Apparently these are my most popular photos on flickr. Two are my polymer clay guild’s challenge entries. Three are miniature food. I’m not sure about the rest! Interesting.
Archive for August 17, 2008
My Flickr Most Popular
Category: All Sorts of Things /
You know you are sleep deprived when….
Walking around the shops today someone asked me what my baby’s name is. This happens often of course as people always smile and ‘awwwww’ about newborns when out and about. You know you are sleep deprived when you are asked this question and you draw a blank. It probably only took me about 3 seconds to answer her but I looked at little Land I just couldn’t remember her name. This has never happened to me before! Poor L.
Shopping today gave me a few interesting experiences. That was the first of them. The second was walking past a lady pushing a trolley with a 2 yr old in it and the toddler was munching away on….a full sized cucumber!! Both ends had been gnawed away at. I have never seen a child do that before! I wish my child would, I do hope it was a burpless cucumber. : )
The third thing I saw was something that I was say is one of my pet peeves. A very young and distracted Mum walked past me pushing her pram and it was clear that the bub was a newborn. She had the wrap all around the baby’s top half, feet were sticking out the bottom uncovered and she had his bottle propped up letting him ‘feed himself’. This really REALLY annoys me. I just don’t understand how anyone can just let a newborn guzzle away on a bottle without holding them. I see it as dangerous, can’t they stop for 10 minutes and feed their bub. So sorry if you do this and think its ok, just one of my pet peeves.
The last thing I experienced at the shops today was memorable. The shopping centre had set up TV sets around the place and had it set to the olympics. I noticed that a small crowd was forming around the TV so I parked the pram near the group to see what they were watching. It was the women’s swim medley (no idea which one) and Australia was winning. The crowed got quite a bit thicker by the end of the race but strangely enough it was a silent crowd, as if everyone was holding their breath. Then, we won!! It was quite odd as everyone broke out into applause and cheered and then someone at the back yelled out the ol’ ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie!’ slogan. Within about 10 seconds the crowd disbanded and everyone went back to their shopping. It was a nice feeling to share the win with everyone, but so strange at the same time.
Have you had any odd shopping experiences lately? Feel free to share in the comments.
Category: All Sorts of Things, Family /
Cupcakes and Pie
A few posts back I mentioned completing a custom order of cupcakes and pies. The order was for Liza of Lillybuds and she’s listed her special bouquets using my creations on her website. Take a moment to look around her site but here’s what she’s been creating:
Liza’s bouquets are also in the current edition of Notebook magazine so look out for them if you have a chance to. Congrats Liza! You can also visit her Etsy store to see more of her amazing work.
For my next trick….
When K was born I made her a few special gifts. Some were hand sewn, some knitted and some were painted. I am determined to do the same thing for L. I really don’t want her to grow up thinking that I didn’t have time to make her special things. On the top of the list is a hand stitched felt book. In order to see what I mean you have to pay a visit to my old blog. Here are the links:
Keziah’s Felt Book
Malachi’s Felt Book
A page from Malachi’s book
A page from K’s book
The second book I did was for my little nephew Malachi and his had an Aussie theme. I had a great time designing these as I went. Now my plan is to come up with one for L and one for Malachi’s little brother (my second nephew) Ty. This will be a work in progress for a little while and I will attempt to do the two at the same time! I did make a start today at last by pulling out my large pieces of felt and seeing what I’ve got. Turns out I’ve got a lot! So here’s the first shot in a long WIP!
I just love bright colours, especially when it comes to kids things so I couldn’t help but take some extra pics of the felt all lined up.
I have no actual plan as to the theme for these two books, usually I just work it out as I go so it will be interesting to see what they turn out like this time.
What’s the Secret?
Ok, if you have more than two kids then I have a question for you. What’s your secret? How do you do it? I now understand what that strange smile meant when I mentioned being tired after having K to those with more than one child. I know what you were thinking and not saying…”ahh, wait until you have more than one…then the fun starts!”. I knew it would be a juggling act but I don’t think I quite knew how many balls there’d be.
L is not even a month old and I feel as if I’ve been thrown in the deep end. In this last week she has been diagnosed with silent reflux. The sound a baby with reflux makes is not nice, it sounds as if she has some sort of chest infection with a gurgly cough and snuffly nose. Earlier in the week we were getting ready to take her down to the after hours GP as I was sure she was sick when a good friend Jono (who’s a doctor) dropped by and checked her for us. He confirmed that she has reflux (silent = little or no throwing up) not an infection so I breathed a sigh of relief.
Only two days later I was making another Doctor’s appointment as Kezi had develped a cough that was getting worse. Turns out she has bronchitis, which is contagious so my level of stress went up a few more notches as I worried that she’d pass it on to L. I’m convinced that its the prayers of those who I let know about this that have stopped this happening.
The other night I sat down at 2am to feed L and at the same time K was coughing and spluttering in her room and crying out for me. That’s when I realised that this is what the deep end feels like. Actually, it must just be the ‘middle of the pool’ because the deep end must be reserved for those with more than two kids (you are my new heroes). In the end I had to take L with me into K’s room to settle her and just hold her away from K (I have to hold L upright for half an hour after each feed because of the reflux). I was out of bed more that night than I was in it and I’m still feeling exhausted two days later. Ok, I expect that I’ll probably feel this way for a few years to come.
Actually, no, don’t tell me the secret, I don’t need to know. I’m quite happy with having two kids, don’t plan on having any more. You can keep your cards held closely to your chest, what I need is someone to teach me to juggle!
Category: All Sorts of Things, Family /
Time Snatching
In between everything I’ve been snatching little pockets of time to still be creative. I quite like how these sets have turned out and hope that they will sell when I list them. Today that probably won’t happen (unless I get an energy spurt) as K has bronchitis and I spent a good chunk of last night out of bed so I’m pretty tired. More on that later. Anyway, here’s this weeks results of time snatching:
Pink Set using a set of millefiori cane beads I made.
Red, Black and White Set using more Millefiori Beads and Czech crystals.
Mokume Gane based bead Set also using crystal beads.
These will be available soon in one of the following stores:
Polyclarific @ Etsy
Polyclarific @ MadeIt
Polyclarific @ Wahmania
Don’t forget that this month the profits from all sales go to helping educate church leaders in Malawi, Africa in AIDS and HIV knowledge (through SIM). I have had enough sales to send two leaders to the seminars so far.
My Little Dancer (gets up to mischief) (again).
K has been going to Kindy Dance classes for three weeks now and she loves it! I decided to buy her a little dancing outfit last week but not wanting to spend a fortune went along to good ol’ Red Dot and found her a sweet little tutu that will suit our purposes. Of course if she does ever take up dancing properly I’ll invest in a proper outfit but this suits our purposes for now. I thinks she looks very sweet in her new outfit, complete with baby legs leggings!
This sweet little dancer got up to mischief (again) yesterday. She was happily playing with her stickers one second and when I looked away for a moment, this is what she did to poor (3 week old) L:
at least she did it to herself as well, they make a good pair I think:
and so the sisterly playfulness begins!
Category: Family /
New Items
I’ve just listed some new items in my Etsy store and put two of them in my Wahmania store also. Here’s a sneek peek:
Shhhhhhh, the baby is sleeping
Just had to share this sweet photo.
Its amazing to me that newborn babies can sleep through anything. Its actually a really good thing because K is a very loud kid! She loves to sing and dance and was entertaining us all with this last night:
The whole time, L was doing this:
There are however signs that she too will take after her big sister, such as this:
I don’t mind a bit though, they are both gorgeous girls.
Category: All Sorts of Things, Family /
Custom Order Finished – A Yummy one!
I worked hard this week and got this custom order finished. I really enjoyed creating these little pastel cupcakes and lemon meringue pies on pastel plates. I quite like the glossy finish too and am almost inspired to create some little tiny chocolate sundae’s and other desserts.
While I was busy claying I had another go at creating a few other things. I quite like the red and black group which will be a necklace and earrings:
I did create a few other things but I won’t clog up this post with more photos. Sometimes I wonder why I put up pictures of my latest creations. After considering this for a bit, I think its simply because I appreciate feedback on what I create. In my non-online world I don’t have discussions about creativity, design or art with many people as it never comes up. I don’t really show many people my creations outside of the internet (in the sense that I am braver on here than in real life) and so this is a good place to connect with those who are like-minded. I don’t think its so much for ‘praise’ but more for genuine feedback. Gradually I’ve gained confidence in what I do but I have a long way to go in understanding the polymer clay medium. At the same time, I’m really looking forward to getting back into painting again. I have my painting cupboard all ready, full of oil, acrylic and pastel paints and have kept all my spare canvases from uni…..ah one day! I’d appreciate any feedback on the things I’ve posted here. Without refining my skills I cannot improve. Thanks for those who do give feedback, its very much appreciated.
