I've uploaded a new babushka original painted collage into my ETSY shop. I loved doing this doll. I ordered in vintage decorating decals to incorporate into my artwork and this is the first time I've used them. Its the floral detail in the corner & on the apron. So this work is a little unique.
You can locate her in my ETSY shop right here.
Thanks for looking!
Kate xo
Well I can't quite believe it! Just 3 years into the schooling system and already here I am sending children 3 & 4 off to pre-school!
Amelia & Chelsea have started doing their 90 minute pre-entry session once per week and will commence 2 full days & 1/2 day from next term. Time is flying!
Little social butterfly Chelsea Blossom [right] was more than happy to bid me farewell & join the ranks of the other pre-schoolers. Amelia Bluebell however, whilst excited about it, didn't want me to leave. She's a super sensitive, bright & emotional creature and saying goodbye for her was a big deal. It's been interesting. Amelia has been aware & a little anxious about this day for a whole year and I kinda figured she would be emotional about it. She's very capable and being a whole 2 minutes older than her twin, she certainly has taken on the role as big sister. Always the leader of the twins, she makes alot of the decisions and watches over & out for Chelsea too. But put her in unfamiliar or social situations and she's quite shy and introverted. Hmmm, runs in the family.
When Amelia was much younger, I recall singing to her and with certain songs she would burst into tears. She's a very soulful and thoughtful little girl.
Anyway, after doing a few puzzles together, then popping outside and setting herself up at the playdough table, she was finally ready to say goodbye. She braced herself, gave me a final final cuddle and kiss and waved me off. She was so brave. I was so proud. I knew it was the biggest thing in her short little life so far!
Chelsea, our little heartkid, who has been through the ringer in her short life, was über cool about it. 'Seeya mummy' and that's it, she was off painting & didn't look back. Funny little chicken she is.
Because I was expecting to need a little time settling the twins into pre-school, I arranged for my sister to look after Buddy while I took the girls on that first day. The last couple of weeks since then, I've had to deal with soft internal teary goodbyes with Amelia, searching for Chels to even get a goodbye [!] whilst also battling to get a heartbroken boy out of kindy & back into the car!!! Heartbroken because all 'his' girls have left him!
Anyway, we are managing somehow through this next phase. I think I'll need to have some exciting plans for Buddy when it's just the two of us. Might be easier to leave without the heartbreak if we have something to look forward to. Maybe.
Kate xo
For our family, Autumn, is our super busy season. As we head into winter in just a few short days, I'm finally re-surfacing to write about all the goings on in the last couple of months.
But firstly some pretty autumn pics to share. This first one was taken in the 'big city' as our kids call it. A random tree in Adelaide. Beautiful.
This next one is my glory vine which I've loosely trained across my pergola. Its green & lush & in summer gives us some relief from the sun & heat, but in Autumn, it turns into a big pile of brown sticks with just a few scattered red leaves. I still love it.
And this last one is the humble start of the same glory vine up the side of my house wall. I love this messy, brown stick, almost naked vine, against the white. With so much mess in our overgrown garden, little spots like these give me something nice to look at & little glimmers of hope that one day we can have a nice garden again. Perhaps when Jeff & I have some time to weed the garden beds or when 'the boy' stops pulling dirt our of the garden bed & throwing it on the fake turf. Grrrrr.
OK, so what we've been up to.....
For the kids, its probably been the usual level of busy-ness. School, home, play, weekend stuff to do, weekend places to go.... but on top of that we've had 6 birthday parties for the school girls to attend so far with more still to come.
Its also been my birthday, mothers day, both my parents, 2 of my siblings, nephews & nieces & inlaws birthdays too. Some of those with social occasions, some of them not. Whilst we always have an evening celebration for birthdays for our children every year, we certainly don't extend that to birthday parties for our kids every year. Do You?
There's been so many baskets of laundry to do, many still sitting waiting for my attention. The house has been messed up 8354839245 times and cleaned up 8354839244 times.
There's been dealings with the fencing company, the local council, a paving mob, a fake turf group & participation in marketing surveys at night. I always feel sorry for the market research people & 99% of the time take part. When I was in my late teens/early 20's I did market research as a second job to help fund my first house & my wild credit card spending. Its a good hourly rate but exhausting & demoralising work. Its incredible how rude some people can be. But I did it & I'm proud of that. As for councils & contractors, the whole thing has been extremely frustrating. I won't say any more. Except grrrrr.
There's also been face painting at parties and at weekend Bunnings trips followed by big scrub ups in the bath.
We've even turned our usual routine on its head & given it a big shake up! Jeff shifted his work hours so he's now on day shift & we are operating like a regular family. I'm not convinced its working for us yet but we are plugging along. Surrendering to the routine.
During term time of course I'm now up at the crack of dawn to get 5 little munchies & myself, all ready for school. Then I'm mostly at home with my 3 smallest munchies for the day until the big girls are home from school.
The littlest 3 are having lots of fun together throughout the day with Lachlan well & truly involving himself in all aspects of the play. But there's still squabbling over toys, lots of messing & always wanting drinks & food all day long. I try my best to squeeze in some emails, do a little graphics or get something done around the house but I feel like I'm not being very efficient at anything right now.
Buddy is still having excellent sleeps in the middle of the day. Sometimes I get some work done, other times I'll hang out in the kitchen with the twins or take the opportunity to have some down time.
Lately our kids have been costing us a little more than what we had budgeted for but makes for a few funny stories anyway so we just pay & get on...
First up we've had a broken washing machine. The culprit... a hair clip jammed in the motor. Few hundred dollars call out fee & fixing fees right there. Thanks girls. And yes, stupid us for not emptying pockets before washing.
We've also paid another $115 for a dishwasher repair because we thought it wasn't working. Turns out it is working fine & that more than likely a small person of the male variety has just been pressing buttons mid-cycle making us think its not working. Too busy ourselves to check it out properly.
And lastly, there was the car battery going flat in my car because that same small male person would keep turning on internal lights before being taken out of the car. On 3 occasions we had a completely flat battery & needed to call out the RAA. On the last occasion I had to call them out 3 times on the same as the battery actually died altogether. Few hundred dollars later....
The last time this happened with my car, the engine did actually chug over a little bit so I thought to myself [stupidly] if I just roll it down the slope of the drive, it might just kick in & start on its own. Well, it not only didn't it start but it started rolling up our neighbours driveway. I did manage to stop it bashing down their rollerdoor but goodness me, I could have put myself in terrible danger. I already managed to run myself over in a car I was driving back in my early 20's. A crazy tale of a spider & a broken foot. Don't ask.
So anyway, that left my enormously heavy car in the middle of the street. Blocking off the street in fact. Too heavy for me to push in either direction. Kids inside the car all teary thinking another car would come and smash into us. Clearly I had completely lost all my marbles that day. I did have the sense to call the RAA however and they came to the rescue for the first of 3 rescues that day.
Our eldest, little Georgie Pops, turned 7 this month and we are anxiously waiting for her front tooth to fall out. Its been hanging on there for weeks and she won't let us at it. Its starting to discolour which makes me think its clinging on to life by a single thread.
Anyway, no large large presents this year. On her wish list was lots of little things. We complied. And so her pile looks super impressive.
Lots of little dolls, arty things, skipping rope, bead making kit, junior Scrabble etc etc.
Also during the last couple of months, I've been away 3 times, Jeff has had one trip away & I've made a start on my big studio move [with mixed success] so I'll attempt to blog about some of those things soon.
Right, Buddy is awake so that's my down time over!
Kate xo
Well those friends, family & 'arty's/crafties' that follow my blog, you'll already know our little Chelsea has jumped some fairly significant hurdles as a heartkid.
For those new to my blog, I've written about her full journey here.
When Thats Life magazine contacted me to do an article a while back, of course I was more than happy to share Chelsea's story with a wider audience & raise more awareness for congenital heart disease [CHD] and Heartkids.
The magazine was surprisingly good to work with. After accessing many of the blog posts & other articles I had written about our journey, I then spent quite a bit of time talking to Stacey from Thats Life, on the phone.
When the article had been put together & was read back to me on the phone, again the tears started falling. It was a dusty day & I was peeling onions, maybe that was it? No, actually I was in the car, pulled over! I was again taken back to those painful days however where we were really all quite robotic and didn't allow too much crumbling, for the sake of the battle and the other children. Obviously there is alot unresolved. But she's here to celebrate, so thats what we do!
Chelsea's story is on this weeks Thats Life magazine. It came out last Wednesday so be quick and pick up your copy in the next few days if you would like to see it.
Chelsea's pictures have been used in many a Heartkids campaign, from Cuppa for Heartkids to appearing on the Heartkids Australia website. I guess its her big smily face, proudly showing off her zipper that makes this picture so endearing & appropriate. There's so many other pics of adorable little Heartkids all over the HEartkids website too AND so many other amazing & heartbreaking stories too. You can check out their website here to see what 'Heartkids Australia' is all about!
Currently, there's a national Heartkids awareness campaign running on television too. K-Rudd is the spokeperson. There's a few little heartkids pictures used in the video which you can watch below. Chelsea is last little one, with woolly beanie, clutching my hand. She was 2kgs at the time & waiting to gain weight for her first open heart surgery.
And here she is in another video for Heartkids awareness month. She's the second photo after the hands shot, the one cut open, swollen, tubes everywhere. Probably pretty distressing to see. But thats what we all go through. Chelsea goes through that. We sit & watch, helpless. You can then see her again a few more shots on with that little beanie again.
As always, thanks for your neverending support for our courageous girl. She just started kindy would you believe? A special post coming up on that soon!
Kate xo
A couple of weekends ago, I was teaching a mixed media class at Escape 2 Create in Port Lincoln, South Australia. It was incredible, but more on that in an upcoming post. It seems several of the ladies enjoyed my napkin technique & they've already been out scouring shops to stock up on pretty napkins.
My friend Tammy reminded me recently that I hosted a napkin swap on my blog several years ago and I thought it only fitting, that I host another!!!!!
I want to make this is easy as possible, so scroll down a bit to read what to do in my napkin swap!
Napkins have been one of my favourite products to use in card making, scrapbooking & now my mixed media for many many years. I have loved teaching & sharing my technique with others & watch as people get obsessed with collecting & using them in their own artwork. I can't really discuss the extent of my personal napkin collection but lets just say, I have ample packets on hand. Oops!
Now for those who are new to napkins & haven't really used them before, here's a link to an old post I did on my technique plus quite a few ideas for how to use them in papercrafts. These days, I prefer gel medium over Mod Podge but whatever you have on hand you might as well use up. Just remember, napkins can be applied to almost anything & can be sealed with spray Matte sealer/varnish to protect/reduce tackiness/take out the glossyness of gel medium &/or gloss Mod Modge.
Here's a napkin I used in cardmaking many years ago. Actually still one of my fave napkins on hand.
Now don't laugh at the very very old layout & corny photo here below, but even in my earliest of layouts [previous lifetime ago], I was using napkins & mad stitching & patchwork. Still all my fave things to do in my mixed media canvases today! Even the chipboard alpha had napkins applied to them & then dimensional magic put over the top. This baby in the photo is about to turn 7, can you believe that? Way too fast!
And here's an old journal/list book I made back in about 2004/2005 that I am still fond of. So many beautiful napkins available. If you think there's a whole world of pattern paper to be used in papercraft, ADD NAPKINS & that pool of beautiful colours & patterns doubles!!
So I hope you can see that you can use napkins in a variety of ways & adapt to your preferred papercraft project. Or try something new! The possibilities are endless! And don't throw away your scraps!!! Gel medium them down onto white paper and make your own unique patterned papers!
So anyway, here it is.... LETS SWAP!!!!
Kate's napkin swap May 2012:
1] If you are interested in participating, please either comment here on my blog or email me to let me know that 'you're in!' - and also so I have some way of contacting you should I need. And of course so I can give you my postal address in Adelaide! email: kate [at] katemason [dot] com [dot] au
2] Send anywhere between 2 and 16 napkins PLUS the same sized envelope [with correct postage] that you used to send napkins to me so that I can return the same amount back to you.
3] Yes you can send 16 identical napkins, or less. Any mix you have on hand.
4] Whilst we are starting to see a nice mix of napkins coming through Neds & discount stores, please don't send rubbish/party type napkins [plain colours/Christmas/childrens party hat & streamers/sesame street/cartoony etc]. We want napkins that can be used in artwork; birds, floral, Asian influence, text/script, other interesting arty patterns.
So how does that sound? Make sense?
To the best of my ability [and napkin availability!] I will send back the same number of napkins to you, with a variety of patterns. Hang on, let me re-phrase... If you send 12, you'll get 12 back & I'll try to send you 12 different ones! But on the off chance, I get masses of the same napkins sent in, I'll have to mix as best I can.
If you can send them to me by Friday 18th May, I will sort out & send back out to you [in your enclosed pre-paid envelope] by the end of the month.
I look forward to sharing some from my personal collection & seeing what napkins everyone has in their local stores! The more the merrier so come on & join in!
Kate xo
We love oven baked baby potatoes around here in winter. Warm & flavoursome, caramelised jackets & soft inners. The wholefamily loves them.
And since it's been cold here this week, I decided to cook my first batch for the Autumn/winter season.
I bought a couple of bags of baby Carisma's from Coles because I was in a hurry & on this occasion, wanted to shop from the one store rather than go to my usual fresh grocer.
Last few years I've been doing my most favourite Cajun potatoes, I've tried Hasselback potatoes, and more recently Rosemary & sea salt plus Jeffs BBQ potatoes but this time, I thought I would change it up just a bit. I decided to mix in some Gourmet Garden fresh tubed flavour for an experiment. These are great to have on hand in the fridge if you are constantly running out of fresh ingredients like we are.
So anyway, here's my recipe:
Bag of baby spuds, 750g bag. Washed & microwaved wet with 1cm water for 8 minutes.
To oven tray, add microwaved potatoes, and squirt (almost tablespoon) of each Gourmet Garden ginger, garlic & Rosemary. Splash of olive oil. Sea salt & cracked pepper. 3-4 sprigs of fresh Rosemary from my garden.
Massage together [will look something like this below], bake in hot oven for an hour turning once.
That's it!
Enjoy.
Kate xo
New original artwork in shop now...
You can find it right here!
And here's some more original artwork that was either, gifted, sold or commissioned recently that I hadn't gotten around to sharing yet.
Thanks for looking!
Kate xo
The last of my photos & snippets to share from our little family holiday earlier this year. You can read my previous posts here and here. And see all my country thrifting finds here.
As I mentioned in previous posts, we stayed at the Port Broughton caravan park right across from the beach. We fed the seagulls daily, we popped to visit the little rock crabs & we watched sunsets... Hair was messy, kids were free to roam, we breathed in fresh air & screen time was almot non-existent. Bliss.
Here's the Beach, right at our front door!
The jumpy pillow was a huge hit & the kids played hard there every day with the other kids staying at the caravan park! I even went on it & I must say, it was actually pretty fun.
And over the few days we were away, we visited so many playgrounds. We found one in just about every little town we visited and the kids loved it. The one at Wallaroo was particularly good. Actually Port Broughton had two pretty good ones also.
Playgrounds:
Although the holiday wasn't actually very expensive, particularly for 7 people, the holiday was truly rich in something for everyone. Playgrounds galore for the kids, historical towns with beautiful architecture & fabulous thrifting opportunities, train rides, total relaxation, fresh air, yummy food options, country hospitality & more.
As a South Australian short holiday destination, I highly recommend it for couples & families.
Kate xo
Earlier this year I was involved in my first 'swap' with some of my lovely Twitter friends. All being Blythe collectors, we swapped items for Blythe, for Valentines Day plus something extra. You can read more about that here.
I then heard about a teensy mini swap between a few other Twitter Blythe collectors so most rudely, decided to opt in for that too & plonk myself right in the middle of the fun. hehe!
This swap was purely Blythe related and just a mini swap. I had 3 packages to get ready & send out and in return, I would recieve 3 packages back!
So for each of the following lovely ladies; Mel from OneCraftyMumma, Dani from Danimezza and Cintia from MyPoppetShop, I put together the following:
1] Very simple handmade [by me!] reversible Blythe dresses.
2] Little coloured 'Doc style' boots for Blythe
3] Socks
Here's the dress I made for Mel. I know Mel likes green & also bright happy colours so these were the fabrics I chose for her.
And all packaged up & ready to go, along with green & yellow stripey socks & yellow boots.
Next I made a dress from cupcakes & yellow fabrics for Cintia.
Again, ready to be packed along with blue spotty socks & yellow boots.
For Dani, I used pink fabric for one side & black babushka doll fabric for the other side.
Dani's was the first I packaged & forgot to take a photo of the contents. From memory I gave her pink socks with spots & hot pink boots.
And here are all the mini parcels before I sent them off. Part #2 of swap [all the bits of pretty I recieved back!] coming up soon!
Kate xo
Time is flying right now. I have about a dozen half finished blog posts waiting for my attention. A full inbox I am secretly ignoring [not so secret now] and the usual 20 projects on the go at home, both arty & domestic. Life is full of living, putting out fires, attending to the person who screams the loudest and capturing snippets when I can, along the way.
All the girls are cruising along right now in their growing & development but my little guy is the one I need to stop & capture as these baby years are flying faster, it seems. His development is racing ahead & before I know it, he'll be a little person along with the others. Ok so I do realise he is already a little person in every respect but I'm just pretending he's still a baby. He's still in nappies afterall, so that is good enough for me.
Ahhh sweet little Lachlan Bud. Around us, his comfort zone; he's bold, bossy, demanding, cheeky, hilarious, a show pony, a sulker, a snuggler and a chatterbox. Around others, he's shy, clingy, brooding, a mute and a mummy's boy or a daddy's boy [whichever day it happens to be, he plays us off against each other like a pro!].
He loves hiding games, running with the pack, clip clopping in the girls or mummy's shoes, wearing jock jocks over his nappy, lining up to get his hair done in the morning production line. He loves tumbling, jumping, climbing, singing, dancing, spinning & chatting. He's so different from the girls in many ways. He's alot more physical in his playing & he tends to spit the dummy more when he doesn't get his way. There has even been tantrums & throwing himself on the floor. He is ultra sensitive. He hates being told off & usually sobs & wants a cuddle. We are happy to do that all day long!
He's been such a joy in so many ways & the perfect little person to complete our family. I love that he loves snuggling & loves being cosy in bed. I love that he 's a great sleeper. He does love co-sleeping very much & I must confess that I'm not in any great hurry to cut it out completely. I know it won't be forever.
Every night when I cook dinner, for the most dangerous parts; taking boiling water off the stove, transferring hot dishes, cooking on the stove top, its my preference to have him out of the kitchen. He has a tendency to follow me around and get right under my feet. Its just too dangerous for him to be there. So after a big play session I allow the kids to watch some TV while I cook dinner. Bud's attention span of course is not anywhere near his sisters so he can often be seen at the door trying to get in! Oh yes and moving chairs so that he can open the door. Luckily he hasn't quite mastered it yet.
Here's his before bedtime tumbling on mum & dads bed. Oh he has us all in stitched some days.
Please excuse all the photos of nappy & jocks! Most of these pics were taken in warmer weather and it was his uniform most days. Ok, so he would start in nappy, jocks, tshirt AND shorts/pants but often by the end of the day he would have stripped most of it off & be running around in even alot less than what is pictured here. We are becoming accustomed to little boys & their nudie antics around here!
My little gorgeous. Oh how we all adore him. He brings many many smiles every single day.
Kate xo
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