Today we started on the carpeting of the doll’s house after my good friend Narelle gave me just the right sort of cardboard we needed to give the fabric some firmness.

After creating another template of the top story of the house I traced this onto the cardboard and cut it out.

We then laid out the fabric upside down and placed the cardboard cut out onto it (upside down). After trimming around and snipping the corners and middle cut outs, Miss K applied the glue. She enjoyed that!

She and I then went around the edge and pressed down (this fabric had a bit of stretch which helped a lot in getting it to sit flat), stretching the edges so there were no loose bits or bumps on the ‘good’ side. I snipped the corners and as we went along she applied pegs. She loved that part too!

After letting it all dry for a couple of hours we took off the pegs and together we stuck down our carpet (done in two pieces).

Its currently drying with a couple of heavy books on top of the carpeted area but we think it looks pretty good. Her dolls are in for some posh living! Still to do is one carpeted area down the bottom and a few walls. After that we’ll do some curtains and curtain rods followed by furniture (I can see this being a long project!). Eventually I want to make some special polymer clay pieces for the house but I want to make sure both the girls are old enough not to attempt to destroy (or eat) them first. So much fun!

This is the pic of the day, my hubby retrieving the eggs from under the deck. I was convinced they would be no good so once he fished them out he tested them with the ol’ float or sink test.

20 eggs was right and I think they have to be from more than one chook.

Will they float or will they sink? (float = bad, sink = good)

They all sank!! I retested them again last night and they all still sank so now we have (including what’s in the fridge) three and a half dozen eggs! Our roaming chicken Helen turned up too, she’d somehow gone over the fence next door, even with her wing clipped.

Anyone want some eggs?

PS. Guess what we’re having for tea tonight (as in supper for my US friends).

Yesterday my four year old picked up a piece of chalk and started doodling on the chalk board. This is what she drew:

I’m fairly sure I haven’t shown her how to draw petals like that but I’m so impressed at her perspective. The person next to the flower is me apparently!

Then this morning she rubbed it out (so glad I snapped a photo) and drew this one:

She said this was herself and she drew it for her sister. Notice that it has knees and a lovely big smile. Very sweet.

I am always amazed at how well she draws as I have always assumed that most of our drawing talent is learnt not inherited. Maybe I’m wrong about that one (anyone know?). I always felt like my own drawing skills were learnt and yet when I think about it there is an awful lot of artist ability in my family, on both sides. My Mum oil paints, my Dad can draw and was a graphic designer of sorts for a long time, my brother is brilliant at photography. One uncle has beautiful hand writing, calligraphic even, another uncle can water-paint, a cousin has an art teaching degree, another cousin is good at charcoal sketching and another cousin is another brilliant photographer and another one is a trained graphic designer. I once found some notebooks from my Nanna’s school days and her sketches were pretty good too.

So, the odds are against me, artistic ability just may be inherited. I’d love to read some articles on that.

Time to review and reset some goals again with the Weekly What List. Firstly the review

Review of the Weekly What List for the 1-7 March.

Physical
- drink 1 litre of water a day. – Not completely but I did drink more water.
- Eat two pieces of fruit a day – mostly yes
- Eat less lollies. – on a whole yes.

Spiritual
- Memorise this verse (emphasis is on the word PATIENCE): Ecclesiastes 7:8
The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. – I would say that I have memorised it, I’m yet to really think deeply about it.

Creative
- Get out oil paints and paint something AGAIN – yes, did that.
- Make pendant for C – did it but not happy with the outcome.
- Sew another dress – No.

Family
- Go to the park with L, weather permitting. – sort of, we went to Sculpture by the Sea
- Continue Doll’s House with K – Yes

Friends
- arrange more morning teas – Yes arranged one or two
- birthdays – started.

Now for this weeks What List:

Weekly What List for the 8-14 March.

Physical
- drink 1 litre of water a day.
- Eat two pieces of fruit a day
- Eat less lollies.
- Don’t buy Ice Magic.

Spiritual
- Continue to memorise this verse but also get to know its meaning more: Ecclesiastes 7:8
The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.

Creative
- Get out oil paints and paint something AGAIN (yes again, have to try to do this every week)
- Fix pendant for C
- Take photos of work for listing on Etsy

Family
- Play outside more with L, even if its earlier in the day.
- Continue Doll’s House with K – time for carpeting and more walls.

Friends
- arrange more morning teas
- send off parcel

Found these funky paintbrushes at Riot Art the other day and K finally had the chance to have a go at using them yesterday. She made all sorts of swirls and patterns in the paint and got quite mucky in the process. She enjoyed herself a lot even though the photo above makes her look like she’s going to cry!

She told me those were cupcakes and by the time they dried they actually did look like cupcakes.

I was thinking about our girls the other day and about the bigger picture. Eventually they will grow up and become adults and face really tough situations. Eventually they will have to make hard decisions, decide how to react to things and choose a direction. It seems so far off right now but thats ok because it means we have the next ‘however many’ years to prepare them for what life will throw at them.

Sounds very depressing to think about the harder things they will face but its true (and I’m a realist as opposed to being a pessimist). If we (hubby and I) don’t take our part of their future seriously, as well as preparing them for the more practical things then I feel that I would be being neglectful in my parenting (just me and my thoughts about myself, not about others).

For example, its fine to teach them to cook, how to budget, how to save, how to drive a car etc… but what about how to react when they are struggling? What about how to treat other people in circumstances where they are blindsided? What about how to rely on God, I mean REALLY rely on God.

That last one is one of the most important things that I want to teach them. Its something my parents taught me and I want to pass it on. As I said in a guest post over at Narelle’s blog last month:

“I grew up in a household where trusting God for every day things was the norm. My parents worked for a Christian newspaper in which ‘wages’ were given if available through supporting donors. It was a great way to grow up, every time we needed something my parents first port of call was prayer. We prayed for food, we prayed for money, we prayed about situations that were challenging and so I learnt to pray myself, and to trust God.”

Now our situation isn’t the same as it was for my parents…..yet. This doesn’t mean that we can’t teach them this lesson too. I want it to become so ‘normal’ to them to go to God first and so deeply embedded that it becomes a life skill.

Being a parent is very hard work. Its full of responsibility, worry, joy, sadness, battles, tiredness and fun. I hope I can look back in many years to come and not have regret about how I parented my girls (but the realist in me knows that I, like most of us will probably have regrets). The best thing I can do for them as I go along is to pray for them.

Yes, this was from yesterday but I just love this photo. Last year she was not a fan of the beach and here she is just running along it like its nothing at all. I think we are going to have to start compiling a list of things to buy for future beach going. The area we lived in before moving here was much more of a hiking, bush-walking, country life sort of place but here the beach is much closer. I always worry about my girls’ fair skin so suncream is a must. I hate applying sun cream. Of course I do it because I hate sunburn more but its one of the things I dislike about summer so much. I can see a couple of long sleeved rashies coming to live at our house.

This morning the three of us (K was in Kindy) went off to Cottesloe Beach to look at the Sculpture By the Sea exhibition. This is its 6th year here in Perth and this was our first visit. I’ve always meant to go but never seemed to find out about it until after it had finished. Hubby spotted it in the paper yesterday so this time we didn’t miss out.

What an amazing range of artwork! From the whimsical and funny to the more traditional, reflective work. The variety of mediums used was interesting too. Perspex, recycled materials, iron, timber and even grape vines.

Little L loved the sculptures but she loved the water more. She had a much better response to our visit to the beach when we were in Sydney. The first thing she said when we arrived was ‘water!’ and the last thing she said was ‘bye bye water’. Very sweet.

So, here are some of my favourite works but you can see all the photos over on my flickr if you want to.

The artist was stating that this is what our trees would look like in the future (I hope not).

This had beautiful lines and contrasted really well with the horizon line behind it.

An iron rusted horse. Really amazing work.

Fabulous work, beautiful!

The contrast of the yellow against the ocean colours along with the movement of the lines was perfect.

The artist mentioned that each ring represents an action made by a person and how it ripples out to effect the next person.

The sculptures like this that you could see through were the most successful I thought.

These bottle tops have been used to make what the artist called a slug but I saw an ocean floor with coral and sea weed. You have to go to the flickr pics to see how huge this was. Would have taken hours.

And of course the photo I have as my photo of the day showed another favourite using brickies straps. Amazing what people can do and the colour was perfect for the environment.

I would recommend going down to see the exhibition. It’s free although you can purchase guide books for $10 and kids guide books for $6.

Today we went to see the 6th Annual Sculpture By the Sea at Cottesloe Beach. I’m going to do a separate post about some of my favourites but this is my shot of the day. I loved seeing little L interacting with the artwork. She had so much fun! Miss K was elsewhere so this time she didn’t get to see the artwork.

*Photo heavy post

This is part three of our doll’s house renovations. Having not quite finished the floors due to a lack of a piece of stiff cardboard (to put under the carpet like fabric for strength) we have moved on to the walls. K was in the right mood to continue working on the doll’s house today so we set to work. The other day I went to Riot Art and they had all their large scrap-booking papers marked down to 69c each. We selected a few, K particularly liked the butterflies and teapots and took them home.

The first thing to do was to make a template making sure we had the window in place. This was a good opportunity to explain to Miss K what a template was. She understood for the most part but I wouldn’t say completely (she’s only 4 after all). After trimming a piece of computer paper to the right size of the wall I did a rubbing of the window area so we could get an exact fit.

I’m a bit of a short-cutter in some things so I would suggest sticking the template to the wall using blu tak so it doesn’t move.

I then proceeded to cut out the window of the template using a metal ruler and knife and then cut out the scrap-booking paper using the template.

While I was at Riot Art I talked to the sales assistant to see if there was an alternative to Modge Podge. the small bottle was around $13 and the large pot around $20, a bit expensive for me at the moment. She suggested using binder medium for both sticking and sealing the paper to wood, decoupage style. The bottle of binder medium was around $12 and much larger than the modge podge one, so a cheaper option. Atelier is a good brand from memory so I figured it was a good choice.

K then went ahead and painted on the binder medium, she did a pretty good job too. Check out the concentration on her face.

and then, after helping her to stick on the cut out paper sheet she sealed it with the same medium.

At this point I had to stop to make another template for the next wall so after talking her out of putting the very busy butterfly paper next to the fake slate floor (she decided to go with the upstairs which will be carpeted, trying to teach a tiny bit of design here) I got on with it and she got distracted. It was a good distraction though, she went and sat in front of her sister and drew her pictures which was sweet. I proceeded to stick on the butterfly paper.

And then we did the bathroom with the blue striped paper (she came back to help with that one).

After sealing all of our ‘wallpaper’ she decided she’d had enough (and so had Miss L who wanted to join in) so we stopped there for this week. We still have several rooms to wallpaper and I think she’s enjoying watching the house change.