more summer solstice and Christmas decorating

 After a busy and messy day involving three little boys, a lot of mud and a lot of soap (you would think the soap was the clean up part but it actually got as messy as the mud:) Josh and I decided to spend some quiet thoughtful time putting together a wreath for our front door.
I like to use what ever plants we can find that I think will stay green a while under our summer sun, last year we chose rosemary as our house had a huge lush bush of it, this year we have lots of beautiful Australian native trees in our garden to choose from.

 I'm not sure what type of tree this is but it smells great (sort of like eucalyptus or tea-tree) so it was a winner!
We bent a coat hanger to a circle and twisted thin pliable branches around it. The first few branches needed to be fastened into place with some fabric scraps but after that we were able to weave the ends in between the coat hanger and the branches that were already twisted on.

At the end we added some bell ornaments. I put these same ornaments on mums wreath at her house the other day and they jingle each time the door opens, fun

 Last week i was laying at the park in my home town waiting for Benny to come from his dentist appointment. I was marveling at these beautiful bougainvilleas which were in full bloom and had spread their beautiful flowers all over the grass.
 I remember visiting that same park when I was little and making cubby houses under those very bushes. I also have fond memories of walking past them on the way to school on summer mornings and grabbing hand fulls of blooms to scatter on the rest of my walk.
They scream summer to me and also happen to retain their colour for a long while as they dry out so I knew they would make a wonderful Summer Solstice garland

 I simply tied sewing cotton to a needle and threaded them on. Now I can enjoy them until the colour has gone and then they will go back to the earth and I will look forward to next years blooms.

Those of you who have a Summer Christmas, I would love to know what you are doing! Also if you have blogged about Summery Christmas ideas/decorating/preparations please leave a link in the comments section so that i can find inspiration from your ideas:)

Head on over to Natural Suburbia to see more creativity on this happy Friday

around here ive been

 ::Measuring-Mixing-Pouring
Making soap! Ive been wanting to try this for a good while but put it off because I couldn't find the ingredients and was rather terrified of lye. Finally Ive done it and so far so good I think. I made it last night and it has solidified. I will cut it tonight. Yippee my very own natural hand made soap that doesn't cost $5 a bar.

 Although I will miss my  goat milk soap that I get from the local craft co-op. Isn't it cute (this bar has seen some use but you get the idea)

::Enjoying the light and warmth of early summer

 ::Occupying this side of the couch

 ::Loving magic loop knitting and all I can do with it

 ::Wishing that big ripe tomato was from my garden.
 Ive had a few beauties so far though so I cant complain.

::Discovering beets that id half forgotten about
(oh that's right, underneath those beet leaves that our budgies and chickens love to gobble, there are actually some...beets! who would have thought)
They were ready to be picked diced and roasted up for with our barbecue lunch!

::Enjoying the pretty little cucumber plants that have begun flowering. After seeing the large zucchini and pumpkin flowers for the last month or so these tiny cucumber flowers look adorable. Id love to bring them inside and put them in a vase if I weren't so eagerly the delish veg the flowers promise

::Noticing that some little pumpkins have begun to form!

::Eating a lot of tabbouleh to make use of the ever abundant parsley. Yum!

advent

well its about time I do a new blog post I do believe...

 I mentioned a while back that my friend Alison was having a pattern featured in homespun magazine (last November)
It happened that my local newsagent doesn't have Homespun (I wasn't surprised, its small so doesn't have much)
Every time I went to bigger towns during the month I would get home and promptly remember that id forgotten to get it again!
On the very last day of November Anneke and I were in Kadina and I finally got to the newsagent. Unfortunately they had already put out the new issue but the lady was able to find one last copy out the back of the shop for me, yippee!!! (I think she was a bit cross with me for making her have to look for it until she saw just how happy and thankful I was:)

 I made this adorable little elf boot from Alison's pattern (which was beautifully written and easy to follow, well done Alison!) I reduced the pattern to make it small enough to fit my tiny Christmas tree. I look forward to making some more next year, id like to make enough for the day care children to leave out for st. Nicolas to put a treat in next year

 Here's some pictures of my 'veggie patch tea' the other night.

 I was especially proud of my carrots, although their pretty small they were the biggest tastiest ones I've grown so far!

I sat at the outdoor table cleaning and chopping veggies, stuck them on a tray with some olive oil, ground salt and rosemary, roasted for half hour and enjoyed them sitting outside while watching the sun go down. Its not so bad running out of groceries when you've got the good stuff growing out your back door!

I feel like Ive hardly had time for my veggie patches this summer but after doing some much needed weeding and removing some old plants that I was leaving to go to seed I could see that I have a thriving of potatoes, A patch of cucumber plants covered in flowers ready to produce and a huge tomatoe bush. Now that the weather is beginning to cool again (for now) me and the day care children are enjoying getting out and will plant some seeds again (lots more carrots)

holidays day six, Christmas Day

We Stayed at Bennys sisters place Christmas Eve night and it was so much fun getting woken up in the morning by Terleah, who was so excited that Santa had finaly come (and that we had a 'sleep over' at her house:) Terleah and Dylan both loved ripping open their presents

Although I forgot to take photos of the rest of the day we had a realy nice Aussie christmas day with Bennys family. We spent most of the day outside, helped Terleah ride her new bike that we got for her, had a delicious lunch of cold meats and salads and a little water fight!

holidays day four, Christmas Eve

Every Christmas Eve we get together with our family from my mums side at my Oma and Opas house around their big beautiful Christmas tree.

Each Year One of the men (this year my cousin Sam) sits by the tree in Opas chair and passes presents to two ' little elves' (generally two kids, we all loved being chosen as an 'elf') who give them out.

We all squeeze into the little loungeroom and it is a lot of fun being all together and seing every one get presents

 

Christmas eve together is such a special tradition for us all. Each year I remember lots of other years.
I always remember my telling aunty Els I realy wanted a particular doll when I was about three. She told me that I had better get up on the table and shout out to father christmas that I realy wanted it so that he could bring it to me. I thought it was so magical when I recieved it that night!
 I also always loved going to the magic cave with all my cousins and crack up seing pictures of us sitting on Father Christmas wearing matching outfits that our mums had sewed for us all and matching hair styles!
I am so thankful to be part of such a big fun family 

2 weeks holidays! Day one

 For my very first day of holidays I went to visit Mum
It was a fun day full of opp shopping, last minute present buying and lunch in the park
After tea we went to the beach until it was time to look at Christmas lights

 The water was dark and moody looking, the weather unseasonably cold

 We saw lots of pretty lights

 It was nice to drive around my old town and see all the farmilliar lights that we see each year and of course some new ones.

Im glad to be on holidays but I dont feel as relaxed as id hoped. Ive taken my second lot of clomid (fertility medication) and its making me feel stressed out.

 I figured that with my work increasing and my day care anual re-approval coming up that I had reasons to feel stressed but now that im on holidays and have nothing to stress about for two weeks I can see that realy im stressed about nothing!

 I hate feeling like this and im considering not taking clomid next month to give myself a break but I hate the thought of missing an oporturity to get pregnant.

 Anyway, my mum gave me a nice relaxing massage and im planning to meditate and have a restful break and hopefully feel good and enjoy my time off.

A little more red and green

 With inspiration from an article on 'Celebrating Christmas soulfully in the southern hemisphere' I have been putting together some simple summery Christmas decorations. My wreath is made of our favourite herb rosemary. I attatched it to a bent coat hanger using torn strips of christmas fabric that I forund at an opp shop during the year. I also added some red felt stars and a sun ornament in the middle in celebration of our hot summer sun. I hung it on the weekend in the hope that it would last two week and this photo was taken this morning, as you can see it is so far so good, still looking green and beautiful after a rather hot day yesterday. Benny and I both love to smell it as it smells just like when I bake chips with rosemary (yum!)

 
 Ive also made another warm summery star for the window in Christmassy red

 And decorated some sprigs of rosemary in a jar. I used some leftove beeswax sheet pieces to make decorative stars that stick on the jar and also modeled some as a candy cane for on the rosemary sprig

Me and the children have been buisy sanding away at our dolls house, here is the 'during' pic of its make over

Its beginning to look a little like Christmas

 Although ive been flat out with work and getting ready for my anual day care aproval ive been slowly but surely enjoying the beginning of summer and the lead up to Christmas by making some simple decorations. Its been a very wet Summer so far. The past couple of days Port Wakefield has been on flood warning!

 I made some rolled bees wax christmas candles this afternoon with stars. When the first one was lit and filling the air with its honey smell it sudenly felt like christmas was on its way. Im glad for the weekend and seems Benny has to work tomorrow morning I will be crafting up some Christmas presents.

(I just lit them both this evening and couldnt resist another picture)

last weekend (or was it the weekend before?) Anneke came over and we decorated Mum and Dads tree together (what a ridiculously lame photo of us all he he:)

merry christmas (a post better late than never?)

oh my, christmas.

buisy buisy buisy, fun fun fun!

i seriously recieved the coolest stuf. piles and mountains of awesome stuff it seemed when i got it into our tiny house. some how ive mannaged to find room for it all.

i got a juice maker from benny and milkshake cups from aj (which are of course really juice cups now)

a few more combis for the collection. its getting outa control and i love it! the 'patchwork quilt' patterned one is my favourite favourite favourite! i herby set a life long challenge for anyone to ever gift me a cooler combi than that one, lils set the bar ridiculously high

i got tons of garden pretties. sigh, i love anything that makes my garden pretty! and a book that weighs probably similar to ten bricks full of pictures of pretty vegie patches. ah, heaven

oh and the most important present was probably my much needed new frypan. a nice booring super practical much appreciated present (dont worry, i picked it out so im not offending anyone)