Sweet Sydney

Some Instagram pics from a trip to Sydney last week...

 One cannot visit Sydney without snapping pics of the Sydney Opera House

 Lovely little cafe near Central Station 

 A day of fun at the Sydney Royal Easter Show

 One of the cute giraffes at Taronga Zoo. Such gorgeous creatures!

 Taronga Zoo. This guy refused to turn around. Oh well...

 The view from the hotel room

 Sampled Sticky Rice Ice Cream. It was delicious!

 Exploring Manly
I love Sydney! You great big beautiful city you!

Moreton Island

Some holiday snaps from a recent stay on Moreton Island...

Tangalooma Beach

A rescue mission. Wildlife rangers cutting away fishing line tangled around a distressed little beach bird

Taken while exploring the northern end of Moreton Island

A Whistling Kite circling around the jetty

About to board the boat to return home...

coast to coast

Some swirling about on the Sunshine Coast

and some sizzling on the Gold Coast
Just a couple of instagram pics taken last week

Saturday, it's a Saturday

A beautiful start to the day. Sunshine and sea breezes!

A lovely morning walk on the way to the Lemon Farm Organic Market.

Some goodies bought at the market. The nectarines are super delicious!
Here's a sweet video made by Paul Bishop about The Lemon Farm...

And later in the day another market...

A little afternoon art-craft-knick-knacky style market held at the local primary school. Oh and sweet treats! Which of course I had to indulge in. Less healthy than the food purchases I made earlier in the day but hey it's all about balance right? And of course, most importantly, supporting the local community!

Between visiting markets I planted a couple of guava trees in the front yard (two varieties, yellow cherry and strawberry...yum!) and worked on some wood photo block orders to be posted off on Monday. Both a relaxing and productive day!

It's gone all pear-shaped...

But hey, I was aiming for pear-shaped. So all good!
This is a paper mache (or papier-mâché if you want to be all fancy french about it) light bulb. I was inspired by all the lovely twine wrapped light bulbs floating around on Pinterest and decided to give it a go. Except I didn't have any twine. Hmph! So I improvised by smooshing it with paper instead. It's an easy peasy little project and fairly self-explanatory but I'll list here what I used anyway...

An old light bulb. I had a few of these sitting in the cupboard since making the switch to the energy efficient ones.

Paper for smooshing! You can use any type of paper you like really. The thinner the paper the better. I used old vintage piano roll paper simply because I have a large stash of it. (The text visible on the top of my pear is part of the song lyric printed on the roll)

Glue. The only types of glue I had on hand were super glue and adhesive spray. Neither of which appropriate for paper mache so I used some impasto gel from my paint supplies. It worked fine. If you're feeling really creative you could make your own glue from flour and water! Just google for correct ratios.

A twig. For the pear stem.

Varnish. Optional.

Attach the twig in place with some super glue (or a small blob of blu-tack would work a treat). Then cut / rip up your paper into small pieces and glue it to your bulb. I covered mine with three coats of paper. Leave it to dry and then apply some varnish if you wish. I chose not to varnish mine. And that's it! Finito!

Next I'm going to attempt a paperbark lightblub as I have an endless source of lovely paperbark from the trees surrounding my house. I'm thinking a paperbark pear would look rather sweet. If I have any success with it I'll share a photo!

Madeit Mega Giveaway!

What's better than free stuff? A whole pile of lovingly handmade free stuff is what! If you make a purchase from any seller on Madeit between now and Friday the 7th December you can go into the draw to win this super awesome fabbo Mega Christmas Giveaway Hamper. Also multiple purchases = multiple entries!

Pssst... Hey if you would like to shop in My Shop on madeit, the door is open!

In the garden

I've been picking lavender from the garden and placing bunches around the house but I'm finding the smell a bit overpowering. Unfortunately the whole french country cottage chic look just doesn't work for me. As much as I'd like it to.

The first tomatoes on my pomato plants (potato plants grafted to tomato plants) are looking good. I hope the potatoes under the soil are doing just as well!

My strawberry field! Well it's not quite a field but a very large strawberry patch which has produced bucketloads of sweet strawberries this season. They've been delicious! It's slowing down now but there were so many that I now have a freezer filled with strawberries all ready for a summer jam making session!

laugh kookaburra, laugh kookaburra

Some scenes from the weekend. A Sunday sunrise. The first bunch of spuds harvested from my garden (very exciting!) & some cute little horses. They're not my horses. I wish they were! They reside nearby. In contrast to these pics, my weekend was mostly chaotic with one stupid thing after another going wrong. It was very weird. It felt like an episode of Fawlty Towers that was never going to end. We all experience those kinds of days & I reflect upon the above photos & remember it certainly wasn't ALL bad. There was a high quota of good too!

This photo below has nothing to do with the weekend as I took it a few hours ago but it has a sort of 'it's going to be an awesome week' happy kind of vibe about it. Well that's how I'm choosing to interpret it anyway! Bring it on!

Have a wonderful week everyone!

into the trees...

The week started off rather foggy. Not quite as foggy as my photo depicts. I exaggerated the fogginess somewhat with a little bit of tweaking...

A pair of abandoned shoes at a jetty. Waiting for the owner to reclaim them.

Glass onion. I've since transplanted this to the garden as I think it will have a better chance of survival being in the dirt. It was a silly and fun experiment.

I have a serious addiction to Greek Shortbread. These beauties I bought from the mid-week Jan Powers Farmers Market in the city. Boy oh boy they were good!

Recently I purchased this delightful little Instagram bag online from meemanan on Etsy and it arrived in the post this week. Hurrah! I absolutely adore it!

Sweet Sunday. A perfect end to the week! Hope everyone had a lovely week!

... a bit of a random mish-mash of the week that was ...

koala and green blobs

Earlier this week I visited the Currumbim Wildlife Sanctuary for the first time since I was a child. Which was a very long time ago! It really hasn't changed much over the years. I was watching the koala above and he climbed down from his tree and started walking along the ground. I've seen countless koalas in my lifetime but surprisingly this was the first time I'd ever seen one walking on the ground. It all looked so awkward and unnatural and I couldn't help but laugh at the little guy! Now I know why they prefer hanging out in trees than walking around. Possibly out of fear of people like me laughing at them. Sorry koala!

Later that same day I went along to the Brisbane Festival to watch the evening light laser show. Unfortunately I missed most of it and this photo is all I have to show of the event. A couple of green blobby bits floating in the sky. Oh well...

waiting...

It's been a while since last participating in Shadow Shot Sunday so it's nice to be finally joining in this week! The photo was taken at a jetty while people were lined up waiting for the ferry to arrive. A tall young skater guy was standing in front of me and I really liked the way the early morning shadows wrapped themselves around his long skinny legs. Have a super dooper Sunday everyone!

Head over to Shadow Shot Sunday to check out other shadows and to join in!

hello spring

Three days into spring and I've picked my first strawberries of the season. Not a huge harvest but hopefully many more will follow! They were oh-so-sweet!

This little guy watched from the front fence while I gobbled up my strawberries.

Happy Spring!

goodbye winter

Some scenes from the last day of winter. It's spring tomorrow. Hurrah! I have to confess that I didn't struggle with winter this year like I usually do. Either it wasn't a very cold winter or I've finally become more tolerant of cold weather.

Wabbits? Where?

Karragarra Island is always such a joy to visit. It's so pretty and peaceful. In the 1870s it was known as Rabbit Island. I've never spotted any bunnies there...

insta-post

It's been a little while since I last blogged, so to break the drought I thought I'd just share a few of my instagram pics from this week. A little baking, a lot of coffee consumption and enjoying the beautiful Queensland winter sunshine!