin and found some off cuts of shiny cardboard. I was shocked when I heard myself say 'you cant throw that out, I can use it for something'. I then had the grace to be embarrassed since I wasn't alone during my moment of scabbiness. To be honest I am not sure what the something is. I was thinking I could do some shiny gold hearts to go with the red ones I made a few weeks ago, or a gold chain out of loops, or turn them into a trendy coaster (How about orange has a great tutorial on making woven coasters out of magazine pages, and it works out pretty well. I am using some to stop the tins in my cupboard leaving rust marks everywhere).

Anyway, I was thinking that it would be great to have something to shove all the little bits of fabric and thread that is produced while making tiny little hexagons. Quite by chance I stumbled across the perfect thing, and I wasn't even looking! The Pink Penguin has a tutorial for making a fabric basket. I am thinking of making a fabric basket out of fabric to put all my fabric off cuts into so they don't end up everywhere. Ah, more things to add to my to do list...

New and improved

I have finally gotten around to adding a list of my favourite blogs to the sidebar. I have a feeling this will get fairly long since I was able to add quite a few in just one short afternoon of googling. At some point I am sure I will organise them somehow, but for the moment they are all just jumbled in together.

Anyway, as mentioned earlier it is finally raining here. Which is great, except it is almost impossible to take photos. I took heaps yesterday afternoon, and this is the only one that kinda worked out... Hear that? Thats the sound of photographers everywhere falling off their chairs. Well I did say kinda...

Life on the edge

I am living life on the edge and posting this during an amazing thunder storm. I guess there could be lightning too, but I dont know because I have closed all the curtains for the night. Its the first lot of rain for the last few weeks which is great, it has hardly rained this wet season. Or perhaps I should call it the slightly damp season. To the left is a picture of the harbour with a storm coming up. I love how vivid the bay went.

Anyway, it appears I have almost recovered from a very monotonous week of training at work. I spent most of the weekend feeling like my brain had been replaced with lumpy mashed potato. So I did the only sensible thing I could think of, tried to do my uni work. It didn't really work out so I made a few patchwork pieces instead.

This is my first attempt at doing patchwork and I happily cut up a couple of shirts I used to wear when forced to work in an office. I am still forced to work in an office, but at least I get supplied with a uniform. Actually when I think about it, this is a very expensive piece of patchwork. Anyway, I found this pattern made using hexagons, so I think I will have a go at copying the idea. Yes, shamelessly copying someone else's idea. See I'm not artistic at all, I get it all from google (instructions for making the hexagons using a paper template can be found here)...

Yay! Magazine day

It was magazine day today. The one day each month that I am able to get all the magazines I have developed a strange addiction to. I love the newsagent logic that I came across when I asked when a particular magazine might be coming in. I was told that the magazines are a kind of 'job lot' and they don't really have the ability to order magazines in. I said that it was a shame since I had started reading this magazine and was looking forward to the next edition. The lady smiled and said 'thats okay, we'll order it in for you'. Hmmm....