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Today I did some face painting with a group of other people at a small local festival. A few of us (including me) were fairly new to face painting so we had a little hands-on training day on Friday morning at the organiser, Kaye’s house to run through and practice the techniques and designs, and generally get organised.

Today we only offered a handful of options for the kids to choose from, to keep it simple - of course the girls all wanted to be butterflies, fairies and princesses and the boys all wanted to be skull faces, batman and spiderman. Special requests that we also did included Egyptian eyes and pyramids, fire breathing dragons, rainbows, flowers, a few ninja turtles, lots of happy feet penguins, and even the new spiderman - he’s black and silver, just so you know.

It was such fun, making small children happy and being up close and personal with them. Some are so shy and quiet during the painting and then reward you with a huge slowly spreading smile once they see the finished art in the mirror. Some kids are bold and brassy and know exactly what they want and how they want it. Some kids forget to say please and thankyou and some parents give you an idea of where their kids learnt their lack of manners from.

The vast majority of kids are so sweet and happy to have us paint their faces, choosing their favourite colours (pink and purple for the girls, almost exclusively) and wriggling or sitting stock still while we work on them. I am looking forward to doing more of this - thanks Kaye!

Yep. Things move slowly around here. I had to search and search through my photo folders to find this one - it was taken way back in December 2004. Yes, 28 months ago we started fixing our kitchen up. We couldn’t afford (and didn’t really need) a massive overhaul but we certainly wanted to update things a little. You can see why.

We started off by getting a shiny new wall oven and new ceramic glass cooktop and while we were at it, we had a shiny new range hood and an extra cupboard installed overhead. Then we had the awful brown tiles ripped out and replaced with lovely new blue ones. We also had a new benchtop fitted. This all happened back in December 2004.

Then we ran out of money and the above picture is how it has been ever since. Regular readers will know we recently got another windfall and so we are happily getting moving on this again.

Yesterday and today we started painting the cupboards. We have only done the undercoat so far and we will wait until next weekend to put the light blue top coat on, but already it has made such a huge difference. Goodbye, cacky old brown pretend-woodgrain cupboards, I did hate you so!

Once the painting is all finished we will be attaching shiny new stainless steel handles and we hope to get a bit of stainless steel stuff to use for the kickboard under the cupboard doors. We also want to paint that awful wishy washy lemon wall - I am thinking a creamy white.

This is the (messy) inside of one of our cupboards - that’s the drop sheet below it. You can see we still have to paint the inside of the cupboard doors. We were going to be slack and not bother but now we have decided it will look so much better and it will be well worth the extra effort. Gosh, we’re good.

There is also another long bench that you can’t see in any of these photos - it is opposite the wall oven and has the double sink. Back in December 04, we couldn’t afford to get a new benchtop or have the blue tiles installed there so that is on the agenda this time around too. I am so looking forward to our new kitchen. Nothing like taking things slowly - having a little rest for 28 months in the middle so you don’t get too worn out.

I finished the shirt that I cut out the other day! It was Burda 8516 and it went together quite well.

It’s probably going to be a little cool to wear this right now but maybe we will get some more sunny days before Winter really kicks in. I can also wear it over something warmer, at least for a little while.

I made View A with a couple of changes - the most obvious being that I put elastic at the wristband (I also shortened the sleeves a little) and left out the long trim at the front.

Here is a pic from the Burda site:

I always get such a feeling of accomplishment when I sew something for myself.

Remember a little while ago I had a photographer from the Sydney Morning Herald come to document my creative mess? Well, today was the day they ran the piece.

The story (and huge picture!) was in their colour lifestyle magazine called Essential. It was a bit exciting! Under the heading “Critical Mess” they had the tagline: Rejoice in the knowledge that an untidy desk spurs creativity. Amen to that, I say!

When I was first approached about this, I really did think that I would just have a couple of quotes that were used to support an article that was basically a book review - of the book “In a Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder” but there was a lot more of me in the article than I expected. It was nice to wake up to - weird but nice.

I had a look at the SMH site to see if I could link to the article here but I couldn’t find it online. edit: It’s on the SMH site now, so you can go read it online if you like.

While I was looking, I did find another really interesting article that you might like though - and please, how great is this photo - and I don’t even knit:

This other article was all about how the current generation is going green, and in so doing, turning back to the ways of our grandparents.

“Back in the late 1940s, life looked pretty simple. Climate change was the thing that happened with each new season and, while there was little talk about environmental concerns in the family home, commitment to thrift, conserving resources and canny housekeeping was certainly taken seriously.

But, now, as the reality of climate change hits us, we look to the past, to the lives our grandparents lived, for inspiration on how to live.” read the article here.