Backyard adventuring, the flowery way

We are back from a glorious little adventure up to Toowoomba to enjoy a few days soaking up the spring sunshine at the Carnival of flowers. There is nothing better than going for an adventure somewhere in your own backyard and it amazes me to discover that just over an hour away is this taste of a much colder place where there are actual different seasons and not just extremely hot and not quite so hot.

We rented a gorgeous little queenslander cottage close to the centre of town and spent four days exploring the spring delights on offer.

We scootered our way through masses of beds of poppies, tulips and an assortment of other colourful blooms in Queens Park.

We relished in the child themed floral displays at Laurel Bank Park. The space themed garden beds were incredible and I couldn't get it all in the shot so there is a picture of the map instead! Not to mention the wisteria arbour with the most incredible aroma, if only they were serving scones and tea in there.

We joined the twilight crowds at the fair, staying up late to see the spectacular fireworks. Miss Liongirl had her first Ferris Wheel ride while Roboboy had his first mouse in a ball experience.

Can I say that once inside these giant inflatable balls, your children will just run themselves ragged and it is like the cone of silence in there. Wishing we had a set for home!

We sampled some playgrounds with the best views around. This would be Webb Park set right on the escarpment.

With the longest steepest slides and the fastest pedal whirly thingies.

We loved exploring all the secret paths in the Japanese Garden.

And of course a cafe stop at Picnic Point is a must.

Brindabella Rose Gardens  was my treat, a rose and a clematis were stashed in the back for the drive home. The magnolias and rhododendrons were spectacular and we caught the tail end of the azaleas and the start of the roses.The garden also has numbered paths which kept the kids busy working out where to go next.

In the midst of all this adventure, the kids experienced their first hail storm and were so excited to duck  out and collect all the 'snowballs' when it rapidly blew over as quickly as it arrived.

And would you believe we even managed to squeeze in some oppie time, and of course it was the one op shop that we stumbled onto by pure chance, that had the vintage sheet stash. I will do another post about the wonderful finds but in the meantime I will leave you with some windy sheet love.

So, now that I am completely inspired after all this spring colour, I cannot wait to show you the goodies that I managed to ferret out. In the meantime, the Carnival of Flowers runs for another week so if you don't have anything planned for the second week of the school holidays, I think there are some good kids activities running too.

We stayed at Ashbrooke Cottage and could not fault it for location and found it perfect for little kids, there was even a long long concrete driveway for scooters.

And a perfect front porch for stopping to smell the flowers.

Can I just add that I have obviously only just worked out how to make collages, just in time as with this  many photos I needed it. Cannot believe how easy Picmonkey is to use. Lastly apologies for such a long long post. Back soon with some colourful vintage goodies.

A spot of colour

Well, thank goodness those school holidays have finally arrived. The end of term had left me with a tired,cranky six year old, a  witchy three year old and me, well, I have been alternating between tetchy and snippy with a good deal of meh on the side. This little pile of goodies did slightly improve my mood, pyrex with sunshine yellow spots is just perfection in my mind. And the kids are swooning over those parfait cups with matching dangling spoons. They are now locked in battle over whether to go back to the oppie and get the green one that was missing the spoon, Liongirl is against, Roboboy just wants the full set, spoon optional.
He almost can't sleep at night knowing there is another little dish out there somewhere.

So while I was floundering around feeling tired and cranky, I was trying to think of a pick me up, something to get my mojo back. And then I remembered that a little white wall painting usually helped my mood enormously, and there was certainly still quite a bit of custard to be dealt with. Especially the wall that mocks me while I sit in my white lounge room.

Did I mention that I was tired and cranky? The only downside of painting in this state of mind is that you are highly likely to step into your sugar soap bucket as you come down a ladder to get more paint. As I am prone to leaving full buckets of paint on top of ladders, I just figure it could always have been much worse.

I tend to paint in small sections and do all four coats to completion before I move onto the next area. This allows me to work at night while the kids are asleep and not create too much havoc in the house. Can I just say that while I am sitting on my lounge that wall is no longer mocking me, but it was too dark to take any decent photos. It did however not prevent me from moving everything back and creating a wonderful new spot for our Little Golden book collection.

Not sure when I will be back as we are off on a few little holiday adventures, but I can confirm there will be white wall pics, some gorgeous scenery, flowers galore and hopefully some country op shopping.

Milk glass magic and mulberries

I encountered a real milk glass magic moment at the oppie the other day. When I walked in the crockery shelves seemed unusually empty, so after a brief glance I wandered around, checking the manchester, the box of fabric scraps and the childrens toys. Then lo and behold as I went back past the shelves, there was new stock, just placed that very moment, including these two glorious pieces of milk glass. Poof, like magic they just appeared, and poof, equally quickly there were snaffled up, paid for and stashed into my bag while I danced a little jig.
The vase on the right is a "Fenton" which is a much more opaque white than the more translucent dish on the left. I presume the Fenton is a much higher quality milkglass ( the same as this cake plate gifted from my MIL) than the more translucent dish. Does anyone know about this? I actually love the translucency of what I suspect is the inferior product, and love that light makes them glow on my windowsill..

Those vintage sheets are being ironed and sorted by colour with some spring blossom to distract me from my kitchen issues. Miss Liongirl and I had a pink princess party to attend. The degree of excitement for this event makes me concerned as to how she will get through her own birthday party without hyperventilating and passing out. (When the birthday girl was overwraught with emotion at NOT getting the pink necklace instead of the purple one, my girl was kind enough to swap her own pink necklace for the inferior purple one.  She may have also been concerned that if the moment was not salvaged quickly  we could have all been sent home without sampling the cake).

See the happy birthday girl, sporting her pink necklace, while miss Liongirl is happy sporting her favourite pink party frock, pink drink and pink straw. Plus who needs jewellery when you  can park your pink caboose next to this table and just graze for a few hours.

Our mulberry tree appears to be ripe a month earlier than last year. How my little tree and little children have grown in 11 months. Peek here if you need proof of growth.

Would you believe, the milk glass has been topped by some pyrex? Back soon with more spring colour.

Custard and Banana, the new decorating trend

So spring is here but unfortunately I have not quite been bouncing around with a spring in my step. Possibly because my kitchen is in dire straights. It appears that all my kitchen appliances have got wind of an impending renovation and have decided to simultaneously revolt. The dishwasher is hanging in there, just, but is doing a decidedly dodgy job.  The expensive stove installed by previous owners is a grim situation. Three of the five burners work, the oven seal collapsed and recently the oven itself has shorted out the power twice and now runs continuously unless we turn it off at the wall. You can imagine how long it takes to heat up and how joyless it is to cook with. Have I mentioned before that I cook nearly everything from scratch due to children with food issues? Then there was an incident of superhuman strength from the three year old who managed to pull out and break my implements drawer.

To say that we had storage issues before would be an understatement, but now when I go into our office to get all the pantry items that will not fit in my pantry, I  also have a large plastic bag full of egg flips, whisks, can openers and the like. The final straw was the discovery that two of the three kitchen lights have blown and cannot be fixed with a new bulb as it is actually the fittings that have corroded. Grrr. Did I mention we have been shopping for state of the art light fittings?

Yes, that would be a ten dollar industrial work light  from Bunnings. See how the banana of the cage fitting perfectly complements the custard of my kitchen wall ? The only upside of all this is that it is highly motivating us to sort out our house plans. We have a new draftsman who has been able to produce some great images to help us make the final decisions we have been struggling with. These are still a work in progress, but it's getting close.

Now I am just spending my spare time bribing  a three year old with biscuits while I study the merits of louvre windows and learn about the principles of cross ventilation. (There is now an assortment of high end window showrooms that  have little trails of biscuit crumbs all over their posh lounges).  And distracting myself with some spring blooms.

Very excited to pop back soon and share some milk glass magic.

Father's Day Makeover

This weekend past was Father's Day and we pulled out all the stops to show Legoman how much we appreciated him. There were homemade cards (I cut out the clothes and Liongirl did the rest), our cat seems to have received a few extra legs for good measure,

And then of course Roboboy wanted to make one of these too, (do not ask me what is going on with all our necks, but given that he rarely draws people we will take what we can get).

There was a sleep in for Legoman followed by French toast and gifts of the Bonds variety. And then Liongirl scheduled in him in for a little "Fashion B'Pashion" whereby she trots around wielding my old makeup pots and brushes and attacks anyone who sits still long enough. Poor Legoman.

At least she had been practicing on her dolls,

And her friends. Unfortunately this involved a real pot of blue eye shadow that was liberally applied as both a lipstick,

an eyeshadow,

and full facial mask. Thank goodness for best friends who are thoughtful enough to coordinate their frocks.

In other news I haven't been op shopping as much lately  as it  feels wrong to be bringing home more stuff amidst the great purge of our recent declutterings. However, I didn't pause in the slightest a few weeks ago before snaffling up this lovely vintage dolls rocking chair,

and some more of my favourite pyrex pattern,

with matching lid ( I have never seen one of these before, usually the lids are missing or are clear glass).

Back  soon with new plans, more pyrex and Spring in my step.