Cake and Presents.

    Here is a delicious cake baked by my eldest for her boyfriend. I had to go and deliver it yesterday at his high school in lunchtime. Apparently his friends are now bemoaning the  fact that their girlfriends don't bake. Ah , the love of a man does go through their stomach...

    And here is a "cake " I baked a little while ago for my friends birthday. I used some of my own found fabrics ( in an opportunity shop that is) and some of hers that she was throwing out due to lack of space ; a vintage apron in greens and white and one of her late grandmothers' embroidered doilies.

  

   My friend likes to draw , so I got her a visual diary with good paper and proceeded to make her a cover for it. The appliqued plants and insects came from a shirt , and are zig-zagged on.

   With the book I added an art roll for pencils etc. and included some  basic colours of water soluble crayons. It rolls up and ties with the apron strings. And since the first blank space in a new art book can always be a bit daunting to start on , I collaged her a title page.  Now her grandmothers' embroidery can be put to good use. 

Not just Browsing.

Last week Friday my love and I went on a little excursion to nearby Napier. He had a day off and when I came home from my part time job we grabbed a few hours together doing a bit of op-shopping. Now I know I am lucky that he likes to find treasures like that as well. Although his idea of a good score is in clothing and shoes. We had a great afternoon ; we hit 4 shops and found something each time. Big buzz!  This doesn't always happen , very often you won't find anything at all. He found a new leather hat for the summer , a pair of expensive Reiker shoes with  the price still on it , some nike shoes for the weekends , and a lovely merino-possum blend jersey. All that and money left over for icecreams.  I came away with 10 vintage tablecloths , all with romantic flowers in shabby chique faded style. Here they are on my washing line , all these colours go well together. 

 I also found some old fabrics , a sturdy cotton with bright florals and a polished cotton with pastel florals.  Also an old  hand embroidered semco cloth on linen. All the flowers are done but the hems were never finished , it probably should have had a crocheted edge , the thread drawn holes are all around . What shall I make with this?

Isn't that blue and red and white 70's fabric with the egyptian theme just hilarious. I can't imagine making anything with it , it is so retro!!

Shake it!

After much thinking I have decided to just start a blog. I often want to share things I have found or made or experienced . When  I read other people's blogs I find it inspiring and perhaps a little comforting to know they go through some of the same things that I do. I have learned there is a whole lot of people out there in our wide world that are inspired by the "small stuff".

Maybe I can inspire someone else  , or at least make them smile for a minute.

So I'll start off with a bang , just like the earth did for us here locally. At 11:30 last night , just when I was getting ready for bed , we had a little earthquake . Well it didn't feel very little actually.  It was a 5.9-er only 10 km away, 30 km deep.  Our wooden house from the 1930's gave that particular familiar little creak , which makes me hold my breath. Rattle and roll , here we go!  I headed for the doorway of the bedroom , it felt a bit unsteady to get there. Whoa , big one..!

My love yelled something from the livingroom , and I bellowed; everyone out of bed under the doorway! Our 2 teenage daughters arrived in their doorways nearly immediately.  We all put our backs against the posts to feel the quake ebbing away. Not long , but things did fall over and made clinking noises , raising our anxiety levels.  We waited for a bit , in case there was another one , just like at a  railway crossing. Then eldest daughter ,and hubby went back to bed , but I made some hot milks for the youngest and myself , to quieten our heart rates to sleep mode.

We checked the news , nothing yet , and listened outside. A few shop alarms in town had gone off , some scared dogs barking , and weirdly : a chorus of blackbirds and thrushes were singing their little hearts out in the middle of the still night.

Nothing broke at our house , just a little mess of buttons and portraits in the hallway.