My gifts to Mill.....

And here's what I sent Mill.......

I am sooooo spoilt.......

I have been the lucky recipient of some gorgeous goodies in our P4P Advent Swap. Thanks Tea for organising this...... Each person sent 24 small pressies to their swap partner, one to be opened each day until Christmas. At least half had to be handmade. Then on Christmas Day we got an extra special pressy! My wonderful, talented and generous swap partner is Mill (in the middle with the cowboy hat lol...) Here's what she sent me, thanks so much hun!

Grow baby grow.......

The garden is growing like crazy, we have had the odd drop of rain, and the high organic content in the soil retains moisture really well......

The big picture..... lots of recycled materials to make the beds and supports..... not so pretty on the eye but soothing to the soull..... think I'm turning into a greenie lol....

The tyres have pumpkins, melons and rockmelons......

Above are my beans, theres a few peas in there too and some carrots still to come up....
Corn, lettuce and a trellis with crystal apple cucumbers starting to climb......

Love this 5 colour silverbeet, yummmmm

Zucchinis, I have six plants so we have heaps!

And just for fun my lovely gourds......

My Xmas pics......

If you click on the slide show, maximize your window and click original view you will be able to see the pics up close.............

Furry ornies and my raggy tree skirt......

I love Christmas decorating, but it is a "trifle" tricky with my little helpers...... Nutmeg decided that the reindeer atop my tree was fascinating and must be hunted down!

Cinnamon thought impersonating a panther was a good idea...... Nutmeg wasn't so sure.....

Put the two together and the tree became a wonderful playground! But not for long, I have my trusty "Puss Off", a concoction of citronella oil and water in a spray bottle designed to repel even the fiercest panther...... My real Christmas ornies are too precious to be hunted by this dastardly duo. The girls may adorn my bed instead......

BTW I made a raggy tree skirt! Turned out pretty good I reckon....

Mmmmmmmmmm apricots..........

We are lucky to have a lovely neighbour who allows us to pick her fruit in exchange for a few jars of jam - thanks Nan!

After bubbling away on the stove for a bit I bottled 11 jars of jam....

The best fruit went to making dried apricots, gotta love the dehydrator! Lots of work but well worth it for the tart yummy treats.....

There's plenty more where that came from, we'll be picking apricots for weeks, and then there's the plums and figs, not to mention the peaches Mum grows...... There's something very satisfying about looking at a cupboard full of hand made preserves.....

Pretty pleased with this......

For the longest time I have been searching for a clock to suit my primitive decor. They were all too small or too cutesy. So I made my own! Well sortof anyways....... I bought a very modern stainless steel rim, white faced, big numbered, cheap clock. I pulled it to bits and painted the face and rim matte black. Gotta love spray paint - too easy. I sprinkled the face with cinnamon, letting a little float on to the hands. Then all I had to do was hot glue some rusty stars (some of which I painted with the spray paint) onto where the numbers should go. Put it all back together and wahlah! A prim "rusty" clock........ gotta admit I was pretty pleased with the result!

Great skirt tutorial........

Been looking for a pattern for one of these for ages. I have tried on heaps of tiered, gypsy or peasant skirts over the years but they are always too short on me, making my legs look stumpy. This tutorial is great, you just enter your measurements and it calculates the size of each piece! There is a choice of two lengths as well..... Now excuse the pics, I have had this fabric in my stash for about 10 years and I still have 10 kgs to lose on WW so those two factors combined don't make for the best shot lol...... However I was really pleased with the result and it is soooooo comfy, great for the hot days ahead. Now I know the pattern works I might just splash out and buy some more fabric to make another couple.

Clever composting

My brother Nick and his wife Kirsten have a great site with loads of cool links for organic gardening and permaculture. Check out their how to make compost video, isn't Kirsten just so cute? I just wanna put her in my pocket and take her home! Then she can turn my compost for me lol........ Nick (clever boy) has designed a compost calculator to make it easy to work out how much of each type of material to add to your compostto ensure success. Check it out, definately worth a look.....

Nick's serious pose

Love that hat K!

Harvest....

I just love eating from our garden....... Here's a sample of recent harvests.....

Broadbeans, snowpeas, peas, radishes, carrots and lettuce
Shelled peas and broadbeans
More carrots, beans and snowpeas + multi-coloured silverbeet and broccolli.

I also have pak-choy, rocket and herbs ready to eat, and have loads of seedlings in. The kids can't wait for the watermelons and rockmelons, but aren't so keen on the idea of pumpkins lol...... The beans are up, and the tomatoes are starting to flower, zucchini are fruiting, and everything has just taken off with the warmer weather. I am busy seed saving radish seeds for sprouts, and chive and onion seeds for future plantings.... very satisfying to sit back at the end of the day and survey our efforts. Hmmmm, now what's for tea?

Not prim, but so much fun!!!

I made this for myself yesterday, sooooo not prim but OMG I love it! Been wanting to make one for ages, now I just have to finish his twin..... If you want to know how to make one go to http://www.craftbits.com/viewProject.do?projectID=1104

I got the socks from Big W, 2 pairs for $3.97, this guy's brother will have the spotty body and stripey limbs. I can see how little kids would love these, they are so cuddly. Seeing as I don't have littlies the cats have now got a new friend, and don't they just love him!

I have been crafting - honest!

I know I haven't posted anything crafty for AGES, but I have a good excuse.... I am part of a great swap on http://forums.delphiforums.com/passionforprim/start which has kept me rather busy. It is an advent swap, each of us sends 24 little presents to our swap buddy, one to be opened each day leading up to Christmas. At least half have to be handmade by the sender. The final gift for Christmas Day is to be extra special. I haven't made the big gift yet, but the other twenty four are on their way - look out Mill! Here's a teaser for you - Can't wait to start opening mine lol... I love presents.....

Worms, worms, worms.........

A wonderful way to compost organic matter is to make a worm farm. Of course you could buy one ready made but as usual we decided to make our own lol... luckily we had an old laundry twin-tub sink that we could use. We covered the drainage holes with mesh to prevent escapees.

Cut a hole for a PVC "tunnel" between the two sinks and used silicone to seal it.
Added lots of bedding, we used straw and horse dung, other alternatives are shredded paper etc....Bought some composting worms, these are not the same as garden worms, and are great little workers.

Added some food and the worms to the sinks and covered with damp hessian. I have spared you the pics of the food as we are using our worm farm to dispose of dog poo! This means we won't be able to use the castings or worm wee on our vegies, but it will be fine to use on the flower garden. A great way to fertilise the garden, clean up the yard and reduce flies.
A lick of paint so it is less visible in the yard and a piece of tin for a lid and it's all done! The cupboard below provides great storage for the bucket to collect the worm wee. Shame I forgot that dog wormer kills all worms, so I will have to wait for a while before feeding the worms their special food.... until then it's kitchen scraps!

Gourdgeous!

I looooove these..... I was passing the second hand bookshop last week when I noticed some gourds in the window. I got these beauties for just 50c each! The lady who grew them didn't have enough water to clean them properly so I will have to get the bleach and a scrubbing brush onto them. I have no idea what to do with them, I just love their shapes and colour. I have three gourd vines growing at the moment, I had a dozen seedlings but most didn't survive the transplant shock or the dreadful drying winds we've had. Hopefully my seeds will arrive soon and I can plant some more direct now that the weather is warmer.

It's raining, it's pouring.........

As you would know Australia is in the middle of one of it's worst ever droughts. We are lucky to have a good bore we can pump from, but there is nothing like rain. The past week has been gorgeous, lots of overcast days and over 2 inches (50mm) of rain! And it's still coming..... Nutmeg is only 12 months old and is very curious about all this strange stuff outside. She's an inside cat so she hasn't been out in it, but as she's a water lover I'm watching her whenever the door opens!

Boy, he's getting game now!

My apologies for the lighting in this shot..... This is one of our gorgeous king parrots that visit us most days. This young man is a chick from last year, he has decided to really get friendly with us. Toddy (Ian) and I were sitting outside late in the afternoon and he actually landed on his hat! Since then he loves to swoop us when we go outside, just saying hello, and will eat out of our hands. We feel so honoured that a wild thing like him has much trust in us......

Halloween display.....

I know we don't celebrate Halloween much here in Australia, but I couldn't resist.... I bought the hat, boots and Jack-o-lantern from the last Chocky Crow Auction (www.thechocolatecrowtrader.com) I designed and made the gourds in the basket myself, if anyone wants the e-pattern send me an email! My Dad bought me the great rusty old camp oven and we picked up the little copper kettle at an auction not long ago. The ceramic pumpkins are op-shop treasures and the other bits I have accumulated over the years. I bought some divine prim Halloween patterns from the girls at www.theprimitivepear.com but I didn't get time to make any yet...... hopefully next year! I do have a prim witch ornie but she lives in my kitchen. It is a German tradition to have a kitchen witch for luck, I guess it saves me being the only witch in the house lol.........

I made a barn star!

I am so impressed at how easy this was to make. Believe it or not I made it from a cereal box! I got the template here

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=160166827867&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT&ih=006

I enlarged it 200% so the final star is about 20cm across. I will have a go at making a huge one soon, love those. All you need is a craft knife and ruler, some cardboard, black spray paint, spray adhesive and cinnamon. Of course you could paint them any colour you like, but I love the faux-rust look. Only took me about ten minutes to make this one and I already had everything I need. Considering how pricey the big barn stars are this is a really cheap way of making heaps of them!

A few bits and pieces

My fave food in the world is sushi, but living in a small town we don't get to indulge very often. For ages I've had a sushi-making kit and recently I took the plunge and had a go. Here is the result, not bad for a first try.... It was divine if I say so myself, the tuna was amazing!

Just a bit of eye candy for the prim lovers out there.

I have acquired quite a few cream stoneware pieces so I put them all together with a few cinnamon sticks and some antique egg-beaters.
These tags are great, my friend Ang made them and I have been trying to find a spot for them to show them off properly. I joined a few sticks together with the hot glue gun and some calico strips, and put them in a rusty tin with a rusty pie plate. I put in some gravel to give it stability.

I looooove a good clearing sale......

Ian and I went to a clearing sale on the weekend, I love these sales, usually they happen when someone sells a farm so there's some great old goodies. This sale didn't have much, but we did get a couple of things, including this table.
We salvaged these great weatherboards from our old house. They still have some of the original green paint on them. Ian cut them to size for me and fitted them as a shelf for the table.
A good drink of linseed oil to revive the timber and it was all done! We think the table came from an old school house, it is covered in kids names lol..... I love having bit of history like this in our home.The table is in my kitchen, we have so much more serving and preparation area now, it's fantastic! Please excuse the washing up on the bench lol, I was a bit busy lol...... No doubt the stuff I plonked on the shelf below the table will be rearranged, but for now I reckon it looks pretty good! Not bad for $55 and a couple of hours work.....

Aaaaaaaarghhhh computers!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's now 7 long weeks since my new laptop went back to the shop for repair, and I'm STILL waiting! Not happy......Needless to say this has affected my blogging somewhat..... I have been promised a new one as they have tried to repair it three times, the first time I brought it home, turned it on and blue smoke came out! Thank goodness my hubby brings his work laptop home each night so I can use it then, but I don't get the time to do much then. Hopefully my new laptop will arrive this week.

Enamelware & more......

I love old enamel ware. I have been picking up enamel goodies for a while now, mainly from op-shops, and have acquired quite a collection..... so much so that perhaps I need to find another spot for some of it..... I do love it on this old dresser though, especially with the rusty stuff and the prairie doll.......... I think my favourite piece is the measuring jug, it's certainly had some use!

The old cheese grater has a tea light candle in it and looks really pretty when lit. I picked up the shortbread press (centre bottom shelf) from an op-shop a couple of weeks ago, it has Scotch thistles on it. The spice carousel came from an oppy too!