crafty doings

Well you will all be pleased with my recent creation but I have lost it so I can't take a photo of it yet and post it but I shall tell you all about it instead.

Mothers day is looming around the corner and amongst the pinata making I am a touch ahead of myself and thought that I may make some mothers day gifts for the mums in my life that mean the most to me.

On Friday night I decided to have a go at something that has been on my mind for sometime, a pincusion. Of course those of you who are well ahead of me here will realise that I have gleaned inspiration from your wonderful blogs. So thank you very much for all of your inspiring creations. I hope I have come up with something truly original for the life of me as I would hate to be labelled a thief or plagarist!

I thought a bit outside the square and made a mushroom or toadstool I guess would be more specific but I will be following it up with a mushroom. it has a typical red cap with white spots, pink gills and a white stalk. I'm considering adding some type of grass around the bottom but am still nutting it out, when I locate it again I'll decide I'm sure.

Well the pinata is finally at the started stage and will be rapidly progressing, I hope, over the next two weeks. I think it will have to be done for the weekend after next so not much time but enough. just.

better get back to the grindstone that is work and will keep you up to date of course!

stay tuned

Happy ANZAC day!!

Yeah a day late but let the remembrance linger I say.

D's birthday is on the 24th, the day before ANZAC day so we tend to celebrate on the latter day.
I decided that I would cook dinner for him as a treat and invited his parents and some of the family. I also took the liberty of inviting his bf who was very happy to be invited and came bearing beverages, a trip down memory lane he called it.

I spent the morning prepping things ahead of time. Chopping, slicing, blanching, baking etc. Boy does this help! D reclined on the couch and finished the book, Mao's Last Dancer, that he was ripping through. This is quite an effort for him as he has several books on his night stand which are in various stages of completion and he started this book on our "honeymoon". So it has taken him 22 days to read! I'm impressed.

Then I had a break and we went and bought some office supplies for his business and I bought a couple of winter tops with the money I earned from the detailing of a boat that I did on the previous Friday. More on this later, I think.

It was really nice to have the day together just pottering around. We don't really get to spend much time by ourselves without others demanding attention.

For the dinner I decided on an all Kiwi/Aussie affair with a hint of Malta of course.
Classic roast lamb dinner with roast potatoes and pumpkin, julienne carrots and a gorgeous salad with beans, fetta and pinenuts dressed in olive oil and lemon juice. Pavlova with raspberries, dark and white chocolate shavings and MIL brought a caramel slice with coffee and walnuts in the caramel, tasty!

I found out that D loves the film, The Gods Must Be Crazy, so I thought this would be a great present for him. I was fortunate that there was a promotion on at the ezydvd stores in Australia where they had "classic" films presented in a tin. The tin came with both The Gods Must Be Crazy I and II, I didn't know there was a sequel! So this was a surprise for him when he opened it! I made the paper from a cute image of a baby baboon examining something like a leaf and had a quote from the movie over the top. D read it before opening the gift and after a bit recognised the quote from the movie. I was impressed with this but he had watched half of it on Sunday night so he may have remembered if he'd seen that part.

The thing I love about occasions involving D is that he always states "No gifts, No party's". Bah humbug is what I think and do it anyway, and of course he loves it when it comes down to it. While I was preparing all the food I was trying to keep him from discovering how much of it I was making giving away the fact that the roast dinner I was making for him was for a few more than the two of us. I managed to keep this up until we left for the break to the shops where his curiosity was piqued by the tea towel covering bowls on the table. When he saw how many carrots I'd julienned he became wise to my secret. I didn't let on his bf was coming though. I left that until he arrived that afternoon. Milo barking gave away that we had an early visitor and D's proclamation of "I think someone is here!" in that voice where he knows something is up and I've been sprung again, made me have a wee chuckle to myself and I answered with a "well then you'll have to get the door!"

Oh it was fun to say the least and he even suggested that we cook the roast on the fancy new bbq that his dad had gifted us for our wedding. Perfect, I was hoping this would happen as I was wondering how on earth I was going to roast enough potatoes for 10!!

Next on the agenda is the dolphin pinata for his niece. I like a challenge!

Stay tuned.

absent-ness

Yes well I am now officially off the market as one collegue put it. I'm married! Yay!!

I can't believe what a whirlwind the last week before the wedding was and there are so many things that didn't get done but we had a wonderful day aside all the things that went wrong, and the list is pretty impressive!

I'll just fill you in on a couple of major ones.

The first is the biggie, my mother ate to top off the cake before we even had a chance to cut it! It might sound really horrendous but it wasn't too bad. I had a profiterole cake, croquembouche, and as a topper I had a crown of sugared almonds. My mum spied the cake not long after the ceremony and asked if she could have some to which the obvious reply was not until after we cut it. A couple of hours later I caught mum red handed stuffing the almonds into her mouth. The obvious tirade of "what are you doing's?!?!" ensued and after a moment I stopped and did the whole, calm down ness, thing. It wasn't that bad but I did have to point out in the speeches afterwards what had happened.

I find it really amazing how many people didn't notice something like that had happened.

I wanted the ceremony to happen in the upper garden at the site. My husband to be on arriving decided that it was much nicer down by the water so moved the guests down there. A few minutes before I arrived a really gusty wind blew up and htb decided that we should get married on the boat. So I was delayed yet more with this shuffling around of guests and was around half an hour late. I was champing at the bit and really just wanted to marry where we originally intended but again this was out of my power and after the initial tirade of "but I wanted to get married in the garden, not on the boat!!!" I calmed down and just accepted what was going to happen.

As it was it was really amusing to see the flower girls walking down the jetty throwing their petals only to have the wind whisk them away into the water before touching the ground. I was in hysterics watching this and thankful for this as otherwise I would have been a mess of nerves.

Pleased to say that I didn't cry at all during the ceremony, it wasn't until the speeches that I lost it because I just love his family so much and am very greatful that I am part of their family for real now.

Well enough mush better get on with my life now that I have some time to craft again. I think next on the cards will be a hat for my beloved brother.

I must say that I'm happy to be back blogging and can't wait to get on with it so stay tuned!!