On wrapping presents

Mine is a large family, with no Kris Kringling going on, so present wrapping takes some time, something to wrap for each one.  Even if it isn't fancy-schmancy, but just paper and stickytape and labels.  Some time I'll do the fancier thing, but at weary-time on Christmas Eve, the other works too.  I chose the red and white patterned paper with care, and it will all end up scrunched in the large large box necessary for all the paper from a large family's large unwrapping...

So I put on a CD of Handel's Messiah (the Combined Church Choirs highlights one that isn't three hours) (and which has me singing as part of the choir) and got out the boxes of presents.  Some I'd bought a while ago, some only on Christmas Eve, tidying up the ends of what-for-who and omigosh-I-haven't-forgotten-anyone-have-I?  It was the family presents - pretty much all the rest have already been wrapped and given to colleagues and friends.

Comfort ye - com-for-ort ye, my pe-ee-ple

This one isn't always easy to buy for.  I hope she likes what I've chosen.  I pack it round with tissue and it goes in a gift bag, being breakable.

And the glory, the glory of the Lord, shall be re-vea - e-led

I'm so happy about this idea for one of the girls - it's a bit quirky, different.  Don't know if she knows these exist.  She often likes vintage, and this is hand-made too...

Behold, darkness shall co-ver the earth, and gross darkness the people

I never sang this, it's one of the solo pieces.  Love the way it ends, both music and words...

then the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the bright-ness, of, thy ri-sing.

Bring out a present, cut enough paper, wrap and stick and label.  Some are rectangular-easy.

One poses a particular challenge.  Another one of the girls asked me, a while ago, if I could maybe find her a vintage hatbox.  I said, in the way of such things, that it would need to find me, but I would look.  And, at markets and garage sales and op shops and antiquey-junky shops and on eBay, I looked.  At one market a few weeks ago, I mentioned this quest to the friend I was with.  "LOOK! she said.

Have you tried wrapping a vintage hatbox so it doesn't look like a vintage hatbox?  You can't disguise the size...maybe the shape...  I resort to an extra box, and roll out a large piece of paper.

Foooooo-r unto us a child is born...for unto us a  - for unto us a -

The parts roll over each other, a glorious tide of sound.  I sang in that Messiah for a decade, every Christmas in the Sydney Town Hall, practices every Monday night in the city from early October.    Any time I hear Messiah now, I hear the soprano choral parts, and sing them in my mind.  I remember Professor Clive Pascoe, the conductor, how he demanded excellence from a most diverse group of voices, and how he gave us excellence, and the gift of his knowledge of this work.  How he believed, and made us believe, that we could create something marvellous.

I'm giving the next boy a pixel present.  Have you ever tried wrapping kilobytes or an audiobook (delivered online)?  He loves Skulduggery Pleasant, and we have an arrangement that his birthday present each year is the next SP book (the fourth one is due out next April).  He's never heard the spiffing audio version by Rupert Degas, as far as I know.  Hmmmm.  Can't make it too easy, though, can I?  So I wrap and wrap and make it a parcel with layers of wrapping paper, and finally inside a card... Mean, but fun!

Good-will - good-will - good-will, goooood-willll tooooo - to - all men

I can't sing in this choir any more.  Logistically, my current work makes getting into the city more difficult, but the accumulated impact of years of teaching has had its impact on my voice.  A decade ago, the last time I sang in the choir, there was at least one song I 'fished' (mimed) because I didn't find the notes - nothing at all came out - or if anything, nothing more than a strangled squeak that hurt.  I sing along to this CD at home, where it doesn't matter if I sing the soprano part an octave lower, and sing along to the solo pieces. On my bookshelf is my well-worn copy of the Prout edition of Messiah, but I know it pretty much by heart (at least for singing along like this).   I can't imagine relearning the oratorio with the alto parts - I'm sure I'd unintentionally revert to the soprano ones, and a large choir like that works because you sing when you should and what you should, subsuming yourself to the created whole. 

I'm nearly done.  There are several large bags of presents waiting to go into the car.  Each one, being wrapped, is a moment thinking of the recipient, a grace-moment as I wrestle paper and tape and my own tiredness, and wrap in, invisibly, love and affection and good wishes and all those family things which are so much more important that the glitzy stuff of Christmas commerce.

Worthy is the Lamb, that was slain - and hath reee-deem-ed us to God, to God, by his Son....

One present isn't wrapped, because I've only just bought it today and it needs a little bit of sewing-related tweaking, a special label.  I make them up using the computer, and find I'm out of black ink.  Will the newsagent up the road that sells ink be open on Boxing Day, even for a little while?  Maybe?  Fingers crossed.

...and ho-nour, and glo-ry, and bles-sing...

The CD's nearly finished.  I sit on the sofa, and close my eyes, and remember singing the Amen (my favourite, much more than the more famous Hallelujah chorus).  For the sopranos, it rises and rises, and just near the end is the highest note of the soprano choral part, an Aaaa- that cascades down.  I remember singing that.  Exhilarated, from the joy of performance.  Determined to finish it well.  Waiting for the note I only ever reached while singing this piece, in this choir.  I remember how it rose through the body, through your throat, out of your mouth and somehow too the top of your head, how it felt to be filled with this one glorious note, surrounded by it in this choir....and then the last part of the Amen, and the final note of the oratorio.  Sustained, because in a choir this big (over 600 choristers) you can take a quick breath and go on, and the note stays full, fills the hall, rolls over the raised faces of the audience like a blessing, the organ sound is all stops out, the percussionist drumming, the soloists singing with us, the sound of the trumpet, keep watching the conductor and then, a quick movement of the baton and silence.  A deep moment of silent completion, something achieved, something wonderful created and now finished, and then the applause.

I don't think many of us ever sang it for the applause.  We sang for the singing.  We sang because the organising charity, Radio Community Chest, meant that others benefited from the two performances, and their Christmases, their lives, were made better too. (The RCC/Messiah website is here - this annual presentation has been going in Sydney for decades).   I sang - and the hundreds of people who come each year from diverse denominations still sing - to be a part of something extraordinary.  This music will never leave me, it is deep in my bones and I am fortunate.

I hope you and yours have had a peaceful and happy Christmas.

(PS. I've scheduled this entry for after the presents have been opened...!)
.

.

Tomatoes

.

The tomatoes have grown with amazing energy - six weeks after planting the seedlings, they're nearly five foot tall and have needed new ties every few days, not to mention taller stakes.  They are four different cherry varieties (which always seem to have the best flavour).  I'm waiting for the fruit to come...

.

White in the garden

.

I like what white does in the garden, particularly in summer as the light fades - it lasts longer, as something you see, than the brighter colours which catch your eye during the daylight.  The front bed has ordinary white petunias scattered through it, as well as white daisies, for just this reason.  Along the verandah are several hanging baskets, planted with white verbena (as in the photograph above), a white petunia, the label of which said it was especially good for hanging baskets, and erigeron daisies, which are doing less than the others (although they're going great guns in the front garden bed)...

.

And I hope that, as the plants in the baskets grow, that they will be, too, visible for an extra while, at dawn and dusk.  They add a cool effect too, given the heat of spring/summer - it's been a hot few weeks here.

.

Years ago, a gardening friend lent me a book of Vita Sackville-West's columns about the garden she created at Sissinghurst, which includes of course the famous White Garden.  I'm not disciplined enough to have a garden only in whites and silvers (also, I don't have quite such extensive grounds!!) but the idea is one which has remained with me.  I notice from The Book Depository (bookdepository.com or bookdepository.co.uk) that you can buy four books containing these columns, from Frances Lincoln Publishers).  I'll bung them on my wishlist.

.

The ladybird climbing energetically all over the white verbena this morning seemed to like it too.

.

.

(Treasure that photo - my discard folder has at least a dozen in which the ladybird has gone behind a leaf, was moving too quickly for my camera to catch!)

.

Verbena

I don't remember growing verbena before.  This plant was in a little pot in the cottage plant section of the nursery, and the candy-stripe caught my eye.  I bought both the ones they had, and each plant is romping away happily and flowering generously.  I think I'll try to catch seeds from them when they're nearing the end of their season.  I've since bought white verbena in a punnet, and a coloured mix, also in a punnet, and added them to the garden - with some of the white ones in the hanging baskets of white flowers I've potted up for the verandah.

.

Fresh herbs from the garden

A couple of nights ago, accompanying spinach and ricotta ravioli, was a salad of lettuce leaves from the garden, topped generously with an assortment of chopped/torn herbs, also from the garden: parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme (tra-la!), ordinary basil and lime basil, rosemary and oregano.  The greens were sweet and tender, so very fresh, their combined aroma adding to the taste.  The herbs smelled so very good, complex, interesting, simple, inviting.  Aaaaah.

.

No tomatoes, yet: but the promise of them.  The tomato plants, put in about five weeks ago (various cherry tomato varieties) are leaping skyward - I had to buy taller stakes.  There are flowers on them, and so soon there will be fruit.  I do love the slightly odd scent of tomato leaves and plants.

.

From this...

to this...

...in five weeks.  Look at those tall tomato plants on the right!  The white petunias planted throughout are too many to count, the dahlias are almost flowering and nothing has failed/died.  The last few days have been heatwave conditions, over 40degC two days in a row, nearly so today and the same again tomorrow, so watering is part of the daily schedule while it's so hot.  (The worst of such temperatures is when it doesn't cool down at night - it's hard to sleep when it's still 30degC because it's hot outside and the house hasn't cooled).

.

Now where are those gardening books I shelved in the study some years ago?!

.

Reading and Writing (and 'rithmetic)

.

Reading this.  Wonderful!! If you haven't read this, or Kit Whitfield's earlier novel, Bareback (UK title) (aka Benighted in the US), you are missing out.  Are they literary? Genre? Scifi? Fantasy?  Dunno.  Bareback is about werewolves, and In Great Waters about mermaids (or deepsmen, in the book's terminology).  That's simplistic, given the quality of the writing and storytelling.  I came across her first book by accident, and bought the second in hardback, Because I Couldn't Wait... and when I've finished this one, I'm going to read Bareback again.

.

.

I'm playing this game again.  Just under 1700 words a day, to reach 50,000 in the month.  NaNoWriMo is a great way to get yourself writing, fishing out things you didn't even know were in your head, getting you writing every day.  It's not too late to start... I plan to carry my (work-supplied) baby laptop around everywhere this month, so I have No Excuse (and don't have to transcribe my sometimes 'orrible scrawl).  Some of the kids are NaNo-ing too (with a smaller goal through the Young Writer version) and so I hope to encourage them and be motivated in my turn.

.

'rithmetic? 1700 words a day.... I didn't make it the first year I did NaNo; last year I managed just over 51,000 words, and this year I've got an idea I want to chase - not sure entirely where it's going to go, but I'll find out...

.

And I've read and enjoyed Diana Gabaldon's latest, An Echo in the Bone, and now wonder if it will be another four years before all the loose ends get to be explored further...  The audiobook (yes, it's on Audible, hurrah!) has just been loaded on the iPod and I'm sure I'll notice things I missed on that first fast read.  At over forty hours, you can see why I like a download rather than CDs, and not only to avoid postage but to avoid the tedium of transferring them to iTunes.

.

Narelle Grieve: celebrating a quilter's life

.

Although it was sad to know she had died, it was great to see Narelle Grieve's many achievements as a quilter honoured in the Sydney Morning Herald.  She was enormously and generously influential in Australian quilting.  Click on the link to read the full obituary.

.

The scrapbooking cupboard project: 4

Now where was I? Painting cream/taffy window frames.  Well, that's done, and the red roof too, and there was just the little matter of window furnishings...
.

.

Which was sorted with the dinky cordless screwdriver, cuphooks, fine dowel and some Denyse Schmidt fabric from her County Fair line.  New handles replaced old (old nasty, not nice vintage).

Et voila!

.

It's quite tall, isn't it?  I'm of average height, and thisi is me looking up to take the photo.

.

There's plenty of storage...

.

...as you can see.  Enough for the scrapbooking gear, I hope!

.

OK, here's the full view:

.

.

Isn't that fun?  And useful?  This is the back of the house - the house's front door/entrance is on the other side, but this is the side with the big opening doors, so for my cupboardish purposes it is the 'front'.

.

A couple of construction notes.  I was able to find tiny hinges for the door that had broken hinges - found them at the hardware barn (I'm sure that's cheaper than sourcing them from a miniatures supplier).  On the bottom of the house, I put two thick strips of self-adhesive heavy-duty felt, so it will sit well and not scratch the top of the record cabinet.

.

It's now in the house and about to get put to use!

.

Garden progress: perseverance

The garden bed after clearing.

.

The garden bed after planting.

.

Now in a couple of months....

.

As I spent time on the dollhouse/scrapbooking cupboard (painting the record cupboard in particular was awkward, with those narrow slots) and weeding/clearing this garden bed, in which boston fern baubles seem to be endless, I was thinking about perseverance.  There were points at which I could happily have given up, and sometimes did (temporarily).  Points at which I was grimly continuing, without much joy at all.  And that's process, isn't it?  Perseverance, persistence.  Which we learn from all sorts of places and experiences.  I know kids who just don't have 'it' - if something isn't instant, they abandon it.  And miss out on the satisfaction of a job, with which one persisted, being complete.  The lesson of a garden, too is patience - I hope in a couple of months to be picking parsley whenever I want it, eating cherry tomatoes and seeing a riot of colourful flowers.  For now, it's potential and progress, and patience.  I do not doubt that there will be more boston fern to weed out... (since it is a plant of patience, persistence and perseverance!)

.

Gardening like a quilter

I used to garden, before I became as absorbed in quilting as I have been for a number of years - I gardened in each place I've lived.  The garden here, what was gardenable of it, got, after an initial flurry, some native shrubs, grevilleas and so forth, and pretty much did its own thing.  My palette, my way of playing with colour and design, was fabric.
.

.
There's a circular-ish bed in the front garden which I've cleared out these holidays - overgrown shrubs cut down, bags filled with weeds and trimmings, trips to the tip.  The scrapbooking cupboard project has been suspended these last two days in favour of seizing the opportunity (but here's a glimpse of the next stage...).
.

  Sometimes it's been tedious, weed after weed - fishbone fern baubles seem to be endless, every time you turn the soil there's another one, or six, to remove.  It's certainly been good exercise, bending and stretching and levering out stumps and so on.
.
After all the clearing, it was time to plant.  I had some agapanthus which had been a tad overwhelmed by everything else, so those got put together in a group.  I hope they will flower this summer, blue and round and nodding in the breeze, like there's a cheerful conversation going on, only you can't quite hear it.

I've created native gardens, with grevilleas and other Australian native plants.  I really have.  But the garden of my heart is a cottage garden, the profusion of colour, the mad wonderful mix of flowers and vegetables and whatever you like, no rules broken because there are none to break.  So I toddled around a couple of nurseries and let my eyes and heart have their way.  Parsley, because I like having that to pick from the garden, and the price for a bought bunch is ridiculous (I think it was $1.50 or $2 last time I bought some).  Cherry tomatoes, for their prolific fruiting and the burst of sunlight and flavour on the tongue.  Daisies, in white and in pink.  Lavenders.  More herbs - rosemary, and thyme and sage, to complete the rhyme; basil, for its summer fragrance and taste, and as companion planting for the tomatoes.  Pink geraniums - one with a pointed petal, another with a wonderfully splotched look.  Dianthus, for their wonderful scent.  White petunias and white salvia, for calm and their ghostly grace in evening light.  Compact dahlias, for their gaudy fifties look, hot bright colours for the height of summer.  I did see a punnet or two of pansies, but they're past their time, for this year at least.

I had what we thought an discussion, and what others thought was bickering, the other night at dinner with friends.  He said, the garden bed out the front of a house should be a showcase.  I said, no, I'm planting it cottage style.  He said, but that's wrong, you do the messy stuff in the back garden.  I pointed out that the back garden is a shallow depth of soil over rock - not promising for gardening.  This front bed has decent soil, decent sun and lots of potential.  OK, I said, going on the offensive, what exactly SHOULD I be planting there?  At which point he got vague, and mentioned potted colour.  Really? I said, thinking, costabunch planting of what anybody's got... And then it was time for rack of lamb and roast vegetables and for dessert, raspberries and posh vanilla icecream, and the conversation moved on to other things.
.
But as I chose plants today, I realised that I was gardening like a quilter - assembling my palette, choosing not necessarily based on a specific plan, but a general idea - cottage-style - and a general principle - choose things you like.  I have four shades of pink, and at least one clashes with the others.  Am I bovvered? Nope.  There are perennials and annuals, flowers and vegetables, herbs and so it goes.  I believe it will all go together, because I've chosen them and nature is forgiving - maybe plants are even more forgiving than fabric.  A certain amount of my quilting is instinct rather than logic, and I did the same here.  Going with the heart, trusting that it will work out as I create it - quilt, or garden.
.

.

.

.
I had forgotten the mindless state you can get into, gardening.  Just thinking about what might go where.  Wondering how it will be, in a couple of months, to taste veges grown on my land - it's years since I grew any veges.  The young boys next door, whose soccer ball didn't hit my head despite their best efforts, came to retrieve it from time to time when it cleared the fence, and commented that this was looking better (very observant, for boys, although the change is quite dramatic).  An optimistic kookaburra flew down to land quite close to me, to see if my efforts had unearthed any promising worms or other foodstuff - they're such confident birds, with a cheerful, jaunty air. 
.

.

Having a slight hose-connection issue I can solve tomorrow, I filled the watering can several times to put over the planting I got done before the light faded.  The boys headed indoors for their supper.  The kookaburra found some of his, and flew off in search of more, or a roost for the night.  I looked at the parsley seedlings, and the sturdy beginnings of the tomato plants, and the tiny tender leaves of basil, and the deep pink daisy bush, and the lavender hybrid with flying petals - the soil damp around them, the darkness gathering them in, the promise of more to plant tomorrow morning, when a hot shower will have eased the stiffness in my shoulders.  It's good to have my hands in the dirt again, and to be again attuned to the timescale of growing plants.
.
Just don't tell my mother.  She's a Notable Gardener and will be far too pleased that I appear to have learned the error of my ways and returned to the fold of Gardens and Wisdom.  She gardens like a gardener.  I garden like a quilter.  And there's nothing wrong with either approach.
.

The scrapbooking cupboard project: 3

Am I prepared to admit that I toddled off to the hardware store AGAIN?  Not sure.  Keep reading....
.
Well, you knew I had the main paint already: Ta-daaaah, Dulux Young Leaf:

and a paintbrush that wishes it was elsewhere.  It's not an expensive one, and I'm not treating it all that well, what with wriggling it about in confined spaces and into many corners.

.

Why this colour?  Dunno.  Just felt like it.  I'd pondered pale dirty yellows, and not-too-sweet-pale pinks, and blues various, all reasonable options for a dollhouse, but when push came to shove in the hardware barn, this green was the one.

And it looks just dandy - see?

Fresh and cheerful and it's working for me.  I am not painting different colours in the different rooms of the dollhouse cupboard.  It's a cupboard, not about to be furnished as a house (given that there are a couple of other furnished/partly furnished dollhouses already in this house).  So the whole lot is now green:

inside and out.  This is after the first coat of paint.  Once the second coat is dry, I'll paint the roof and window frames.  It was madly windy today, so I'm sure they'll be dry tomorrow.  (Possibly with a little dust, but phooey to that).

.

And here's the record cupboard after its first coat:

Did I tell you the utter charm of the fact that the lower two sets of shelves are designed to easily accommodate LP records, so are around 14in high and deep?  And scrapbooking paper is sold in 12in squares?  Utterly charmingly amazingly perfect for my porpoises purposes.  Woohoo!  The top shelves - maybe smaller to accommodate 45s - will fit folders of smaller papers etc.

.

OK, I went to the hardware store again.  I needed handles for both cupboards, OK?  And, all right, I was thinking about window treatments (with eleven windows to consider).  So I got some itty-bitty cuphooks and the thinnest dowel they sell.  Pondered fabric for curtains (you know, I think there might just be some fabric around here somewhere - who'da'thunk??????!!!!!) and tonight I've got a little bit of sewing planned.  Easiest curtains I'll have ever made... (I decided to go with curtains rather than the acetate 'glass' option).

.

I am not going to add up the investment in these cupboards, I think.  It might be scary.  Still, it's going to be a decent size piece - each of the cupboards is about a metre in height (over 3 feet).  If tomorrow goes as planned, they'll be finished and ready to use.  (Except perhaps for window boxes, as suggested by TSS in a comment yesterday - I'm thinking about that).

.

If they'd done this on a homes and gardens show as a project, it would have taken ten minutes, tops.  They're much cleverer than me!  Or possibly have more minions to hand.

.

I also hope I will be able to plant some parsley tomorrow.  Ah, holidays...

.

The scrapbooking cupboard project: 2

My good intentions regarding hand sanding (rather than investing in a detail sander) fell by the wayside today.  I didn't show you the inside of the dollhouse cupboard, did I?

There be felt 'carpet', glued down.  I got out the scraper, and drizzled some methylated spirits on the felt, with the thought that it might loosen up the glue and enable me to scrape off the felt.  It worked to an extent, but only to an extent. 

I thought about citrus-based glue removers (the potion option) and sanding (the mechanical option).  Sanding won.  I went back to the hardware store (isn't it great that you can be wearing your grotty painting clothes and you fit right in at the hardware barn?!) and for $35 bought a detail sander with a three year replacement guarantee (hint if you're buying an inexpensive detail sander: check how much the triangular sandpaper bits cost.  For this one, it's $10 for ten; for another inexpensive sander, it's $7.50 for five.  That would add up over time...).  I know I'll use it again, so it was a worthwhile investment. Rather a lot of noise later...

and you can see the difference.  While plugging away at this (not a job completed in five minutes), I thought about what I might have done:

...by the time you add up the sealing undercoat, paint, sander, bits and bobs, plus the original cost of both cupboards, I'm shading into the price of one of these white melamine flatpack cupboards.  Easy, functional, would serve the purpose of storage...but not as much fun.  And I'll be able to look at my combo scrapbook cupboard when it's done, and have a different sense of achievement to wrangling an allen key and white melamine.  My cupboard will be more beautiful, and maybe more lasting, and repurposes instead of using new stuff (well, apart from all the stuff I bought!) and will be, perhaps unique.  At the very least, quirky and unusual.

.

I finally got the sanding done (and it needed both the sander and the hand-blocks).  I couldn't get all the felt off, but did the best I could and figured it's not a competition, anyway.  But it sure takes time to prepare before you start wrangling paint.  I took off the handles from both cupboards, too - there's an odd bit of damage near the record cupboard's handle, a bit of unexplainable gouging.  I figure it's just part of the rustic charm of it all - not worth fiddling about with Spakfilla.  The woodgrain floor on the right (?Contact plastic) peeled up without much bother, and without a glue residue either (hurrah!). Some work with an old toothbrush and (new) sugarsoap helped clean out dirty corners and windowframes.

I wondered about original colours: I suspect it was white or cream on the outside, pale green inside and this mustard or green on the floors.  I don't know how long ago it might have been made in a handyman's workshop.  1950s? 1960s?  The people from whom I bought it couldn't tell me anything of its history.

.

Finally, in the afternoon, after a morning of sanding and scraping, I got to open a can of paint - well, one coat sealer undercoat.  First, the record cupboard:

and I will not tell you how fiddly it was to paint those narrow slots.  I think I'll need a short-handled paintbrush to get into a couple of the corners when I'm topcoating.  I tipped it over onto the cupboard back to get into each slot properly, then tipped it back upright for the door/sides/top.  Then the dollhouse, which was actually easier to paint, even with the fiddly bits:

It's an improvement on where they started, isn't it? 

It's a good beginning.  More to do tomorrow.  It's nice to see progress, and think about how they'll look when they're done.  I'll need to get hold of dollhouse sized hinges to attach one of the doors, which has come off; and will need to think about whether I'll put curtains on the dollhouse windows, to keep out dust (and if I do, how I'll attach them - or should I use interesting acetate from a scrapbooking shop instead?  Decisions, decisions).  (And I haven't shown you the paint colours yet either, have I?  Tomorrow....).

.

The scrapbooking cupboard project: 1

A long time ago when the world was young and you could still buy second-hand furniture at the Salvos op shop in Bowral (alas, no more, and it was an industrial unit and FULL of promise...) I went hunting for a cupboard for my scrapbooking gear.
.
As I said, an industrial unit - a warehouse with narrow aisles some rather dimly lit, and you needed to look in EVERY aisle, for who knows where you might find the right thing? I wasn't quite sure what the right cupboard for scrapbooking might look like. I wanted to store paper, of course - 12" squares of paper being a scrapbooking basic. Also, I already had a cupboard for bits and pieces, such as stamps and punches and scissors and so on. Here's what that one looks like:
.

.

This one was an eBay find, from a fairly local seller, so I was able to pick it up AND it fitted in the car.  I never planned this as a dollhouse, but always saw it as quirky storage.  My guess is that it's a home made dollhouse, possibly from a commercial pattern/plans.  The windows are rather nicely detailed, aren't they?  Let's not talk about the lilac, though...  So what I wanted now was a second cupboard to be a base for this one, and more storage, preferably for paper.

.

Principle of op-shopping/vintage furniture shopping: know kinda what you want it to do, but don't assume you'll know what it looks like.  Size-wise, I wanted something this dollhouse/cupboard could sit on, and the space I have in mind is only a little wider (between a door and a built-in) so a standard bureau/chest of drawers was likely too wide for the space.  And this one needed to fit in the car too, so it could come home (delivery was not an option).

.

Up and down the aisles, looking, looking.  A couple of quite old pot/bedside cupboards had potential - and price tags a bit higher than I was hoping for.  Looking, looking... and then, at the end of an aisle, tucked away up the back, this:

.

.

I'm quite prepared to admit it's not the most beautiful thing you've ever seen.  Horrible handle (of course that can be changed).  Not very interesting timber.  BUT... look at its dimensions.  Very good, in relation to the lilac dollhouse.  Do you recognise this sort of cupboard?  I don't remember seeing one before, although I'm old enough that they would likely have been in houses in my yoof.  Take a gander inside, though...

.

.

It's a cupboard intended for the storage of LPs and other vinyl records.  Whoopee!  Paper storage, anyone?  I'm guessing it dates from the 1950s/1960s (if you know more than my limited knowledge, please do leave a comment!).

.

And so they have both sat waiting to be Renovated and Installed, and I finally got round to getting the gear I needed today at the hardware store.  I plan to paint both, to unify them.  Not sure how much going to town I'll do on the dollhouse - different colour for the roof? window frames?  Hmmmm....  But for now, painting, inside and out.

.

It's never that simple, is it?  Having invested under $100 in total for the above two cupboards, my toddling around the hardware store paint section was not a cheap venture.  I got a couple of those spongy sanding blocks, because the last ones I had are looking Sad and Well-Used.  I was tempted by a cheap sander (how are power tools under $30 unless Chinese people are making them for nothing at all?) but stayed with the hand-powered spongy sanding blocks.   One coat sealer will seal the timber (not good to have paper against unfinished timber) and also deal with whatever the lilac paint may be (?acrylic?enamel?).  While I got four litres of that (it's likely to come in handy for other projects), I chose two litres of paint and hope it will be enough for both cupboards.  I did get a sample pot of a different colour of paint for the roof...a couple more minor bits and pieces and well, that's well over another $100.

.

But I know, when I'm done, I'll have had the enjoyment of giving both these pieces a new life; they'll be fun to use as well as practical; and a new $200 cupboard from a pine shop or some such just wouldn't be the same at all at all (as one of my Irish aunts would say).  It will also be good to have the scrapbooking stuff corralled, organised and findable in one place.

.

So tomorrow, it's out with the daggy painting clothes.  We've been having some rain every day this last week, so I'm not sure how long it will take each coat to dry if it's showery again.

.

I'll let you know how it goes.

.

PS.  I do some scrapbooking on the side - mostly for presents.  My quilting paraphernalia, as you might expect, doesn't have a hope in Hades of fitting into two cupboards....!

Starting holidays

• go to an art exhibition and then out to dinner with friends
• sleep for the best part of two days (and almost two nights) - yup, I was rather tired.
• eat lunch with more friends
• finish some quilt projects
• plan some more quilt projects
• listen to the excellent audio version of Georgette Heyer's The Grand Sophy and immensely enjoy the wit with which it was written and is interpreted by whatsisface (can't remember his name right now)
• download An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon (it's on Audible! Yay!).  Well, begin to download, it's in several parts and totals the thick end of fifty hours....
• eat another lunch with different friends
• think about the spring cleaning scheduled for these holidays
• read the Sydney Morning Herald on sunny mornings (it's only the afternoons when it's been overcast and we've had thunderstorms)
• plan a film/dinner outing with yet more friends
• enjoy being on holidays.  For sure.

Back in October...(and in the pink)

Yes, you're right.  Work has been busy.  It's good to be on hols for a couple of weeks.

.

Here's one of my October projects: sell 50 pink ribbon day silicon bracelets.

Well, that's the number I've ordered from the Pink Ribbon Day site.  I know too many people who've had breast cancer - some survivors, some gone.  Haven't tried doing this before, although I always buy a pink breast cancer silicon bracelet when I see one, so I'll see how I go.  Why don't you try?  You can order as few as ten - surely you could sell ten?

.

Dreaming about rugs

I have someday plans to buy a new rug for the living room.  If the ordinary obstacles of everyday life were swept aside (you know, money, availability &tc so forth!), then my shortlist for browsing would certainly include the Gee's Bend rugs from ABC Carpet and Home (take a look here) or Amy Butler's new range of rugs (take a look here).  It's nice to dream...!

"Making Toast" by Roger Rosenblatt

"Making Toast" was in this weekend's Spectrum magazine, in the Sydney Morning Herald, but it originally appeared in the New Yorker here.  It's wonderful, simple, complicated, clear writing, about the time when his adult daughter died suddenly, and her parents moved to live with her widowed husband and young children.  Small telling details, rendered in prose that isn't soppy or over-egged, so you feel all you should in this snapshot of grief and mourning and travelling into the days and weeks after such a death, but without manipulation.
.
Worth reading. 
.

Spring blossom

.

Isn't that beautiful?  Just about to burst!  My favourite sort of blossom (?crabapple) - deep pink buds, paler as they open then white in bloom.

.

It was windy last night, and this morning the garden had a confetti of white blossom petals on the grass - not even sure where the tree may be (the one above was photographed while I was Out'n'About); but it's another sign of spring.

.

Wattle in sunlight

.

Just because it's beautiful.

.

Quilt in progress - one from the scraps

Last summer, I sat down with a box of scraps from the previous twelve months, and started sewing.  One result was Scrap Box Jig, one of my entries in this year's Sydney Quilt Show.

Lots of fun there!

.

Another result was another Scrap Box quilt that's off being quilted and will be in Australian Patchwork & Quilting magazine early next year:

.

What surprised me was that from a not enormous box of scraps (10 litre box, about the size I'd use to hold the fabrics for a single project) I easily got two quilts, a throw-ish size and a bed size.  And I can look at each and name the quilts from which each fabric came.  They're a great sort of memory quilt, and happy ones to look at, with lots of good, cheerful energy.  The fabrics are varied, but I think they work well together.  I didn't try for matchy-matchy as I sewed each block, nor when I assembled the blocks together into a quilt.  Just went with next please! and let them work as they would.  And they did.

.

.

Red camellias

These are from my parents' garden.  Just beautiful.

.

.

Breakfast at a café: II

Different café, different breakfast from another weekend. 

.

One way and another, I'd never had Eggs Benedict, despite seeing them mentioned often in books/food articles etc etc.

.

Two poached eggs, two slices of Turkish bread, bacon and hollandaise sauce.

.

Also yum.  When cut into, the egg yolk oozed delightfully over the bread.  Aaaaaah.

.

No lunch required after this one, either: just a spot of tiffin mid-afternoon to tide over till dinner time.

.

Breakfast at a café: I

This one landed at the lavish end of the scale for sure.  I don't know if I remember everything on the plate, but it included two poached eggs on thick toast, bacon, a cafe-made hash brown, smoked salmon, chutney, greens, mushrooms, I can see a strawberry...

.

No lunch was required.  Unsurprisingly.

.

There is something rather nice about breakfast out at a café on a weekend.  Certainly one eats more lavishly than one might at home.  And there's the company, and conversation, and it's all rather civilised, not to mention having the day ahead of you still.
.
Here's a recent breakfast: