'Auntie Velda'

Short and sweet visit by the lovelyMorisco ladies, Maya, May and Velda. They were very quickly recruited into the job of "read book" for Amy and Danny, book after book after book until they left town!!!

International Day picnic

This lovely picnic was organized by families with adopted children to meet other 'mutlicultural family' in Mackay. Lots of friends from my playgroup here.

Teabags, shells and sewing machine

Every morning, as daddy makes his cuppa tea, little miss Amy who wants to do it all just like grown ups insists on getting her own teabag, and swinging it around the house till it ends up in some corner, to be retrieved later by yours truly. So with a bit of inspiration from some blog(sorry can't find link) i came up with this felt version of 'the teabag'. They loved it, for a few days....






A very exciting afternoon at a nearby beach where we discovered treasure-troves of shells and stones. I got so excited after finding cowrie shells for the first time ever, it brought back memories of faraway Cameroon, visiting the palace of a local chief of a village, the front entrance decorated with cowrie shells embedded into the mud plaster, and strung around the neck as a necklace. Historically, they were used as currency in ancient Africa.




Finally, a sewing machine to get on to those myriad projects i've been dreaming up, especially after reading "The Creative Family" (thanks Lessan) and the whole idea of bringing the homely things back into the home.... Got this machine free from our local Freecycle network. Love Freecycle. It works, and at this butterfly stage of our life, i'm not spending much on heavy large objects that may not be able to move to the next destination (no clue yet where that could be).

edible alphabet

Any excuse to get Danny interested in his ABC's, without appearing to 'teach' him. I used a simple dough for flat bread here, and helfway through rolling it out for some 'naan', brought out some alphabet cutters that had been stashed away for ages - maybe Danny would like to have a play with cutting out letters... He got right into it. No sugar either!

Felt Phase

Some felt food I made up, which kids loved.















3 months later: Turns out this was more than a phase, i've since made a few more pieces. Some samples made for a friends child:

Coloured pasta craft

Made some coloured pasta to take to craft time at one of the playgroups we attend.
Here's how: to half a cup vinegar add 10 or more drops food colouring. Add pasta shells and let dry overnight. Colour intensifies when dry. I mixed up the colours for different shades here, but primary colours look brilliant too.

Bake me cake

Amy's birthday rolled around and despite the fact that i'm not big on birthdays, i though it a good opportunity to meet up with new mommy friends in new town, and keep it simple. Well, what to do about the cake...what does the birthday girl like? easy, books. All day, everyday, mommy read book. So i'll make a book shaped caked. But which of the many favourite books...hmmm....One that she and i both love, gets read daily, and was MY favourite book as a little girl: 'Karen and the little lost kitten', charming little book with a pop up kitten, now out of print.
Using a recipe for a firm cake, i covered it with a layer of marzipan, then some sugarpaste icing, which was nightmare to get on without crumbling. the rest was just a matter of using painting a scene with food colouring, as if on paper, and some marzipan bits, made ahead.