The art of Paul Vaillinski

Not long after Libby’s Room and all the associated projects had finished.  I came across the beautiful artwork of Paul Vaillinski:

Based in Long Island City NY his art so simple but can have such a big impact.  I would love to have one of these in my home but I am sure that this will have to be a dream for some time to come....  maybe next birthday......

Leaving a comment

As I learn the 'ins and outs' of blogging I am asked many questions by friends who visit my blog.

The big question at the moment is: "How do I post a comment on your blog?"

I am embarrassed to say I had to sit down and work this out! However now that I know - it is SO easy!


At the bottom of each post you will see a grey box with some information about when I posted, what time etc.

You will see also the words No comments (or if there is already a comment – there will be the number of comments made).

If you click on the word comments, and new page will open that will look like this:

Write a comment, choose your identity and click the Publish Your Comment box and you have done it! You have posted a comment!

I would love to hear your comments (both positive and negative) so please, feel free to post anytime!

Libby's Room

Finally the photos of Libby’s Room just in time for her 5^th birthday. 

True to form with interfering visits to Canberra and Sydney to fit in and work and excessive amounts of rain it ended up as a mad dash to completion but we did it......

 

Libby chose the colour from samples, and the winner was Taubmans Princess Grace  



C spent many a night painting all of the furniture white and we brought a new desk a bookshelf.  

The butterflies were just for fun and the mirror was mosaic by hand (with love) by C. 

   

A bedside light & a hanging feature..

Projects 3 & 4 – A bedside light & A hanging feature

For the bedside light I brought a the VATE light from IKEA.  I also brought the MORUP light cover (like a rice paper ball) in purple for the hanging feature – it was a good day in IKEA!!

I had some smaller white rice paper ball left over from our engagement party (hanging in the big tree in my parents backyard) and used one of those as well.

The butterflies I cut out of Chinese rice paper and a range of other decorative papers that I have collected overtime.  I don’t suggest that you try this unless you have a bit of time up your sleeves! It is not hard but a little time consuming – I ended up doing mine in front of the TV each night for a week...

I attached the butterflies in a random pattern with just ordinary PVA glue that I had hanging around.  I added antennas with coloured thread and then added just a little ‘bling’ just because...

Pinwheel pillow tutorial

Project 2: The dress pillows.

So that I had some idea of what type of thing that Libby wanted in her room C and I took her to Spotlight to look as some fabric.  Not having a huge amount of experience shopping with 4 year olds I didn’t really know what I was in for...... it was interesting!

We confined Libby to just three fabrics that we would take home and make into pillows:

 

The floral and the stripe fabrics l loved, the ballet slipper fabric - I really couldn’t do anything with that! So I decided to take the inspiration from the ballet slippers fabric on and build on the theme rather than use the fabric itself!

The first pillow is the pinwheel pillow using the floral and stripe fabric. 

 As I was making this I thought that it would be good to do a mini tutorial on how you do one of these as they look complex but are actually so easy.  So this is how I did it:

1. Using a bit of junk mail I cut out a triangle shape.  

2. I then cut out four triangles of the floral fabric and four of the strips. 

3. Then laying down alternate floral and stripe fabrics I sewed one of each to each other making pairs.

4. Then I sewed the other unsewn edges to each of the other pairs...... That may not sound simple but basically I sewed all the triangles together to make a rough circle.

You may have issues with all the points in the middle meeting...... I decided to go the easy way and gather all the ends up and tied them together (then sewed to secure) – this makes a little gather in the middle which I think looks nice so I was happy with that.  I am sure there are purists out there who would do it the right way but I was happy with this way.

5. Then using another plain fabric I made the back of the pillow.  To do this I cut out two half circles.  To get the overlap (and hence the flap that keeps the pillow in – no zips here!) you need to cut one half circle more like a ¾ circle than a half.

6. I wanted there to be some element of the floral fabric on the back of the pillow to link in with the front and to finish the look. So I pinned together (insideout) the smaller of the back flaps and the pinwheel front.....

7. And on the other large flap I sewed some of the floral fabric to make a visible edge before pinning this underneath the smaller flap (so it comes out on top).

8.  After you have done this part your put the pinwheel front and the back together (inside out) and sew around the outside. The only thing you must remember is when you sew the back flaps to the pinwheel front you must make sure that the floral edge is underneath and then on the visible side when you turn it in the right way or your lovely floral edge will be on the inside of the pillow!

I then finished the inside edges inside with some zigzag stich and a tidy up with the sissors.......

And we were done.

The Ballet Slippers Pillow .... no tutorial but a very easy pillow to make!

So many projects....

So I have had a few projects all going on in a bit of a flurry lately!

They all link into Libby’s Room – a project that my lovely friend from work C asked me to help her with: decorating her beautiful daughter Libby’s room in time for her 5^th birthday.

I had lots of things that I wanted to do my self but I limited them to making to just four things:

1.      A wall motif;

2.      Dress pillows for the bed;

3.      A bedside light; and

4.      A hanging feature.

1. The wall motif:

We decided on a tree and thought that on the end of the branches we would hang hooks for Libby’s scarfs, bags and hats.

I tried a freehand tree however it ended up looking like some sort of twisted, curling mess that didn’t look anything like any tree I had ever seen! So I went to the internet and found a tree shape that I adapted......

After making a rough grid on the MDF board I traced on the tree design.

The wonderful J then used the jig-sawed and cut it out for me and painted it all ready to go into the room.....

Next project - 2. Dress pillows for the bed ......

Propagating

J and I decided to try our hand at propagating.

We decided to try both Lavender and Rosemary which we plan on using as hedges in our garden design.

    

          

We dipped all the ends of the cuttings in organic honey and put them in egg cartons and small pots that we had saved from the free council plants that we religiously get each quarter.

 

This was another type of Lavender we tried as well - not sure how well this will go as it is quite 'woody'.



 We brought some 'seed raising mix' and we put all our new little plants in a homemade greenhouse (a clear plastic box upside down).  Now we just have to wait and see if any they take root!

And of course our lovely girls were very helpful and loved that we were in their garden with them!

Muffin Making

My lovely mother gave us some stewed Rhubarb a few months ago. It sat in the freezer for awhile as I couldn't think of anything inspired to do with it, and it turns out that J is actually not a fan of Rhubarb (who knew!?).

Anyway J was out for the day and I decided to make some Rhubarb muffins as I felt like a 'muffin still warm from the oven' was just the thing for a chilly Autumn morning.

I used this basic muffin recipe on that I found by googling and just added Rhubarb and lashings of Brown Sugar to the top (to counteract that sour factor!). 

The muffins came out beautifully and inspired me to grab the camera.....  

      

(The cake stand was a wedding present from my lovely cousin and her husband - I love it!)