Family Get together

On the weekend my extended family got together. It was the first time in about five years that we had all been in the same place at the same time.

I had been anticipating it for several weeks. The weather didn't exactly cooperate with us and just as lunch was nearly ready down came the rain and up came the wind. A ten minute dash back to our place ensued guaranteeing somewhat soggy chips and damp humans. Laughter wasn't lacking however.  We even managed to fit us mostly around the table in my kitchen. Our table is officially a ten seater, but we crammed 16 around it, with a second row of two.

I would have like to have longer to get to chat better with each person as I am sure I have a half completed conversation with most of the folks. That is how it tends to go with these gatherings.

We all departed promising not to let five years go by before we do it again.

The night before the big all-in we had a quieter time with my parents. I hijacked got to paint my mum's nails.

pretty flowers on a pale pink background.

It was fun to work on different nails.

St Patrick's Day

Time for a bit of fun!

 How do we greet each other on St Patrick's Day? Top of the morn to you.  ??

I wanted to do a nail art to give a nod to all things Irish since today is St Paddy's.

A quick google netted me a collection of Irish symbols which I attempted to replicate on my nails in paint.   I spent a happy few hours reading up on Irish culture and history... and will resist the temptation to regale you with my expanded knowledge.

Claddaugh, pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

 These two are probably my favourites.

Left hand: clover, Triqueta (Irish knot), Leprachaun's hat

Right hand: Flag, Celtic cross, clover including the elusive four-leafed version 

I considered doing a cup of guinness and a harp but decided against it and left the last two nails just shiny green.

It got a few comments at work yesterday. There was a fundraiser raffle (I didn't win the bottle of Baileys) and a lot of green shirts.

There is just one tidbit that I must share from my research combined with my experience:

My name is Irish and as a child when I looked up the origin and meaning was very disappointed to discover it meant "sorrow". The legend of "princess Deidre of the sorrows" caught my attention partly because she was a princess and partly for the tragic tale.

This time, I was interested to see the phonetic charts for the Irish names. The pronunciation of my name has been anglicised from the original Gaelic.  The Gaelic pronunciation is Dee - ah - drah or Dee - id - Rah.

The English (british) say it Dee - arh - dree (both long ee) and the Americans Dee - dra.

I am used to Dee - dree since that is how my mother pronounced it.
Most of my life I have been called Dee and I often prefer that because it is less likely to be mangled that way.  Since working where I do now I have heard so many variations and am getting quite used to the ah sound at the end.

Shave for a Cure

Teen 2 has been fundraising for Cancer Research.  Her favourite colour is BLUE. The colour she detests is PINK.  If teen 2 reached her goal she was going to colour her hair blue with a stripe of pink. If she doubled it two stripes of pink were going in.

She had intended to fully colour her hair but the hair dresser said that since her hair is very dark it would have to be completely bleached and then coloured. She recommended the coloured spray of just a streak or two of colour.

Teen two made her goal and the colouring happened today. She still has a bit longer to collect donations. She is thinking that she may go back and get the permanent stripe especially if she can manage to double her goal.

Before

 Blue-ification commences

 add some pink!

 Man that's blue!

 done

 teen 2 with the hair dressers

 The paint is stiff and uncomfortable. Teen 2 will leave it in to were to work tomorrow and then wash it out. Her head is wrapped in an old towel tonight to attempt to save the sheets and pillow. everything that comes into contact with her turns blue, her skin is blue, her clothes and bits are flaking off onto parts of the house.  We will need to do some serious cleaning tomorrow.

Re-Model Dress into a Skirt

On Sunday afternoon hubby had an appointment at the big fruit computer store. I was with him and as we walked past a fashion for larger sizes store I saw the big signs advertising 70% off.  I stopped for a look and was happy to send hubby on.

I picked up a few bargains and managed to fill a couple of wardrobe holes. There was a catch - isn't there always?

Some work was needed on three of the four garments in order to make them useful. Now I have managed to get one of them done and in addition to showing off my before and after transformation, I will show how I did it.

Before - $90 dress marked down to $20.

The entire dress is not even a bit flattering. 

The top fabric is pretty but it has no shape, is baggy and way too big on me. The neckline is huge so if I lean over... you know.  Seriously these stores should hire me... how many big girls have a neck THAT big!? I don't know why each increase in size also increases things like the neckline. 

Anyway, the skirt part is a nice heavy knit and is pieced and shaped. I thought it had potential.

After

A new skirt for work. The photo doesn't show the detail in the skirt so you will have to take my word that it has some nice detailing and is different to anything I own. I don't usually tuck tops in but wanted to show the skirt. The waist is a bit too big but I didn't want to change the line.  The skirt sits on the top of my hips.

The simplest way to turn a dress into a skirt is to use the already attached fabric of the top and convert it into a facing.

I chose to do it this way for several reasons, that main one being use of time. It would have been quite time consuming to completely re-do the waist band and time is too precious to me to do it the long way when I was sure I could achieve just a good a result much quicker.

I would have needed to do a lot of unpicking in order to properly remove the top fabric and leave myself enough of the skirt fabric to attach a new facing for the waist band.  This way I was able to create a facing quickly and easily. 

Now for the 'how'.

I cut the top off about 3cm above the skirt. 

In the pic below you can see some of the detail in the skirt... and the threads from where it had been cut.

 Next I stabilised the soft floaty fabric. 

I had some iron-on stabiliser designed for sewing waist bands - it is about a thousand years old but the iron-on sticky stuff still worked.  I cut it up the centre 'cause I was only doing one side. I ironed it flat onto the top. In the pic below you can see that the centre front of the top is gathered onto the skirt. I needed to make that sort gathered fabric behave like a nice solid fabric.

Once stabilised, I further stabilised and heated up my rough cut edges by overlocking the raw edges. 

ta da. I have created a stable facing from a previously very unstable fabric. 

The only unpicking I had to do was the top few centimetres where the zip crossed over from the skirt to the top. You can see the threads where I sewed across the top of the freshly cut zipper so that it couldn't go past the top of the skirt.  By unpicking that little bit it also gave me some fabric to turn in so there would be no raw edges on my new facing.

I turned the facing over and carefully stitched with my sewing machine along where the top row of top-stitching is on the skirt. 

I then hand slip stitched the bottom and added a hook and eye to the top of the opening.

And the finished result.

A neat skirt with a pretty coloured facing. 

 The whole re-do took about an hour and the most time consuming part was slip stitching the facing by hand - even though no one is likely to see the waist band I didn't want stitches showing... 

Nail Fail

Friday night I came home from work and was struggling to stay awake. I was waiting for hubby to finish work and come home. At 9pm I could hardly keep my eyes open so in order to keep myself awake I started looking at manicures online. That's a sure way to stay awake. :)

I saw a cute pink mani with silver and black and decided that I had to replicate it. Somehow I had been so successful in distracting my self that I had forgotten just how tired I was.  By the time hubby came home I was right into the manicure. A nightcap later and I was past tired but I couldn't stop 'cause I wasn't done yet.

I should have stopped.

The mani may not have been done but I was.

See what I mean.

 Well this is my dominant hand which means I used my non-dominant hand.
And it was 11pm by this time.
And I am a cheap drunk (one drink had seriously impaired my abilities).
And i was trying to hurry so I could go to bed.
And it was the first time I had tried to do fine straight lines with a nail art brush that had 3cm long, fine bristles.

Done laughing?

The next morning when I saw how truly terrible it looked I removed all but three nails (two of which were on my right hand and were in fact the first and third that I did). I painted all the others pink and that is how it has stayed.

Better?

The colours in this pic are how it is meant to be. my yellow lights make for terrible night photos. (and I still can't figure out the light settings for night on my camera)

We've got the Tiara

When teen 3 (miss 16) was little all she ever wanted to be was a princess and a mummy.

At age 2 she didn't get the baby doll she wanted for her birthday and was devastated. I thought she would get over it and love the not-so-expensive baby doll that we bought instead. She didn't.
The following year we learned our lesson and got the baby doll the we didn't think was worth the full price the year before. To this day that baby doll is still precious and loved. She doesn't play with it now but it still has a significant position in her life and her room. She was still playing with it regularly at age 10, a bit less at 11 and only on occasions by 12.

The princess stage is a common theme for little girls too. For her 5th birthday we bought her a princess dress and had a princess party where all the little girls wore their princess dresses and played dress up games, had their hair and make up done and photos taken. Then they sat up at the 'big' table and had high- tea five year old style complete with fairy bread, frogs in the pond and baby chinos.

Sadly for our princess she was the fast growing kind and she out grew her 'foofy' dress all too quickly... to this day it hangs in her wardrobe taking up a significant amount of space with all it's layers of foof.

This princess is now 16 and in her final year of school.
She is still baby mad, still dreams of becoming a mother and loves to baby sit the 11 month old next door - so she knows it not all skittles and sunshine.

She is also still princess mad even though sometimes it is skulls wearing tiaras and too much make up. Our princess is in the process of choosing her formal dress for the end of year graduation and school formal.
And guess what?

She has eyes only for the princess dresses. Her criteria include: fitted, boned bodice (breathing is optional), embroidery and beading and layers upon layers of tulle with a full skirt.  She hasn't yet chosen the final style but you can see her current favs here.   Oh and by the way... I did it and finally joined Pinterest.  Feel free to follow me and make sure you let me know so I can follow your interests and pins too. I am warning though... it is addictive. Getting back to today's tale...

When looking again on Saturday, the third of such outings, she tried multiple dresses and didn't find any that really matched up to the picture in her mind. She did find a selection of Tiara's that are discontinued and therefore marked down to only $10!!!  The ones that she has been looking at are five times (or more) that price.

So now she has the tiara and just has to find the dress.

Shanks is modelling the new Tiara.

Pink Chain Ear Rings - tutorial

My intention was to spend a chunk of today "playing". I got the jobs done... insurance sorted, kids dropped off and picked up, trip to the chemist, etc I did some tidying in my craft room... not the same as playing but necessary in order to play. I had so many things I could do that I was in danger of not doing any of them.

Do you get like this?

Finally I sat down and did a bit of beading.

I wanted to make something pink as there is a serious lack of pink in my jewellery collection.

I decided to experiment with pink size 8 seed beads and jump rings to make a hanging bunch of grapes type of ear ring. It looks better than it sounds.

My inspiration was the beaded hangers that I have been making. I wanted a similar look on a smaller scale.

 Here is my ear ring laying on the wool flannel bead mat. 

You will need:

30 x size 8 Seed beads
30 x 6mm jump rings
14 x 5mm jump rings(could use all 6mm if preferred)
pair of fish hook ear wires
two pairs of pliers (I used my bent nose pliers and flat nose pliers)
  

1. Start by opening each of the 6 mm jump rings and threading one seed bead on each, then close the jump ring making sure that it is properly closed. You should have 30 of them. Divide into two even piles. 

From here on I will simply refer to these as "6mm rings" for ease. 

2. Pick up one of the 5mm jump rings, open it and put one of the 6mm rings on before closing it again.

3. Next take another 5mm ring, open it and put one 6mm ring, a 5mm ring and another 6mm ring on before closing it again.
Pick this up by the 5mm ring just added and the two 6mm rings will fall either side of the previous ring 5mm ring. This is important as it will be balanced and give an even look as you keep going.

This pic below shows how it will look at the completion of this step.

4. Repeat step 3 another 4 times.

 5. When adding the last row, put two 6mm rings on either side of the added 5mm jump ring to give a bit more fullness.

6. open the loop on the ear wire and put the last loop through it.

7. Admire you new ear ring and do it again to make a pair.

It's also a good idea to get someone else to take the photo of you wearing the ear ring so that it is properly focused... but I had to make do as there wasn't any one else near by, but you get the idea.

I am thinking I will make another version of this using bigger jump rings so the silver rings feature a bit more