Antarctic Vortex

We have had media overload these past days as the south-east of Australia geared up for a cold snap. Well the hype, I think, was a bit over the top - although some parts of our state of New South Wales did wake to a whisper-white morning this morning.

Mr HP and I, our Daughter and Grand Daughter had already arranged to pick up Youngest Son at the end of a short hiking trip he was undertaking in the Jamison Valley so we took the opportunity to drive up a bit further up the range to Mount Victoria to see if we could catch some snow.

Well, we did see it snowing, but where we were, the snow did not settle.  

So I don't have snow photos to show you. 

Even so, I have to admit that the cold has been getting me down a bit this winter.  Today's temperature didn't get above 11 'C in Springwood and the previous week didn't perform much better.  

Katoomba (where snow is more likely), it is at present less than 1 'C with a windchill factor of -5.5 'C.

So instead of a snow photo here is a shot of tonight's desert...the cold made me do it...I just needed some comfort food and I can tell you...you can't go past this Baked Rice Pudding by Donna Hay.  You can find the recipe here:  Recipe.

And there's enough leftovers for tomorrow...after all, we might need it, because the media assures us the worse of the Arctic Vortex is yet to come!

Hoping the weather isn't too extreme in your part of the world. 

It's Not Easy Being Green

One day last month I ventured into our local Salvos Store to do some browsing.  It's not a store that I can just wander into as do my shop in the village because it's set apart from the main shopping strip.  It's a store I drive past each time I drive into town but I have to make a conscious decision to go there. 

Once inside I found a huge pile of green single bed sheets (among other things of course!).  One hundred percent cotton, brand new, and a heavy cotton at that. At five dollars each I couldn't pass up on buying one and my intention was to use it as a table cloth on our newly refurbished dining room table.

Green is not my favourite colour. 

Especially this particular shade of green.

It is sort of a vintage green, you know, the one from the late fifties and early sixties.

Institution green.  School classroom walls green, public rest room green.

Much of the interior of my childhood home (which we moved into in the very early sixties) was painted green.

Mum used to tell me that the colour green is very good for the eyes.  She never said why.  Today, I avoid the colour green as much as possible, especially THAT shade of green.  I love the colours jade, aqua, turquoise, teal...but not green!

But I thought a green sheet as a table cloth for everyday use might be okay.

So yesterday was the day I decided to work on the green sheet and bespoke it to fit our dining table.

My Mum was a great seamstress and she taught me to sew when I was very young but she had the knack of just being able to put two pieces of fabric together and sewing it to perfection.  I didn't have that knack and found sewing very frustrating. Especially when I had to unpick sewing, which was more often than not.

But then I took up patchwork and quilting. And I discovered pins.

I have a multitude of pin cushions, this one was a Christmas gift from my Grand Daughter in 2013

And I was taught that if I ironed and pinned my hems, binding etc, well, things came together much better!

As I worked on my project (I needed to cut a strip of fabric off one end as the sheet was too long for our table) I came across a label.

It was then I realised that the sheets are ex-defence stores which must have been donated to the Salvos!

Oh well, there was no turning back! 

With the strip of fabric I cut off I made four serviettes.  I'm very big on serviettes as I refuse to buy paper products (except for toilet paper - and tissues when the lurgy is going around).

I'll just have to remember not to use these when I've got defence-forces family visiting!

But for everyday use I don't think it looks too bad.  I do have another table cloth I can alternate with. (We're not really a tablecloth kinda family but the new paint job needs protecting. And oh...the chairs that go with the dining table are awaiting a face lift and reside in the garage as I speak.)

And it kinda looks cute with my dragonfly china.

Being the ultimate re-cycler I had one little scrap of fabric that I couldn't throw out so I made Little Miss Seven a sack for her school lunch box for the days Nanna has to do school lunch.  It's just large enough to hold some ice coolers, or a frozen water bottle, or her frozen yogurt sippy.

I didn't bother with drawstrings or closures because it's only meant to soak up excess moisture in her lunch box.  The less for little fingers to worry about.

And the label, impossible to remove, except with scissors, I decided to keep (it's inside the sack) as it will be great to write her name on.

What weird and wonderful project have you completed from a reused item?

Birthdays Galore

In our family, June is big on birthdays.

As my remaining siblings, (all sisters now) and I get older, I find it's more difficult to buy birthday presents for them. 

So I have taken to making their gifts and only making them something I know they will use. 

Here is what I have made my Twin Sisters for their birthday this month.

For three years running I have made them a bunch of cards.

Since Mr H.P. has spent up big on card making supplies for my Mother's Day gift this year, I thought I had better make good use of them.
Above is a sample of some of the cards I made.  The ones above are for the older of the Twins. (Ha! Ha!)

With the cards I include envelopes (of course),a sheet of postage stamps and a nice pen.  Then I place all of these items into a useful container, this year a tin which I purchased at the Hippy Shop in Springwood.

The New Age Markets (aka The Hippy Shop) is a shopper's heaven!  Be sure you'll find a gift for any occasion. An hour or two could easily be spent behind the five-shop-fronted emporium!

A warning though...if you spend too much time in there, you're bound to come out smelling of patchoulli and sandalwood...so you can't hide where you've been!

 (I'll put the link up later as it seems to be busy right now.) 

Above you can see a few of the cards I've made for P, the younger of The Twins, and at the back is the tin I will put the bundle into.

I hope they like them, but most of all, I hope they find them useful.

Two days after The Twins' birthday my niece L. turns eighteen...or as she says...she turns "legal", as in Australia, 18 is the legal age for drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco and voting.

Above is the card I've made for L.
I've tried a new technique, using white embossing powder (this one is called Seafoam White and has a bit of a pearlescence to it) stamped on baby blue card stock.

The butterfly was stamped on black card stock and embossed with the same embossing powder and then cut out with scissors before mounting on card using foam tape. 

I'm also trying my hand at word cards but I'm feeling a bit uncertain about them...so maybe more about them later.

Four birthdays down...four to go...in June.

(By the way...February is our busiest birthday month).

Do you have a month that is jam packed with birthdays?

This Month In The Garden - April.

We have had a most unusual weather pattern this past summer and now into autumn. We are into our second autumn month and I have seen not one gold coloured leaf as yet.

On April 4 Springwood received 76 mm of rain.  In one hour on the same day 10.4 mm of rain fell.  I have had to rescue some of my potted plants from the extreme amounts of rain.  One of these potted plants is an orchid that I have managed to grow from a cutting given to me by a local orchid enthusiasts and professional grower, Alan, who I met by chance at a garage sale.  He was generous and happy enough to take Mr HP and I for an impromptu tour of his nursery in Glenbrook one Saturday afternoon last June or July.  He offered me two cuttings he found on one of his work tables which I gratefully accepted and then gingerly planted into two small glazed terracotta pots when we arrived home.  

I have only every grown dendrobium or Sydney rock orchids so I was a little dubious about the success I would have with these.  For the first six to seven months they resided in the loft studio above our garage bathed in filtered light from a west facing window. I watered them rarely, almost forgetting their existence. I didn't hold much hope for them but after a few months some new growth appeared and then as the weather became warmer and our youngest moved back home, they began impinging on his space, so I moved the pots outdoors and hoped that they would continue to thrive.

Which they did.

On Easter Sunday one little flower bloomed and today I was thrilled to find all the flowers blooming happily, bopping their little heads in unison each time someone walked by the table on which I have now placed them in an attempt to control  the amount of water they receive.

Although I'm not 100% sure...I think they are Cirrhopetalum ornatissimum.

It's been love at first sight!  I wonder what surprise the other little pot will have to offer soon? 

99th Anniversary of ANZAC Day 2014 Springwood NSW

We gather here today, not to glorify war or praise victors, but to remember those who have served our country during times of conflict and crisis, and to reflect upon their selfless sacrifice."