what's keeping me busy this weekend

Other than the farting around hubby and I have had to do with his car, and with his work, etc... this blog post is what I'm doing to keep my sanity this weekend...

BUT FIRST, this is what happened to hubby's spare tyre a while back (now before you think I can't spell, that's how tire is spelled in Australia, and I always think Canadian Tyre wouldn't have looked strange. This was part of our weekend as well...


The guy at the tyre shop where we went this morning says in hot weather (it happened on one of the heat record days we've had this Summer) he sees a couple such explosions every week from 4WD type cars! Hmmm, interesting.

Anyway, hubby thought his front wheels needed aligning, so the car is at the tyre shop, and lo and behold, one of the front tires is causing the wobbling, and the cause of the wobbling is the same thing (for lack of the technical term because I cannot remember it) that caused the spare tyre to blow up... and would have done the same in a matter of ..... days!!!!! Imagine that!

So we may have saved hubby's life by getting it fixed sooner rather than too-late!!!!

But the fact that his car is unsafe to drive is causing a bunch of scheduling conflicts (oh the busy life we lead when we have children!), which I won't bore you with... some days/weeks seem like nothing will go quite right. What I wouldn't give for a week to be so perfect that it would be boring!!!!! Not just with hubby and the cars, but with all the melo dramas caused by life in general!!

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Anyway, after reading SoapyLove's Debbie's tutorial for cup cake soaps, seeing the video (below)by the Soap Queen was very exciting, and I'm in the midst of trying this project:

How to make Soap Cupcakes with Whipped Frosting from Soap Queen on Vimeo.

The cupcake portions are setting right now. Can't wait to try the whipped soap for the frosting! Anne-Marie told me (via her Soap Queen blog, and she checked with Debbie) that I can use bubble bath base, which is great because I just got a bunch at Aussie Soap Supplies. I find it makes a great addition to a present basket (see further below) when you add a bit of pearliser, fragrance, and I always like to add a teeny bit of Shampoo Ultra Thick in there, to thicken the bubble bath.

I was at our local The Reject Shop earlier today looking for Easter trinkets (after seeing a doco on ABC or SBS called "Fakes" I don't want to buy chocolate at those places anymore - too afraid they are bad fakes, but I'm happy to buy their trinkets) and I came across these silicon moulds:

They had mini ones as well but I knew if I got the little ones I'd use them for chocolate and gobble them all up, so I dind't get them, but gosh they were cute!!

So I used some Organic MP Base and scented it with Chocolate Milk FO from Aussie Candle Supplies, and coloured with some brown (rich brown oxide dispersion from Aussie Soap Supplies and Cappuccino Mica also from Aussie Soap Supplies). Will show off a picture when they are set.

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Speaking of gift baskets (well, I did mention it somewhat above when talking about bubble bath base)... This was the latest gift basket effort for a 21st. I made the labels using one of HeatherT's digi kits Little Miss Muffet. The theme was largely Strawberry based, but not all was coloured perfectly (the soap in the front is a loofah soap, and the mica I used wasn't quite strawberry red, but I try to play with what I have) but I tried to keep in the pink/red theme... I had to get some tea too when I saw that package, as it looked so luxurious!!


Below is us three (me and my two not-so-little-anymore girls)

1. Ready for our first 21st, 2. 21st Birthday Basket, 3. 21st Birthday Basket wrapped up

and below are our henna tattoos. Mine was taken one day later, the girls' were taken as soon as they removed the henna. DD2 had a bit of a reaction to hers, it made her very itchy and they were both looking forward to removing them. I put lemon on mine after an hour or so but scraped it off before bed. Mine lasted just under a week, the girls's just over a week.

and finally I have unloaded pictures from my camera... and I present some of the Tie Dye that kept us busy during two very hot days over Christmas.

1. Tie Dye Fun - Tank Top by DD2, 2. Tie Dye Fun - Tank Top by DD1, 3. Tie Dye Fun - bag by me
Created with fd's Flickr Toys

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Well, this is what happens when you keep getting interrupted, things happen in the background the day ends, and I am now able to present you with little cup cakes, but you'll have to wait a bit for the chocolate egg soaps.



Hope you like them. I'm really happy with the way they turned out! Now to think of a clever tag or sticker so kids (who may win the raffle) don't take a big bite... this might be a problem :)

My Swirl Soap

I tried this soap swirling method from the Ellen's Essential website


It looks a bit like mille-feuilles my mum used to make (without the pink, and the black was chocolate! LOL!). It didn't quite turn out like I expected it to, but if I don't think about it too much I can love this soap!! Here are the cut bars:

It looks like cheesecake on the inside (though, not too sure what flavour the black stuff would be)



I used the lid of an A4 box of paper which I lined with freezer paper. I undid the lid so the flaps would be on the outside. Which also makes it easier to line.
I think next time I'll try a simple two colour swirl. This one (though you wouldn't know) had three colours added to the cream base.

For the first time I used macadamia oil in a soap! It's considered a luxury oil! I can't wait to see if I see a difference!!

Other than that I'm signing up for a third month of boot camp training with Fit For Health it's been hard but fun. My plantar fasciitis is behaving itself, which is wonderful news after so many years of feet pain and not really knowing what it was. I had my cortizone shots almost two years ago (21 months) and it's still good, but I do have shin splints at the moment, mainly in my right leg, but while I walk while others jog and I shuffle (jog as impactlessly as I can) while others run, I figure doing what I'm doing is better than not doing anyting at all. I had a nice surprise yesterday when the lab coat I wear once in a blue moon at work (mostly during Winter months) buttoned around the hips! It had never buttoned up and the one time it did, it snapped as soon as I sat down! Now, the scales may not show much progress, but buttoning up a lab coat, that's exciting!!! (well to me anyway!)

I'm trying the Flock browser at the moment, and while it's a bit over my head with all the "social networking" aspects of it, I find it's great to add pictures to this blog, or to forums, really handy. I really love Maxthon as a browser as some of the add-ons are just fantastic, but it doesn't co-exist very well with Vista (I love some parts of vista, but there's other that make me cringe!!).

It's been almost a year since I've done any serious rubber stamping, and a bit less since I've done any serious polymer clay. Time just flies. I want to do stuff, but with everything else going on (just regular life stuff) and this soap making, and making my own shampoo, and not wanting to do takeout more than once a week -- it's our Friday treat, the girls get Maccas and Hubby and I get Subway (I get the healthy veggie one!) but the bonus is that one of the Woolworth's I go to (Woolworth in Australia is a food chain, btw, as is Coles, nope, not a bookstore chain here!! though they do sell magazines!!)... anyway, one of the Woolies here has coupons for Subway on the back of their receipts, so when I'm lucky and I buy enough stuff (read: Groceries for the week) I get one, sometimes two coupons for Subway. The coupon is "buy one 12" sub and a drink, get one 12" sub free" so, even though we never drink the whole drink, it's still a 2nd sub for the price of the drink, which is less than $3, so that's a really neat savings, and I don't have to make dinner, which is always very much appreciated on a Friday... they also have coupons for pizza and other things, but the Subway coupons is what we like!!!

Well, here you go, my soap progress, boot camp progress, and how to live frugally tip all in one!!

Oh, btw, Sulea, you won that soap a few months ago and I just remembered you never emailed me back, I'll go pester you on your blog, I have a nice selection to pick from now!!! :)


Images in this post shared with Flock - The Social Web Browser http://flock.com/

ah! Lucky that wasn't ME!

My friend Heather T send me this:
http://www.katu.com/news/weird/44851907.html
I am glad our episode at work (caused by me, see a previous post) is over, the fridge seems to not smell anymore.
I found out ground coffee is great, you can put vanilla essence drops on the coffee (even the cheap stuff), baking powder aka bicarb soda, but also white bread (I wouldn't waste nice bread on that), put a few slices in the fridge and change every few days, DO NOT EAT! Crumpled newspapers also helped! I would also have tried citrusy essential oils but didn't get to that (and tried the cheaper approaches first!)

After a month of not making soap, I have a batch in the freezer, yup, cos I added goatmilk to it I put it straight in the freezer to prevent overheating, let's hope I don't get that partial gel! :)

I have been playing with "bath and beauty" stuff lately, but not much I have time to expand on at this very second. I am however getting a lot of inspiration from Susan's Blog!!!

Ryan's Birthday

Last weekend was another birthday weekend, and we went to a party, and we had to bring a present, and this time it was a BOY having a party... can't make him lip balm and a cute bag.... and I didn't have time to think of a "boy bag"... the invitation said "anything pokemon or $5 for his bank account", hmmm, I had NO time to go shopping (heck, I don't even have time to blog or make soap lately!)... so I thought, and I thought, and we borrowed some image from the web (now I do hope this won't get me in trouble, and if it does, I'll change the picture), made a card, and I was thinking of making a little money soap like on The Soap Queen's Blog, but instead I sort of improvised on the theme... I took 6 x $2 coins (present comes from two children so I figured $12 was good, and went better with my idea than paper money). I washed the coins with soap and then sprayed them with rubbing alcohol to kill buggies.
and I made this:


I should have taken a picture without the glad wrap (would you know it, my little cello bags were nowhere to be found on Sunday morning!!!), but you get the idea. Well, Ryan loved his present, told his mum it was one of the best presents ever! He apparently had a super long shower that night, and also wanted to wash his little sister and made sure Mum and Dad also used his soap. My two and I were in stitches listening to the mum telling us the story, and Ryan was there too and agreeing with everything Mum was saying!!! So much fun!!

Today when I saw Ryan at school he came up to me and said "I got two coins out!!!"... apparently another very long bath last night... Quick and fun present, and useful too, I had no idea it would be received with so much enthusiasm, it just made us so happy!!! And so much better than money in an envelope!!!

I remember when I was younger (all those years ago) there were cards with little slots for coins, so that they would be either the wheels of the car, or some apples in a tree, and there were slots, and sometimes just openings to squeeze the coins in, in different shapes... haven't seen any in a while (hmmm, could be because I haven't shopped for cards in a while)....

Speaking of cards I got a fantabulous one from my mum today (early birthday card, sent from Paris no less, mum finally got to set foot in Europe to visit my cousin and research and climb up our family tree!), anyway, said card was actually bought in Montréal (isn't cute, mum sent her daughter France a card, from France!) and was made by a cousin of mine, Marianne Chevalier... and I'll show you a picture, but if you want to see some of her really interesting weaving style you can visit her site although the cards aren't on there. I'll post a picture of my card eventually, and also post a picture of a lovely painting I received a couple of years ago for my bday and I have never posted to this blog... à suivre as they say in Paris!!!

Hubby found a recipe site!

My darling hubby sent me this site: Ward Street Bistro
And when I saw the recipe for the Angel Food Cake
, and the pictures, I knew it would be a site I like, so I am sharing here (and also so I can find it easily myself in the future!). I used to always request Angel Food Cake from one of my relatives for my birthday (my step-grandmother, if there's such a thing... my grand dad's second wife, as the first one passed away a year before I was born). Anyway, I haven't had this cake in ... many many years!!
Not sure I'm going to have it anytime soon either, not until we have a different oven (and mixer!)... this is too difficult a cake to make!

Electronic Copy of Beads Etc is available!

If you subscribe to the newsletter you can see the whole magazine for free, and have access to past issues too!
The mould is from Krafty Lady.
Although I did mention it when I sent the article to the magazine, they didn't print it (well I didn't see it when I read it quickly, must read it more in depth, but then I wonder why since I wrote it, after all!)... the idea for using only two colours to get the look, came from this faux scrimshaw tutorial. I credit the technique throughout the Krafty Lady site! So apologies to my inspiration, I did try to give you credit in the article!

Yet more talk of Faux Ceramic and some eye candy

After scouring the web to find a "free source" for a technique similar to this tutorial I bought on ePattern Central, a few weeks ago, as a friend wanted to know the technique and I didn't feel too right sharing the paid-for-tutorial-in-a-pdf-with-a-password-even, two more posts about Faux Ceramic popped up on the blogosphere! I just had to post about THAT :) good things come in threes!! I guess.

Crafty Goat who links to Laura Griffin who credits Patricia Kimle for the original tutorial in Step by Step Beads magazine... well... Patricia Kimle is the author of the tutorial I bought on Pattern Central.com (Bright Light Beads)!!!


Today we went to Point Walter and saw up to 9 black swans at some point! Some were funny, they'd swim with one leg, having the other one sticking outside the water. The first one I saw like that, I thought had a broken leg, but then I saw three of them do it, then put their leg back in the water. Strange habit ;) I think I saw a dolphin fin too, but never saw it resurface... then again, maybe it was the Loch Ness monster *VBG* (I'm pretty sure I saw a dolphin's fin!)

It was a beautiful day with a temperature of about 26°Celcius! Just so relaxing!!!

I uploaded a few new pieces on the Krafty Lady website:




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Now I don't know if any of you got alerted to many new posts by me today, I'm sorry if you did. I decided to close my other blog (Stampamajiggies) where I planned on having tutorials, and place the posts here on this blog. This blog is such a mish mash of my whims and fancies that structure is the least of my problems, and then people don't have to go to two places. I still intend on updating (well, as up to date as it was about three years ago) the magazine index, to have it here on the blog as it's on a website that I don't even know if it exists anymore.... but that is SO different than what goes on here, that it's ok to keep it separated!
So they are all moved, all nine posts (as many as the black swans!) so this should be the end of mayhem! I hope :)

Another Faux Ceramic Tutorial!

Yay! Love it when things happen like that. Just yesterday I was posting about a Faux Porcelain/Ceramic tutorial and today, while reading Parole de Pâte (in French, with some English Translations), I find another tutorial I'd stumbled across before but couldn't find!! I remembered the picture quite vividly and thought I'd seen it in a book, but couldn't find it! It's HERE!!!

FUN!!! There's one more way to make porcelain looking beads on Parole de Pâte and this one has been translated in English.

Ooops, gotta run, it's Sunday, laundry to do, polymer clay to bake, grocery shopping to be done (heck, if they are opening shops on Sunday, I'll procrastinate Saturday, of course!)

Enjoy the school holidays!

Beads and moulds

I found neat tutorials for wire here and I subscribed to the newsletter.

There's the "dailies" (or would that be dailys?)...
Of course, we all know about Polymer Clay Daily, but there's also Beading Daily and I also found Polymer Clay @ Craft Gossip, they gossip about other crafts too:

CraftGossip Homepage, Knitting News, Crochet, Bath And Body, Candle Making, Jewelry Making, Scrapbooking, Recycled Crafts, Needlework News, Cross-Stitch, Indie Crafts, Felting, Stamping, Quilting, Polymer Clay, and Sewing ! Now, that ought to satisfy just about everyone!

I was particularly happy to find this post (linking to an old tutorial) because I bought a tutorial from ePatterns.com on how to achieve this effect -- it wasn't very expensive, but I didn't feel right telling the secrets as I know those authors make money from the sale of their instructions and I hadn't been able to find the same instructions for free elsewhere on the web, so I felt a bit bound by copyright issues, kwim? So now that I found a tutorial, I don't feel wrong pointing to it. I'm not giving away all the secrets of the project, but now you can achieve the glazed look... ;)

I did find however that this technique doesn't leave a rock hard finish, but rather a rubbery feeling finish... Maybe I'm doing something wrong. This was my first necklace with the technique:

I have another few WIP (work in progress) with this technique... I quite like the effect of the blue!! Looks like old porcelain or something.

Something else I liked finding at Craft Gossip was this post is about Amanda, a local Western Australia clayer! That was neat!

Ok! It's public now!!! There are new Art Moulds© on the Krafty Lady site! See here (AM332 to AM340), and here (AM341 onwards).



This little pic is just to whet your appetite, go to the site to see more!!!

Pain in the butt (and a post sans-eye-candy)

Yes, that was me yesterday, started on Saturday afternoon, went on through Sunday... I have NO idea why, but all I know is that I had a lot of pain in my buttocks, on the left side, middle of the gluteus maximus... and it sort of went from my calf to my waist... Must've slept weirdly or sat in a strange position for too long on Saturday (did lots of work on the computer, for a certain update on a certain mould site)... but OUCH!!! Hurt when I sat down, or when I got up, wasn't too bad if I was just sitting or just standing, but doing the grocery shopping on Sunday was painful... never knew how much I use my butt muscles when I stroll around with the trolley!!! Also never really noticed how people tend to get in MY way! LOL! I always try to have a good attitude when I go shopping as most people are in a foul mood and also always in a hurry, but on Sunday I found most everyone very annoying (pain in the butt, remember??), I stuck to my left, like any good Aussie should but people still got in my way!! Did you know not every country goes to the left when you meet someone in a hallway or on the sidewalk!! I found that out the hard way!! *grin*

Anyway, on Sunday evening I had had enough... I wanted to go to work on Monday, I wanted to get better so I could take a day off later in the week when I could run my errands, or at least walk them without pain rather than take a sickie! (Sickies are SUCH a waste of time!!)

I bought some wheat a while ago, and finally got around to making my wheat bag! I wanted to know how long to microwave it for, so I looked around on the web and found this website, loved the instructions, though I made mine my own way with what I had on hand. There's also instructions for neck warmers there, and a few other "warming" things... Might make a nice one for the girls, as we had a bit of a sad accident last year when one of our waterbottles leaked, with rather hot water inside... NOT FUN!!!

Not sure if it's the wheat bag's heat, the panadol, or a good night's sleep but I felt back to my regular self (still with plantar fasciitis and heel spurs and all, but at least no more pain in the bum!). If mine had been as nice as Angela's (and I do mean the wheat/corn bag, and not my bum!!), I would show you a picture, but in the meantime, go see her site and think about it... I heard you can make them with buckwheat too, and even add lavender to the mix. I also found this site from NZ Consumer Affairs, which talks about the dangers of such bags and precautions to take (for instance, I had no idea they could burn - i.e. combust!!).

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Onto things beady..... I found Beading Time, where there's a few beading projects -- beading AND wire -- under Beading Project, and nice close up photos... now I know what to do with those charlotte crimps... all those things I needed to learn are there (or the ones I was aware of not knowing all that well)...
There was another tutorial site I'd found via an eBay shop... but I can't find it for the life of me. I think I found the URL but the site has all changed... *sigh* what a bummer... Anyway if/when I find it again, I'll try to remember to bookmark it (and post about it). In the meantime, I think Fire Mountain Gems have pretty cool tutorials.

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Another fun tutorial I found (after Easter, but which I'm making sure I don't forget for next year!!) is this dyed eggs one. And while you're there, check out the bread pudding recipe. Looks delicious! She's got more eggs here

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Still no eye candy today (wish I could show you some of the upcoming KL moulds... but I can't!! Join the group if you want to be amongst the first to see them!!, I'm still working on the same swap... and I realised that when I start blogging, I start thinking about things, and wanting to share links, and it takes me forever to find them sometimes (and sometimes I dont even find them at all!!!) and I forget the initial reason for my coming here to post. :)
hmmm, I'm sure there was something else I wanted to say... guess it'll keep (if I can remember it!)

Welcome one and all!!!

I installed a little Feedjit gadget to my blog recently after seeing one on Tina D.'s website. Curious I guess, wanting to know how people get here, and if anyone came!
WELL!!!! I had NO idea! I've seen places listed that warmed my heart, some that surprised me even! Today I started with a new counter, just for fun. Why not?

Welcome to all of you! I hope your visit is worth it, I don't blog very often, but I try. Thanks to those who link to me, that was really nice to see to "arrived from..." but even the "left via ..." were great to spot, nice to know people are following some links I thought were worth a mention!!!

Following on the Freebie theme from last time here's another one I forgot about Whatever . . .Whenever

Here's Artella's Free Treasure Chest, with goodies for papercrafters and a free e-Artella too as the first free offer on that page.

Dover, makers of clipart books, also offer freebies. Each week you get a newsletter with previews of their books, and there's free downloads, in all sorts of categories, from recipes to origami!

Pate'n'roll, another France doing polymer clay things (she does really lovely things, but if I'd said "Another France doing lovely polymer clay things" it would have sounded a bit conceited! :) ) has an amazing list of Polymer Clay links to tutorials, the list is in French, but it links to French and English tutorials. Just go to her Blog and click on the menu on the side which states "Bible des liens vers tutos". While you are there, have a look at her gorgeous little Kosheki dolls tutorials. If you don't have Polymer Clay handy, I'm cure you can improvise... marzipan sounds good!!! :)

Kokeshi Originally uploaded by Pate'n Roll

Julie has some beautiful new stuff, go have a look!

While I'm here, I just realised (to my utter deception *grin*) that Beads Etc is bi-monthly, so the issue in which I will have the priviledge of having my necklace published, is not coming out next month, but, according to my very (un)scientific calculations, it's probably going to be out at the end of June or sometime in July.... it's going to be a long wait, but if my (un)scientific calculations are correct, I think there's also going to be a project by Lisa Henderson/Lily Briar Studios in the same issue.... To be continued.....

Altered Arts Magazine's Altered Tin I submitted might be a few months as well, so I'd better learn some patience... REAL QUICK!!!!!

Off to bake some polymer clay to finish a few items for a swap on Oriental Stamp Art and finish working on the new graphics for the new Krafty Lady Moulds!!! Wait til you see them!!!!!! They are not up yet, but you can see new items by the Design Team if you want to go have a look around!

Again, thanks for taking the time, even if only a few seconds, to stop by my little blog!!!