Wardrobe Sachets

Obviously I am on a theme this christmas, and have made smelly linen and leather sachets to hang in the wardrobe. 

I have filled these bags with herbs from my garden - lavender and rosemary - and with lemon rind, star anise, cinnamon and cloves. I added a couple of tablespoons of linseed to each bag to give some weight and something for the herbs and spices to rub against when they are moved around.

I bought patterned and plain linen from Rathdowne Remnants, and cut up some brown leather strips for the strap.

They really look lovely, and I going to give them to my Nanna for christmas. 

Essential Oil Diffusers

On Sunday I had a great idea for our home made christmas, and headed off to Camberwell market to get some little old jars.  I had in mind some old half milk bottles (cream bottles) but the man who sells them wasn't there (1st Sunday of the month apparently) so I found some ink bottles and old alcohol bottles instead.  The advantage of the alcohol bottles is that they have lids, so they can be transported around without spilling the oil.

I followed some online instructions and mixed almond oil with a tablespoon of vodka, and then added  a blend of essential oils.  I bought rattan at Cobra Cane in Collingwood  (in hindsight I think I already had some in my garage from when I made a mobile once - and I bought it from Spotlight ...).  I did try bamboo skewers first, but they didn't soak up the oil enough (rattan has little tubes all the way through which apparently helps absorb the oil better).

Anyway, I am happy with the finished product.  They look very cute and they smell great. 

More Reinvented Tea Towels ....

I have a garage full of junk collected from op shops and the side of the road, and I have a big collection of mainly Australiana tea towels.  In an effort tidy up a little I fixed up a couple of stools ... they are now in my lounge room.

Rainbow Necklaces

In June, India's birthday party was a 'craft party' and I bought a range of coloured fimo from Spotlight, and then bought some chain to make necklaces.  The kids made basic beads in a range of beautiful colours and made rainbow necklaces.  They were simple, and ended up looking great for kids or adults to wear!

Clove Oranges ... A Trip Down Memory Lane

When we were little we always had a clove studded orange in our kitchen that my younger sister Merryn had apparently made at kindergarten.

This week I went off to the local fruit shop to buy 5 oranges and then to the local Indian shop for a bag of whole cloves.

I figured my kids and their cousins could do an after school project and make a clove studded orange each as a present they could use for our homemade christmas.  I hadn't done much investigating but I figured you would just roll the oranges in the cloves and somehow they would stick in .... I was mistaken. 

You have to actually make a hole with a fork or toothpick for each clove before you poke it in.  Clearly in 4 year old kinder my sister had had a lot of 'help' making her orange.

So an after school project for the kids turned into a week long project for the older kids and adults (the younger kids gave up after about 2 minutes and headed out to jump on the trampoline!).

Anyway, we are nearly there ... and I now hope they actually preserve and don't go mouldy (imagine all those hours chucked in the bin).  Once we finished studding our oranges (well the 2 that we have completed - and I am optimistic about the remaining 3), we  rolled them in a mix of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and clove.  The kitchen table with our half finished project on a tray is a bit messy, but it smells delicious! 

Knitted Stool

Knitted Stool for Art for All 2012

This year I also experimented with a knitted stool.  Sort of weird but fun. 

Art for All 2012 - My Chair

Given that I am at home looking after the kids, I figure it is a great time to be volunteering.  

This year I am helping organise our annual art show Art for All. 

I am really enjoying getting into organising something and making an event happen. It is just 3 weeks away, on the 8-9 September, and some fabulous artists are going to be part of it, and we have a great day of kids activities planning for the Sunday, so I am very excited about it all.

The chair as I found it on
the side of the road.

As I am trying to tick things off my list, I have actually made my chair for the annual Chair Auction on the Opening Night nice and early this year. 

I found this chair on the side of the road in Northcote, it was a little worse for wear!

Since then I have re-padded it, sanded it, put new shellac on, and recovered it with a lovely Australian themed table cloth. 

I hope someone bids on it!

Knitted Tea Cosy

As part of our second hand and home made christmas, my sister and I screenprinted t-shirts for the kids and I made skirts for the girls.  My aunty made necklaces for the kids out of fimo.  My brother-in-law made florentines. My dad made me some fly screens for my windows (very practical).

It was lovely to get stuff that either people knew you really needed and had searched for or something that they had made with love. We are planning to do it again this year.  My Nanna who is 90 is already on the job, and has knitted dishcloths for everyone (I also did these this year, but she is doing much bigger ones - she has more patience than me).  I am looking forward to a larger one, we all agreed that they are terrific - the ones I made are still going strong 8 months later and I use them every day.

I bought my sisters a second hand teapot each, and knitted them a tea cosy to go with it.  I used a number of different elements out of the books 'Tea Cozies 1' and 'Tea Cozies 2' and 'Really Wild Tea Cosies', which I borrowed from the library.  So, if anyone has a need for knitted roses and knitted leaves, I am the girl!

Screen Printed Tea Towels

Even though I haven't posted anything on this blog for a long time, I have still been creative, I just haven't taken the time to upload images.  So, this is a long overdue post, but my second attempt at screen printing assisted by my sister was a little more sophisticated.  We made some tea towels which ended up looking terrific (I think anyway). We ordered them in bulk from Linen Line and they cost about $2 each I think for great quality linen tea towels. 

We cut the screenprinting images out of thin acetate sheet (I bought it in a packet of 20 from Officeworks), which stuck pretty well to the screen (we didn't have any bleeding problems).  Using acetate rather than paper meant that we could keep our designs, and do them in different colours, without having to recut every time.  It was very successful.

 Our only drama was with setting the paint.  When we ironed it some got on the iron and with the red for example, the material became a little pinkish around the print.  I am not sure if we can set the paint in the oven or dryer, but next time if I iron, I will not iron direcly onto the paint.