Green Chandeliers and Lemon Delicious

As I write this post tonight, I can hear the crowd singing Advance Australia Fair at the British Lions vs Australia game at Suncorp. My husband is watching the game at a hotel just up from the stadium, along with some of the other hood husbands.
Work is progressing very nicely downstairs. Remember, last update it looked like this?

It has suddenly turned a corner and is become much more exciting. The walls are being sheeted and now we can see proper rooms forming.

We are building in bookshelves on either side of the french doors, you can see them coming together.

We're currently looking into what to put on the floor, but more on that at a later stage.

We really want to use green somewhere in the main room, whether in a floor tile or a light. I've come across some very beautiful green chandeliers.

I love these beaded styles.

I found this chandelier at Recollections. Could I possible change the colour? Probably not.

Tonight I made one of my most very favourite old fashioned puddings, Lemon Delicious. A perfect hybrid of souffle and self saucing pud.

I use a recipe from The Australian Women's Weekly Original Cookbook, first published in 1970.

To make Lemon Delicious separate three eggs and beat the yolks with half a cup of caster sugar. Beat in a cup of milk and a tablespoon of self raising flour, a tablespoon of lemon zest, pinch of salt and half a cup of lemon juice. Meanwhile, whisk the egg whites with a tablespoon of sugar until peaks form. Fold through the lemon mixture and pour into an oven proof dish. Stand the dish in a pan of cold water and bake at around 180 degrees for 50-60 minutes. Serve immediately with a little dobby of vanilla ice cream on the side. It will be meringue-y on the top half with a lemon sauce underneath. You'll love it. Guaranteed.

I have all manner of sewing/crafty odds and ends. A burglar breaking into our house would think he'd arrived at Martha's house, but alas, my hand skills do not match my ambition. Having said that, I had some success recently and I thought I'd share with you in case you are in the same boat.
I got this idea from a beach towel I saw at a shop at The Barracks, possibly Robe?
All one does is take a non descript towel, in my case, a child's beach towel, and cut a piece of complementing fabric which is the same size.
You then stitch the two together, with the fabric's right side facing out. Then take some bias binding and sew it around the edges - I'm not sure how that stuff is meant to go, but I managed to sew it in a crude fashion. Then to finish off, sew some pom poms or other trim onto the ends. It becomes a beach towel slash picnic rug, and it looks like this.

I think even if you're a faux-sewer like me, it's pretty self explanatory.

Hey presto! A monkey could do it.

Thinking about the design of your new house? Have you heard of Twigitecture, probably should be a small 't''. Twigitecture is the art of building nests for humans. This one is for rent at Big Sur in the US for US$110 per night. We may now call that AUD$121 per night. Spectacular, but very uncomfortable looking. You can read more about them here if you really want to.

  I got these cane stools recently. They're the same style as our lounge setting. It's all getting a bit matchy, matchy, but don't fear, I'm onto it. The stools are a bit high and bulky to fit under the bench, but they'll be ok. For now. The stool cushions are getting a Hawaiian style makeover. Stay tuned.

Did someone mention pineapple? I thought so. Have a look at this gorgeous lamp. I think it's at Pad in Sydney.

Now I'm off to make the most of having the television all to myself. This is a rarity, we're a one-tv-household. I'm going to watch Karen Blixen and Dennis Finch Hatton running around Kenya together. That move gets sadder and sadder every time I see it.

'I had a farm in Africa, at za foot of za Ngong Hills.....'

Old men, giant flamingos and retrenched Christmas fairies

Happy new year (albeit belated)! I absolutely did not mean for so much time to slip by between posts, not that I imagine many people were on the edge of their seats waiting for me to utter my next word. The universe was against me in everyway; unexpected disasters, Blogger issues, photo uploading problems, a misplaced camera cord, unreliable internet connections, and so on.
We had a busy end of year, as everyone does, and then my (soon to be) 82 year old father became incapacitated, then hospitalised. Hands up anyone who has experienced the joy of transitioning an elderly parent from their own home to a nursing home (although we're constantly battling to use other names for it).
For the past week he has been trialling a lovely 'ah hm' at Clayfield. It's beautiful, heritage listed, all meals are made from scratch on the premises, it has beautiful gardens, air conditioning, it's close to everything, it has lots of common areas and easy accessability of course.

But guess what! He hates it, it's full of old people! This ageing parent business isn't easy on anyone, least of all the baby of the family. Poor me. So now he's back off to his own house to battle along a bit longer, then I imagine we'll start the whole process again.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I finally managed to get my hands on some giant flamingos. My Era buddy has a pair which I've coveted and I now I have my very own. With the stuffed peacock and now the flamingos the living area has taken on a rather 'camp' tone, which I don't mind a bit.

I also got these two brass goblet-ty things at the Salvos, tarted them up with some white paint and popped in some succulents. Yes I know a monkey could have done it, but I was still chuffed with the result.

Here is some more of my handy work. I acquired these two cane chairs, also from the Salvos. Then I whipped out the Janome and made some new covers for them. It made for a highly productive Friday night, and as it turns out, they are the most comfortable chairs ever put on the face of the earth.

This is a bonsai Fig I found in my father's garden. He said it's about 30 or 40 years old. We love it. It also had a mate, but after Peaches jazzed it up with a swing and a slippery dip it strangely passed on to the big garden in the sky. Considering it had sat happily unattended in Dad's garden for a few years it was a rather insulting gesture to turn its toes up only weeks after coming to living with us. Good riddance I say.

The girls have taken to calling regular trees 'big bonsais', which I suppose technically they are.

While we're on the subject of show and tell, this was one of my Christmas presents. I squeezed myself into it and wore it on Christmas Day. It gave the effect of a giant Christmas fairy, who had somewhat let herself go.

The stonework out in the garden is now pretty much complete and is just waiting for its plants.

She's coming along the old girl, slowly but surely.

One emergency physio required!

That was an unexpected break. I've had computer problems, camera problems, time issues, etc.
I'm back but sans any photos I'm afraid. We went camping on the weekend and I took lots of 'arty' campfire shots, but I haven't been able to get them off the camera for reasons too boring to possibly go into.
Have you noticed that Bush Fire signs now range from 'low' to 'catastrophic'. I was looking at one as we drove bush over the weekend, and I asked my husband if he thought that, in the case of a 'catastrophic bushfire', would anyone have the presence of mind to move the arrow?
I need help with two things. One is a good physiotherapist, preferably close to, but not in, the city? I've had a bad back for two and a half years now. I did originally visit a couple of them but I found they'd look at my back, give me an exercise or two (ie, stretching like a cat), charge me $75, and in two weeks time want me to go back so they could give me a photocopy of another exercise. Why would they not give me all the exercises at once? Nothing worked, but I'm desperate enough to give it another try. I'm also open to other treatments like acupuncture and voodoo.
Secondly, I'm in need of a couple of easy craft projects for the girls to do over the holidays. I know the holidays are nearly over, but I'm running behind a bit. They're getting sick of playing with the ball of string and the empty cereal box they were given at the start of holidays.
I shall be back tomorrow and I'll be bringing photos with me!

Jazzing up a chandelier 101

Chandeliers can be so plain don't you think - or have I just been reading too much Fancy Nancy?
Inspired by one I saw on Anna Spiro's blog, I decided to jazz up the chandelier in the children's room. I'd love to show you the one that was the inspiration, but for the life of me I can't find it, and I refuse to spend any more time looking for it.
Anna Spiro had put mini chandelier shades onto a chandelier, each covered in a different fabric. Hardly original, but it looked fabo, as anything touched by her usually does.
I managed to find some blank shades on Ebay and had them shipped over from Pennsylvania in America.

By the time they landed at my door they amounted to $8 each, which I think is pretty good.
That brown paper peels off and you stick on your own fabric. I used a glue gun for the first time. I used it to glue down the ends of the fabric. Let me tell you, me and a glue gun could change the world. Loved it. I gave myself third degree burns, but it was worth it.
If you are familiar with my birthday cake making from earlier in the year, you may be expecting some sort of disaster to have unfolded with this Martha-business, but it all went smoothly. Almost.
At one stage I cut the pom pom trim to go around the bottom, moved over to the glue gun to put the glue on, then when I came back to the table I was working at I couldn't remember which piece of trim was the right length. I had to just guess, and I'm afraid I guessed wrong, so there you go. One of the shades has a bit of patchy trim.
Also, I meant to alternate two patterns, but as I realised, you can't alternate two patterns on a five-arm chandelier. Sometimes I think I'm lucky to be living independently.
Anyway, it turned out pretty well I think. My photos didn't unfortunately. My little red box brownie finally threw in the towel for good. After I located my husband's camera the sun had gone down, so the light wasn't crash hot. Our ceilings are so high that, even with balancing on the bed and stretching up my arms, I still couldn't photograph the chandelier very well. This was my first attempt, snapped as I fell to the ground.

This is the final.

And again.

And once more, this time in the dark!

You see my thought here is that lots of bad photos may collectively equal one good one?


I have been busier than a one-armed juggler lately. Tonight I was at Woolies at 8pm, then I had to come home wash my hair (no small feat) and make two Rapunzel plaits from yellow wool (nothing to do with washing my hair). Tomorrow I have a 9.30am meeting where I must endeavour to look 10 years younger than I really am, then I have to race off to work, race off to kindy, whip into home and pick up our two smelly guinea pigs and take them to school by 3pm for show & tell. After school I have to buy two birthday presents for weekend parties and return our 500 library books before we're fined, find a Rapunzel dress, make dinner and get the homework done. It's a lot ot fit into 12 hours.
I thought all our mod cons were supposed to ease the burden!
Yesterday in the post I was delighted to find a pressie from my girlfriend Heidi. It was a leopard print Snuggie. It's positively luxurious and drags on the ground when I walk around. I have to stop watching its train actually or I'm going to walk into something. I feel like an African Queen. I'm afraid there'll be no photo of it though.
Now, buoyed by my latest craft attempt, I'm hatching an even more ambitious project!