my max

To 'even up' after the Jinx post from the weekend, here's some Max: ;o)


Aren't those little toes just adorable?!

x

afternoon tea

I headed of the house today without a jacket on to my very favourite afternoon tea place - Adore Tea - for my very favourite afternoon tea snack...


...mmmm poffertjes =)

al fresco

Hooray! We're back online! We have no idea what happened, but everything seems a-ok now... maybe we can chalk that one up to Mercury retrograde (which started last weekend!!) ;o)

This exciting development happened to coincide with a gorgeous break in the freezing weather we've had for the past week, so we took ourselves out to enjoy breakfast and our favourite weekend program in the garden room.



I've been sneaking a few sunny weekend morning hours for a couple of weeks now, but this was our first proper al fresco, get out the tablecloth and orange juice breakfast for the season, and it was just divine! =)

The kitties had a nice time too - they get quite excited to have us outside there with them, and all the better if there is a bird or two around ;o)


Jinxy was (literally) climbing the walls with the excitement =)

x

ps since we were on a roll with the computery stuff, I thought I'd have a little bloggy makeover. I might try a couple of different backgrounds in the next little while, but then again I do kind of love the polkadots! =o)

Strawberries and tea

We've had some mysterious technical issues with the internet chez kuka this week - I haven't been able to log into my email at home for days, and loading pages has been a struggle, let alone uploading any pictures of my own.

Tonight, tucked up in bed and watching Mad Men (season 1) I managed to figure out how to email photos taken on my iPhone, to flickr, and then get them to appear over here - and so I present my bedside table: adorned tonight with tea and books and strawberries =)



I'm planning on making two more of these guys, then moving on to another felty fruit - maybe kiwifruit or watermelon...

x

weekend in pictures...

friday night: tea-party

saturday morning: democracy

sunday afternoon: Brown Owls

The weekend started and ended well - but as for the bit in the middle... looks like we'll just have to wait and see...

brown owls :: dilemma!

Hurrah - Brown Owls time tomorrow!
We're having a 'BYO craft' meeting this month, which I'm really excited about because I just love to see what everyone is up to!
My only problem is I can't decide what I should work on!

As I do every month, I've spent quite some time this month trawling flickr for inspiration - here are some of my favourites...


1. For Morgan, 2. Dala Horse, 3. tiny snowflake, 4. here a horse, there a horse, everywhere a horse, horse, 5. Completed Owl!, 6. Felt bake cupcakes set, 7. cuppa joe stamp, 8. Bugga BugsPancake Breakfast Felt Play Food Pattern, 9. Three Little Kittens

I think I'll take bits for a few different projects, and decide when I arrive or just spent the afternoon eating cake and biscuits! ;o)

x

sweet

I had a long, cold, wet, miserable journey home from work yesterday.



Thank goodness I had these goodies to arrive home to - a gorgeous new book and lovely mug of hot milo improved my evening immeasurably!

my creative space :: blocking

An expert friend came to visit last night, to give me a blocking lesson...



See what everyone else is up to this week at Kootoyoo

x

you say muffin, I say cupcake

I have to admit, for all the baking I do, I just never seem to be able to get muffins right. So, after trying a bunch of recipes for orange and poppyseed muffin, and being less than impressed with each , I decided to chuck it in and try out this orange & poppyseed cupcake recipe.



These babies are delicious - and, to be honest, I think they're more muffiny than cakey anyway! What's also satisfying is that the recipe calls for orange marmalade, so it's the perfect excuse to use the one I made a few weeks ago.



I'm trying to take my lunch to work more often so these are going in the freezer to pop in my lunchbox. there may be a few more lunchboxy recipes on the way too

x

sunny sunday (morning)

Although the weather turned a bit gloomy this afternoon, this morning was just perfect for my new favourite Sunday morning activity - before S gets up the kitties and I take a big cup of coffee and a book or two out to the garden room and enjoy the sunshine.



Whilst the sun was lovely, the temperatures are still a little nippy out there this time of year so a wrap is a must too. This reminds me a bit of the first summer I spent in Denmark - my host sister and I would lay out on the lounge chairs in our bikinis, each with a great big doona on the ground next to us because the second a cloud came across the sun it was too cold!
Today, however, Max seemed to think the wrap was there just to keep his tail off the cold glass table top!



And the view out into the garden is gorgeous at the moment - we have one of those early flowering apricots, which has been in full bloom for a little while now, although the wild windy weather has knocked a lot of the blossoms off this week.



At the bottom of the book pile there is the Canberra Gardener - we have a lovely fragrant daphne at the front of the house, and I'm thinking about popping one in to replace a (deceased) shrub at the back door - that sweet daphne smell coming through the garden room on a morning like today would be lovely.

The book on top is Paumes Patisseries a Paris, which came in the post from Lark this week, and is just divine - lots of sweet bakey (macaron-y) inspiration!



x

In August I am reading.....

For me this month's reading will be all about John Marsden's Tomorrow series. (Goodness, it is hard to find a link that doesn't a plot summary!!)

These books originally came out one each year when I was at high school, and one in my first year out of school, so I would have been in the key target audience - and I absolutely loved them! (although, strangely enough, I can't remember whether I read the last one or not...)
In fact, I remember being so excited to read the 6th book that the school librarians let me take it home to read before it had even been processed into the library system! (I think they knew I'd have it back the following day ;o))

I had thought about re-reading the books a couple of times before, but when I saw last week that a movie had been made I was super excited to read at least the first one again before it comes out.



So I got stuck into Tomorrow When the War Began on Thursday night, and was quite excited to find I was enjoying it just as much as I did as a teenager - I had been a little nervous it would be one of those cases where something is not as good as you remember it having been, but on Friday night I found myself saying "Just one more chapter..." then reading 5 more before I could put it down.



This morning, sitting out in the sunshine with my kitties, I started on the second in the series - The Dead of the Night - and despite being out for most of the afternoon I've almost finished it too. With a bus trip to Sydney coming up later in the month I'm hoping to get through a couple more.

I think one of the things that really draws me in with these books is that they are so well written that I can relate to the characters, despite the extreme situations they are in - they could have been me, or any of my school friends. I'm sure it helps too that they are set in Australia.

Plus, its refreshing to be taken back to a time when 'teen fiction' meant something other than just stories about vampires... ;o)

*****

Thanks for the nice comments of support and joining-in-ness on my last post!
I am so excited to hear more about everyone's literary adventures!



I put together a little button which you can grab if you'd like to pop it on your blog - however I would gladly take 'donations' of buttons from anyone else who is a little more technologically gifted than I am - or if you'd like a picture other than my "taken-in-poor-light, its-those-darn Penguin clothbounds again" shot there ;o) - so do share if you are so inclined! =)

Also, I have attempted a linky list below - please pop in the details of your booky post, so that we can come by and visit you!
This is the same one that Kirsty uses for the 'my creative space' lists, so I'm hoping it will go ok - but let me know if you have any troubles! =)
And if you don't have your own blog, but would like to join in too, do leave a comment and let us all know what you're up to!



Happy reading!

x

This month I am reading...

A few weeks ago I blogged about wanting to kick (re)start a good reading habit. The topic popped up again over lunch with Bec a few days ago, and as we chatted about books and our mutual desire to read more, I started to think it might be a fun thing to share together through our blogs.



So, we've decided to start a little bloggy book club - and we would love you to join us!!!



All you need to do is post on your blog, in the first week of the month, about where you are at with your reading - whether it's a great book you have read, something you're in the middle of or something you just can't wait to read next - then pop over here and leave a comment on my monthly book post so that we can come and see what you've been up to.
If enough people are interested, I might even try to figure out how to make one of those linky lists on a post ;o)



We won't be choosing one book to read together - really we'd just love to hear about what everyone is reading - and if you don't manage any reading at all, or don't quite get around to posting, then never mind - just pop in when you get a chance, and we'd love to hear from you again next time!



I'll be back over the weekend to tell you about my book of the month - Tomorrow When the War Began - and maybe even share a button you can add to your blog if you'd like to book blog along =)

x

creative space :: August 5

Yesterday I shared two skirts currently waiting on my sewing table to be finished off - off course there is more ;o)

Like this one, squarely in the middle of my creative space this week



This Project Runway pattern has all kinds of mix-and-match options for the bodice, sleeves, collar and skirt, and provides a little template in the instructions to trace off a 'sketch' of your 'design'.

I am most of the way through the bodice on this, and with the skirt being fairly straight forward I hoping it won't take long to finish either.

Of course, the sewing does tend to be somewhat slowed down by the fact that most of the time my sewing space looks more like this:

Thanks for your help Max!



Max can't wait to check out more creative spaces - join him at Kootoyoo to see what everyone is up to this week!

a skirty issue

Between new boots, new tights and a whole load of inspiration from skirt week at Buttontree Lane last month, it is no wonder I've got skirt sewing on the brain!

This month I'm planning to get a couple of skirty projects ticked off my sewing list...



Starting with those two works in progress up there on my sewing table.
The black one is a very simple gore skirt and only needs hemming on the bottom and binding on the top.
The grey is a new pattern I picked up a few weeks ago, and is just waiting for the facing, zip and (again) hemming, then it will be all done too!

Once I have those two finished up, some other things I might be interested in trying to have a go at are a wrap skirt (something like this) and also something denimy.

At last check, we're expecting some fairly unfriendly weather on the weekend - perfecting for knocking over some sewing, I think =)

x

sewing for kitties

One of the sewing projects that has come off my table in the past week or two is this pair of kitty blankets for a friend's new bundles of fur.



These, like the ones I have made before, are flanelette on one side and polar fleece on the other.

The patchwork sides of each are simple half square triangles (the very ones that were hanging about a couple of weeks ago), just arranged a little differently, so they are same same but different.



I hope those guys like them as much as mine like theirs! =)

xo