Quack quack:things that make me happy

I love living in the country and experiencing the wildlife. Currently we have a family of  wild ducks residing on our dam. There is mum and dad and seven little ones. What makes this so special is that usually only one or two little ones survive the clutches of cats and foxes, but this family must have wonderful parents. Only two of the original nine have been lost.

They come right up to the house...and it warms the cockles of my heart. We also have a resident sea eagle who sits in the old emergent gum by the dam. I thought he might go for the ducklings, but he just gazes on the family in an arrogant way, (as if to say, "you ain't good eatin'"), then swoops down to the water and scoops out an eel.! I could watch them all day.

Apologies for the bad photo, this camera I currently have is on its last legs. A new whiz bang DSLR has been ordered over the net and is currently winging its way to my itchy hands. Don't you love shopphing online? Presents arrive regularly in the letterbox. It is like Christmas every day! (Yes, it isn't a typo, every day...I have been using the old credit  card a bit too often, but I am saving money and the environment by  using less petrol)

A place for everything and everything in its place

Today I am trying to create some semblance of order as I finish off a large order for a new shop in Batemans Bay. I have found that there is a certain amount of confusion recognising my five different garlands when I have market stalls. So I have come up with a colour coded solution which looks pretty snazzy.

I had a bit of trouble with the awful Fiskar circle cutter. *@#!%** thing! In the end I just used a stanley knife to cut half circles. I don't know if it is me being particularly spastic, but I just can't get the hang of that implement!

The boxes were got from Crazy Clarks for $4.00 each. They the perfect size for keeping all of my orders organised. They came in a range of colours and sizes. I am not sure if they are too twee for the market stall (turquoise stripes)...maybe I will grunge them up a bit with some op shop containers.

My HSC girl caught the order bug as well. In between bouts of study, she has organised all of my Little Golden Books. What is particularly cute is some of the labels that she has used -"Male/Heroine/Object Protagonist Fairytale." This generation is certainly not going to be bamboozled by anything served up to them!

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Native beauties

Still busy making garlands for orders and the upcoming BiEco Market. I have moved on from making my Around the World garlands (atlases and encylopaedias) to Waltz with Me garlands (music). I found this marvellous little picture, torn from a book, tucked in between the pages of  a book of  "Beethoven Sonate per Pianoforte". Very Brownie Downing (please feel free to correct me)

My rules for these garlands are quite simple. The sheet music must be pre decimal currency. Many of the classical sheets of Beethoven, Bach and Brahms I use have a lovely sheen, and excellent quality. They were obviously made to last.  I have also branched into the more popular music and show tunes of the time. I love the covers, and the lyrics are wonderful!

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Cheese please

Image from here

It is my theory that people collect their memories, and I am certainly living up to it. My mum had a full set of  black and yellow plastic Nally Ware cannisters. (She also had the complete spice set...so gorgeous!) I loved them wholeheartedly, as I love yellow and black. Sadly, they are long gone, but not in my elephantine memory. Ofcourse, as a result I collect, (when I can afford it) yellow and black 'stuff.'

  

This little cheese container is hopefully the first of a complete black and yellow cannister collection. However, it is Gayware, not Nally ware. The yellow is alot brighter and the and font is different. Chalk and cheese. Ha, ha ! If it grows to any great size, I am buggered where I will put it...I have no room...but...I...MUST....COLLECT!!!

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Around the World garlands

I am making an order of Around the World Garlands today and I thought I would show you what goes into them. They are made up of two different books, an atlas and an encyclopaedia.

Out of one of my piles of kids books I choose an old encyclopaedia/fact book. This is only one pile of my collection, they are beginning to grow on the floor and in cupboards...but I can't help myself!

 It must have those glorious old water colour illustrations in it. I only cut double sided pictures out, no text for this garland, and the paper must be thick. I don't know how I made all of these rules, but they have stuck and so I must follow them. This book is the Animals of Tundras and Icelands.

99% of the time I use only Junior Jacaranda Atlas's, the kind we had at school. Rules for these,are that they must be old and must have that lovely thick cardboardy paper. However, I found this brilliant Moden Commonweatlth Atlas which features a beautiful blue sea. I can't wait to use it , but also like fabric, I am always very scared to cut anything so beautiful.

Once they are handcut and sewn they end up as garlands whose function I guess, is to adorn. But, also for me, making these is working on those childhood memories, when computers did not exist, when you would lift the lid of your desk at school and gaze at an atlas and imagine all the places in the world. The only place they were visualised were in books like these childrens encyclopaedias (and the big adult ones, but they aren't as pretty)

Maybe I was a loser geek, sitting in a library corner, imagining the world and its adventures, but it was really all we had. I still love these books and get a thrill out of looking through them. Ho-hum...still the loser geek!

Pooh bees

I had a little chuckle as I was making up a custom  order for some Winnie the Pooh Little Golden Book Buntings. The client who has already bought a couple of Pooh buntings for her little grandchildren, (about 6 and 4) has ordered some more...this time for her great grandchildren! They are not even a twinkle in her grandchildren's eye! But she is going to put them away especially for them.

It is so sweet, and they will surely be vintage by the time the great grandkids recieve them!

Anyhoo I was cutting away,reading the book as I went,  and realised that Pooh was going through what we had experienced on the weekend...bees. Naughty Pooh!

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