Here's Harriet

Hi Everyone,

I have finally pressed the "send" button to despatch an essay I was doing on Renaissance painting techniques. I feel free, at least for the weekend anyway. The assignment was really interesting but time consuming and I will need to get reading again for one more essay before the fun starts with Print Making. Anyway, the break mean't I could show you Harriet. She is rather cute and once again fairly easy to put together. Her hair is painted on...so not too fiddly and her clothes are fun to applique while relaxing. I was stitching while watching the cricket.
Hope you like her. Harriet is No.2 (April) in Doll Club.

I used a lovely spotty Moda fabric to finish the sample and they work really well.....spots within spots!
This little iced vo vo biscuit will not break any New Year's diet resolution, it's a sweet little polymer clay button from the "Treat" collection. Holly has made lamingtons, choc chip cookies, jam on toast, lemon tarts, choc biscuits with vanilla cream.......all sorts of goodies! All available in mixed packs & singularly from the Wattlebee Website.

And as I take my victories where I find them.......I think I have also triumphed over the little bug that has been destroying my passionfruit. I was only recently feeling very smug having spied the biggest crop ever to then find spoiled fruit dropping on the lawn. So I put together a little trap and voila! I am at least retaining most of the fruit.
Deb 1 - bug 0, ha ha.
I've even sent out the first Newsletter for '09....good stuff!

Take care & happy sewing
Deb

Doll Club

Hi Everyone,

We've been hibernating here trying to stay cool, it's too humid to do anything much outside that you don't need to do. Which I must admit is ideal for crafting.

I wasn't going to continue the doll club this year as I had so much on my plate I didn't think I could do it justice, but I had so many lovely emails asking about when it would start again that I knew I just had to do it. We will be starting in February and all the info for 2009 will be on the website in the next couple of days.

Here's a sneak preview of the first doll. She appears complicated but believe me she isn't. I love making items in a "cushion" type style and I have done the bunch of flowers she holds in this manner. I did a similar small bunch for the Australian Country Threads, Mother's Day doll.

So easy, and really effective.
The second doll is a real cutie, she sports a hula hoop and will be ready for show and tell soon.

Australian Country Threads this month also has a contribution from me called Happy Heart. It was for the applique special so she has some nice applique hearts on her dress.

Heres the cover.The boys are at the beach again trying to catch some more big fish, dare I say they are "hooked". We have a long weekend to celebrate Australia Day on the 26th. I'm sure the beach will be packed.

I mentioned our Etsy store previously and there are a number of new items that we had fun making. Here are a few pencil/office/locker cases that we have made.....Holly made matching charms to dress up the zip pulls.

This one belongs to the cup cake one.

I thought the cases would be perfect for bits & pieces that would be handy to keep at work like spare keys, deodorant, paracetamol, phone chargers etc. Holly likes them as pencil cases as they hold 'everything'!! Check them out at 2bees.etsy

These are the gorgeous versions of 'Kitey' being made by the lovely ladies in Bohdana's doll club in Prague. I love all the different colour combinations.

I thought 2009 should start with an updated profile photo with the addition of my brand new, super cool googles. I can see for miles now! ( The kids say I look like Rosemary from that tv show - Ladette to Lady.......... poor Rosemary!)

Now I should get back to Miss Hula Hoop!

Happy sewing,

Deb

Ps. Stephanie, wish we were in your winter wonderland.

Renewal

Happy New year to you all,

I know this is a little late as we are already half way through January, but we were having such a good holiday that no one wanted to come home. I say that knowing that we love being home it's just so nice escaping for a while.

I always love the start of a new year. It really does seem like a chance to do things better and improve on what we learnt the previous year. I must confess we still have Christmas decorations and a tree to put away though, so it really doesn't quite seem like 2008 has passed.

A nice way to start the year is with a new project in Australian Homespun Mag. "Wattle" was a lot of fun to make so if you can get yourself a copy I'm sure you will enjoy making her.

I didn't forget about the competition. Thank you so much to the lovely ladies that left comments, it's always great to hear from you and I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and are fully invigorated for 2009.
Congratulations to Linny, her name was drawn and her pattern awaits - (Linny just let me know which pattern you would like and a postal address to send it to).

I wanted to share some images taken while we were away and some exquisite little flowers that were begging to be photographed. We used one of the images taken to create a new fresh banner for 2009.
This beautiful Crepe Myrtle from our garden is almost ready to open it's blooms. Each petal is so tightly packed into it's little bud just ready to burst.

This gorgeous Bougainvillea flowers in profusion at our front door. High maintenance as it is; grows overnight and is thorny....but how could you not enjoy that colourful sight.

This little plant(pigface) was found on the beach one morning while we were walking.
This is one of the boys worming. Drag something smelly like fish frames over the sand and up pop sand worms. Some of them are as thick as a pencil and over a mt. long. I haven't been able to catch one ( don't really want to either) but the kids have the knack.

This was the bonus for staying longer. My middle son caught this 25lb Golden Trevally off the beach. He was pretty proud of himself and it was delicious to eat as well.

Well holidays are over so it's back to work...new dolls available soon.

We also have an ETSY store( see side bar) for all the things we like to make that are a little different.

Best wishes

Deb