Fairy troubles

These are my latest atc cards for a fairy mishap swap im about to run on
swapbot.I have been running a series of fairy atc swaps starting with Fairy attire then Fairy transport and the next is Fairy trouble.I was thinking there are so many things a fairy could get into trouble with,From being stuck in a spider web to falling in someones milkshake.It was only when i went to do mine that i discovered my poor fairies were in major trouble after being caught by the acme fairy catcher and exterminator.I just loved this little guy who i altered off a vintage valentine card,He looks like such a dandy.Then i had to find the right cage and then put my altered fairies inside it.Not easy as I am creative but often mechanically challenged,i have trouble working out which way to place things so they print on opposite sides etc and with this cage it was very hard to place my poor fairies behind some bars and in front of others to create the inside effect.I am pleased how they turned out.The cage but ended up so small on the atc you couldnt even see all my fairy work inside so i will be doing a fold out atc so that they can see whats inside the cage too.By the way its okay when these fairies have had a rest im sure they will just pop out between those bars and fly off.

Latest creations

All of course much nicer in real life these are the flat images after i have finished the digital part.After that i POP things a little with diamond glaze for eyes and of course the glitter.Then i also cut wings ets to stand out from the cards.The button one is an ATC card The fairy transport is for a series of fairy Atc swaps i am hosting on swapbot.The Butterfly wing skinny (a skinny is similar to an atc but bigger being 3 inch by 5 inch i like the scope)is much nicer as i did the wings so they were cut all round and stick out from the card.The Fairy in a nest is for a swap also a skinny i was happy with this one and the wings on this will pop also and have glitter.All in all im happy with where i am in my creative journey,i always love to learn new techniques then mix them with the old .At the moment its the stand out wings before it was the pop up atc cards below which i invented myself.There is always so much to learn that you never get bored.

Happy Birthday Bluebird

My sister's Birthday is today she is Bluebird on swap bot cause like me she
loves Bluebirds. Its also my wedding Anniversary our ninth (He forgot) less said about that one the better and depend on it he shall suffer. So Happy Birthday Jennifer.
My sister and I never fight we love lots of the same things and we are different in lots of ways too.I often am grateful that i have a sister to share life with but perhaps thats cause I got a good one hehe.I remember more about her childhood than she does being 5 years older.I used to make her stuff and buy her stuff and read her stories and also make up stories for her.She always was gonna run away to a shack in the hills and she did albeit a lovely shack circa 1920 and a huge hill called Katoomba.
I dont think the husband and three sons were in that pic she had but hey tell me about it.The layout is one I did of her ages ago.

My favourite saying- Click to enlarge

Radiotherapy and shakespeare

That's my mum, (the poppet on the left looking at the world through fierce sad eyes ,her childhood was harsh and left her with a determination to survive)This week she starts her radiotherapy, and i am glad she has that determination.she has had to endure a lot in her life and this is merely the latest challenge.She is like a little fighting hen
(my brother calls her chooky).Cancer for anyone i think is a lonesome road to travel but now that my Dad is gone its even lonelier for her.I feel for her but all i can do is what i have always done and that's be her daughter.She used to make us laugh as kids we would come home and call out her name and she was nowhere.We knew of course she was somewhere and so the hide and seek would begin until i would open my wardrobe and there was my mother waiting for the door to open so she could start quoting Shakespeare.She dusted the house to the sounds of Strauss.She did and does have long long dark hair that reached her bottom.Hence the reason when i had my sons she became their nanny longhair.Still a nut she would attend their birthday parties dressed as a giant Bee or some other wacky character.

Sometimes as kids we would be annoyed and say "Why cant we have a normal mother !" Years later i would hear my sons say the same about me as i did something goofy.The other week waiting to see a Dr regarding his aspergers and anxiety Alex was worried and grumpy so in the waiting room i tried to cheer him up.I said Alex i think its happening ,i think i can teleport like the guy in heros and i started to look weird.Now the waiting room was empty but alex was hissing at me stop being stupid mum.When we were in the Dr's he said to him what i had done and he said and i am the one seeing the psychiatrist .The Dr looked at me and i said yep i did do that i was trying to Cheer him up.The Dr said if you didn't like it Alex perhaps you should just ask politely for her to stop.I did says Alex she wouldn't.The Dr turned to me,ummm yes he did and no i wouldn't stop,I answer.The Dr made a hmmm noise and changed the subject.
Guess i am more like my mother than i realised.And no my children never had a normal mother just as i myself did not and of that i am most grateful/I myself feel Normal
is highly over rated and very boring.Something my mother NEVER was and still isn't.
Happy mothers day Mum and i know there are many many more abnormal ones to come !

Motherhood is fraught

Yes it is ! its fraught,
With what i hear you say and i would have to reply with everything.
Its fraught with guilt, Is the baby warm enough is he getting enough milk,should i let him cross the road , is 16 too young to go to the party.Did i do enough trying to stop him smoking.See guilt and then before you have finished with them they are off and out in the real world and they think they don't need you cause they are all grown up.They will never know that in your heart they are still that two year old who loved you to the moon and back...
Its fraught with laughter
when you want so much to be angry but you are looking
at that two year old who unravelled all that toilet paper and is wearing your lipstick all over his face.
When your four year old is outside talking to god and you think oh how sweet till you hear him threatening him (i remember saying hmmm not a good idea threatening god you know thunder ,lightning)
When the boys laugh at your attempt at bread making and you are so peeved until you see them hitting it with a hammer and saying proudly mum the military could use this.
Is fraught with magic
when you see the faces of your sons when Santa's beard has been caught in the firescreen and some is left behind.
when the tiniest fairy letter arrives in the post or a Santa letter appears to float down the chimney.
When the fairies leave presents in the fairy teapot in the kitchen.
Yes oh i miss the magic although my god daughter and her brother are on the receiving end now lol
Is fraught with Amazement
That two little boys can dig a 4 feet deep trench in land that is 99 percent mountain rock
That a child can survive being catapulted over a fence and having an epileptic seizure and laugh about it one day.
That the same child can be squashed beneath a full trailer loaded with wood and that his mother can pull it off him and find him bruised but unharmed.
That a four year olds leg can be twisted and squashed beneath a bike wheel and its fork and the bike must be dismantled and he is bruised but unharmed.(same boy)
That a car can run over a 5 year olds leg wreck his school shoe make the driver throw up all day and you guessed it come out bruised but otherwise unharmed.(yes the same child)
That you can be given four sons all ADD one ADHD (yes that's the boy) who also happened to
be epileptic as a small child always having seizures sometimes requiring mouth to mouth to get him breathing again ,And the last one Aspergers.AND the amazing thing is you ALL survived.
That you can take boys to the doctor to be xrayed,patched,stitched etc so often they offer to keep you a seat.
and mostly Amazed at your own capacity to do all this and yet love those boys soo much that it hurt and that you would most definitely kill or die for them cause after all you love them to the moon and back.
Fraught with sadness
That their childhoods may have run you ragged
driven you crazy
made you feel inept cause the house was never perfect and they didnt always brush their teeth
but proud that in all this you never ever missed a birthday or a chance to create some magic
no matter how dark a time it may have been.That you read story after story till you knew the words and they had their favourites.That in the darkest time when you got divorced and ended up alone and renting with a cat a dog a budgie and four sons you bought them all a season ticket to wonderland so that something good would come out of the bad times.
So motherhood is really fraught,
i have said before and i will say it again its the hardest,happiest ,saddest thing i have ever ever done.It has dragged me up and dumped me down its been the most awful and most glorious of rides and although nothing turned out how i planned i am still awfully glad that i went for the ride.
(Just remind me that when they forget to ring wont you !)

Fairy Shoes for Juniper

Well they may not be perfect (in fact they are not even close) but i made them myself
and im so proud of them.Yes i sewed then with my own pin pricked hands and it took me
two nights one night per teeny tiny shoe.My sister and I have a standing joke about Juniper berry red.So i made these for the Juniper fairy.They had to have tiny bells on the ends and they had to have tiny fairy sized keys for any fairy doors that may need opening.
I first saw some of these on a blog then i went to other blogs and the name Annette Emms kept coming up. The pattern for these was my very first etsy purchase .Annette is amazing you will find her blog here
I am sure these are the first of many fairy shoes.Thankyou Annette.

Becoming the dreamer

I was always a dreamer,always a crafter.always a poet.The poems often came to me as songs or in dreams and remembering them i would scribble them down after i awoke. There is a saying

"The soul would have no rainbow if the eye had no tears"

Its very true and life cannot be good or bad but must be both.

I also read that 10 per cent of what happens to us we have no control over but the other 90 per cent is our reaction to that.Its probably true as how many times do we react badly to something and our day turns to hell. I was almost 7 and dreamed for several years of being Margot fonteyn as i did my saturday ballet classes.I lived breathed and ate ballet.Then just before my very first concert i was diagnosed with Leg calve Perthes disease of my right hip and my ballet dream was over.I spent my 7th birthday in hospital and i spent a few months in hospital; later on.The hip joint just disintergrates and they dont know why.So i was in traction and then i was on crutches and wore callipers.I hated the boots i had to wear and longed for pretty shoes,I went to Nepean crippled childrens school ,(thats right it was called a crippled childrens school and no one complained no one was insulted or thought it politically incorrect .we knew we were crippled)Several children died during my few years there including Dino my first boyfriend.Even then i knew i would get better but they had their afflictions for life !My time there was mainly a happy one,we were treated with love and care.

My parents love of me was never in doubt and whats better my siblings were often jealous cause i was Special lol.My whole point but is that i wonder who i would have become without those days.I used to look longingly at all the other children in our street playing British Bulldog and hop skip and jump,statues and please mR crocodile can i cross your golden river.So instead i had my imagination where i made up my poems or made dollhouses out of cardboard boxes and puppets out of egg cartons. It gave me a playworld and it gave me a creative spirit.Thats why i think that sometimes we forget the good that comes out of the bad we go through.You see for the most part those days were happy filled with doing and making and planning about doing and making.Yes craft has seen me through some tough times.then and now and i am forever grateful. Had i been a child today and had that same experience mayhap id be a computer whizz instead of a mad and whimsical crafter.Who knows ...What i am saying is that each of us is a product of all that has been and all that we dream to be.Me i am a fat middle aged lady with a quick wit a quicker smile and at heart i am a faerie who dares to dream all that never was...Who my friends are you ?

Do we have a ghost cat in Brambly Cottage ?

We have often said yes we do.We have two cats of our own and yet there have been times where we felt a cat jump upon our bed yet no cat was there!We have seen a cat jump on the windowsill yet n0 cat was there!I have felt a cat purring and yet no cat was there!The no cat by the way is a black cat.We do not have a black cat although throughout my childhood the much loved family cat was black( Sambo) and neil also had a cat as an adult named Black cat (very imaginative in his family!)
Anyway we have often joked about it but sometimes its an unsettling thought.
Well last night in our office Neil was mucking about taking pics of nothing a few he took were from inside our office into the dark loungeroom hall.Now the first has a large orb close to the ground (perhaps cat height) and the next a few seconds later is empty.This is not dust its not reflection.IS IT OUR GHOST CAT ? What do you think ?

A Bliss full of Bunnies !

Just thought id share the fact that easter is creeping into our home.I dont go big at easter just a touch here and there and i do have a tiny feather tree that i decorate for the table ,will show you that later in the week! The Odd picture out is the little display i havent had done long of small dress forms.Dont know why i just love them and on the wall next to them thats vintage powder compacts. The two little wooden bunnys are from England and germany both from people i have fond memories of.Have felt a little down this week but you cant be anything but cheered by my mantle of bunnies. A whole bliss full of bunnies i'd say !

For my mother!~Who also never stops at all !~

Something beginning with B

I spy my little eye,Is it my imagination or has my world been filled with B's lately,and i dont mean bees as in those lovely honey making spring thinking kinda Bs ,it may well be springs arrival for a lot of you bloggers but for us poor Aussies here Autumn is telling us that winter is around the bend.No the b's im referring to are Breasts and bangs and bargains and birdies.
First the Breasts cause they are the worst ,my poor mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer she is having an operation on the 8th and then radiotherapy.It was caught very early so i have no doubt that she will be just fine.My mum is one of the strongest little people i know she may be tiny but she is feisty.Its just horrible she must go through this at all after losing my dad to cancer a few years ago.
The other B was MY boobs which i had squished the other day at the mammogram place.Not fun noo specially when they are the size of mine lol but you have to do what you have to do and its because of the mammogram that my mum was caught early. Soo better sore than sorry so come on all you girls out their and get squished,make a day of it like mum and i did and go shopping.
Which brings me to another B bargains ,i have had my share lately will take some pics and show and tell soon.
Bangs-hmm who was the lady driver who dropped her son off early for an excursion last week and managed to hit a driveway iron pole that she swears wasnt there on her way in.
Hmm the whole door and the side mirror have to be replaced and in front of the year 10s waiting for the excursion- yikes.
The birdies are my favourite images and i have been making things for the vintage ephemera swap on flckr
This one has my fav saying on it (well this weeks favourite)

Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.
~ Charles M. Schulz

IM A FAIRY GODMOTHER

I am I am ,at last i have a daughter ,well a God daughter.
After four sons i am a fairy godmother and Neil is the Godfather to the sweetest baby on earth
and im sure i am not prejudiced,She belongs to my dear friend cecily and her grandmother who passed away two years ago Desley was a long time friend of mine.
I wish that she could have known her grand daughter but i will make sure her grand daughter knows about her gram.She was so good at her Baptism and so was Caleb her brother arent they the sweetest pair!

I am blessed to be a godmother to this Angel.Desley would have been besotted by her.
Maddison Margaret Elizabeth Ellston may God Bless you and your Brother always.
Of course you all know the saying every good girl deserves Cake and Maddy was very good and so she got her cake and my goodness she ate it too.

A collection is born

Who knew i was collecting miniature luggage,i never did,then this little suitcase arrived in a swap.Suddenly that miniature briefcase and the tiny hatbox i have had for years gravitated themselves to it and wahla a collection was born.
And heaven knows i needed another collection (i really did.)

Do fairies ride on blue tongues.?

Do Fairies ride on Blue tongue Lizards
I really really think they do ,look at this baby blue tongue,isnt he just begging for a fairy halter to become a fairy steed.Like a tiny regal dragon and look at the length of that tail.It must have been three of his body lengths,I often talk to my blue tongues and this one who is still a baby was shading himself under the car as i pegged out the washing.
Worried about him having a fight with my cats i made sure they were well away.Emmy has learnt her lesson after a argument she lost once with a big old fellow.And Avalon is such a scaredy cat she was well away.

PWGL Little token of Love swap

Thankyou Becky of
A clever clever gal with the midas touch.Thankyou for my little guy whom i will treasure/Cant believe Becky makes these all herself they just come to life look at those eyes.

Mine to her took an age and then after i sent her a replacement it turned up,dont know where these parcels get too but at least she got it i made her a darling little wreath and inside the box i put the meaning of each flower and wrote her a note on petals.Im so glad it finally arrived.

Vintage Ephemera heart swap

Thankyou to my swap partner Carrie of sweetlife creations blog

I just loved her heart full of special treats
hearts and tags and more hearts A tiny party basket all my oen
with a tiny heart tin full of pink and red buttons.A Victorian cat card and bookmark.
And treat of treats Martha Stewart glitter got moi the glitter queen.Thankyou so much Carrie what an Angel.

My vintage Heart swap

Wow is all i Can say of my clever clever partner Viv of Vivs whimsy fame
check out her blog here http://vivs-whimsy.blogspot.com/
I got her in Dolly of my cherry Heart-Valentine swap
What a true sweetheart she was to make me all these teeny tiny felted friends.
I love love spell that ADORE my tiny bluebird and heart,And ladybugs have a special fondness to me and she made me one with beaded love bug and one with little hanging legs.


There were hearts there was Hersheys and all done up like candy which indeed it was.
Total eye candy thanks Vivian you are the best !
Oh Oh i almost forgot the sweetest sweetest little swag of bead hearts as well and a tin gorgeous one.

The Tears of a nation

This week our nation as a whole is mourning the lives lost and the lives changed from the Victorian bushfire disaster.Its hard to comprehend just the size of this disaster.The toll rises and every time i hear it climbs ever higher its around 200 now.We as a nation are used to bushfire's they are part and parcel of living in this great country.But this year with temperatures as high as 118 degrees for not one day but days on end the summer has turned red with the blood of our people.We have had some of our states sweltering in the heat and people dying from heat stress,while others like Victoria and parts of NSW fighting fires fanned by hot winds,Then we have Queensland devastated by floods.Is it global warming if so i fear the future,

Its all made worse by the drought that has ravaged the countryside.To think that some of these fires were deliberately lit is beyond me.To think what man can do to man has always scared me.They should be charged with mass murder.Whole towns have been lost, people fleeing in their cars full of children have crashed and been burnt in the blink of an eye.That firemen stand to face walls of fire to me is beyond bravery.Stories of people who have lost all yet not stopping to feel sorry but running to try and save their neighbours houses,these are stories of great courage as is the fireman and emergency crews who have had no sleep in days.What man can do to help man has always amazed me !

Together we pray and together we cry and hopefully together we shall rally to ease the pain of thoe who survived with nothing but memories .To those who have lost loved ones and homes and pets and to the wildlife gone and homeless my heart expands and cannot hold my feelings.I pray as i cry for a healing of my land and its people that the bushfire moon will cease to be seen and in its place a soothing light will shine like hope upon those who need to see it most.

Miracles and Memories

Sometimes the things i think of as miracles are not so big.I mean i think some people just expect miracles to be ENORMOUS like the loaves and fishes and Jonah.But thats where they are missing out.A great week with Alex thats a miracle to me.An antique found at the op shop now there to me is a true miracle as it survived not only 100 years probably in a house with CHILDREN but even SIBLINGS,and then it went through the donation bit at the op shop all thrown in with other odds and ends.Now there my friends is a MIRACLE and that i can buy it because i recognize the gem beneath the grime another miracle.Here is one of my favourite small miracles,These ferns were found growing under our house ,not unusual thjavascript:void(0)e mountains is covered in them,WE transplanted them around the side and they grew to cover an ugly kitchen window view of the neighbors carport .Now for free it is my favourite window view.

The memory part is my leadlight hearts made by my father and also some by my sister,Were not they both so clever.Now my dad is gone but each day i see the hearts hanging in my window catching the dappled light i am reminded that he loved me so much.Now there my friends is a Miracle.

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Heat waves and missing a Month

In Australia while half the country is literally dying of the heat the other half are drowning in floods.The worst thing is we are so drought stricken it would be nice to scoop all them floods up and dump it where its needed.There are a reported 30 people in one state and 40 in another who died in the continued heat.
This kind of heat is making the rail networks a mess with tracks buckling in the heat.Electricity demands cannot be met leaving many without power for days .Animals of all kinds are also coming closer to people looking for water.
MOther nature likes to show who is boss and it certainly isnt US !
Its gotta make the non believers think that there just may be something in this Global Warming thing.Anyway its an Aussie summer and school has just gone back and i just wanna ask one thing
WHERE THE HECK DID JANUARY GO ?
And just so as you know,
Its only 11 months till Christmas.