Princess parties are for big girls too !

"But mum she isnt seven !" this was my sons disgust at my buying
pink plates and napkins and trims for my Aunts 60th Birthday Lunch.
Now if anyone likes a good theme its Kathy my creative aunt.Those who know me know i MUST have a theme and then im happy !So i did the heart scatters and the cinderella coach on the cake and of course grown up treat bags.
there has to be take homes and she herself made the shabbiest chiccest cakes ever
and they looked so lovely on my stand.If a girl has to turn 60 i say turn 60 in pink
eat cake and be damned.Happy Birthday Aunt.

Flckr vintage ephemera Tussie Mussie swap

This is what i sent my lovely partner Rhonda of Rhondamum blog.
She is a very fun partner and we like similar things.It was for a fall tussie Mussie swap.
We simply couldnt decide between halloween and a bird tussie so we did both.
Here are the ones I sent her ( pics compliments of her blog post thanks Rhonda)
IM SO GLAD SHE LIKED IT !I always forget to take photos in my excitement to send them off.

I was telling Rhonda (Rhondasmum blog) my new friend (won her in a tussie swap) my fav thing in the kitchen On my old enamel stove is an old enamel teapot.It looks nothing special one of those cream and green enamel ones.But for 20 years it has been
"The Fairy Teapot",When small my sons would sometimes find treats or small presents if they had been terribly good (or sick or sad).
Perhaps once a week to their delight.Sometimes the fairies would be adventurous and send them on a hunt to get their treat notes being left leading from teapot to tree to garden and finally in a ring of stones or flowers there would be their gift.
If things had been too terrible (as often they were with four boys) a note may be found a tiny tiny note written in scrawly disappointed writing bearing witness to the horror they had witnessed that week on their fairy rounds.And i would say see they have seen you boys fighting etc etc The boys would be full of remorse at upsetting the fairies (it was ok to devestate the mother but Oh not the fairies).My nieces my nephews and visiting children would be treated thus and it was always a time of magic.I would hear visiting kids whispering to their mums and know they were asking if they could check the teapot.
The legend of that teapot is epic and i now have friends kids of 25 with children of their own who smile and ask if i still have the teapot.i would scour op shops for tiny worthy gifts and always had sweets in back up.And although i myself still fervently Believe -i have four sons who alas do not.I miss those fairy days.I still have children visit Caleb and Sam and now Maddy when she gets old enough willbe told of the treats instore as still do my nephews and cousins children.
So you see old fairies never die(although they may get fatter).
Its nice in this age of computers and bras for 4 year olds to have magic still
exist in childhood. After all you are a long time grown up and only a child for the blink of a fairies eye !

Late for the Tea Party

Oh what am i to do im late for Glenda of Sweet Daisy Dreams tea Party
http://sweetdaisydreams.blogspot.com/
So sorry Glenda for my Tardiness my RSI has me behind in everything.
So here is my tea party ,Really its a fav pic that was one of the ones published in a magazine of my then Dining room before the great room reshuffle.
The tea set is a vintage one given to me by a lady i bought a number of antiques off
i just love it.I adore the reserved sign i got from the op shop it is such fun.
Thats the window my dad made us as a wedding gift.It makes that room beautiful.
You can see the room is now just a look gorgeous room that has my fainting lounge and old treadle in it also another teaset from Robert Gordon (ya gotta love him)
set upon a small round tea trolley.Also as part of my tea party check out my plate pantry isnt it devine it holds many teasets and bits of teasets in its interior.
I had it built to hold my vintage china and i love it !Hope you had a fine afternoon tea even if it was a little late.Thankyou for coming.

Thinking of My Father

Three long years now,i cry less and miss you more. Especially coming up
to September fathers Day after all is so close to the anniversary of your death.
The first day of spring and finally you flew from this earth and were free
i prefer to think of it like that.No more pain no more cancer no more being frightened,just no more.Also no more anyone to be my dad and to fix things.
You could and did glue and nail just about everything together and sometimes
i just want to ask your advice even if just to hear you say i dunno love.
We called you the bodgie King cause you could do just about anything.
5 feet tall (thanks for all the height dad) and every inch of it as stubborn as
as umm as maybe me !You were a gentleman in an age where gentlemen are rare.
I know you were mums knight in short plump armour.She misses you every day,
well she misses you every breath.So on fathers day my father i will be grateful that you were mine.

Favourite Pic

This is my favourite picture of my Alex
way before the Aspergers diagnosis when he was tiny and sweet
and oh so eccentric.I mean he is still short and sweet but in my heart of hearts this is the picture i will carry of my Alexander.He was two and a half years old here and thats a doll pram.

My first Tryptich

This is my fIrst tryptich
The first picture shows the inside digital collage
which contains all my favourites (moon ,bluebird etc)
The indian proverb is on the outside back
the fairy joins in the middle and opens to the collage.

The Australian Gothic couple

I made this last year>Its my cousins daughter Georgia and my nephew Joshua.Both
have ummm shall we say sunny dispositions (if we were lying we would say that !)
Here is my version of the American Gothic couple.These expressions are often seen on these two whom i love dearly. At the time this really cracked me up.

Dreams for sale,Get your moon balloons here!

Here is my first try at a collage box ,I made it for a dear friend.
It never ceases to amaze me ,the creative process.The fact that i can think of an idea and then because of the digital age make it come to life!
I was thinking hmmm what would a fairy sell at a stall.Hopes and dreams,firefly lanterns and moon balloons is what i came up with.Then i searched and searched for just the right lemonade stand to use as the base.On and on i went until there
was my little fairy selling birdbasket rides and moon balloons and looking dreamy while she waits for customers.


Here is my all time favourite atc card while i am showing off
it was for a fairy swap and i just love how i got the cats tongue to look like it was curled around this very surprised looking fairy.He then says to her after spitting her out "pardon me ,my mistake-I thought you were,A fairy Cake !
It was one of those crazy ideas (and yes okay i sat here when i made it up and laughed at myself.)
Please note no fairies were harmed in the making of this card (unless of course they fell from my studio shelf whilst laughing at my joke.)

I captured the Castle

Yes i do i have my very own castle.Well i dont actually own it but since i moved up the Mountains in 1988 my boys and I have been fascinated by Springwoods own little Castle.
Named Bunda it lies hidden between the railway line and the Highway.Very private set in a fairytale garden with ivy and trees its one of those places you would only catch a glimpse of.
My Sons would beg me to go down the little castle side street.it was the stuff of dreams if not knights.Finally the trees and garden have been thinned during renovations allowing a glimpse.
Armed with my zoom i managed to capture the castle. I must say having seen a roller door on the main turret crushed my dreams a little.Still it is our castle and im very glad it was hidden there for my sons and I to dream..

My new Amoire and a bedroom Floozy

Okay so some men around here say its a tatty old wardrobe missing a door and a drawer.
But when i saw this for sale on ebay from Sue at Junk it Junction i just knew i had to have it.
You know how sometimes you just know,Well anyway i knew and so it came to live at my house.
never mind i had to reshuffle you dont wanna know how many things and almost turned the house upside down.never mind that when my bed was piled with stuff( taken from the other dresser that had to be shifted to the back room) yes never mind that at 10 that night my husband said goodnight and tucked himself in the spare room bed unconcerned at the horror.Anyway now it is done and i love it.See how it goes so well with my $12 ebay bargain shelf above the bed. I do love my room now but dont you think i need antique white sidetables now.Prettychic blog that i am in had bedroom as the room of the month take a peek the link is on the sidebar.

Meet Cynthia she is my mannequin and a bit of a floozy ( I did once catch her on my bed with Neil -who insisted she fell on him while he was sweeping hmm)She is a fond reminder of my dear friend Desley who passed away last year after a hard battle with cancer.It was when she used to drive a little VW and we were out in the rain one day and spied her on the verandah of an antique store-Desley being Desley saw my eye on her and bought her for my Birthday . So there we were in the rain with a very unco operative cynthia trying to stuff her inside the vw that already had the days junking in it .Talk about funny.Anyway Cynthia is still fallng for people
she is a bit loose and i dont just mean her morals.She does like the amoire but they have a leaning arrangement already lol




My Doorway decoupage of love letters etc on the bedroom floor where the hall polished woodebn floor meets the bedroom floor which is a different wood.Makes a nice transition i think.

Stair Sledding

We went to lunch (very lovely too) at my schoolfriend Angela's
as usual it was not usual.Angela has a rather steep staircase in her townhouse and
of course me being me i had to remark that i would never manage them stairs day after day
and would by now have invented a sled for the downhill trip.My DH and Ds being them had to of course have a go! Alex invented the bum sled just hands up pretend you are on a sled and go..
Neil had a few turns but not being blessed in the bum department found although fun it was quite
painful .Alex of course did it a zillion times and probably will be crippled in the morning.He even went down head first.It was cold and miserable outside but thank you Angela for hosting this rather unusual luncheon. See you can take my family anywhere ! (by the way me who started all this chose not to partake of this particular pleasure, theres something about short fat ladies and stair sledding i find quite frightening !So i contented myself with capturing the moment on my phone camera and almost wetting myself laughing)Just an add on i emailed a link to this post to my eldest of four sons
(the ringleader in their childhood escapades) this was his answer,a miracle
as usually they ignore my blog!

> Very cool - If only you still had your other 3 boys trailing around behind
> you, then we would have really made a sport of it. A jump at the end, a
> motorised sled, a rope around the waist of the boy going down the stairs
> attached to a pully system at the top that's attached to the ankle of another boy at
> the bottom....
>
> This is giving me ideas :
The scary thing folks is they used to do stuff just like that but thats another tale for another day.

Rainy days are craft days

Ohh i hate it when its miserable and wet .It puts you in the Blah mood.
Too cold to go out too miserable to stay in.
So thats when the craft starts a humming.I finished a heap of swaps this week.
The charm swap Jewels of the sea for Speckled Egg.Of course i had to make cute little folders
with a little pocket inside -to hold the charms Im, pleased now they are done.i made 6 out of altered scrabble tiles spent an age then hated them so these have mermaids on them and fish dangling and they are sweet.Also made a bird one for Heather of speckled egg for hosting.
Put hers in a nest card .
The other swaps are a 7 Deadly sins swap that i spent waaay too much time on.What was i thinking with the curvy edges.Then the matchbox for glenda ofSweet daisy dreams.She is very sweet hope she loves her matchbox
.Lastly a tiny Tiara swap i hosted on swapbot and my partner chose icicle colours so lots of ice glitter and crystals also a little cinderella slipper i made her as an extra.



Phew im tired just listing it but what else can you do in the rain.
When life throws lemons make lemonade (or lemon merangue pie which my mother used to make oh yum)

Newest Atc cards

The altered playing card below is a favorite of mine and yes my favorite bird and moon are there. this one is called childhood.

I have really enjoyed making my recent Atc cards .I finally taught myself to make a template
for pop up atc cards.You pull the tab at the top and it pops up.Now i am VERY imaginative
but not very Technically minded at all so i get so frustrated,when i can visualize what i want to make but don't know how to do it.So anyway you don't wanna know how long that simple template took me to work out. Anyhow now i can use it for many cards lol
here are some i have made .The little corset one actually laces up and guess what i had to use a NEEDLE and thread,both foreign objects to this gluing gal.The baby Atc has a removable baby in the old fashioned pram.I just love my stc cards to open or move in some way.Please click on the image and when it enlarges it is much easier to see the way they pop up.
The ones below were for a triangle atc swap on swapbot. I made glitter drop from the hand onto the little girl.
Oh the extra wings were because i 3d'd the wings on that card so when i printed it out i printed extra wings to cut out separate.

New Blog Name

Well i have a new Blog name,Whimsical notions is more me.
I havent liked Jullies world as a title for ages but i thought that i would have a think first.
Whimsical notions is who i am,what i have,what i create.Its what i have always liked about creating things,you are the creator its up to you.I love to take different things and put them together and make something completely different.Some people okay don't understand it and think its a waste of time.
Well hell some people go to the moon and other people rob banks.me id rather make a whimsical notion.Just the word whimsy makes me smile. Thats it and i hope it makes me post more often.
I like to post but i like to create stuff even more and i dont just mean mess lol.
I tidy the craft room up and put everything neatly in its place
then
I have a making binge and the next minute
yikes
It looks like the local kindergarten broke in and trashed the place
around my chair the tide looks like it came in with tiny paper clippings and glitter always glitter
and bits of ribbon etc.My friend Carmen said the other day her husband always knows when she has been here with me as she has glitter on her. Ahh but there is worse things in this world.

Of Cats and Cakes and falling things

I had a great birthday n the 14th and on the 18th it was Neils turn

notice anything about Neils birthday cake.

The cake had a slight mishap

or more true is that the cat had the mishap and tha cake

just happened to be there.

Emmilou is allowed to sit on the servery in the kitchen

but is NOT allowed on the bench

but in her leaning forward to see what i was doing

with the cake and smell it

she lost her footing and you can see the result

she did however enjoy licking her paw

and Neil enjoyed having the print on the cake

(well he is the CAT WHISPERER !)

i enjoyed the photo for scrapping

and as long as that wasn't my piece

it was a most funny incident !

Banner i made Linda

Here is the banner i made my swap partner Linda
How pretty is that .I cant believe you can make these just with paper
and imagination.

Banners

Its been bannermania round here lately, My sister Jennifer made me the banner above that says Imagine for my craft room isnt it the sweetest. Also I was in a Prettychic banner swap
lucky me i scored Linda Of Raspberry Roses blog she sent me this super banner below saying dream . She made it specially for my sweet blue and white guest room and i hung it on the head of my 100 year old brass bed.