>It’s Getting Festive Up In Here…!

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The Christmas tree is up, the lights have been switched on & the first day of the advent calender has been opened to reveal a yummy little chocolate Santa & a Christmas balloon.

Hurray!

“Baby’s 1st Christmas” Decoration from last year, I’ll be letting Punk pick her own decoration to add to the tree this year.

Look very closely… can you see the elusive “Christmas Loon“?!

Mmmmm, advent-y goodness. This is going to sound like a weird question… but how do you open yours..?! Do you go from 1 to 24, or, like me, do you countdown from 24, so that on Christmas Eve you open number 1 which means THERE IS JUST ONE MORE SLEEP?!

>Crappity Crap Crap!!!

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(image)

Sooooooooo. Good Morning. How are we all?

Good?

Good.

Ho Hum.

Oh…. “Crappity Crap Crap!!!“? You are wondering, perhaps, what would prompt such an outburst so early on in the morning…? Well. That would be a combination of my already well known crappity crap time management skills & the calender/year/world conspiring against me to make time go just that little bit faster….

Did you know (…& I’m sure you did) that the Softies For Mirabel will get picked up from Mikes on December 11….? Did you know that means one actually has to finish their Softie, dress them if they are so inclined, package them & post them some time BEFORE that, to ensure their safe arrival & dispatch to a new, loving & deserving home…? Did you know that my Softie for Mirabel is sitting with her one armed sister on top of my sewing cabinet, naked, bald, faceless & missing appendages….? Do you know what I shall be doing tonight?!

I say again; Crappity Crap Crap!!!!

(This has been a public service announcement, brought to you by the society of disorganised crafters, in the interest of good karma & little kiddies who need softies.)

>There Is Nothing Like A Deadline…

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…do you ever go to bed so late that you deliberately avoid looking at the clock lest you spend the few hours you have left to sleep agonising over how tired you’ll be in the morning?

I did that last night, or this morning, more accurately, as for some crazy reason I decided that last night, around 10pm, was the perfect time to make our advent calender.

I don’t love it. It’s okay, but it’s not exactly what I had envisioned. There were too many envelopes for a start! That & you can DEFINITELY tell it was a late night jobie. The first time I wrote “Christmas” it was missing the “r”. Mmmmhmmm.

(I painted over an old canvas I had lying around & used the stamp envelope template from here.)

>A little "refashion" I forgot to post…

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I posted this ‘hardly a refashion at all refashion’ over on Wardrobe Refashion on Tuesday but forgot to post it here as Tuesday was the day of the faithfull camping trip & I was in a hurry to head off & pack various necessary…. necessities.

This top come tunic come dress deal’e has been hanging around here for YEARS. You may recall it from Punk’s Dress Up adventure (yes… seems I use the box of “things to do something with” as a dress up box….). I didn’t wear it because of the weird top part… I mean…. what IS going on there…?! I intended to make it into a skirt or something, until on camping day, it was pretty warm & I couldn’t find anything to wear, I spotted it again & had an idea…

I was actually wearing it while “fixing” it, and it took no time at all, but I was so happy with the result – something, well, wearable! (Not to mention accented with the very height of fashion – the classic “red button“.)

>Problem Solved.

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I had a bit of a conundrum this morning – I have been having a little too much fun pretending to be a music producer or radio DJ or at the very least, a (very famous, very rich) guest programmer on “RAGE” while finding & compiling (in *just* the right order, in true mix tape geek style – it has to ‘flow’ don’t you know…) music for my Music To Craft By swap, and I have found some amazing new songs that I am DESPERATE to share, but I don’t want to ruin the melodic surprise for my swapees…. see the problem…?!

I was going to get around it by sharing a video on You Tube of one of the new groups I found, in a sort of out-take, because then it would be only a half spoiler – but when I opened up YouTube just now I was confronted with this video, and well, it’s about a hundred times better than what I was going to share, and it doesn’t ruin any surprises.

>Can’t stop the music…

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…oh no you can’t!

But you do have to hurry if you want to play “Swap the snazzy CDs” with us!

My “Music to Craft by” CD swap over here will close for signups tomorrow…! I “ummm”-ed & “ahhhh”-ed & “hmmmmmmm”-ed & “haaaaaaaaa”-ed & “huruph”-ed & “prft”-ed, wondering it it wouldn’t be better to post our “playlists” online instead of send CDs, but shiny CDs & happy snail mail won out in the end & my crafty swap buddies & I will be sending & receiving little packages of good tunes in the post very soon!

(PASSWORD TO JOIN SWAP on Swap-Bot; MUSICTOCRAFTBY )

If all goes to plan, I’ll be posting my CDs out on Monday (that’s 2 CDs, one each for my 2 randomly assigned swapees), & I am really, really excited about getting some in return, I love discovering new artists, songs, or entire genres that I haven’t stumbled upon on my own, or, sometimes even better, hearing a blast from the past that has me singing along loudly – out of tune & probably with entirely incorrect lyrics.

So kiddies, you best sign up if your CD player is hungry… you know you want to…. all the cool kids are doing it….

>My Creative Space.

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I don’t know how it got to be Thursday again so soon, but I just heard the garbage truck roar by, so oooooohparently it is, & here we are again in ‘My Creative Space’.

I am still on the doll making I was contemplating last week, what is it they say… slow & steady wins the race….?! Here are the girls so far – don’t worry, they’re mostly ‘armless. (HA! I kill me!)

I did something I’d never done before with the calico for their bodies – tea dying. I’d been curious about it for ages but just hadn’t gotten around to doing any until last week. As is my style, I winged the entire process, also known as “making it up as I go along“.

I put a bunch of teabags in a BIG pot of boiling water & waited for the water to get nice & dark, then I added a bunch of salt because I thought I had read somewhere that that helps the dye to take… that could be totally wrong, but hey, it’s just salt & can’t hurt…

I added the fabric & stirred it occasionally for about an hour (I took the teabags out when one started to leak tealeaves everywhere… oops!!), then I left it covered overnight. I rinsed it in the morning & it lost a little bit of colour, then hung it to dry out a little, before ironing it to dry while it was still a little damp.

Dry, it’s a whole lot lighter in colour than when it’s wet – so different that I freaked out briefly thinking I had the iron too high or something & had ruined it, but when it was all done I was very happy. I actually have a dress that I think used to be tea dyed until an unfortunate incident with some bleach, so I think I’ll have to do a little more of this in the near future – it was fun stirring a big steaming pot of aromatic fabric – I felt like a sorceress putting an evil spell on someones cloak or something… *mwahahahaha*

>Camping!

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We just got back.

I am SO TIRED. Like the old ‘I’ve been out all night partying’ kind of tired, but without the being out all night & partying. My brain feels as though it’ll take about five minutes to warm up before it will be able to consider anything at all. Do you know that feeling….?! Where you have to think about thinking….?! It’s odd & not at all fun. Camping WAS fun though, really, I just had issues with “sleeping” on an uncomfortable air mattress with bugs eating my head.

It was a very quick trip, obviously. We got to the site about 6 or 6.30, I was cursing myself on the way out for not taking something to do, like hand sewing or even a sketch book, thinking I’d be bored & have nothing to do – but I need not have worried. By the time we’d set the tent up (my very first attempt at said activity, The Boy’s first at that sort of tent, it was a true team effort & I am proud as punch that we managed to get it done with not even a hint of bickering…!), pumped up the air mattresses (thinking, incorrectly, that they would be more comfortable than sleeping on hard, rocky ground…), started a fire & cooked dinner, with flaming marshmallows for afters, it was quarter to eleven.

I was up at 5.30am, not because I wanted to savour the early morning quiet or get the fire started for breakfast, but because I NEEDED a coffee like I had never needed a coffee before. I got that fire started (with the assistance of copious amounts of firelighters) so quick you’d have thought the flash had been by with his boy scout skills.

Punk had a grand time, hooning around on her bicycle with greatly improved balancing maneuvers & wondering at the birds in the trees.

We shall be going again, but next time, for more than one night. We seem to have spent more time setting up & packing up than anything else!

>Why yes. As a matter of fact I have been Opshopping.

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Again.

Thanks for noticing.

• Black Samsonite suitcase, MOST EXCELLENT condition, WITH KEYS….! $3. Sorry about the shouting, but this was the exciting find. The other oppy has crudalicious ones without the keys for $5. When I asked how much this was & the lady said $3 I paid for it immediately lest someone else come running out to tell her off…..
• Set of 4 vintage yellow glasses (I don’t know what happens to them but we seem to never have any glasses, no matter how many I buy. Spoons are the same. Sporks though… sporks I have more of than will fit in the drawer….!) 50 cents each.
• GORGEOUS wee white candle holders, I love these. I’m not usually one for candles, or candle holders, but these are very pretty & they felt lovely when I picked them up so I just had to buy them. $1 each.
• Little owl toothpick holder. I have little plans for him…. 50 cents.
• 2 ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books. Just because they were there. 10 cents each.

>Dress Ups.

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Little Punk was watching her Playschool Live DVD yesterday & there is a skit on there where there is a princess stuck in a tower – while she was watching I took 2 seconds to cut her out a crown (I PROMISE I’ll make her a proper, lovely crown soon… I do!) & she loved it the second she saw it.

We had our first proper dress ups session….. so fun for both of us – but don’t you think she looks an awfully lot like The Little Princess….?!