Floriade Carnival

More from Floriade. I really loved it there. I would love to go again. Of course to do that it would involve another 6 hour car trip (which took us 10 hours because we had to stop so much!). Anyway, should we ever go back to Canberra while Floriade is on then I would definitely need to spend more time there. It was such a cheap day out for our family. That in itself is a pretty big deal. There was more than just flowers there. The kids were drawn to the carnival attractions and rides of course.

I liked them because they are so bright to photograph. And I did go mad with the photo taking! We were away for 6 days and we took over 1500 photos *grin*. That's my sort of trip!

More Canberra posts coming. And some time in the next couple of weeks - Crafty stuff! I have actually started making a few little things again. The kids go back to school next week so hopefully back to regular stuff again. Yeah!

Floriade favourites

Mmm... Smell that? Achoo! Yep... Spring is in the air. What better way to see spring than at a flower festival? We got home from our trip to Canberra on Saturday. We had such a great time. While we were there, we went to Floriade. I have wanted to go and see this flower festival for a lot of years now. One of my list of reasons was so I could take lots of photos of flowers. Now, my photography skills are fairly limited at the moment and most of my pictures were taken on the auto setting but what a help it is having that new whizz bang camera of mine! I love it.

I tried out some of the tips I have read in the Digital Photography Book (Vol 1) by Scott Kelby. The best tip was to shoot the flowers from flower level, rather than down onto the flowers. You get much more interesting photos then. I had the benefit of an overcast (rainy) day on the first day we went which made the light nice and soft. And because of the rain, the next day we went, the flowers had little droplets of water on them. I was excited to see that these photos turned out so well.

I will post some more photos of our trip soon :-)

Kids cake decorating

In the lead up to Amelia's 3rd birthday, the kids had been watching cake decorating videos on YouTube. Funny. So they really wanted to give some cake decorating a go. They suggested making a mermaid cake and a castle cake but I said just a plain cake would be a good idea to start with.

I made a chocolate cake and some yummy whipped buttercream and set them to it. I also gave them all a cupcake to decorate. They kept calling the knives they were using 'spatulas' and talking about doing a 'crumb crow' (crumb coat)

Esther

Ellamay

Amelia

As you can see from the pictures, they had a lot of fun decorating. And we all enjoying eating their creation too.

I am still on the 'go slows' here. We have just come home from our family road trip to Canberra. Tim is sick and has been sleeping a lot since we got home on Saturday. And to top off this coming week... We have to go to the Big Building (Royal Children's Hospital) with Amelia for her annual broncoscopy and lung function tests. So basically, we would rather be still on our holiday. Everything seemed a lot easier and more fun then. I will put up some posts about our trip and hopefully after this week is over I can get back to my crafting. That is if I remember how to :-)

Rain, rain



Weed flower love

Winter is long when the kids are stuck inside so much. I can admit it. They drive me crazy. But look how sweet they can be. The other day, there was about half an hour of sunshine and we went outside for a little fresh air. My daughters picked me a bunch of yellow flowers. Aren't they little treasures? Yes, the flowers are weeds. They thought they were clever. I remember picking a big bunch of yellow flowers for my mum years ago. I thought I was pretty clever too. :-)

Project 52 - a photo date and others

We have missed more dates. And we had a few that weren't really post worthy. Like watching the federal election count where they didn't get a result (that was a few weeks ago and we only just found out who our Prime Minister is this week!). There was also a date where we researched and booked our accommodation for our road trip holiday that is coming up which finished with me dozing beside Tim at the computer. :-)

This date we decided to do a photo date and try to make it fun since we have been pretty average on the date front for so long.

I made some speech and thought bubble props out of board and covered it with clear book contact. We used white board markers to write on it.

We both had different ideas on what we should write and I think we got around the wrong way in some of the pictures, but it was still fun.

Had to add this last one in. Excuse us for kissing on my blog :-)

Go to Simply Modern Mom to see more Project 52 date nights.

Box cubby house

When we went to buy my new camera recently, we also had to buy a new clothes dryer. Our old one had stopped and in the weather we have been having lately, we really needed it. The pleasant side affect of having to buy a new dryer was that it came in a big cardboard box. HOORAY! We do love boxes at our house. Some people look at a really big box and worry about how to get rid of it. We just worry about when we can start the making!

Amelia was on painting detail because the older two were at school.

It was a big job and Amelia did get a bit worn out so I helped a little bit too. We used up some bottle of poster paints that we have had for a long time. Blue walls, a purple door and a yellow roof. The yellow roof didn't get finished though because we ran out of paint.

When Amelia was on the pump that night, the kids made flowers to decorate it. They are made from small paper doily's and small patty pans with a round, green sticker in the middle.

Esther and Ellamay decided it needed vines on it too so they used the green stickers to make vines. :-)

They have had a lot of fun with it so far. It has been a house, a shop, a change room and a great hiding spot. We might make some curtains for it if we need something to do this week.

Random blog sighting

I was recently catching up on some of my favourite blogs. I hadn't checked them for a while. I was looking at Giver's Log. I love that blog. It has such pretty ideas on there. Great for giving (obviously) and some other fun ideas too. I have a link to one project over on the side there ---> in the Make Me... list. The Fabric Mailbox.

So I was just scrolling down through the posts seeing what had been going on when all of a sudden... there was Esther's name badge! Right there on one of my favourite blogs. It turns out, Amberlee thought it was a great idea to use for a personalised gift topper. I am famous! Hehehe. Wow, little ol' me on there!

There is a whole bunch of great ideas on the inspiration boards. I had not thought of using the name badge as a gift topper but that is a great way to use it.

Felt heart garland

Do you remember the felt heart stitching project that I was working on? It was while I was under the weather last month. Well, I finally took a picture. (I am gradually catching up on my photo taking.) Here it is hanging above our bed. Clever picture. Can't see the unmade bed underneath :-)

Tim decided while I was sick that we needed to do a full scale attack on our bedroom and moved the furniture all around. Our bed use to be right in front of the window and the cold winter air always found a way to creep in. I don't know why we didn't change it years ago! It makes our room so much bigger. We have new curtains now and we hope to change the photos on the wall around.

I made this felt heart garland because it was a quick, pretty thing. I already had the felt and it was so easy to whip this up. I just hope the kids leave it alone. I guess I can just make a new one if it gets wrecked or starts to look a bit worn out. Considering it only cost about $2 to make and only a few hours to stitch, it wouldn't be hard to replace.

And now, our bedroom has lost a considerable amount of weight. (Love that!) We started our spring cleaning a little bit early but it is so good. Now if we could just conquer the rest of the house!

Oh Deer!

Have you ever seen something around that you really want to try making with no real reason to make it? Yep? Well that is what this project is. Absolutely no reason, no one person in mind for it. In fact I tried to convince my brother to take it when I made it but he wasn't interested. What am I talking about? (A question that comes up regularly). This.

I have seen pictures around cyberspace of these deer heads for a long time now and I think they are cool. The real thing - not cool. But this - super cool!

I googled around and came across this. I was so excited to find this pattern. I printed it off straight away and have had it sitting in my mid-craft pile for a long time.

I finally bought some big sheets of foam core board last week (on sale of course) and got to it. I have covered it with my favourite dark wood grain contact from the Reject Shop ($2 a roll). I have used less than half the roll for this so... I could make another one :-)

My disappointment with it is that the foam core board was difficult to cut and get a smooth edge on it. Does anybody know the trick? I am thinking that an old corrugated cardboard box would be a perfect thing for this project too. You could not cover it then and just leave it in all it's natural box glory!

Well, perhaps I can find a home for it. Maybe save it up for Christmas and put a red nose on it. Or would that be implying bad taste? You know, having poor Rudolf on the wall. Oops. Oh well, still - it's pretty fun don't you think?

Have yourself a merry day.

Canon 500d

I have loved taking photos since I was a kid with my first camera. I have always wanted to get a good camera, an SLR, and learn how to use it. Tim decided that I needed to get one before our trip to Canberra this month. How excited was I when we went to the appliance shop on the weekend to 'look' at cameras and we ended up buying one!

This is what I got. (Photo from the Canon website) I love it. Mine has a twin lens kit which is obviously more impressive than just one though I couldn't tell you the particulars :-) I am still trying to work out all the buttons and the dials but it is fabulous. I can't wait to get on and take some holiday snaps. I have a few weeks before our holiday so I have to read up the manual and my photography books to get some ideas on what to do.

As far as photography books go, I got the Bryan Peterson book in the mail recently, Understanding Exposure. Still haven't read too far into that one but it should make more sense now that I have my new camera. I would suggest Scott Kelby's The Digital Photography Book if you are looking for good and easy to understand beginners books. I have Volume 1 and 2 but there is a 3rd as well.

They have a tip per page so if like me you have a short attention span due to interruptions from small children, it is perfect. You can learn something really quickly. It's so exciting. After reading a tip in the first of The Digital Photography Books, I have ordered a UV filter to put on the end of each lens. Apparently, if you use a UV filter on the lens it will protect the glass and it is cheaper to replace a filter. Smart.

Next purchase will be a decent camera bag to store it. Any suggestions? It came with one as part of the deal but it's not comfortable to wear. The one that really appeals to me is a Lowepro Passport Sling.

And now that I have sold Canon, books from the Book Depository and Lowepro, I will sign off and say... if anyone from these companies is reading my humble little blog - I want kick backs! :-)