Flashback Friday: Music

Must've been Christmas 1977, and I am being embraced by a proud-looking cousin Scott. Plenty of 70s goodness here. (Mum, why the boy clothes?)

Exciting Find!

Check this out for quite a few gorgeous free patterns including softies, kids' clothing, and bags!!! So excited I had to share. Also, the magazine (Ottobre Design, whose website it is) has some lovely clothes patterns.

This is one of the softies: a donkey! Sweeeeeet!


P.S. It's Finnish, so you'll have to click the "In English" item on the left. Unless of course you understand Finnish.

Flashback Friday: T-Shirt

What?! It's been a week already?

This barely qualifies for the theme, but you can just see a t-shirt I used to love with lattice, butterflies and flowers. There was a time when I hated that pic due to the haircut, but now I kinda like it again!

It was 1982, right when we came to Australia (January). I was six-and-a-half. There was a drought going on at the time, and I remember landing (looking for kangaroos as we neared the ground, and being disappointed!) and thinking it looked just like how I imagined Mars -- red, bare, alien. I also remember the heat of that summer (unlike anything I'd ever experienced), and seeing my first huntsman spider (I thought we must be on another planet -- freak spider planet), and watching Playschool for the first time (they said "la la la" very strangely, all guttural-like, not like our flat European L's).

How this land has embedded itself in my heart.

Flashback Friday: Group Photo

I didn't want to post this pic because I look terrible in it (I'm the one pretty much in the centre -- below mushroom-boy -- wearing the freaky head-dress which makes me look like my head is huge, which it is not, and closing my eyes as I often do in photos), but I could not pass up this flashback gold. Check out the costumes!

This was at kinder in Poland, 1979.

I was terrified of the teacher standing to the right, looking away from the camera. I am a slow eater, and always must have been, because I remember her force-feeding me soup which I had been slow to finish. Also, at naptimes I remember lying there not at all tired, but we must have been told to close our eyes, because I would close whichever eye was on the side she was standing, and keep looking around with the other eye! She must have been a dragon. People who don't love kids should not work with them.

The boy on the bottom left, holding the red horse, choked on a piece of Lego. I have a memory of a teacher jamming her fingers down his throat to get it out. He survived. His name was Tommy Feather (no joke) (in Polish, though).

I love the cranky cowboy on the bottom right.

Introducing Nina

Well, she's finished! My daughter will be sooooo happy to see her tomorrow morning! She's been busting to play with her, and nagging me to finish making her. Please excuse the crappy pix -- I could not wait until daytime!

Today (on the way home from dentist visit #2 which was far less stressful than yesterday's butchering session) we stopped at "Bustle & Bows" to buy some yarn for Nina's hair. What a ripper of a shop!! I love it! I used to stop in at Bustle & Bows in Malvern when we lived nearby but have not been to the Surrey Hills one (the only one now) and boy oh boy am I ever excited to have discovered it! (Can you tell?) The flosses! The fabrics! The TRIMS! Squeeee!! When I left my paper bag not only contained Nina's hair-to-be, but THIS...


...with which to finally make THIS...

...how sweeeeeeet is serendipity!!

But I digress. I love how Nina turned out! I didn't expect to be so competent at doll-making. I know to proper doll-makers Nina is probably majorly flawed, but damn she looks fine to me! And my girl seems to agree, which is what counts the most. Credit must be given to the very well-diagrammed (and probably well-written, too, but HAH! I wouldn't know!!) Doll Nina book (ISBN4-07-249886-6) which I bought from my favourite Ebay seller ever Pomadour24.

The only thing I am slightly disappointed with is her hair. I have not cut it short -- it turned out this length which is much shorter than Nina's hair in the book. Not that I mind how my Nina's hair looks, but I would have preferred longer pigtails I could plait. Maybe because the yarn I used is stretchy, so it bounced back to a shorter length once off the "loom". Never mind.

Happy 7-month birthday to my lil' girl. You're not getting anything, dear, except for lots of yummy warm milk every time you disturb my slumber in the dead of night.

My Poor Poor Baby!!!

My 3yo girl had an accident at kinder today which resulted in a broken front tooth (at the root), which then had to be cranked out of her head by a dentist.

My poor poor baby is missing a front tooth! I'll never see that beautiful toothy smile again and I just wanna curl up and sob my heart out (plus I am totally drained from taking her to the dentist).

She was incredibly brave. She cried but sat still while the dentist did TERRIBLE things (he was as gentle as possible, but after a point he just needed to use force because it wouldn't come out easily).

My poor baby.

She was in great spirits tonight, so she's okay (better than her mama).

Tee Hee Hee

Miss 3 singing today: "There was a farmer had a dog, and Bimbo was his name-oh! Fee-fi-N-G-O, fee-fi-N-G-O, fee-fi-N-G-O, and Bimbo was his name-oh!"

White Tea & Ginger (or... On a Blogging Roll)

Here is a pic of the bath bikkies I made the other night, and the lotion I made this morning (because the last batch stuffed up -- a victim of experimentation -- on account of using a handheld milk-frother instead of the usual stick-blender). The yellowish bits in the bikkies are bits of grated cocoa butter.

Frifty Friday

Went op-shopping today, and came home with:

A dinosaur puzzle, Lindy Chamberlain's autobiography (have been thinking about her lately thanks to our Uluru trip, and wondering about her side of the tragic story), two sewing patterns (check out the kids' one!!), two aprons (one very cute vintage "homemade" one with really funky pockets, and the other a tuck-shop lady smock-type apron which I have been after), a size 18 pure linen jacket (yeehar! heaps of linen), and all for $15.


Also an update on "Doll Nina" -- she's almost finished! Head's a bit square, but nothing that a bit of chocolate-brown mohair hair won't cover up. I'm very excited about her, and my 3yo loves her already. When she picks her up, she cradles her in the crook of her arm and nuzzles her -- awwwwwww!!! She must feel the love being sewn in.

Flashback Friday: Fancy Dress

Despite the fact that I look like some kind of a midget in these photos*, I would have to have been at least three, because the headpiece is part of a costume I had worn to kinder. I had dressed up as "Spring" and I am guessing my head was a maypole (we were still in Poland), hence the ribbons. (Here I am not in the full costume, just the headpiece.)

I have no idea why these shots were taken. I forgot to ask mum, although I imagine it was probably a photographer friend, as my parents had many arty sort of friends. Mum tells me I wasn't shy in the least when the photographer took this series of shots, and strutted and posed as directed. Not surprising given the groovy boots!

* If Mr.Cherryskin reads this, I can hear him now: "You are a midget."

Bath Bikkies Bakin'!

Tonight I made Bath Bikkies for a couple of buddies who recently celebrated their birthdays. They're like bath balls which fizz as well as fill the bath with bubbles, and are full of yummy cocoa butter. I scented them with White Tea & Ginger (by Brambleberry) which smells absolutely beautiful! Very fresh and sweet -- I can't stop sniffing my hands (which I used to shape the bikkies).

According to Brambleberry: "White Tea and Ginger (BBW type): - This fragrance has a delightful warm and comforting smell. With top notes of Bergamot, Lemon Peels and Green Daylilies, this fragrance is brought back to its roots with a base of Ginger, Nutmeg and Warm Musk. White floral notes, such as Hyacinth, Freesia and Peony complete the mix. This fragrance is unique in many ways and it is difficult to pick out individual notes when you smell the soothing blend."

Tomorrow I will make matching (in scent) jojoba lotion.

Off to design and print labels.

Barbie: Adore? Abhor? Ambivalent?

I bought my first daughter her first Barbie as soon as she turned three. I would have bought her one earlier, but the box says "3+" and I am one of those overimaginative paranoid types.

When we were at the swimming pool a few weeks before her 3rd birthday she saw a girl playing with a Barbie in the water, and said, "Mummy, I want a woman like that, too!" I nearly drowned! Is Barbie really more "woman" than doll? I guess to a 3yo, she must be. Scary -- really truly scary. Not that it stopped me buying her one (uh, okay, two) (though it probably should have).

To be quite honest, I was really quite excited about it. I admit it -- I still LOVE Barbie!! I hate her anorexic alien "dis-figure" which (according to the experts) would not fit vital organs if she were real; I hate her freakishly thick (ever tried plaiting it?) freakishly-long hair; I hate her oversized eyes and manic smile, her tiny permanently-extended feet, and her upside-down boobs (they point UP for crying out loud).

But I still love her, and now so does my 3-and-a-half-year-old. At this stage she's just interested in shampooing her hair when she herself has a bath/shower, but I can't wait till she's interested in dressing her up -- then I can make use of the (possibly hundreds of) knitting/sewing/crochet patterns which I have been collecting (just check THIS out!). I have already made her a Barbie-bath-robe (using a purpose-bought face washer!) but she's not yet interested.

Am I instilling evil values into my 3yo? Oh God.

At least I draw the line at Bratz. Don't even get me started on those "dolls" modelled on porn stars/strippers with their drugged-eyes and silicone-trout-pouts.

Back on the Greenish-Greyish Periphery

We are back from the Red Centre.

After four (so far) loads of washing, the house is starting to resemble its former self. Sadly, even with the contents of three suitcases strewn around, it's not too much different from its usual self. Flylady has her work cut out right here.

I had the idea of doing "Flashback Friday" catch-ups, especially as I just joined the ring, but decided I might just jump back in on Friday. Mainly because most of my pre-1985 pix are at my mum's!

Here are some pix from our holiday instead.

Uluru; just like the thousands of images I have seen of it over the last 25 years (since we came to Oz). Beautiful hazy behemoth rising from the surrounding flat desert. Little wonder it's such a sacred place for Indigenous Aussies.

Watarrka (Kings Canyon); another in a series of geological (and spiritual) wonders in Central Australia.

Kata Tjuta (The Olgas); Yep, the Red Centre is generous when it comes to geological (and spiritual) wonders.

Pretty flowers at the base of Walpa Gorge at Kata Tjuta.

More pretty desert flowers.

Whinge: our camera ("only" five-and-a-half years old) has stopped focusing properly, and also doesn't seem to adjust to the light properly. Hence, most of our pix from our trip are slightly, and extremely annoyingly, blurry. This may or may not be apparent in the above shots.

Tip: if travelling to the Red Centre with young kids, ensure all the clothes you take for them are in shades of rust, because that is what colour their clothes end up, and this cannot be washed out.

Can't talk...holidaying

Alice Springs, Uluru, Kings Canyon, etc. Back on Sunday.