How To Make a Hobbit Terrarium.

Frodo walking up to Bag End.

A new idea was sprouted, inspired by the amount of moss growing on our property this winter and my recent Pinterest obsession. "Oh Mum, you should go on pinterest, you'll love it...!" sounded my two daughters' well meaning advice.
And I did. And I do love it. And I am getting new ideas.
But I don't really need more ideas.....
But I can't stop; there are so many clever and creative people out there, and so many handy how-to's. And I have 18 boards already, and other Pinners are following them....

However I am rather enamoured with tiny worlds, especially enclosed in a jar.

So I started gathering up moss, and lichens still attached to the fallen twigs from the pohutukawa tree, and found some liverwort plants. We live in a very clean-air part of the world, and several prolific species of lichens live on the trees right outside the house, and hardy urban moss has established itself into little cracks in the concrete paths and road asphalt outside.
I also colllected gravel from the drive, used activated charcoal from the brewers shop in town, and I used spoons to put everything into a big glass jar with a cork lid from the Sallies.
The little round door was made by painting a clean stone with 1 flat side with acrylic paint, and acrylic sealer.

How to assemble your terrarium
1: Layer of gravel or pebbles, for drainage.
2: Thin layer of activated charcoal, which will stop bad bacteria that can grow mold and slime.
3: Layer of cheesecloth, or dried sphagnum moss (from the florist), to stop the soil falling into the gravel layer. If the soil clogs up the gravel layer, your terrarium can't drain.
4: Thicker layer of fine compost soil, enough for any roots of little plants to become established.
You can shape this soil with a spoon, or your fingers, into little hillocks, or place some larger stones as decoration.
5: Start putting down your moss, hopefully gathered carefully, with the underlying soil still attached, you can do this by collecting moss on a wet day with a flattish spoon, and slow scraping movements.
Gently press down the moss onto your little sloped garden. Don't let the moss press against the glass, for it won't be able to "breathe" and will die.
6: Keep your terrarium in indirect sunlight, otherwise your plants might cook.
Make sure that the soil is moist, sprinkle a little water if needed.
Close the jar. There should only be slight condensation on the glass, if it is too wet, as if it is positively raining in there, you can leave it open for a little while, to disperse some of it. Your moss should keep looking lush and alive, if it dries out, well, you'll have to add some water, but you shouldn't have to do that for a long while. Months even.
7: And if you have created a little scene in there with imaginary inhabitants, please do have a giggle! Keep playing!

And so this will be the year of the living room, in our D.I.Y. house. My lovely builder has already taken off several inside walls, and put insulation in, and replaced the boards, he has even done some rough plastering so far. We are also in the process of contemplating wallpapers, it will be a toss-up between 2, but until the sample gets here, we're still not quite sure. Our new gas fire-place is humming along pleasantly. It is very nice to wake up at 6:45a.m. and get into a warm living-space, without any effort on our part.
A new idea has arisen also; what about wooden floors here as well as in the dining room/workroom?
The lovely native matai wood flooring from the 1940's is sitting right underneath the carpet...

But before we do all that however, a small leak has been discovered in 1 of the walls of the shower cabin, and that does have to be dealt with unfortunately.
My husband reminds me, that it is a "first world problem". How lucky we are to have a roof above our heads in the first place! With food in the cupboard and enough work to earn money...
Are you that fortunate too?

Summer Songs and Autumn Games.

Our bare oaktree.

 Recently we had our little nephew staying with us for a weekend, which is not a common happening, but it all went splendidly. The best game ever was jumping into a humongous pile of dried leaves, which are plentiful at this house. Our oaktree loses its leaves early on in the season, and only takes about 2 or 3 weeks to go completely bare, giving us lots of light in the house during winter.

Best game in a big pile of leaves.

 Jumping in, diving in, crawling in, and back out. Until his fingers and ears were cold, and he came inside for dinner.

But this is an even bigger pile of leaves!

 And the next day there was an even bigger pile, made by uncle, hours worth of Play!

A summer singing assemblage, using encaustic medium.

 I've had another go at beeswax, or encaustic art. This time to adhere and cover natural materials, lichens, dried flowers, a cicada husk, a piece of seaglass, and paper cut-outs.
There is an exhibition coming up in our local bookshop, of matchbox art, and an auction will be held to raise funds for the new community art centre.

Assemblage using natural materials and paper cut-out.

Inspiration came from a little poem about a little boy who kept a beetle in a matchbox.

Assemblage art in a matchbox.

Teeny, tiny art...

Collaging Merrily Down the Stream.

Hedgehog pixie collage.

Another art experiment was had in my lovely room. First I made a small collage on canvas over hard board, and although I wanted to have a quick image, of course it took on a life of its own and became a story. 

Hedgehog pixie dreaming merrily down the stream, with her fish companion. 

I added lots of different media; handwritten pages underneath, gesso, magazine papers, water-colour tree, black ink stamps, acrylic paint, white gel pen and permanent markers.

Collage finished with 2 layers of wallpaper sizing.

 When it was done, I wanted to try out an encaustic layer, or beeswax melted over the top.

Problem no.1 my beloved people kept saying, but you might ruin it, and it is really nice!
Problem no.2 acrylics, including gesso, don't mix with wax, it won't keep sticking. So I can't use an acrylic sealer over the top. And if the magazine papers don't get sealed the wax will penetrate and show what is on the other side of the paper.

Solution no.1 make photo of unwaxed pixie. Ignore all other comments.
Solution no.2 make up jar of wall paper sizing, which is made from some kind of flour, and dries clear, but is not plastic. Brush on 2 good layers.

2 layers of encaustic beeswax .

When it was good and dry, I started playing with the hot wax. I mixed beeswax (from a candle) with 10% paraffin "drops" to make it a little tougher. That's my own experimental idea.

I melted it in a chocolate-fondue set ($5 opshop) with a little tea-candle underneath. It smelled lovely!

After warming up the artwork with the heat gun, I brushed on a layer of wax with a wide brush, then used the heatgun to warm it up again, so it glistened, but didn't run off.

And again with another layer, more on the sides then in the middle.

I used the heatgun to smooth out the irregular areas, it was fun!

As you can see, there is some darkening in patches on her dress and neck, so I think next time another couple of layers of wallpaper sizing to seal it a bit more.

I like the way the wax has created deeper layering and made the picture look more "dreamy".

I will definitely play more with this medium!

Bellbird at the nectar bowl.

Managed to take a sharp photo of one of our neighbourhoods' bellbirds, I think it is a female, the male has a darker throat. Such a gorgeous colour green, and yes, they have ruby coloured eyes. Bellbirds are quite shy and move very quickly, always on the look out for that rascal tui, that thinks it owns this nectar bowl.

Treasure Hunt Showcase ;

Pip-studio cups found in opshop.

Could not believe my luck! Staring at me from a shelf of ugly mugs and stained teacups, were these 2 gorgeous red and pink Pip-studio cups... I snatched them up! I already had the blue one at home, an expensive purchase a few years ago from Wellington.
Not a chip off them, ooh pretty, pretty! Just $4 together....
Can I bring myself to drink tea out of them, or will I only admire them in a spot where I walk past every day....

$5 worth of vintage linen and napkins.

So how does that work, when you have a colour co-ordinated thrifting spree?

All these sweet lollie colours go together, they will all be dunked into a bucket of nappisan and ironed, and remade into cute things.

These are the kind of opshop finds that make my day, my week even, and have me going back for more treasure thrills.

Some people get their thrills bungee-jumping, or binge-drinking.

Well , I go treasure hunting for sweet bargains, never knowing what I might find!

Aah! It's the little things...

Our Garden Room.

How does our garden grow?

The Real gardener playing in his room.

The garden down the stairs on our property is a utility area, it's where we grow vegetables, have a compost heap, that is where the citrus trees are, and where the washing gets dried.
No reason why it shouldn't be nice to look at.
Especially from the kitchen window, where I always stand when waiting for the kettle to boil.

Bali stepping stones.

We saw a brilliant idea in Ubud, Bali on our last holiday there( far too long ago already now).

They had pressed large leaves into a drying concrete path. They were all different and it made the concrete very organic looking.

 I reminded my Man of this idea a little while ago when he was thinking out loud about a path, and he immediately got enthusiastic. The next morning he found a metal hoop in his garage, which had come from an old wine barrel. ( honest, it's true about holding on to things "cause-it'll-come-in-handy-one-day").

The edges were a good 10 cm deep, so excellent to use as a frame for concrete stepping stones.

 Any thinner and the stepping stone wouldn't be strong enough to step on.

Our new stepping stones, homemade!

He proceeded to dig a little into the ground, and making it level, before putting the hoop in and shoveling the concrete into it.

Of course he could only make 1 step at a time, waiting till it had set before removing the hoop and doing the next one.

 It therefore took a few weeks before they were all done. So every day 1 small jobbie.

Plenty of time to start planting liriope grasses leading to the washing line to distinguish that area from the veggie patch. And some gorgeous ferns and ferntrees.

Rounded brown gravel fills up the spaces.

When the path to the washing line was finished he spread a soft brown coloured gravel around the stones, right up to the level of the steps so that if you misstep the stone you don't twist your ankle.
 Good thinking!
 He was careful too about pacing the round path stones to our own step lengths.

Spreading dark coloured bark.

He then put a few more stepping stones towards the vegetable garden, and spread dark bark on the bare soil. It adds a nice contrast and keeps weeds at bay. And it is pretty cheap too.
It will lighten up in colour eventually, due to weathering.

Nice contrasts between the different areas.

BEFORE.

This is what it looked like, when we came to this house at least 2 and a half years ago. It looks like grass, but it was just dense weeds and prickles. The small maple tree in the front got the chop fast, as it was already throwing shade onto the washing line.

AFTER.

And there we go! A Real Garden from the Real Gardener!

A Sassy Girl Collage.

At last I finished one of my collages, purposely made for one of my best friends. I put in lots of symbolism, as it was all about her. It was a very belated birthday present, and also a housewarming gift.

I found the quote on the web, and had to think of her. The quote inspired the rest of the collage.

 I use many magazine pictures for my collages, and alter, add and subtract at will.

There is the sassy girl, all confident and open, and being just how she should be.

She has wings to go, wherever she wants.

She wears an apron for practicality, and green for new beginnings. 

White innocence is still underneath, covered by the red of womanhood.

The cage lies discarded behind her, empty with the door shut. 

For the bird has flown. 

It sits atop the mirror tree of growth.

 I think they look at each other knowingly, so now and then.

I framed it as well, recycled of course.
With a lick of paint.
She really liked it!

New Zealand Kingfisher.

I heard this kingfisher one sunny morning. It was in the oak tree outside, I managed to snap its' picture before it zoomed off. All lemon-yellow fronted. It didn't turn around to show its' greeny-blue back unfortunately. 

Off to find someones' gold fish in their pond, a juicy big insect, or (I heard a neighbour report) to spear a fantail bird......! Horror!

Gone to ground...

The professional keeping it real!

 There now, I'd nearly disappeared...! Nope, yep, everything is fine, just life, you know?
Work and home and all that...
My man is doing Great! Excellent even! Bloody Marvelous!
He is loving his new business, even sub-contracting others!
We can pay for our mortgage and bills and the cupboards are full. So far the winter has been kind, not many really wet weather days on which he can't work.
He's happy and fit.
The universe provides yet again.

Our Fox at 16 years old.

 Home life has had some changes; one of our friends needed a place to live for a while, as she was going through a separation from her husband, so we offered her one of the rooms downstairs. She stayed for a few months while going through some harrowing times, including major surgery.
So N. stayed with us until somewhere in May. And she was a wonderful houseguest.
Immediately followed by our brother T. from the South Island, and it was great to have him to stay, too!
 Then when he left, our youngest daughter also decided to leave, and live in with her boyfriend. Not that we are completely happy with that, but she is 19 and must learn about life in her own way.

And so in June we find ourselves together, just me and my Love in our own house, with our 3 geriatric cats. Just in time for winter, so we can cozy up by the fire at night.
We can have dinner when we want, and eat what we want, and go out anytime, or stay in.
 Utter bliss!

Sick of those dark bricks!

 Just before the fire-season started, in those 4 short weeks of Autumn, after 6 months(!) of Summer, my Love decided that part of those fireplace bricks just had to go! Too much light-swallowing darkness from the 1970's interior fashion statement. We wondered what kind of wall paper might be behind it...

The D.I.Y.Meister in his dust tent.

 After a morning session of satisfying destruction, he found out what was behind it.
Nothing.
 We could look straight past the building studs to the outside wall.

Much lighter already.

Well, at least he could fill it up with some insulation now... And putting on some plaster boards was easy enough.

This will be our last year of wood stove warmth. As we have always had free firewood through his former work, we now don't have that luxury anymore. In this house we also have to lug all the wood up the stairs outside, and there is no easy place to store and season it.

 Our firebox is becoming illegal in 6 months due to it's inefficient clean air workings, and the local council will subsidize newer and eco-friendlier models. Including gas fires. The newest energy efficient, high heat output, with timers and (get this!) remote controls....

No more screwing up newspaper, then putting on bits of kindling and bark, a few firelighters, then placing the dry pieces of wood in strategic places, lighting it all. ( I am very good at lighting fires you know, I pride myself on being able to coax a roaring fire out of a few glowing cinders in 10 minutes without accelerants. )

No more dust and wood-chips everywhere, and splinters in your finger,  and diving into the woodshed with a torch in the pouring rain. Or knowing you still have to do all that when you come home to a cold house from work.

 No more chainsawing, and filling a trailer, and unloading it and chopping it with the ax, then stacking it, in the heat of summer.

And cleaning the ash out of the firebox every week, scrubbing the little window. Or going up the roof a few times per year to sweep the chimney.

A fire place: Romantic... sure.

 But I'm over it.

I really like the idea of that 1 little button!

My turn at show and tell, felting retreat feb'13.

 Somewhere during my 4-day annual felting retreat in February,( to which I took my friend N.), I ended up volunteering as the blog-keeper of the New Zealand Felters' Blog. There seemed to be quite a large amount of techno-angst in our members, and I couldn't bear listening to them all freaking out about it, when it was announced in a meeting that it would close otherwise. So I put my hand up...
Well this felting blog needed quite a bit of tidying up and refreshing. I even prettied it up some. Luckily I am getting some guidance and advice from the other editor.
I guess it was also part of why my own blog was neglected somewhat.
 The felting blog is now getting good traffic from around the world, so that's brilliant!
I'm still having a few issues with the font, but no doubt it will sort itself out at some stage.
I'm just a volunteer.
Go check out the NZFelters blog, it's in my bloglist on the right hand side of the screen.

Kereru in the cabbage tree.

Wildlife in our street.
A kereru is a protected wood pigeon, as fat as a small chicken ( and according to former Maori cuisine, just as tasty! That's why it is protected now). A lot of native plants rely on this particular bird eating their seeds and berries for the plants' reproduction. If the kereru dies out, so will those plants and trees.

Proper Summer Days.

Good-Morning!

Every morning these last 2 months I opened my bedroom window to this exuberant bougainvillea. It has been an excellently hot summer holiday, full of days on the deck, reading books, late afternoons going for a dip in the sea, cold drinks, shorts and skirts, and sleeping under linen sheets.

Like an old-fashioned Hawke's Bay summer.

 Although we didn't go anywhere these holidays, except a couple of days in Wellington to see our daughter, our house still feels like a holiday home, even after 20 months. 

We think that has something to do with eating breakfast at a sunny table, and the deck outside at tree canopy-level, an easy walk into town and cafes, and especially; nice neighbours!

"Virgil" at the movies.

 We stayed in our eldest daughters' flat, and enjoyed having both our daughters together. While there, we took the opportunity (at last) to watch "The Hobbit" at the movies. We saw it at the Embassy Theatre, where the big premiere was held. They have the best screen and sound facilities, and we got superseats. Here my man is showing off how good he looks in the 3-D glasses. Ahem...!
We loved it, and yes, I rather liked the character of Radagast the Brown.
My creative mind loved his hat, and definitely his rabbit-drawn sleigh.

Wellington vintage architecture.

Our daughter loves showing us her favourite things in her city. This building is one of her favourite architecture. I quite agree.
 But I am not sure it would stay standing in an earthquake, all those bricks...
 A lot of buildings all over the country are getting big and expensive overhauls, since the Christchurch earthquakes have pointed out how quick it can all come down. Especially the older brick buildings.
We know all about it here in Napier too.

Window shopping.

I spotted these delightful porcelain lamps in a little gift boutique. At a price I can ill-afford of course, I think they came from France. They look like Fairy-God-Mothers to me. I imagine when they're on, they'd glow with twinkling stars and moons in their skirts. 

 These are really inspiring me to make felt lamps and use the materials' ability to filter light through. Wool is also flame-retardant and could handle the heat of a lightbulb easily.

Tapestry-canvas challenge.

Now that I am back in a fibre-craft club, I have been given a challenge with a square of tapestry canvas. I guess they are for cushions for the chairs at the clubhouse.
 So I tried my hand at locker-hooking.
This is done with a crochet-hook, which has a large eye on the end of it, like a fat needle.
You thread the eye with a thick yarn, and with the hook you hook up either wool-sliver or strips of fabric trough the holes in the canvas. After you have hooked up a number of loops on your hook, you then pull the hook right through with the thick yarn then anchoring the loops of fabric. And providing more bulk as an end result.
 It was super easy and fast, I finished this canvas in 1 weekend, while watching telly.
 It was a very relaxing activity and fun to make my own design.

Locker-hooked cushion cover.

I hope they like it!

New signs on the Man's Truck.

My mans' own gardening business is starting to take shape. He is pretty busy most days, and already has some steady addresses, and has already drawn plans and done consultations.  

In the next few weeks he is having lots of work from an advertising campaign he organized, and hopefully that will lead to more work and more word of mouth. He (and I ) are in good spirits and excited about the whole thing. Although often quite tired from the physical work, he wasn't used to it anymore.

New entrance walkway garden.

Last week he took the opportunity to redo the little garden by our entrance path, using mondo-grass and 2 spiky plants. 3 terra-cotta pots with succulents created a pleasing contrast. They'll do well in this dry area. 

O.K. if you are sqeamish in the 8-legged variety, don't read the next bit!!

Breakfast companion...

Last Wednesday was Waitangi Day, a national day off work for all NZ-ers. I started the day slowly with putting the washing in the laundry down below the house, then breakfast at the sunny table. I put my dishes away and then thought I had dropped some toast-crumbs down my pyjama top and looked down to brush the tickly crumbs away. Instead of crumbs I saw this spider slowly clambering out of my t-shirt.

 Big spider...

 Long creepy legs spider...

A scream started burbling out of my mouth, but I kept it closed ( spider was way too near...) while pulling my t-shirt far away from my face. Then I screamed for my Hero while kind of dancing with my shirt around in the kitchen.

He just gently grabbed the creature.

 My poor heart was pounding wildly and I got the shakes. 

How long had we been having breakfast together already, spider and I?

All cosy and warm on my chest...

I am pleased we didn't hurt it though, it really is a beautiful creature with its velvety body, and completely harmless.  Just don't get so close to me...!

A very Berry Xmas to you!

Our garden is full of flashy red pohutukawa flowers, and very busy tuis, bellbirds and silvereyes, all having their seasonal feast.
 Our Christmas today was at my brothers' house, not far away.

This is the dessert table, what a summery spread!
Our sis-in-law is such a good hostess, she makes the most wonderful traditional concoctions.

A marvelous trifle with alcohol drenched cake, custard and many different berries. Boysenberry jelly and my contribution were organic Dawson cherries.

A summer bread pudding with boysenberries and cream, beautifully presented.

Oh we all ate too much, especially after the prawn cocktails; roasted new potatoes, kumara and pumpkin; pasta salad; chicken and b.b.q.-ed scallops, and b.b.q.-ed lamb chops with rosemary and mint; and the first sweet corn of the season...
Luckily there was a big break between the 2 courses, and some vigorous games of outdoor ping-pong.

We had expected a proper rainy day, as had been forecasted, due to a nasty cyclone passing New Zealand. And it was a bit moist in the night, but it got quite hot and muggy today, and all doors and windows were open. We all sat outside on the deck, and this was our view:
(Of course I didn't put the new house being built right next to the fence in this picture...)

The light was gorgeous when the sun started setting this evening, and made the landscape look like an old painting.

What a lovely relaxed day we have all had!
I hope you had the same, wherever in the world you are.
Merry Xmas to you all!