Creating | 1000 Fields of Roses

Drawing In…

…the evening, at the moment. Also the event we went to today, near the Art Gallery. We went last year, where it was part of The Big Draw – not sure this was official, but the same concept.
We did some drawing – there were old-fashioned flip books for animation, so I did one of those. Sweet Bean was reluctant at first, but soon got into it. Biscuits (and a cup of coffee for me) certainly helped! It was good to give him the opportunity to try something different, and I can also add it to his school work for the year. Here’s his “Persian rug”, made with cut out paper “mosaic pieces” 🙂 .

Despite the rain, we were glad we went. Looking forward to next year’s!

Published in:

on October 21, 2017 at 5:19 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: Big Draw, Ipswich Art Gallery

A Stitch In Time…

So, most of my day yesterday was spent sewing…

My camping chair is not too old (or too cheap) but that doesn’t seem to have saved it from splitting…
I felt like I was about to fall through the seat at any time… I didn’t really want to throw the chair away, though – such a waste! The frame is fine – it’s just that the fabric round the front part of the seat has been stretching, and finally tore. Time to sew on some patches!

🙂

I thought it would only take an hour or so… it’s hard to manoeuvre round the frame. I had to take frequent breaks, because it was making me use muscles I haven’t had to use for a while. I kept sticking the needle into various fingers, as well – visibility was not always good. Time will tell whether it holds – there may be a weakened bit in the middle that needs patching.
My patching adventure didn’t really have much to do with my reading of this book –

Didn’t hurt, though!
It’s not about skimping and saving, so much as changing the way you see the world, and reassessing your priorities. Interesting, and inspiring! 🙂

Published in:

on March 26, 2017 at 9:48 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: Chair Patch, The Art of Frugal Hedonism

My Little Published Author

A couple of days ago, we all went to the homeschool group’s Christmas Fair, where the kids (and parents) make things to sell. We went to the last one (the Winter Fair) and the boys enjoyed it, so we decided to plan a bit better for this one…
My Little Bean has spent a large part of this term writing a book. He’s very interested in finance, so he researched and wrote “Cash in Hand – Basics on Making Money for Kids”, which he sold for $3.00 each. Here he is in front of his stall –

He also sold cars and bits and pieces, and walked up and down from time to time with his basket of books or my basket of biscuits, selling from stall to stall. He was also hired by Biggest Boy (for 40c) to take his basket of Lego around for sale. 🙂
He sold some books (yay!) but has some left – if anyone wants one, just let me know!

Biggest Boy sold bags of Lego, hot wheels tracks, and set up containers of Lego minifigure parts so that the kids could pay their money, then take a piece from each container to build their own minifigure – very popular…
We found out last time that Lego is a popular toy, and he was selling the bits even before he finished setting up. Here’s his table –

They had a good day, and built on their knowledge of business principles from last time.

Waiting for more customers… 🙂

We didn’t have to take much home, although we bought a few things. And somehow we managed to win the top tier of a decorated wedding cake, by guessing the closest weight of the whole cake. It’s in the freezer now…

Published in:

on December 10, 2015 at 6:58 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: Christmas Fair, Writing books

The Cheesecake From Japan

There’s been a YouTube clip going round, with a recipe for “Japanese Cotton Cheesecake”. I don’t usually watch those sorts of things, but it said only three ingredients were needed (eggs, white chocolate and cream cheese). Sounded easy enough, so we made it yesterday. The boys learned how to separate eggs, and how to melt chocolate in a double boiler.

It turned out really well – not too sweet, but you can’t eat too much at a time.
That little bit up there is all that was left to photograph. I meant to snap a picture both times I had some with French Vanilla icecream (yum!), but I was too busy eating it to remember…

Here’s the clip with the recipe.

Published in:

on September 3, 2015 at 8:39 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: 3 ingredients, japanese cotton cheesecake

Movies, Music And Bionicles

Biggest Boy has been making music videos. He hasn’t finished the one he’s working on at the moment (it’s using clips from one of his favourite anime movies) but he gave me permission to link his earlier ones here. 🙂

This is his favourite –

Published in:

on August 20, 2015 at 6:22 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: bionicles, music videos

Delicious!

Cooking day again. 🙂
Biggest Boy was inspired by Nigella Lawson to try an egg risotto. The boys had to write the recipe down while watching “Nigella Bites”, which sounds easier than it was…

Here it is – it was gorgeous!
I helped Littlest Bean to make a recipe from an old Coles free magazine called “Lemon Delicious”. It was the first time he’d tried separating an egg, and he did very well 🙂
The recipe was one of those puddings that separate as it cooks.

Perfect.

Yummy too…

Published in:

on August 19, 2015 at 10:30 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: lemon delicious, risotto

Weaving Our Lessons Together

I’ve been wanting to get the boys to do some weaving for a while. I’ve put it off, though, because I didn’t have the materials to build a “proper” loom. We had lots of cardboard around… so we built “adequate” looms. 🙂

Little Bean’s, nearly finished, with the cardboard shuttle. The loom is a strip of cardboard with slits cut at the ends to wind the warp around.

Biggest Boy’s – we needed something to push the weft closer together, but all I had was a nit comb…

Finished! 🙂
Next time we’ll allow a bit more room at the ends – it was a bit fiddly to tie the threads together. I think it worked well, though!

Published in:

on August 18, 2015 at 8:55 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: weaving

Pie, Tie-Dye And Yorkshire Pudding

It’s been a productive couple of days, with a couple of projects being finished off.
Dinner tonight was a bacon, potato, onion and cheese pie, made by the boys…

…with a try at Yorkshire pudding to follow.

It didn’t quite work out – perhaps there wasn’t enough air for it to puff up. It came out like a baked pancake, but was still nice with honey and cream. 🙂

Today, Littlest Bean finished his wooden raft.

He was very pleased (it actually floats!) His last raft was made of scrap metal, cardboard and tape. That didn’t do too well in water… He’s done a good job this time with sawing and putting all the bits of wood together.

Today we finished tie-dyeing out t-shirts, which we began yesterday. We met up with a homeschool group to learn about how to tie-dye, and this is how it went.

I didn’t use gloves…

Our shirts, twisted and dyed.

Biggest Boy wanted his shirt to look like gunshot wounds… I think he may have missed the peace, love and hippy vibe of the project.

Little Bean and I did spiral rainbows.

Lots of fun, and something I wouldn’t mind trying again! 🙂

Published in:

on August 12, 2015 at 8:04 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: tie dye

It’s The End Of The Week As We Know It

A while back I wrote about a game called “Exquisite Corpse”, where different people take it in turns to do a round robin of drawing or writing, on the same piece of paper, without seeing the work of the previous person.
They tend to be quite funny in the end…
Today, we did another writing piece – here it is! 😉

I was walking down the lane on a cold and windy morning. I was unhappy, for the sun did not shine down on me as I would have liked it to. Cupcakes are very sweet, so I think everyone should have a chance to try them. My thoughts turn towards partying and celebration – perhaps there should be fireworks?
At the very least, a great bouquet of sunflowers! After all they were his favourite food. Of course he could always eat a bunch of grass. It is obvious that he had a strange diet. He would drive to the shopping centre to get some milk for breakfast the next morning.
He ran into an old friend who was waiting for the New Year. There are some that consider that a party is not a party without a karaoke machine but I, myself, would prefer cake, coffee and lots of chocolate. With the possibility of a tiara for each guest, and lots of sparkles.
Bat-a-bing bat-a-boom – we had a party. Everyone was required to have a pompadour and bring a plate of food. I should have been more specific because I said to “bring a plate”. Unfortunately this meant that most people just brought a plate.
Suddenly the cake exploded. In a rush I decided to go and explore space. The question was, where do I start? I could explore Mars. I could explore Jupiter. I could explore the planet of the chickens or just stay on Earth and play video games, but I am more for adventure so why don’t I go to space or I could even dance the tango, or perform a slow, sedate pavane. Waltzing is optional, but everyone must employ their fans frequently in a complicated series of signals and responses.
Also, there should be lemonade. But that had probably been blown up too. It was a great mess I had gotten myself into but I was happy to have gotten out of it.
Well, I’m off to find some beer.

Published in:

on July 31, 2015 at 4:23 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: exquisite corpse, having fun :), writing exercises

The Cases Are In!

🙂

The boys finished the bookcases before term finished, but it’s taken this long to get them in place because our house is… not exactly level…
They measured exactly – but just on one side of the shelf the bookcases were going under. The shelf (or perhaps the floor?) is not as level as we thought. No problem – Dad to the rescue! He deconstructed the tops and shave a few mm off. 🙂
Here they are. I’ve relocated some of our most used books, and will fine tune the redistribution soon…