25 March 2010

Don't Palm Us OFf

Hi everyone

if you got a minute, and you like Orangutans like me, can you go over to Zoos Victoria's page and sign their online petition to ensure Palm Oil gets labelled on all our foods. Palm oil is found in about 40 percent of the food products on our shelves and its rampant cultivation is destroying the Orangutan's habitat at an alarming rate. The United Nations has warned that Orangutans could be extinct within a generation if we don't act quickly. It appears that Cadbury's have already announced they will stop using palm oil in their products - but I'd still like to know where else it's in, so I can stop buying those products! Nestle is apparently the biggest culprit so bye bye KitKats - not using any more Nestle products where I can avoid it. 

Sign the petition here

Mi Casa E Sick Casa

 I am still sick, so this week I've been moping around the house, doing things that don't take much energy. Like practising making the flower decorations for the wedding: with vases and jugs from the op shop and lace border scraps from the op shop. And flowers from the market because they don't sell them at the op shop.


And positioning these guys - they arrived in a package from Modish Vintage on Etsy. My favourite is the snooty duck, but I also love the owl who doesn't know it's rude to stare and the little elephant. 

I also framed this, I saw it on Etsy and bought it immediately. I love all their other letterpress prints too! 
I don't speak Norwegian, but any language that has a word like favorittperson in must be the best language ever. 


Love throwing pink and red together. Some grannying I've been doing - I love to make giant granny square blankets. I've been trying other types of crochet but I love the rhythm of granny squaring - so meditative and I can watch TV while I do it (so meditative as well).The cushion underneath I made from some Etsy fabric. I love that fabric, so no one in this house is allowed to balance their dinner plate on it (note to self).

I'm not creative spacing this week because my space is quite sick (not as in, sick y'all where my homies at, but sick with tissues and Vicks Vaporub) but not creative but I'll visit Kirsty later on and see what everyone's been up to!

21 March 2010

Sicko

It's been a bit quiet on the front because it appears I am constantly sick. The GP, after taking an estimated 400 litres of blood out of several holes in my arms, says there is nothing wrong with me and that I have to just get used to the Australasian viruses that my European Gimp system isn't used to yet. Ooookay! That sounds like fun. On the upside, I have been doing lots of Etsy shopping and Ebaying obscure Norwegian tableware reading - and if you have a 13-18 year old in your home I recommend you give them this:


The book is so amazing. I couldn't stop reading and I read the sequel too. I do a lot of reading for my job but this is a special book that got me really excited.

Of course there's also been wedding planning going on here, and our venue in Munich cancelled on us which was pretty heartbreaking but I am working on finding something new. I'm oddly calm about it.

I have been op shopping for our decorations and let's just say they will involve doilies, vintage teacups and purple jellybeans. I will show you what I'm talking about soon! I bought some flowers from the market to practice making my bouquet (I didn't want one at first, but this was met with so many horrified gasps that I caved in) and the flower decorations too. They turned out really nice.

I am getting tired of all the wedding blogs I've been looking at. It all seems so cookie cutter cute. If I see one more fun photo booth where people pose cutely with fake beards I will explode. I just typed "bears" there accidentally.  Posing with fake bears - bring it on.

But there are some nice new highights: For example, http://www.soyoureengayged.com/, a wedding blog for gay couples. Hurrah! I also love this one: http://www.apracticalwedding.com/
Plus we got our wedding rings this week - they are beautiful. I'm so glad we decided to spend that money and go with our hearts. I'll wear that thing for the rest of my life and it's lovely that we got an Australian designer to make them for us. Totally worth eating bread and water for a few weeks.

Finally, something I HAD to get for future husband from Button Empire on Etsy. Brilliant. 

15 March 2010

Question Time - Gocco


There's really only two questions I've been asked repeatedly:
What model do you use? Where do you get a Gocco?
We got ours at Eckersley's and I am told they stock them in all their stores. They also stock most supplies at fair prices. You can also get the Gocco online at Nehoc, the company who is distributing Gocco equipment: http://www.nehoc.com.au/. We got a PG5 basic set - the other available model is the PG11 which is more expensive but otherwise pretty similar. It's a tiny bit larger I believe and has some added features.

The best Gocco advice comes from Ms Pip at Mike's: here and here - you can read these posts and then you will know almost everything there is to know about the Gocco!

14 March 2010

mad woman

I appear to have thrown all my new year convictions out the window and have gone back to my mildly insane crafty ways. I have made my first quilt top - it's for my little niece. I hacked into piles of fabric with abandon, without measuring properly, excitedly throwing squares around and sewing them together wonkily. I attempted to be more mathematical about planning my quilt, but because I am numerically challenged and insanely impatient, I started cutting into the fabric with the rotary cutter before I knew it and there we are. It's slightly wonky. But I like it. I like the gentle colours and the randomness. But I will try and be a bit more structured next time.



And behold - the thousands of piles of fabrics I purchased for the next quilt, for niece number 2.





06 March 2010

Tshirt Gocco

Something I prepared a little earlier - the gastro has knocked me out good. I have been feeling knackered for over a week and am truly getting sick of the sick! I played around with the Gocco and some fabric paint a while ago and made a little shirt for my niece using a Dala horse print I created on the 'pooter - pretty painstaking work. Fabric gocco is much harder than paper gocco so more practice is required!