It's good to be home

We have been home for nearly six weeks now and in between all the drama we do feel like we are settling in. Most importantly, the milk glass has all been unpacked and one quiet morning  Liongirl appeared with this trio of floral displays she had  arranged by herself.

There is an abundance of gorgeous spring sunshine and the jacarandas are in full bloom.

Every window at the front of the house has a view like this.

The gnarled old frangipani tree is sprouting it's new green summer canopy.

The sewing room is a half unpacked messy disaster. But we did solve the problem of no table. I had a brainwave to salvage one of the old laundry doors ( from the infamous laundry in a cupboard in the lounge room) and whack it on top of some trestle legs we have had for years. Voila, a huge smooth expanse of table for cutting/stitching and garden window gazing.

While the vintage sheets are yet to be found and colour coded by Roboboy, I did manage to start a little something for my fox obsessed girl.

Who spends her days dressed like a walking rainbow.

There have been tulips from my mum (with leg healing powers).

Even the boy mess looks better on those shiny, shiny floors.

 And there is no better goodness than kindy creations made with love. Eastern long necked turtle of course.

It's good to be home.

After six months of renovating posts I am struggling a little to get back into my usual blogging groove. I had naively thought that blogging about the house renovation would be fun and exciting. While it was both of those things it was also stressful, dull and almost became a chore near the end.

In recent months I also made the discovery that my once small, somewhat private blog was now being read by my neighbours, extended family and the school principal. Yikes. Sharing with strangers in other parts of the world who have a common love for vintage pyrex/sheets/wallpaper/house renovations is quite different to people on the fringes of your real life suddenly seeing inside.

This space, which was always intended to be a creative outlet and place to connect with other like minded souls, suddenly felt intimidating. In real life I am shy, private and  frequently overwhelmed by the demands of mothering a complicated child.  In my blog I like  to be brave, colourful, positive and have gratitude for all the small moments in life that are joyful.

So, after contemplating ending this little space, I think instead there will just be a shift. Back to colour, craft, and sharing what makes me happy (for goodness sakes it's about time for some op shop finds). And mostly, remembering that this is my happy place, and that is all that matters.

School holiday snapshots

Betsy has an old fashioned wind up doorbell, with every wind it lets out a shrill tring tring tring, for as long as the children keep winding. And the children do so love to keep winding. The other morning, early, that tring tring tring dragged me away from the porridge. I was about to rouse, when I opened the door to discover miss Liongirl clutching this crepe myrtle branch in her grubby paws. For me, as a gift, the little monkey had scaled the tree herself to get it. She insisted on a vase and lucky I have so much milk glass lying around.

Now that I have actually crocheted something to completion, I feel completely justified in starting something new, a stripy cushion for the girl this time. Must say, I do feel like a lunatic sitting around doing this in the sweltering summer heat but it gives me something to do while I supervise the kids when they swim. Now just need to work out where I am going wrong on the ends when some rows are just a bit shorter than others.

This is what happens when very clever people crochet- an iced vovo replica. I found this recently at Handmade High Street, looking forward to wearing my iced vovo on my lapel when it cools down enough to wear something requiring a lapel. For anyone unfamiliar with an iced vovo, they have been around for decades and consist of biscuit, pink icing, strawberry jam and coconut.

And look what my mother in law turned up with. A replica of our burmese Bella. So that when Roboboy has a sleepover he can bring his cat with him for company. I think it is an uncanny resemblance. They are also the only ones in the house lucky enough to be getting holiday naps I might add.

Instead we have been doing pretty much daily bouts of hosing on the trampoline.

Visiting our neighbours for swims, we have open slather on their pool as most of their children are all grown up at uni, sometimes if we are lucky their nine year old is home to play.

When it's too hot and the sun burns in the middle of the day we crank up the aircon and fall back on our old faithful friend mobilo,

and dig out old games for another try.

Sometimes I go to the beauty parlour and get extreme makeovers involving yellow eyeshadow and multiple lip glosses. Roboboy made up a menu for me, so I can order from miss Liongirl's extensive range of options.

and later when it cools off, it's time for a ride. i.e. Roboboy and I ride while miss Liongirl sits in her chariot and stuffs herself with snacks. Ah school holidays, we love you and we also just a little bit love that there is only a week to go.

The freakish incident of the yellow sheet and the pink cot

So with a vigorous attempt to declutter the house I have been avoiding the oppies for the last month. I think I was having withdrawels though, so it was time for a quick forage. I have become much more selective in my acquisitions it seems, as I came home with quite a small selection.

Much of my milkglass has been packed away carefully, this pile was stacked in the cupboard after Liongirl's birthday. Reminds me of a wedding cake, or perhaps a fountain. The flower plate at the bottom is new, not milkglass, maybe pyrex.

 The candle holder on the top of the pile was from a recent jaunt away, a rather lovely find for $1.50.

I'm not usually swept up by figurines, but these did move me for some reason. Maybe it's the withdrawels.

There are some vintage sheets, still drying unfortunately. Except for this yellow one, which I wasn't even sure about buying as yellow is not my favourite colour. But try as I might, I could not leave this one behind. It all made sense when my mum turned up and did a double take when she saw it in the washing pile. Seems it was the exact sheet on her bed for most of my childhood. It all came rushing back as soon as she told me. Mildly freakish.

The truly, truly freakish incident has a slight back story. I have a bit of a thing for old wooden toy cots. The little dolly ones hand made by doting grandfathers. Just a few days ago, while he was still high on the spoils of his last gumtree sale, Legoman asked me what was the plan for the cots. I think there were four at that stage. Three were in use in miss Liongirls doll hospital and one was in the granny flat awaiting a paint job. All of them were thrifted and probably cost me a total of $20 for the lot. One is white with a tester to hold a canopy, one is a dusky pink and has gorgeous vintage decals, one is ophanage lilac and is a rocking cradle and one is a  two story lemon number. I fobbed him off with some vague conversation involving me possibly having a shop selling vintage toy cots and clothes one day and he let it go. In short, he was on to me and I would need to guard those cots with my life or they would be next.

The next day I happened to be sauntering down to the Woolloongabba Antique Centre (having secured myself an hour or two of childfree time) when I noticed a truck pulled up across the road. It was a skip truck and there was something pink peeking out the top of the load. The pink something looked a little like this.

My vintage-cot-retinal-scanning-template assessed this as a probable match and I paused for about a nanosecond before running across the road to accost the driver. Yes indeed it was a pink dolls cot, yes it was going to the dump and yes I could absolutely have it. I could have hugged the man. The freakish part, ( aside from the image of a crazy woman lugging a huge pink cot for a block down the street with an equally huge loopy smile on her face) was that this truck was outside the scrap metal yard delivering the metal parts of his load before heading to the dump. He had pulled up for a total of five minutes at the exact time I was walking past. Now if that pink cot was not destined to be saved by me then I'll just eat my valance. So now I have five dolly cots to guard while the selling frenzy continues.

Somehow I'm not sure that telling Legoman that they are all different colours and styles is going to cut the mustard for why they must stay. Wish me luck.

A perfectly pink Peppa Pig party

So, today we are all recovering from a sweltering hot day and a pink sugary high to top all others. The Peppa Pig party was a resounding success, and hopefully the amount of pink involved was satisfactory for Miss Liongirl. Surprisingly, it seemed that Peppa's eyeballs were the most coveted item on the cake, our deck did not collapse and seven little girls can bounce for an extraordinary length of time when they are being hosed on the trampoline.

Now before I share the party theming can I mention that my idea of a good party is one that involves maximal impact for minimal effort ( hence the excessive use of lurid lollies on the cake), and trying to pull it off using what we already have lying around the house. Luckily, I have a very large milk glass collection, and several pink vintage sheets, perfect for the goodies table. I even managed to use my wonderful punch bowl set, picked up from the oppie over a year ago for $10.

Peppa pig bunting was essential.

Miss Liongirl and I made it ourselves, using a carved potato stamp for the head to start from.

We also used these to decorate the party boxes which were a few dollars for a pack of eight.

And for the take home box, everyone got their own homemade Peppa biscuit. I managed to get the biscuit cutter on ebay and I will post the recipe shortly as they were scrumptious. (Of course, like everything I make they were a little wonky but I think that just shows they were made with love).

We made the most of our garden for a treasure hunt, pass the parcel and dragged a scraggly assortment of chairs and stools out on the lawn for a game of  musical  chairs ( which most of the kids had never heard of but thoroughly enjoyed, especially when our three legged stool kept tipping over for whoever sat on it).

After a good hosing on the trampoline, and long swings with mates on the tyre swing, the last stragglers were sent home and it was time to enjoy the prezzies. A gorgeous hand knitted Peppa from my mother in law, complete with a matching handbag.

And using this lovely girl's birthday gift mantra -

 something you want

something you need ( actually what small child "needs" anything other than love, cuddles, a warm bed and healthy food)  but I need her to stop pinching mine

something to wear

and something to read

And to sum up,

Of course in true Liongirl style, before the day had ended, she had already placed a request for a pool cake and a treehouse just like this one for her next birthday. Thank goodness I have a whole year to recover.

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.