Wednesday, June 26, 2013

new cushions

Time for a new item!  After a very long gestation, these cushions are now available at Under the Oak.  I’m very excited about this, as I love making them – combining the colours is so much fun, and I’m even enjoying putting in the zips (now that I’ve worked out how to do it without breaking a needle every time)!

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There are two different types of happy nest cushions.  The first are these selvage cushions, 41cm square, made from the selvage edges of fabric stitched together to form a panel.

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I made a couple of these for our couch and loved them so much I just had to make some more!

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The second type is called a ‘what can you see’ cushion, especially for children!  I designed these with pre-school/kindergarten aged children in mind, particularly for those who need to take a special pillow to school or daycare for rest time.  Or just a gorgeous pillow for their bed at home!

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These cushions are 37cm square and made with vibrant patchwork.  Each cushion comes with a list of things to find…can you see a pear, a deer, a house, a red spot or the number four?

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The list tucks neatly away in the pocket on the back of the cushion – also the perfect spot for a handkerchief or tissue.

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Loving the ric-rac edging!  The cushions are $40 each (including insert), and are also available as custom orders in your choice of colours.  The selvage cushions are at Under the Oak now, and the ‘what can you see’ cushions will be available from next week.

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Monday, June 17, 2013

the writing’s on the wall…

…finally!  About a year ago I bought a gorgeous illustrated children’s dictionary for a dollar or so; it was just so beautiful that I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving all its gorgeous illustrations tucked away behind the covers.  First I thought of framing a few of the pages, but then we visited a shop in Hobart which had sheet music all over the walls.  Perfect!

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This is one of our bedroom walls upstairs.  It’s a big room, around 10m long and 5m wide, with plain white walls and grey carpet.  It could handle something a bit ‘out there’…but this actually hasn’t turned out to be as wild as I thought it might.  The soft, aged cream colour of the paper and the vibrant pops of gorgeous vintage illustrations are a perfect combination!

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So how did we do it?  It was time consuming, messy, but really fun and pretty straight-forward!  Oh, but it does help to do this with another person!  It would be a lot trickier alone, so grab an unsuspecting friend and hand them a gloopy brush.

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First I took a deep breath (“EEEEK!  I’m ripping up a BOOOOOK!!) and carefully tore the pages out of the book.  We measured the wall so that we knew how many pages to take out.  I didn’t need to use all the pages, but I wanted them to run in alphabetical order from the top left hand corner to the bottom right.  I just picked the pages with the best pictures.  We had the pages trimmed at a copy shop for less than $2 (just the torn side where I ripped it from the book), but you could easily trim them yourself if you had a heavy-duty paper cutter handy.

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Then we scrubbed the wall, spread out some drop cloths on the carpet, and mixed up a packet of wallpaper paste.

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Using an old paintbrush we pasted the wall and carefully smoothed each sheet on individually, starting in the bottom right corner with ‘Z’.  To make sure there were no bubbles of air under the paper, I used some old plastic cards to smooth them out really firmly, then rubbed the page with an old towel.  We lined up each row with a spirit level (Jasper took the above photos).  The pages overlapped slightly.

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We did seven rows, working from the bottom of the wall, then did the top row so that we could be sure the top row would be a whole page.  We didn’t have to trim any of the pages, yay!!  Except to chop a few in half where the doors are.

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So, one sticky day later we have a wallpapered wall!  I love it so much I’m wondering which wall downstairs we can work on next…

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Tuesday, June 11, 2013

brisbane, part two

So many photos!  Here we go…

Day 1 (don’t worry, we were only away for 7 days!)

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We walked through the city, then met up with Dave’s brother and walked through the Botanic Gardens and over to South Bank…Toby thought the fig trees were amazing!

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Day 2

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After some early morning photography from our balcony on the 35th floor, we wandered back through the Botanic Gardens.  After some ice cream we looked through a market in South Bank, then the boys went swimming at Streets Beach (in the rain!  The only time it rained while we were there)

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Days 3, 4 + 5

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Strolled through a fabulous food market – look at the gorgeous colours of those macarons!  And the huge pans of paella…yum.

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Then we spent hours and hours at the museum (particularly its science centre), art galleries and the library…and just playing in the sand!

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Days 6 + 7

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A spot of shopping on day 6, and then (what the boys have been waiting for since Christmas…) Dreamworld on day 7!  Toby and Dave are on the roller coaster above, third seats from the front (see Dave’s long legs?!).

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Good thing they’re so cute or we never would have let them out (those aren’t their feet, by the way…)

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Such a lovely holiday!  And now it’s nice to be home…I missed my sewing machine!

Saturday, June 8, 2013

brisbane, part one: the child’s perspective

Just back from a glorious seven-day holiday in Brisbane!  Was nice and warm (well, coming from Tasmania’s temperatures it felt lovely and warm to us!) and so much to see and do.  The boys had their own camera (they’ve been saving pocket money and birthday money for six months) – these are some of the images I found on it…

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…the photographers! (Toby on the left, Jasper on the right)

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…around the city streets

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…and some people, too!  I’m usually the one behind the camera, it’s quite a novelty to be in the photograph.  (The cat in the box belonged to Uncle Nathan…and it seemed to like being in the box.  Just so you know.)

More photos in the next few days…