I took a look back and realised that I haven’t written anything about my polymer clay work for a few weeks. In that time I have been playing with a few new ideas but haven’t gotten very far. Here are a few things I’ve come up with which will make their way into my shop eventually! I’m trying some new things and different ideas instead of all pendants and earrings (although I can’t help myself with those).

We have also decided where the money will go for the last two months but I will do a post about that separately (from my sales in my on-line shops and at the markets). I wanted to take my time in deciding as the sales were above and beyond anything in previous months.

My on-line shops are:

Polyclarific at Etsy
Polyclarific at MadeIt
Polyclarific at Wahmania

So, here’s the new work:

Tea strainers

Brooches

Bracelet

Hair Clips

Buttons

Cufflinks

Random new beads and some pendants

K seems to have a little drawing addiction. She draws whenever she sees a pen and finds anything to draw on that’s laying around. Sometimes this turns out to be a bad thing (like the other day when she drew on L’s chair) but when she gets ‘into the zone’ she turns out some really interesting pictures.

It always fascinates me to see what natural talents God has instilled in each child. K seems to be very social and dramatic and has this flare for drawing. She was even ‘life drawing’ her own legs the other day. She put a piece of paper next to her legs and then looked at them. Then she drew a long straight line and said ‘leg’ and then looked again, drew a scribbly short line at the end of her leg and said ‘feet’ and then looked again. Then she said ’sore on my foot’ and drew a dot on the foot in her drawing. She then proceeded to draw the second leg the same way. I’m not sure if this is just ‘normal’ for her age but I was impressed as I haven’t taught her to do that at all.

Here are some examples of a 3.4 yr old at work.

A boat with people in it

Poppa

Daddy sleeping

L with her dummy in (my fav)

I rarely do these anymore but I liked this weeks theme (costume). I was going to put up one of Keziah in costume but decided to dig back a bit further to one of myself as a kid. This is around 1983 I think:

(photo friday)

…….for a cold front which is coming through. Actually, its been through and we are now feeling the after effects. Last Saturday both girls came down with colds and I spent most of Saturday night up 1-2 times every hour settling L. By Monday morning I had the cold and was pretty miserable by Monday night. I’m really glad that this was a quick cold for me and after spending Tuesday feeling a bit wiped out I was almost back to normal minus a bit of energy.

This little munchkin however has not fully recovered just yet:

I’m not sure (and neither is the Doctor) whether she has croup or a chest infection as an after effect so she’s now on antibiotics. Poor thing isn’t sleeping well and its taking hours to settle her at night. K is doing much better and just has a cough that doesn’t bother her. The great thing though is that Michael hasn’t had it and has been able to take a couple of sick days himself to look after us all this week.

I really can’t wait until we are all back to 100%, I really hate it when the girls get sick. Poor things. : (

I just wanted to point out that there is a new category on my blog. When I returned from Africa I wrote a little guide about how to warm up your missionary by sending them things to encourage them. The booklet is called ‘Curried Missionary’ and there is a whole category for it now in my sidebar. Feel free to use the information there for encouraging your missionaries or in your church.

I have decided its time to move forward with my sewing, time to move past simple shorts and dresses so last night I tried a hat. Not sure where these sit on the hardness level but it was a little bit tricky and fiddly. I’m really pleased with the outcome and even used interfacing for the first time. L’s head measures in the top percentile so even though I went with what I thought was the right measurement, it only just fits. Still, it will last till the end of the hot season and that’s the main point really. She has such fair skin so a very wide brimmed hat that will stay on is really important. Here’s the results:

Just wanted to say thank you for your comments to my last post, I appreciate your input and it was interesting to read your perceptions. I’m pleased to know that I’m viewed as real rather than fake. Falseness is one of the things I hate the most. In thinking about it a bit more I realise that I also ‘hear’ what people might think of me using my own filters and baggage. This means that if you use the word ’sweet’ (as in what Renee was saying) you might not be using it in the same way or with the same meaning as I might be. Having realised this I will try to take these things as a compliment much more.

Secondly, a very BIG thank you to my brother and sister in law who surprised with the the one thing I’ve been trying to get my hands on for a while now………..multi coloured anodised kitchen cannisters from the 1950s just like my Nanna had! They found them for me at the markets and they made my week great!xxxxxxxx thank you.

Something has been on my mind lately. I have been really enjoying getting to know people through facebook this past year, for those I see once a week its been great to skip the usual ’so how was your week’ chatter and go straight to ’so how are you feeling now?’ etc… and go a bit deeper. At the same time however I’m realising that people have a definite perception of me (or of others) based on information they have about me from years ago or from the information I’m giving out myself. To be honest, this is a given. We all make up a person’s profile in our head and file it away for next time – ‘name is Maria, she loves cats, is obsessed with tractors and wears her hair a bit strange’. Usually there’s a negative in there if we are honest with ourselves.

I can’t help but wonder what people’s perception is of me. Is that perception based on what they know of me in real life? Is it based on the ‘past’ version of myself? What personal filters are they using (eg; she wears pink, must be girly)? What information am I giving out that is creating this perception? Am I giving out an honest reading of myself? Deep thoughts but still worth pondering.

For example, I’ve been described as ’sweet’, ‘nice’, ’so creative (how do I find the time?)’, ‘amazing’, etc…Now, apart from being creative I don’t perceive myself as ANY of these things. To me sweet = naive, nice = fence sitter, amazing = someone else.

If you knew the ‘me’ that God knows you would NOT describe me using these words at all. I’m sure that each of us filter out information about ourselves so that we are giving off a certain image. Image is everything right? First impressions last and the way you were years ago must be the way you are now………right?

So, why am I writing about this? I suppose I just want to set the record straight. I am not sweet, actually I can be really critical, nasty, short tempered and mean. I don’t consider myself naive. I like niceness but I prefer genuine and deep care for people. I am impatient but hate impatience. I don’t want to give off a false impression of the real me. There are plenty of times I consider myself the worst Mum in the world (I’ve heard that this is a common thought of many Mums) and I don’t read my Bible every day (just wanted to say that one out loud). I’m a long way from perfect and amazing. I’m actually pretty ordinary. Ok, so I’m creative and I like to be creative and I do creative stuff a lot but there is a very long list of things I can’t do (math, read music, drive well, cook well, etc…). Good thing God accepts me the way I am.

Right, that’s my honesty post over. If you have a perception of me that belongs to anywhere from 1990 to 1995 please water it down, there’s some of that still there but hopefully with a lot less of the self-righteousness. Oh, and feel free to share what your perception is, I’m curious.

Sarah wrote 7 weird things about her self and said that her readers are to consider themselves tagged. So, here’s my 7 things;

1. I am obsessive about tidying up. I constantly am putting things away and keeping things in order.

2. Like Sarah I too have a strange memory. I can remember odd details about things such as the colour someone was wearing at an event, the way I wore my hair on a certain day or the first and last names of people I went to school with in year 1. I also remember things like carpet patterns, eye colour and people’s children’s names from ages ago.

3. I love to op shop. Give me the chance to do that for a whole day and I get very excited. My main focus is on 1950s kitchen ware, clothes and sewing patterns.

4. I lived in my last house for 22 years. I lived there as a child, teenager, with a friend, as a single, as a married person, mother and Aunty.

5. I had a sausage dog for 15 years. We had her at the same time as our Volkswagen Beetle so people started asking about our German obsession. We still have the beetle, called Latte but Shana died about three and a half yrs ago now. The beetle is a unique one of a kind modified one.

6. I can bend my thumbs behind my hands and they stay there.

7. I absolutely hate wet socks. If I walk around the house in socks (which I do for the most of winter) and there’s a puddle of any sort on the floor it makes me shiver and I really hate it. I hate spiders just as much. I hate cockroaches half as much.

This week i sewed a little dress for Lucinda. It was the first thing I’ve sewn for her and I think it turned out pretty well. The pattern is of course really basic so I’ve done it a few times and have the hang of it now. I got a cute shot of her in it yesterday too as well as some of my nephews in their shorts. Ty is 1 but the shorts are size 2 so they are currently longish pants that are really baggy, good thing he’ll grow into them! Here they are:

The shots of the boys are a bit blurry because little Ty wouldn’t sit still. He’s a cutie!