Archive for December 31, 2009

2009

December 31, 2009 / Molly / 7 comments

Before the year ends (one hour to go 45 mins here in Perth) I thought I would summarise this past year. Here goes:

Family, creativity, travel, wedding, Mexico, Cairns, Sydney, play, knitting, mad at God, happy at God, mad at God, happy at God, mad at myself for being mad at God, claying, sickness, coughing, more coughing, teething, nappies, rolling, crawling, walking, running, bumps, kid’s corner, giggles, tantrums, dora, high5, sadness, struggles, rain, garden, green, fruit, museum, circus, city, zoo, cousins, brother, sisterinlaw, Mum, Dad, Mum and Dad again, Paronella Park, birthdays, hospitality, cooking, cakes, cupcakes, bikkies, Powerhouse Museum, drawing, sketching, beads, listing, Etsy, Madeit, Melville Baptist, hearing half sermons, creche, outside play, sandpit, iphone, music, steven curtis chapman, keith green, painting, butterflies, character makeover, sadness, happiness, tiredness, babies, babies and more babies, Adelaide, friends, Christmas, New Years.

Nothing is in order of course, just random thoughts as they came to mind and of course I’ve missed quite a few things. Happy New Year everyone!

Category: All Sorts of Things, Deeper Thoughts / Tags: ,

1950′s Colours

December 30, 2009 / Molly / 5 comments

I have been planning for some time now to create a line of clay work with 1950′s and 1980′s themes and this week I finally started mixing colours. When I first thought of this I had simply pink and black in my head but after researching for a while I discovered that the main colours include variations of lilac, aqua, turquoise, golden yellow, soft apple green, French blue and coral as well as red, navy and black and white.

At this point I’m skipping red, navy and black and white and will mix French blue, hot pink and baby pink alongside the colours shown in the photo to team with black.

Why the 50′s? I wrote previously why I’m attracted to that era here.

So here’s the mix so far;

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Category: All Sorts of Things, Art, Polymer Clay /

Gumnuts

December 27, 2009 / Molly / No comments

If you were ever so inclined as to make a polymer clay cane with a gumnut pattern in it I’ve written a tutorial (complete with half good and half blurry photos) here on my Polyclarific blog.

Here’s what the finished result looked like:

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Category: All Sorts of Things, Polyclarific, Polymer Clay, Tutorials / Tags: , , , ,

I have just realised…

December 27, 2009 / Molly / 4 comments

That I will soon need to:

1. Create a new folder for my photos on my computer called ’2010′. For some reason this sounds very futuristic.
2. Buy school supplies for K as she starts Kindy in around 5 weeks time. This is a first and the start of the pattern for the next 16 years or so.
3. Sort through the girls toys and actually get rid of some after the Christmas gifts they recieved.
4. Hurry up and start my new polymer clay line of work….1950′s and 1980′s themed.

I’m sure this list will get longer and longer by the end of the week. I also have realised that this is our official first school holidays for miss K as we can no longer look at the next few months in terms of weeks of doing whatever we want to. Come February and we’re locked in! I’m not too sure how I feel about this just yet.

Category: All Sorts of Things, Darling Daughters, Family / Tags: ,

Peace on earth? Where?

December 24, 2009 / Molly / One comment

P1170014You’ve all heard the line (verse):

Luke 2:14
“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”

and I’m sure most of us hear this and have one of two reactions. We either take no notice, after all its just a line that is printed on Christmas cards and sung in Christmas carols and is a bit of a cliche or we think ‘peace? Where? When? Yeah right!’.

Last Sunday Pastor Mike Fischer mentioned something interesting in his sermon. He noted that Jesus did not say he was here to bring peace to the earth, not physical peace anyway. In fact in Jesus own words:

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn” ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law – a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ (Matthew 10: 34-36 and also in Luke 12:51)

Why would the peace-loving, gentle, anti-violent Jesus say such a thing? He was making a reference to what would happen when a family member chooses to follow Him. He was acknowledging what would happen when one person disagreed with the choice of another person. By all accounts around the world this is exactly what happens. Whether in true violent fashion as seen in some places or whether in mild sarcasm or bullying as in many cases, it happens.

Why would Jesus want this and what ‘on earth’ were those angels going on about when they said that Jesus birth would bring peace on earth? Were they dreaming? Did they have their heads in the clouds?. Physically maybe but technically no. As Mike said last Sunday the peace that they were talking about was much more one on one than we think. It was all about our personal peace with God not peace between one man and another. I don’t believe there will be true peace between men until all is said and done.

Our personal peace with God will depend on many things. Our view of God and whether he exists, whether we are angry at him for something or not, whether we think God is someone worth thinking about etc… If there is no peace then there is war and if there is war between you and God then there cannot be rest.

For me, when asked what I consider to be the real meaning of Christmas this is my answer. Its about our peace with God, after all thats what all the ‘stuff’ about the baby, star, manger, animals etc.. is really based upon. Its about Jesus being born so we could have a way to God through him. I believe that all of this is true and real.

Next time you sing the words ‘Peace on earth’ remember, this may just be (I believe it IS) the most important thing to consider. What if God is actually real and you don’t have peace with him? Take a minute this Christmas to think deeply about this. I do hope you find peace (with God) at the end of 2009.

Category: All Sorts of Things, Deeper Thoughts /

Muffin Tin Monday – Christmas

December 21, 2009 / Molly / 6 comments

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Today I did Muffin Tin Monday for the girls and of course went with a Christmas theme. I took some photos of the trays but for some reason they weren’t on my camera, maybe I deleted them by accident! Oh well, I did get these shots of them enjoyed their lunch. I did star, tree, angel, bell and snowflake shaped cheese and sandwiches, red and green themed food (peas, grapes and kiwi fruit), star shaped pretzels, a small amount of red and green lollies and some pear. I used Christmas patty pans for K and silicone ones for L (she tends to eat the paper). Here tis:

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Category: All Sorts of Things, Darling Daughters / Tags: , ,

Christmas Ornaments

December 21, 2009 / Molly / One comment

After reading Christie’s post about the meaning of the Christmas ornaments on her tree I thought I would share a similar post on here. I am a person of layers…..a bit like Shrek I suppose! I like almost everything in my house and life to have meaning and depth (I have a series of artwork in mind using layers…one day!) including my Christmas decorations. In fact, all the ‘things’ hanging around in my house collecting dust are there for a reason. They have a memory or person attached to them especially the things we brought back from Africa and anything that was passed down from either of my Nannas.

So, here’s a sample of some of our ornaments. Our tree does look similar to other people who have little children (and let them decorate)…a bit of a mish mash, kind of like someone tipped or threw the ornaments on instead of placing them. K did however place them on the tree and had a lot of fun doing it (and L had a go too):

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Not a bad end result:

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So, on with the ornaments:

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This is one I made quite a few years ago, I keep forgetting about these (there are quite a few in different colours) and each year I think that I should make more for friends. I need a reminder!

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Miss K made this one at Kid’s Corner this year, it has her name and the date on it so I am going to enjoy putting this up year after year.

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Last year I picked up this bauble in the post Christmas sales and it allows you to put a photo inside so I put one of my parents on one side and one of my brother and his family on the other side as all of them live interstate and I won’t see them this Christmas. I actually was able to buy two of these so I printed out some photos for them of all of us and put them inside and gave it to them.

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These two have special meaning but aren’t related. The one of the left is one of about three the same that are left over from our tree when I was a kid. I remember putting these on the tree year after year and no matter how tatty they get I’ll still put them up. The one on the right was made my me when I was in high school (during Girl’s Brigade I think). Its been on the tree for so long it doesn’t seem right not to put it up.

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This was one of last years decoration inventions that I put in my Etsy shop. I have a couple left that I’ve kept. Next year I hope to be more organised and make some more to sell.

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This was bought for Miss K by my Mum so she could think of Nanna each year at Christmas. I need to get one for Miss L.

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There are about three of these and they are very special, precious even. These were from my Nanna’s tree and are a bit old. Some of them are broken but I don’t care, they remind me of her.

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Finally, each year Miss K has been making a decoration and we give them to close family. The eggs I posted about earlier are this year’s gift and this bear was last year’s gift. The year before she made a sparkly tree although I didn’t get to keep any of those.

Seeing as L is so little this year and obviously would pull the tree apart, we put up our smaller tree this time and put it up high. This was instead of doing what a lot of people suggest and putting it in the playpen. There’s just not enough room in our home to put up a playpen.

Christmas really isn’t about all this fluff at all, its about our personal peace with God (post coming soon) but I like the fluff. I consider it all part of our culture and as long as our kids understand the difference between the fluff and the peace, I don’t mind. Its up to hubby and I to make sure they see that difference.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Category: All Sorts of Things, Darling Daughters, Family / Tags: , , , ,

The Making of a Christmas Envelope

December 20, 2009 / Molly / One comment

The other day I needed to make a quick envelope to go with some gifts and was about to look up a tutorial for it when I thought, surely it can’t be that hard to make. After a little thinking this is what I came up with.

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Finished Envelope

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First take a square of paper and placing it ‘wrong’ side up, fold it in half corner to corner

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Then fold the tip down to the middle

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Open the square to reveal the fold lines

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Fold the bottom triangle to the middle of the ‘wrong’ side

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Next fold two of the corners into the centre

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Fold the rectangle back up to meet the fold lines

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Fold down the triangle and you will see your envelope form

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Ta Daaaa! The finished envelope

You could easily trim the inside flaps and glue them down if you wanted to. I just used a sticker to hold down the triangle once putting contents inside.

Category: All Sorts of Things, Tutorials / Tags: , ,

Rewarded For Normal Behaviour

December 18, 2009 / Molly / 5 comments

Yesterday in the early hours of the morning, little L and I flew back from Adelaide where we had been visiting family for the last 5 days. Since L is under 2 yrs her ticket is free but she has to sit on my lap. On the trip over we were given a seat with a spare one between us and so she was able to spread out and go to sleep and I was hoping for the same on the return trip.

After being seated right up the back of the plane (the very last row) a young boy, around 12 yrs old was given the seat next to us (only two seats per row either side of the isle). I didn’t mind, I figured I’d be pretty lucky to get a seat for L this time too. I noticed the host (as in male hostess) was talking to him and told him that some food would be rustled up for him. Being a Virgin flight we had to buy all our food so I asked him if he had any money to which he said ‘no’. I told him that if they didn’t bring him anything I’d buy him a sandwich or something. He was happy to chat about where he was going and was very impressed with my new phone.

After a short time the hostess came over and asked if I’d be happy to shift to a row where little L could have her own seat if they shuffled a few passengers. Seeing as this was a 3 hour trip I said yes of course. After gathering my stuff together the boy stepped out of his seat to let me pass and as I went I asked the host if he was being given a meal and told him that if not I’d be happy to buy him one. The host said yes he’d have a meal so I proceeded to my new seats and got comfy.

A few moments later the host came over to me and said that it was really nice of me to offer and therefore my meal and drinks would be complimentary when the hostess came down the isle with them. I was a bit embarrassed but said thank you very much.

Now, I’m telling you this not to blow my own horn but to pose the question…should we be rewarded for behaviour that is actually ordinary and human? I mean, surely most people would have done the same thing rather than eat in front of a hungry 12 year old, after all, its only a few dollars? I was very appreciative of the Virgin staff giving me a free meal but I wonder why they were so surprised? Don’t people care for people around them? Don’t others think of doing this? Is it so rare that they felt the need to reward me? I don’t think that what I offered to do was anything special but I do think its interesting that they reacted that way. What do you think?

Category: All Sorts of Things, Deeper Thoughts, Family / Tags: , , , ,

My Blogiversary

December 18, 2009 / Molly / 6 comments

Today is my 5 year (and three month) blogiversary. I missed my actual blogiversary (and actually haven’t celebrated it before) and it wasn’t until I looked it up that I found out the date.

On September 18 2004 I started a blog over at Xanga. I did it so I could keep in touch with the kids I’d gotten to know while teaching in Africa and most of them were using Xanga. After a while though I realised that it wasn’t for me and moved over to blogger. It took a bit of convincing but after a couple of years on there, hubby convinced me to move to WordPress and I haven’t looked back.

My very first post is pretty boring, it read:

This is my first entry here so I’ll have to think about what I want to say! Blogging is new to me although I’ve been blog reading for quite some time. I’ll have to decide what kinds of things I really want to put on here so I won’t write much this first time.

It gets a smidge more interesting after that although it took a long time to develop any sort of theme or style. Nowdays I have two blogs, one for more personal stuff and one for the shop (which you can find over here).

My old posts were mostly transferred as I went so here’s the stats from the last 5 years (and three months) of blogging:

963 Posts
2,298 Comments
30 Categories
110 Tags
16,530 Spam Comments

So, when I get to post #1000 I’ll have to have a little celebration or something.

Of course a lot has happened in 5 years:

- had 2 babies
- moved house
- started Polyclarific
- bought a new car
- changed churches
- hubby graduated from his degree
- our 15 yr old sausage dog died
- four rabbits lived and died or went to different homes
- my family moved back from overseas
- both my grandparents died

Time really flies. Happy Blogiversary to me!

Category: All Sorts of Things, Family, Polyclarific / Tags: , ,
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