M.I.A. 'Cause Life is O.T.T. - A.T.M. #2

Another task I set myself while M.I.A. was to propagate some herbs which will be donated to Blue Mountains residents that have had their gardens damaged or destroyed in the recent fires.

Mr Honey Pie is addicted to coffee.  What other way can I put it?  Luckily we have a great coffee enthusiast that delivers freshly roasted coffee to our door as required!

As a result we have endless bags that once held the aromatic beans.  Being the hoarder that I am, and the committed up-cycler I decided to put them to good use.

After slicing the tops off so that they are nice and straight (this is important....I used a ruler), I folded them down about three or four times to give me a nice sturdy container.

Using my Silent Setter, I punched holes for draining.

Voila!

Even in our heat wave conditions, they continue to do very well, except for the sage which I always find a difficult herb to grow.

Have you ever used an unusual container to grow plants? What was it?

M.I.A. 'Cause Life is O.T.T. - A.T.M.

I have been missing in action because life is over the top at the moment.

Here is a tiniest look-see into a fraction of what I've been up to...

African Violet

I've been propagating,

Flap Jacks

planting,

Echeveria 

planting some more,

Senecio mandraliscae - Kleinia (?)

and even more.

Zebra Cactus

I also painted a bit.

Echeveria

And did a little bit of pasting.

I've fallen for how these tins have turned out.  The graphic above and below is from The Graphics Fairy.

I used a little bit of outdoor Mod Podge to adhere the graphic (printed in reverse on paper) to the painted tin.   When dry I rubbed off the back of the paper with a damp sponge to reveal the graphic which was then given a final coat of Mod Podge to seal. 

Jelly Bean Plant

Jade

The best thing about all this...is that I've managed to sell all the plants (and more) on a community on-line garage sale.

 

Perennial Basil 

No Need For Words...

Warning...

Highly edited photograph ahead....

For so long I have been attempting to photograph the elusive bower birds that frequent our garden.

Never in the past thirteen years have I seen one eating from the lorikeet feeder.  

To spot one this morning, only metres from our dinning room window, was certainly a surprise.

The fact that the bower bird has come to the feeder might be a reflection of the reduction of food in the wild - due to the dry weather and the recent bush fires.

But, the bird did not stay long and I had to creep around the corner of the house to take photographs.  The result...another bad photograph of the female or young male satin bowerbird. (The mature male satin bowerbird is a beautiful shiny blue-black).

Making Do

Recently, I unpicked a stretch cotton nightie I no longer wore.

I carefully unpicked the seams.

 I kept the hem intact to save me time later, and, using this pattern 

I made our Grand Daughter two new nighties - one lilac and one soft green.

The original soft green nightie had short sleeves but there just wasn't quite enough saved fabric for the sleeves so I had to ad lib a little.

The original lilac nightie was sleeveless and a bit shorter than the soft green so I opted for a mauve cotton print for the sleeves because there just wasn't enough of the original fabric...but I don't seem to have a photo (oops).

Little Miss Six has been wearing them non stop since I made them. 

Because it's a nightie I omitted the elastic from the sleeves and later I added buttons to the front of this nightie just so Little Miss Six knows front from back.

To the front of the lilac nightie I added a little pocket which I'd unpicked from the original.

WOW II

There was a queue.

Damian Ryan was there too.

They waived to the crowd.

Then they had a media huddle.

 They were mobbed by the crowd.

 They were hi-fived, 

...and mobbed some more.

There was a Red one,

And a Blue one...

And a Purple one.

And of course we can't forget the Yellow one.

The local area command was called in for crowd control. (LAC also handed out balloons and bracelets to the pre-schoolers in the audience).

Welcome Wiggles On Wednesday...W.O.W.

They came to put a smile on the faces of some children affected by the recent fire storm. 

They presented Serge Rosato, the principal of the school with a new guitar to replace the one he lost when the family home was destroyed. 

Not only did the children smile and get in on the act, but so did the parents.

Thank you to the Wiggles for helping with the emotional recovery of our children.

And afterwards...while Yellow Wiggle, Purple Wiggle and Red Wiggle signed autographs for the pre-schoolers, Blue Wiggle rushed off incognito, carrying his own guitar, to meet other obligations.

Footnote:

Although the children at St Thomas Aquinas School range in age from five to twelve years of age...the Wiggles made it age appropriate for all the children by introducing 

Justin Bieber and 1 Direction into their act...ingenious...

Also, the Wiggles were once known as the Cockroaches...yes that's right...and during the eighties the Cockroaches played to adoring crowds consisting of many a teacher in training...so as you can imagine - some old memories were revived for a number of the school teachers present this afternoon.