A Bush Christening

I’m playing catch up, with a hard drive brimming full of photos reminding me of the year whizzing by. Back in April   - yes APRIL! – my not so little tiny baby niece Violet was christened. Held on my parents property, the event brought together a wide and large range of family and friends of Ashley and Chelsea, as well as those belonging to two other little “unbranded” boys in the district.

The venue for the official bit was held on the “jump-up” overlooking the property.

My oldest daughter Kate and the daughter of close respective friends, Grace, were chosen as godparents (along with a slighter older friend of Chelsea’s) a rather inspired move (I hope!).

Our laid back Frontier Services Minister performed the service. And I took lots of photos…..so many photos.

The little boys not being so sure about this big bloke and his water, but did not leg it (or successfully anyhow, but there was no wailing!)

Stellar family photos for the album…

Chelsea’s cute nieces Vivian and Maggie wanted their photo taken too, along with my mate Mel and cute Isabelle (obviously in NO MOOD to be smiling thank you very much!) The light was so so good.

After the official part of the day was finished, we went back to the house for festivities. I neglected to take photos of the wonderful set up on the lawn – tables and chairs laid out, fairly lights strung and lanterns on the tables.  Another mate, who was handy with a pig on a spit, and required a sleepover the night before in order to have things under way at 6am that morning. He took his job very seriously.

And so he should have…it was delicious! All catering was done by my Mum and Chelsea, and outsourcing handful of family and friends. No one should have been hungry, that is for sure.

And then…we went home. Sore footed (impractical shoe choice for mountain side scrambling) and quite tired from proceedings…two out of three kids having decided that being on the hill after the christening was boring, so walked part of the 4kms back to the house, until they were picked up by granma, standing on the side of the road like some dusty bare footed urchins.

And Violet? went to bed, plumb tuckered by all of the fun, just after dark, and wasn't seen again. After all, she was only the excuse for the party!

doing stuff

I gave myself a bit of a mental shake the other day and decided to get in and DO some of the things I had been THINKING about doing for ages (you know those jobs you think will be tricky/time consuming/brain numbing)

I had the material, and laid in bed thinking about the how that morning, and then decided to DO, and give this old chair a badly needed facelift.

I wouldn't say its professional by any means (I had to use calico on the bottom of the cushion) , but it IS done and I have a few mental notes about the next two I have to do...because once you start, you can't have one looking all smicko and the rest all sad and dowdy.

Instead of tackling another armchair, today I decided to do the "easier" cane tub chair that needed a new cover as well. I fell in love with this fabric at spotlight the other day. I think I need to get some more.

 Eagle eyed people will note that the fabric is cut the wrong way...I think the vine should run UP instead of across...my fault for not paying enough attention at the first cut.  I've also just hosed the chair down and tomorrow will give it a nice coat or two of tung oil (I was going to stain it but don't have the stain, so why wait for something that isn't essential!)

The second armchair, which forms a pair with the first, will be covered in the same bright, rather garish fabric as the first (but I kinda like it a lot?!) and the third, which sits inside by the fire...I am not sure. I could use the blue/grey/navy which I love and it looks awesome, or perhaps wait and find something alternate but equally as awesome....oh decisions decisions!

in need of a bex and a good lie down

the kids, now old enough to read the calendar and realise the date, were well aware that the 1st December had come upon us. Yesterday morning, as soon as they got out of bed, began pestering me to put up the Christmas decorations.

Finally, after giving them jobs to do every time they asked about the wretched (oh yes, feeling the cheer) tree, I gave up.

And then, as you do, instagrammed it all. Clearly not embracing less is more this year, the slightly wonky tree is quite loaded, but the kids are happy. Anyone coming to the front gate will be blinded by the sun reflecting off the tinsel wound there, and then soothed by the gentle glow of the lanterns draped along the louvers on the front veranda

That's before we even drape the long strand of coloured fairy lights along the front fence - the bit I love the best. Sadly now, as the garden has grown so thick (as was intended) we hardly even get to see these in their full glory unless standing on the road, so to counteract I hang some icicle ones from the gutter of the back patio. Which I can see from the kitchen sink.

But I'll save the fairy light extravaganza for another afternoon, for now just the finding of the tree and its trimmings and the creation of this little random Christmas vignette was more than enough Christmas Fun.

Please admire my new china reindeer, picked up for the princely sum of $3.

Hope you're finding the HO in your own ho ho ho...I will say this: it was a rather good excuse to be in the air-conditioning today! Its more like Hot Hot Hot in these parts!

researching

For a long time, we've been wanting to do some work on our small front verandah, lest one day an unsuspecting visitor get slapped on the face when they stand on one of the several loose floorboards. Finally, our local builder man paid a visit with tape measure and pencil (the live in builder-man declaring he was too busy) looked underneath things and poked at timber with a critical eye, not unlike a surgeon decided which diseased bits need to be taken out.

While he is here fixing the floor, I have also asked that he close in the open wall of the verandah, which in wet weather is a real pain in the bum.

You can see the open side above, the rug on the floor covering some pokie-out nails that refuse to bed down (an indication of the state of things down below)

Today I've had out the yellow pages and done some googling, sending off a few emails to get prices on shutters to fill that space above, so we can close them when it rains, but have them open for light and breeze, when its not. Not is about 80% of the year.

I've settled on aluminium, as they aren't as 60's/70's looking as I had in my head.....

 

  So now I just have to sit back and wait to be shocked by the prices that hopefully I will be getting tomorrow.... edited to add: if anyone wants to know what I find out, just drop me a line, I am finding out all sorts of interesting things!

Of course, it will never look as polished or charming as any of the pictures that I dredge up from around the www, but at least my precious pillows won't be getting wet every time we get a vigorous shower of rain.

Mind you, the knowledge that internet does not = reality, doesn't stop me from thinking, with eyes half shut and rose coloured glasses firmly in place, that my garden could easily look like this with just but a little tweak (and a chaff bag of $$) here and there....

the husband will be thrilled about my paving plans, I can hear him groaning about his back already :-) (I do wonder how they keep the lawn and pavers so pretty?!)

an idea I had....

that sort of worked...

My lovely friend Mel gave me a gorgeous tea towel as a gift - she knows me well and just what I would like - and I just loved it. Too much to simply put it in the tea towel drawer, even though being linen it would in fact be an excellent dish dryer.

Instead, I remembered seeing somewhere in a magazine how someone framed a lovely printed tea towel, making a cheap and colour bit of artwork.

Our walls are pretty bare (apart from cobwebs and dust, but that is another story titled Living In The Country) so I decided to give it a go. And fortuitously, when I went to Charters Towers the other day, I found the EXACT sized large (50 x 70 cm, so very large!)  frame I needed, for only $12! I bought three.

Which is a good thing, as I have broken the glass on my first attempt to get this project underway. (stupidity on my part, as usual)

Firstly, I unpicked the hem all around the tea towel, and gave it a press with a hot iron. Of course, this would be easier if I chose a pattern without so many straight lines, an all over print would be smarter!

I laid the glass over the tea towel, trying to get things as straight as possible. Drew around the glass and then cut off the excess fabric, just inside the line I drew.

The frame.

I then placed the trimmed towel on the backing board (I flipped the bit of paper over so I had a white background to lay my white towel onto) keeping everything lined up as best as I could. Placed the glass directly over the top (try not to drag it over the area, it will disrupt the placement of your towel). Clipped the little silver things back into place, and done.

And its crooked. But cute.

Now, begs the question: my seamstress/perfectionist MIL reckons she can get the whole thing straight by trimming off and leaving a narrow white border and sewing a navy or black border around this, and then stretching around the frame.

Do we add the border? Or leave it as is, in its kitschy, crooked, loveliness?

I ask, as I have two others to do - same pattern, different colours (CZ each your heart out, symmetry and repetition!)

What do you reckon?

why did I wait so long?

Our house is full of old furniture, some of it antique, some of just plain old. Old, but sturdy and useful. A bit like the house, and dare I say it, the owner (apart from the old part, of course!)

I've had this cupboard/sideboard thing for many years. Originally it lived in the saddle room at my parents property, painted a funny light green colour that was tinted with years of dust and saddle grease. It had a hutch bit on the top, which was very, very dilapidated.

So when I was in need of some storage space, my mum decided to give this cupboard a new lease on life. She removed the paint, found an old pine bookcase and attached it to the top, and it lived as a true "hutch" for a few years, until I decided that the bookcase was required elsewhere. Then the doors on the base wouldn't shut properly, so I took them off. One thing that bugged me, though, was the handles on the drawers.

Pretty boring, yes? And even though this is a functional, working bit of furniture (it houses the weekly newspaper - The Queensland Country Life - my magazine subscription and some other odds and ends ), it can still be a bit pretty!

Honestly, I don't know how I ever got on without e-bay before. Ta daah!

A four dollar ceramic handle (or two), and what a transformation. (less than the cost of a good coffee!)

And as you can tell, no styling was done for these photographs. I was SO excited about those handles. I may or may not have purchased a few more, to revamp a set of drawers that have been handless and bugging me for quite awhile.

I decided to go for an eclectic, mix and match look. Not sure about the orange ones now that I have them, but if I put them on the bottom, they won't be as noticeable.

Ah, sometimes small materialistic things do make one happy! 

getting under control

-  Folding clothes directly off the line, and having the kids put their own buckets of clothes away. Boy gets some help. Otherwise undies (no, they are JOCKS Mum!) end up in strange places. This seems to be working at eliminating the giant folding pile that never ends.

(please feel free to ignore the rampant couch grass in the background) I love those tuff tubs so much that The Husband thinks I am collecting them. Have many. Possibly need more!

-  Girls with long hair will have very short hair if hair ties and bands and clips are not kept in order and in a place that can be found come school time each morning. Today I took matters into my own hands.

The basket is a wee bit small, but I worked with what I had on hand. Its all THERE in one spot. Hair ties in their own container:

and clips in another: ( a totally crappy shot, but you get the idea.) Headbands in another. Hairbrushes and detangler spray ALL HERE IN ONE SPOT.

And the other day, I got the total poops with the kids having the DVD's all over the place in the TV cupboard (which admittedly, wasn't really made for their storage) and dragged this old bookcase out of the storeroom. It couldn't get any more perfect, so much so I can overlook its obvious need of a coat of paint) And it fits this small bit of wall like it was custom made for it.

White? Or a nice BRIGHT shiny red? or all modern and black? (I have black paint, left over from my office shelf painting exercise.  Quite a bit actually!)    The shelf is also a great place to house the library books, stacked in another basket rescued from kids crap today. And the bottom shelf has a few books, plus a stash of no longer watched wiggles and hi 5 DVD's.  (is this a lot of DVD's? most of them are kids, I grab one whenever I see it on sale at Woollies or the like. Sort of looks like a lot here!)

I had designs on the "junk drawer" or lack thereof, but that will have to wait for another day. But it feels good to have things in hand, even if just one teeny, tiny bit. One hair tie at a time! ;-) Stay tuned for the next episode of organising/de-cluttering madness! (super organiser mum I am not. And feel free to google that blog all by yourself. I will keep my opinions to myself!)