During the week my sweet eight turned a mighty fine nine. I am a sentimental kind of girl and usually experience a kind of heaviness with each passing birthday year. In the past I have found myself looking through photo albums and sifting through carefully packed away treasures of scuffed shoes and outgrown clothes. This year is different. I feel good about this turning of age and am looking forward rather than back. This has so much to do with her.
Heartfelt 
First it was yellow wattle flowers and jasmin and now its fruit blossoms, 3 sure signs that spring is on its way. 
A potent combination that can be smelt from front door to back.
Soon to say goodbye to my warmest winter cardi for another year.
I was liking pinks and blues this morning. It may have all started when we were making our Sunday joint of pancakes with honey and my wee ones pink gown and our big blue mixing bowl caught my eye. I seem to be having weekly to monthly colour themes. The other week all my eyes wanted to see was red and blue and a while before that it was yellow and brown.
Feeling a little stretched this week. Just felt like positing these random pics that I enjoyed taking last weekend, when the sun was shining, and that I will continue to enjoy looking at. 
I joined the Thrifted Tuesday group on Flickr the other day. It is my first Flickr group and maybe my last (gotta get some things done around the house too). The concept is a happy marriage between two of my favourite past times - pics and thrift shopping - I am thinking I am going to have some fun with this one.
One of the things I find quiet joy in is sitting back and watching the children play. On Sunday morning I had the perfect opportunity to do just this. While I sat muching on toast and sipping tea my smaller one happily went from one creative task to another. It wasn't until my plate was wiped clean and I was on my second cup that her tummy rumbles got the better of her.
Small offerings, modest treasures, given freely to those you are fond and fondest of, purely for the pleasure of the giving. Food, thrifty finds and found natural treasures are my favourite offerings. Often a gift can sit in waiting for the right moment to be given or for the right person to come along. It's funny (and lovely) when simple visual cues, such as these pressed summers hydrangeas and winters violet in this bowl, can stir deeper thoughts. As happened when I gently placed the flowers onto the base of the china and began to think about the art of gift giving.
After some consultation with my younger one this arrangement was deemed a winner for the 1st patchwork bedspread.
With the help of small hands the sewing together began....
....and in a pinch under 2 weeks it was completed.
The seed pods I found on Friday afternoon. I am not sure what they are. Maybe from a cypress. How sealed up the pods are before they open up to expel their seeds.
I walked home yesterday along my favoured path. I found some beautiful seed pods, I had not come across before, which had recently fallen from a native looking pine with fernish like prongs. Further along the way I passed a row of two year old wattle trees which were just beginning to flower. They had bulbous seed pods and had produced large clusters of perfect yellow flowers. A sun shower started to fall and I turned my gaze upwards. It was at that moment that I saw the rainbow, and reminded myself of the importance of looking up as much as down.
Wet painting is an all round favourite. We use Stockmar brand paint and add enough water until the consistency is very thin, very much like water. It is one of my favourites because all preparation is shared between us and the results are beautiful, bold and colourful. The girls usually start out in a traditional fashion, using paint brushes to compose landscapes and faces, but more often than not they end up dipping the ends and middles of folded paper towel into the paints to make patterns. It is an activity that they can do from summer through to winter, rain or shine and one they do not tire of.
I am indeed all sorted and my patch working will soon begin. I have decided on a bedspread for each for the girls. Most of the fabric I will use is in the basket. I hope to sew in some patches from some of their treasured dresses, pants and tops as I think this will be a lovely way to prompt our memories of the past and of their own growth. My girls have enjoyed the process of sorting very much and I think this is why it has taken a while, as I have found the sorting is as much fun as the making. My older girl who is 8 cut swatches from many of the fabrics for her own sewing basket, ironing and then folding each fragment into almost perfect squares. My younger kicked my first piles of fabric around with glee. Later she ran through freshly ironed strips of fabric pretending that they were white stripes on a road. www.flickr.com
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