2lb elephant

snotty noses, teething and ugg boots

its taking ages for marta and claude to shake the snooty nose coughing in the middle of the night thing. so its been stories, warm baths with lavender and painting painting and more painting.

but today bundled in hats and coats they are off on an adventure with nara to find some hand tools for the ukuleles that he is making. that means im home ....all by myself.....

im swimming in a sea of arms legs and ears as i make up another order of rabbits and ducks for Craft Victoria. we have been eating stacks of risotto and ricotta rice pudding so there are heaps of rice bags to play with. so today will be spent cutting, stitching and stuffing.

we have got a wedding to go to in august and my mum is making marta a wool box pleat dress. the wedding will be in a big paddock so im thinking warm layers. im making claudes outfit and am draw to the idea of an apron, is just deciding on the fabric. ive recently gone back to work part time and am a bit overwhelmed how many 'making' hours i have lost in the week. im still squeezing things in but it just feels like every thing is half finished. i stretched some canvases last week, much easier than i thought. here is a painting ive been working on

archibald

bags finished and are being well used.

went to see this years archibald the selection vast but found mclean edwards portrait of cate inspiring

i think im going to pull my paint brushes back out again...

walking around backwards

its cold cold cold and a little foggy here in beautiful melbourne. we are all sick with sniffles and barking our way through the night. so this week has been filled with lots of indoor play, we have been making puppets out of paddle pop sticks, batches of anzac biscuits and soup....enough for an army. marta got a present of a stappler this week and is stappling crazy... showing signs of being a fab office worker....
one of those things that i have noticed with both girls having fevers is that it has often been a pre-curser to that next developmental phase with marta it was crawling, walking and asking why.. and with claude well she has spent most of today walking around backwards...and i must say she is very proud of herself

and ive been cutting out potatoe sacks and making more bags, but not all of them are working out as expected so i will keep plodding and post some photos when it all comes together.
here is a canvas i did the other morning, ive had this sketch of the chicken sitting on my desk for weeks, its great to have it painted up.

stuffed

here are some of toys that i have made in the last year.

Making toys has been a direct reflection of my world. The rabbit came from a drawing for Marta's, my eldest child's first birthday invitation. And the oat bags came from our huge stack of empty bags from a long winter of porridge for breakfast.

As we fill our days with picking up and packing away we also find ourselves in a world of cutting, pasting and pasting all those bits and pieces that never quite made it to the recycling. Its all about keeping it simple. Its about making mobiles from toilet rolls, crocodiles from egg cartons and elephants from oat bags.

one potatoe two

ive just finished reading Martine Murrays 'the slightly true story of cedar b. hartley' . i gobbled it up and it took me back to places i thought i had long forgotten. her words are like tiny little paintings in my mind.

here is another potatoe sack bag i whipped up the other night. i have this idea of making shopping bag sized bags, big enough to take to the supermarket with us. in my search for pototoe sacks ive since found out that potatoes are also delivered in boxes now, hum i wonder if sacks will one day be a thing of the past....i tell you if i were a potatoe id much rather be in a sack...