Pink Whimsy

My house

I have been feeling a bit tired of my surrounds.  As I mentioned in the URGES post, I have been having itchy house feet and I feel like shaking things up a little to fall back in love with my house.  SO I deceided to put together a post that was about my house.  To be precise,  my favourite parts of my house.  These are some photos of my favourite things, bright copper kettles and brown paper packages tied up with strings excluded.

    

This is the back of one of my kitchen chairs.  I love my kitchen.  It is an original 50's eat in kitchen and when its clean I love love love being in there.

This is my back steps.  The umbrella is an italian one from the 1970's that I bought for $5!!  The floral gardening gloves are hopeful to see dirt one day.

These are my lovely candle sticks, thrifted silver platers and the street sign that my partner James and I stole when we were nineteen.....all on top of my low boy that I keep all my crafty stuff in.

These are my paper dollies that I made for an exhibition I was in last year and my fav lamp with plates that belonged to my dad's mum.

   

I bought two of these cane chairs for a song and lovingly restored them.  This one is in the corner of my living room, with my two of my favourite cushions, the one at the front I made.

    

Here is cumfy corner of my home.  The quilt made by me with all of my favourite vintage buttons quilting it together, and the photo that our friend Steve gave to me for my 30th.

    

QUACK... thrifted wooden ducks that live next to my microwave.... and sometimes thanks to the kids, in the microwave!

My front yard .... we spend so many hours playing out there.

This is the corner of my room that I sit in and enjoy.... I love this colour combination.

This has been cathartic and I have definately really enjoyed finding, photographing and showing off my homes little corners.... my feet are not as itchy anymore.

 

Happy Easter

 

Happy easter!!!  Easter Monday and the first Monday in ages where I have had no where to be, no rushing around trying to find things and get school uniforms off the line or out of the dryer, making lunches and drinking/sculling cold coffee trying to keep the energy levels up.  The coffee I had this morning was deliciously steaming hot!!! And my toast was warm when I ate it!!  I like easter a lot and I love all of the chocolate (but unfortunately baby weight stays put when you eat handfuls of chocolate hourly).  Excitingly this easter we started the annual "Casey-Cowan Easter BBQ" tradition.  Amongst our friends we have the boxing day BBQ and the Australia day BBQ and we have found our niche in the easter Saturday BBQ!!!!  These BBQ are great because we are guaranteed to see our friends on a regular basis which can be difficult when life gets in the way!  This week Will is on holidays from school and he will be home every day!!  Luckily for me he is a stay at home kind of kid so I have decieded that this easter holiday week is being dedicated to being a domestic goddess.  I will scrub, wipe and clean this house until it shines, fueled with coffee, cleaning product fumes and a firm sense of self satisfaction. 

those crazy futurists

Today at uni we had a lecture on the Italian futurists.  They loved writing manifestos!  I have been inspired to manifest myself.  I really like the idea of putting your most outrageous ideas down in a document and then posulating them as if they are irrefutable facts.  So I am going to write my 2007 manifesto over the coming days and I will share with you just how crazy I can get!

to list or not to list

• Well I am well on my way to getting number two on my list completed!!!
• I am an absolute believer in lists. 
• Without my lists I would fade away into permanent confusion. 
• I would never know what I was doing on any day without my pre-prepared list or my "on the spot" lists. 
• It doesn't matter if I finish the list on the day it was written for I just move the item onto the next days list and so on it goes until I get the job done. 
• The list is just so tangible, flexible and forgiving. 
• I have note pads full of lists.
• The immense sense of satisfaction from crossing off an item is intoxicating. 
• I inherited my list love from my mum and my sisters have the bug too. 
• One of my most prized possessions of mine is a list my mum made on the back of a piece of paper.... so fleeting but now a reminder of who my mother was and in turn, who I am.
• I believe that you are either a list person or you are some "other" kind of person.
• My list lust is part of my life force.
• I love lists more that shoes!!
• That's right I would rather be bare foot than list-less.
• I don't remember when I made my first list, but I wish I could (Infact it's on my list of things to try and remember)
• I have a terrible memory and if I didn't make a list I would wander aimlessly through my days instead of walking purposefully in a self assured list-maker kind of way.
• Am I alone in my list passion??
• Is this a freakish abnormality that I should desperately try to hide??
• Hi my name is Pink Whimsy and I am a LIST-O-HOLIC.

Re fashion project

I have been having early nights the last few days and unfortunately blogging was scheduled in for the same time as sleep and sleep won out!!  But today I thought I would get in early and talk about my first refashioning project for 2007.  I found an unworn black singlet in my closet after a clean out....

                     

and I want to stitch on a motif to it in this fabric....

or this fabric...

Maybe  a big bow in the hawiian fabric, or a horsey shape that I could enlarge off the fabric on the photocopier.  I will work on it today and show it off tomorrow.  Meanwhile I have to clean up the house while the kiddlets are at school ....Why can't it just clean itself, just like the TV programs I watched in the 1980's promised that all houses would be able to do beyond 2000 ... and it is 2007... where's my robot slave?  Where's my JETSONS lifestyle??

university life

I went back to uni yesterday for my first class of the year, KVB102 MODERNISM.  It was like slipping on a pair of old cumfy shoes, it felt good.  Listening, taking notes and absorbing visual info... I just love uni.  But alas my lecture was cut short because I had to get home to baby Claire.  It seems the feed I gave just before I left was not enough to tide her over until I got home, so I could only stay for the first hour. Next week will be better because James is going to bring her into uni for me to feed during the break between my tutorial and the lecture so she should be fine. If I feed her twice in that 3 hour break Claire should be able to go through to 5:30pm when I get home... well here's hoping! 

Asleep......

 

I have also made progress on the broaches for Christy's Hen's night, they are working out just as I had imagined them, now that is a rarity isn't it!!

Just a sneak peek.....

The bare bones..... I am hoping to add some beads to this as well.... I have to make 16 of them so the easier the better.

Re-fashioning

Every year I set myself a new, what I like to call a "fashion challenge".  The challenge is that I have to source the majority of my clothing according to the yearly challenge, like in 2006, it was the $30 fashion challenge where nothing I bought could cost more than thirty dollars, and I am a thrifty girl anyhoo so it was quite fun and easy for me.  This year it is re-fashioning clothing.  This ones a lot more labour intensive but still thrifty so I beleive that it will work out quite nicely.  Also, I absolutely love the concept and I have been really keen to explore it for a while, so using it as my fashion challenge for 2007 sounded exciting.  I became even more excited when I stumbled across Alison Willoughby's website, now she is a clever clever girl. This isn't strictly re-fashioning but the ideas she uses are, I think, transferable and a great place to start for inspiration.  And to get you just as motivated to try re-fashioning and join me in my fashion challenge for 2007, here are some of her designs.

This is so pretty don't you think?  I would feel just fabulous in this pink skirt.

I'm in lurve!! How good is this skirt???

Tropical and funky... perfect for this Queensland girl... hand me a pina colada!!

Don't forget to check out Alison's website via the link on this post.

a new camera

Oh my.... I got a brand new digital camera!!!!!! Very exciting but alot to learn about how to use it ... and I thought technology was meant to make our lives easier .... Here is the photo of the crochet rug that I have been working on for baby Claire... we are all still waiting on her arrival, no action just yet. 

I am really excited about the new camera and the possiblities of the things I can do with it... lots of experiments to do.... I have been borrowing cameras from university all year and you have to return them after 24 hours so I am hyped to have one that I don't have to return or even share... except the kids (especially Will) think that they have some rights to it and I am in serious negotations with them to make them understand that it is not a toy, or theirs, or anything else that they think it is or could be for them.... but here is some really cute piccys of them ... oh bless them ... maybe I could let them have one more go ....  how come kids are just so photogenic it really isn't fair.

William and Jack being gorgeously cute

Our Jack with a post dinner/ pre bath  sauce face.

William being fabulous at posing for the camera.