Right now I'm...

Reading:

Looking for Enid - this is an excellent biography of Enid Blyton, children's author extraordinaire! It's a great read - funny, entertaining and very interesting.


Listening to:

Little Birdy - I won Little Birdy's album, Confetti, the other night at a quiz evening. Turns out they are pretty awesome!

Watching:

Nothing, now that my favourite show's been canned. I suppose they did go slightly too far with the cancer skit, but still...
xx

Saying Thanks

I made this card yesterday morning to thank someone for a birthday gift. I was surprised at how well it turned out, as I didn't have much time and was sort of throwing it together. The strip in the centre is made out of a map of Australia's geology, which was cut out of an old atlas.
I spent the rest of the weekend working and revising for my exams - fun. Hope you had a better one than I did! xx

Happy Birthday to me!

(Image originally uploaded by fraley_tera)

It was my birthday this week, hooray! I went out shopping with various family members over the weekend to choose some of my presents.
I got:
- A denim dress
- A lovely ruffley grey scarf
- A fantastic book called 'Audrey Hepburn: A Life in Pictures'
- A retro-style clock radio
- And a delicious choc chip cheesecake! Hooray for cheesecake!

Happy Thursday and hope your week is going swimmingly! xx

Rescued Items

There was a household junk collection in our suburb the other week. I went for a walk and a nosey, and found some pretty awesome stuff.

Firstly (and bestly) I picked up these two little books:


The one on the top is a slightly mouse-chewed copy of Reptiles and Amphibians: A Guide to Familiar American Species and was published in 1956. It's absolutely no use to me but it does feature lots of rather excellent illustrations.


The other book is First Aid, from the Junior Red Cross. It was published in 1953 (just a teensy bit out of date...) and also contains some lovely illustrations.




I really love the pictures at the start of each chapter. I'd like to post them all, but I guess that would just bore you to tears. So I won't. Still, they are lovely, and not at all gruesome or gorey.
I also found:
- A copy of The Readers' Digest Guide to Sewing
- Several other less exciting books, including a thesaurus and a novel
- An ENTIRE BOLT of gorgeous sheeny purpley fabric. Who on earth would throw out something like this?! Not sure what I'll do with it yet - it's a bit dark for curtains, so maybe a dress. xx

My Long Weekend

Over the long weekend I...

bought my new pet gerbera (see previous post)

inherited a new pet budgie

baked a chocolate cake (it turned out rather flat because, unbeknown to me, someone had already used half the mix for something else)

made a lantern out of an old tin can

read The Magician's Nephew - one of my old favourites

made a birdy nesting box out of our old letterbox

went to Spotlight to stock up on wool and buy a new quilt cover

did some more crochet - I'm getting quite good at the stitches but I haven't started a proper project yet

And that was my quiet and crafty weekend in a nutshell. Hope you had a good one and happy Tuesday! xx

Today We...

...Took the train into the city and then down to the coast. We did a bit of shopping (nowhere special - just Target in the city) and went for a nice walk along the foreshore after a v. large lunch at Dome.


A photo I took down at the foreshore in the late afternoon.

Also: I am learning to crochet! (Thanks for the inspiration, Pip) So far I can Hold the Crochet Hook and Do a Chain Stitch. I have work tomorrow morning, but hopefully there will be time in the arvo for getting out books on crochet from the library and teaching myself double/treble stitch.
Goodnight and sweet dreams! xx

Happy Easter

I hope everyone had a great Easter and ate chocolate 'till their heart's content. My Easter was pretty good - it was a lovely hot day and we went down to the river for a brunch picnic.




There was a nice man there who let me and my cousins take turns going out in his kayak, which was lots of fun. In the foreground is the nice man's dog, named Rue.
I got (and ate) a lot of yummy chocolate - hope you did too! xx

Hand-Me-Down Jewelry

Apologies, once again, for the recent lack of posts. This time I have an excuse: I spent the last two days in hospital. It was nothing serious, just a pain in my tummy, but the doctors had to do loads of tests because they thought it could, possibly, maybe be appendicitis. Luckily it wasn't, so I'm OK.
Anyway, back to the hand-me-down jewelry. Well, my mother was cleaning out her (many) old jewelry boxes the other day, and I found some very nice pieces in the throw-away bag which I've decided to keep. I bet you're sniggering into your coffee right now, expecting a picture of a naff pearl necklace or something. Wrong! Take a look:


A lovely beaded necklace, a chunky yellow bangle and a cream birdy brooch which I adore. You can't really tell in this photo but the bird's eye and the centres of the flowers are little diamantes.


Three fantastic bangles with prints straight out of the 70's. Mum got them when travelling in Austria, apparently. Anyway, gotta go. More posts soon, promise! xx

Right Now

What I'm reading, watching and listening to at the moment.

Reading

My Brilliant Career – A classic Aussie novel written by a young woman (gasp!) in the early 1900’s. I haven’t got very far with it yet but is seems very interesting.

Listening

Lily Allen – It’s Not Me; It’s You and Alright, Still. At the moment I just love Lily Allen’s mouthy and meaningful style, along with her strong ‘mockney’ accent. I also love all the issues and pop culture references littering her songs.

Alright, Still album cover

Watching

December Boys – This is a very sweet, low-budget Aussie flick starring the one and only Boy Who Lived himself (aka Daniel Radcliffe). Set in South Australia and partly filmed on Kangaroo Island, this is a lovely film with a quirky storyline.

December Boys movie poster

And of course, my own favourite soap-opera, All Saints! Just your average medical drama, complete with regular affairs, disappearances, hold-ups and medical mysteries. What can I say? I'm hooked.

(Not) Posting and Earth Hour

Apologies for the lack of posting over the last few days - I've been pretty busy shopping, working, attending drama rehearsals (I'm a 'roadie') and partying. Yesterday morning was when I did the shopping, and came home with a lovely new leather-look watch ($15.99 from Target) and some v. cool bright red tights ($7...that's $23 all together. What a crazy spender I am!). I would have preferred purple, but they didn't stock 'em.
I hope everyone got involved in Earth Hour last night! I was planning on posting about it but I just didn't have time. Not sure what Earth Hour's all about? Check out these sites for more info (even though it's kinda late): Earth Hour and Vote Earth.
I loved these gorgeous Earth Hour posters: