Pieces of me

new chickens and other stuff........

Our new chickens - fresh baked.

Photos inspired by "Chicken in a basket" and "Potted Chicken". LOL.

How cute is that little guy in the pot?

I also cut off all (well, most) of Erin's hair. It was driving me crazy, we hadn't been able to get a hairdresser appointment that suited us when we were visiting the shops, so I went mad when she came back to camp and chopped about 20cm off. Fortunately, she loves it :)

I saw a cute necklace with stacks of little bells at the S&C show last week, so I bought the chain and bells to make it. Made one for Bananie & Erin.

Now I know exactly where they are, just like the cats - as an added bonus, they'll scare off the birds, too.

O.k, the Etui box I started about 10 years ago.....done.....I'm not really loving it, but it's finished. woohoo!

The butterfly & leaves are some stuff I've been playing around with.

After doing the fabric box, I wanted to play around with a paper version. By the way, I have no idea how to pronounce this - when I say it it sounds like a sneeze. LOL. As far as I know, it means "box in a box", well, this paper version is a "box in a box in a box", it's got 3 of them. Various basic grey papers.

I wanted to hold the 2 inside boxes together without making lids for them, so I've used ribbon.

Planning to put in photos/memorabilia of erins.

If you want to see how it's done with measurements, etc, check out the album.

See ya!

hx

take a deep breath.......

Sometimes I'm so full of "things I want to do" that I feel hamstrung not knowing where to start!!! I have about 4 projects on the go, with another 10 hammering away in my head waiting to be made a reality!

Right now I'm in the middle of a fabric Etui Box. A few weeks ago, I had to crack open a box that I'd had packed up since our move to Wodonga (2000), which had all my embroidery supplies in it. I needed to find a hoop frame for Erin (she was working on her first tapestry). Of course, I discovered all sorts of cool stuff that I hadn't seen for years, one that was the Etui Box that I must have begun around 10 years ago. LOL. Well, I'm almost done with it & planning a paper one also.

When I was at the show last week, I found the most gorgeous book on Jane Hall's work, and it has inspired me to pull out the fabrics and work some butterflies and flowers onto the fabric box I'm making. I'll upload some pics when I'm done :)

I'm also working on a farm/home journal, an altered book with paintings in it and a recipe journal. These 3 are long-term projects.

The last few weeks, I've also been having a bit of a Martha Stewart renaissance - I used to do a LOT of cooking - and I have had a real urge to try out some old and new recipes of late. You should've seen John's face when he came home to roast chicken dinner & apple pie last night. LOL.

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The best recipe for Apple Pie that I've ever found:

• 6-8 granny smith apples
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1/4 cup pecans (my addition - I love nuts in everything)

Cut up the apples into chunky slices. Mix together the sugar, cinnamon, flour & pecans. Toss through the apples. Put apple mix into a pastry lined pie tin. Cover with pastry. Cut a hole in the top for steam to vent. Cook 180 degC for about 35-40 minutes.

The chunky slices & cooking time mean the apples done turn to mush. The flour/sugar/cinnamon mix combines with the juices from the apples to make a sauce. Always better with homemade pastry, but if you don't have time, just use frozen puff pastry.

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Ben came and worked at the S&C show on Saturday as a demonstrator - he had a great time showing people how to use the products & did a great job!

I, of course, forgot my camera - luckily Lyn had hers, and managed to snap this pic of Ben for me :))

There's a few more pics over at the Fiskars Ambassador blog of the demonstration team.

Back to my project!

hx

S&C show melbourne

Right in the middle of the Melbourne S&C show at the moment. I'm doing 3 workshops day for Fiskars:

Here's my favorite:

Uses the Brittany's Castle range of papers. Love the colours.

Also doing a mini book & puffy box & card.

Hoping to put these projects together into a slideshow format for the blog in the next couple of weeks!

Have a good weekend!

hx