Makin' cakes

Recently the house turned into a party venue for miss turning 13.
Officially a teenager now and no longer the much hated title of being a tween.

She had chosen a steampunk theme asking friends to dress smart casual with a steampunk twist. So there were aviator goggles, mini top hats, pocket watches and vests galore.

I decided to make a bronze cake with cogs and a pocket watch on it and of course headed into it with no cake decorating experience what so ever. I knew enough to know that I wouldn't get the look I wanted with frosting so googled a bit and learnt I needed something called sugar paste. A friend recommended I visit 'Cake Deco' in Port Phillip arcade in the city and my visit proved to be very fruitful.

Cake Deco for cake people is like Gj's patchwork section for patch people. Positively jam packed with cookie cutters, shape makers, boards, impression plates, piping, gels, colors, lustre's....the works.
The guy behind the counter was so helpful in showing me everything I needed to achieve my look.

So I headed home with my edible lustre, sugar paste and shape cutters, set for a cake making adventure.

Some of the cogs were made using a flower shape cutter and others just formed out of using the right size lids and glasses to get the size circles I wanted. I used Bronze, silver and gold edible lustre which is just dusted over the sugar paste shapes to get the color. Little screws were made using balls of paste flatted and pressing a knife on top to create the look of a screw top.
My pocket watch was a cake base covered in gold paste, with a circle of white on top, then ... can you believe it, edible texta to write the numbers on. The 13 was just cut out with a knife and miss Kizz made a little steam punk mouse to sit beside the cake.

Whilst it was fun to create in a totally new medium, it did take a while and was very messy,

or maybe it was just me being very messy...
I sorta thought using the paste would be like using clay, but nah. It was quite fragile and didn't really like being too thin, too thick or bent to much. So a bit of a learning curve.

But alls well, that ends well.

Apart from that I'd whipped up some name cards,

 filled balloons with helium and glitter,

 and collected fun metal bits and bobs from the local oppie to create a steampunkish table center to cover with tea lights.

A fun night was had by all and what can I say, you only turn 13 once. 
Jay x

School Fete ...

Oh I do love this time of year for school fete's, they are everywhere.
Such an easy way to entertain the kids for a day at a place walking distance from home.

This will be my first year helping out at the new school, so I have put my hand up for the craft table.
Stick with what you know hey!

If you are in the neighbourhood, pop by and say hello.
Jay x

A piece of cloth ...

Lovely Liz of Gleaners, was nice enough to invite me to take part in her current exhibition 'A Piece of Cloth'
I had to be secret squirrel about my creation till the exhibition had begun, but we are in full swing now so I can show you what I made.

The fabric we all received was of the retro brown orange and green variety which didn't appeal to me at all color wise. So I started planning black and white designs. Just outlines and petals, as I did love the flower shapes.

But somewhere along the line the colors and I made some peace and I was able to put something together that was an item I would love enough to want to wear it my self.

The exhibition runs all through March so if you haven't been over to see all the great pieces on show yet, there is still plenty of time.

Jay xx

Flying kites ...

This weekend a lovely little kite festival was happening down the road at Edwardes Lake.

The wind factor was spot on for kite flying, and the weather was 30 something...
which seems to be a theme of late.

 Once upon a time Melbourne Summers used to have  heat waves for 4 or 5 days peaking at 40 something then have huge thunder storms to wash it all away. Instead this year, we are having really long stretches of 30 plus everyday.  Almost how one would imagine a normal summer to be. Go figure

But weather aside, we made our way to the park for some kite flying and some rather sticky gelati.

The rest of the festival was stall after stall of community organizations, Councillors and such with info booths.
Good on them for getting out there and spreading the word, but you know me...I wanted some crafty stalls, gourmet foods and homegrown grub. Oh well maybe next year.

 

Alas my needs were met the very next day,
when we had to set up our marquee and be a part of the Sydney Rd street party.

It was huge. Positively thousands of people, 30 + again, no wind, awesome bands,
lots of good food and a great mix of community and craft stalls.

An awesome day out, hopefully introducing a whole new crowd of people to Olive Grove and what turned out to be one busy weekend.

Hope you all had a good one too.
Jay x

Health and Happiness ...

Hooray for 2013, so far it's turning out to be a winner. I've decided my focus this year is health and happiness...isn't it one's focus every year, one might wonder. But I guess a lot of the time I hope it's a side effect of my focus on home, family, work etc ...

But I have learnt that, you know what! It doesn't just happen as a quirk of fate.
It takes time to be made for it and focus to be placed upon it.

So in a nut shell, this is where I am at presently. Eating nutritionally, growing veggies, walking to school with Finny daily, back at gym to rebuild some long lost muscle, back at yoga to try and bring some mind and body alignment into play, enjoying the mans new roster of weekends off for the first time in years and most recently, I've cut down my commitments at work and changed the way I fit in at Olive Grove.

Its all very new and all a work in progress, but for once I feel in charge of my life and the direction its heading.

Creatively I have been on hiatus. Sort of de-cluttering, clearing out everything at the shop and making space in my head and home for new ventures. Can't say I'm 100% on what they are just yet, I just know I needed to get back to basics and start again for it all to come out just the way I want it to.

So I'll make sure to keep you posted on my progress.

Big thank you to Sister Outlaws and their thought provoking post on why we blog. It reminded me that I enjoy sharing what I do and make with you all.
For a while I felt that all I was doing was bragging or boasting about me, my business and I, which didn't sit well as I'm just not that sort of person.
So getting a reminder that creativity is a process, something we share for gaining clarity in it's explanation or something we share for sharing sake, hoping that someone in our crafty community might be inspired, intrigued or interested in it, is a lovely reminder of all the right reasons to keep up with le' old blog.

Also I gotta keep mum up to date with my life as we are a few states away from each other. Hi Mum.

So from me, I'm doing o.k and I Hope you are all doing well too,
Jay xx

New toy ...

I've been having fun learning all the In's and outs of my new toy...

Mum brought it down for me when she came to stay after my oppie.
She was only here a week, so it was a crash course in learning all the wonderful things a knitting machine can do.

It's quite a technical piece of equipment, but once we got going I sure learned a thing or two.

Firstly that me and punch lace will not be friends...and secondly that my ignorant attitude about machine knit pieces being somehow easy to create was wrong.

It is a manual machine operated by pushing that big carriage with the handle back and forth. the wider your piece the longer your push. One push left equals one row. A scarf 1 metre and half long equals 900 rows. 900 times someone has to push that baby left and right. It sure does work out the arms and the core  muscles and over do it ... ie: try and do 7 scarves in a day and you'll cause yourself some harm.
Mum will testify to that!

From what I understand there are electronic ones out there, bigger and more expensive and the machine does the back and forth by itself. So I guess to me, this still feels handmade and quite labor intensive even though it is way quicker than hand knitting.

Definitely worth the time dusting it off and learning how to use it.

I have been experimenting with some lovely 3ply cotton that I got from Spottie and came up with these goodies.

Necklaces and summer scarves. 

The options are endless and quite possibly I have opened myself up to a new medium that I might lose my self in for a while.

I'm excited to try 1ply, multiple colors as one, metallics and patterns.
Did I say you can make your own patterns.
Yup ...sure can. Could put your name on stuff if you wanted to!

Fun and games.
Jay x

Happy Halloween ...

We are still in go slow made over here at camp Finki, whilst my middle does the good job of healing and reconstructing muscle tissue that will once again allow me to bend over enough to pick up things off the floor.

Oh how I have taken my stomach muscles for granted. Oh how much do I now appreciate all that they did for me...goodness. One even braces said stomach muscles to apply strength to opening a bottle of drink. Who knew?

However, slow and steady wins the race. I'll be back kicking goals and opening jars free willy in no time.
Just have to keep reigns on my busy little brain...

It wants to do so much and the body just aint running at the same speed. So it's camp frustration on the crafty front. Zero advancement in making stuff, but soon..

Sometimes life forces us to slow down and we just have to comply. So instead camp Finki have been...

Helping little one dress up for Halloween at kinda...

and making scary green cupcakes too.

End of year concert for big girl, who has done an awesome job of mastering the clarinet.

Harvested the rest of our winter crop and planted all our summer. 

(which was more about me overseeing and planning whilst family did the labor) ...lovely family xoxo
We look forward to tomatoes, capsicum, cucumber and more all from our little suburban patch.

I managed to get through my pile of magazines, which was a tower really, waiting over a year to be looked at ... and I had the luxury of Mum being down from Queensland for a week to help with kid wrangling and all other WAHM duties. A true blessing that was.

So happy Halloween to you all, whether you be trick or treating or just hanging out enjoying this lovely bout of weather we are having.
Jay xx

Pop up shop ...

Tomorrow only ... 

there will be a special pop up shop in the Polly Pratt studio at Olive Grove Studios.

If you're in the neighborhood do pop by,

 there will be lots of handmade loveliness on offer.

The odds were in my favour...

So it looks like the odds of 98/2 were in my favour. 

I made it out of the oppie o.k. 

Ended up having an overnight stay and feeling quite battered right now,

but ....

image via here

Thank so much for all your wishes, craftiness will resume a.s.a.p

More importantly, I look forward to feeling well again soon.

Who needed a gall bladder anyway?

Jay x

Before I go, I'd like to say ...

I'm feeling rather melodramatic about impending doom by way of a small operation I'll be heading off to have tomorrow... merely a day procedure, I won't even be staying in hospital overnight.
But there is something about reading the fact there is a 2% chance of death, that freaks the bejeebers out of me.

I'm an optimist 98% of the time and a pessimist the other 2%, so my pessimistic 2% mixed with the death rate of 2% has my little brain working overtime.

From the pessimist in me ... if perchance the advice that 'death is possible if complications occur' happens to be referring to me, I'd like to say ...

Image:  via here

The optimist in me now says... 

see you on Friday, albeit a little bruised and battered and probably feeling sorry for myself.

Jay x

Dreaming with no barriers ...

I saw this image and couldn't help but feel that it hit the nail on the head for how I am feeling of late.

 image via: here

I still have dreams, big ones... 

I still believe we live in a world where anything is possible... anything.

I still have a heart that is full and giving and accepting.

But, I'm struggling with people who seem to want to stifle my dreams,

my beliefs and my way of being.

When that happens, I feel so dead inside. 

Like everything I knew and loved was wrong.

I fought hard for my dreams to become a reality and I work hard on them everyday

 so they continue to be an inspiration and a reason to get out of bed. 

So whilst I do ponder for a little while the negativity projected my way, 

thinking maybe I need to change or slow down or not have so many aspirations,  

I also remember that I am well and truly entitled to my dreams, 

I am well and truly allowed to believe that anything is possible. 

That I can explore, create, grow and soar... because that is what I was made to do!

So you know what, the reality isn't that I miss the kid who used to dream with no barriers, 

the reality is that I miss the kid who didn't let others stop her from dreaming with no barriers. 

My wish for you today and every day, 

is that you know your dreams are worthwhile 

and that you know you don't need permission from anyone...to follow them.

Jay x