Today I made...

Roll-on perfumes.

First for some good news... I have beaten the cold bug and feel fine again (my DH has caught a cold though it seems to not be the one I had because he is losing his voice too) and some small bad news... my right elbow is aching (for some reasons unknown) so I haven't been stitching at all for the last few days.

I've needed to do something to fill in my time so I have been playing around with my soap and cosmetic making supplies. Remember a few weeks back when I made lip balm? Since then I've made some solid perfume balms for my Mum (trying to replicate a scent that she loves but is no longer available to purchase) which were packaged in some small lip balm pots. They smelled divine and Mum loved them.

Today I got the idea to make a roll-on perfume. It is packaged in these cute little roller ball topped bottles and I made four different scents. The first was the same as the balm I made last week, and the remaining three were made because I couldn't narrow down the definite scent that I liked the most. They were totally easy to make just a slosh of this a splash of that and pop on the lid. In fact the little labels I made to go on the bottles to about 10 times longer to produce than the perfume did. Weird huh?!

Also today I remelted some of my tubed lip balms from earlier in the month. It was fabulous in the little pots, just the right consistency but a complete failure in the tube that I had been trialling. Actually it feels wonderful on my lips but it is rather soft and will wind up (but not down) and can only really be applied by patting it on my lips and I prefer to smear it on. So today I got a little cosmetic beeswax and added it to the tube mixture. Still not quite happy this time it is a little too hard (and my tester doesn't feel as nice on my lips) so tomorrow I will remelt it again and have another go. The third time will hopefully be a charm.

I also picked up a starter kit for making my own soap from SCRATCH. I am really nervous about doing this cold process soap making as it requires adding highly alkaline liquid to melted fats and oils and then letting nature take its course. I am sure I can manage it but I just don't want to burn a hole in the bench, myself or any other object in my home. I  hope it will be fun and safe to make but I'm not exactly looking forward to the 6 weeks it will take to cure and dry before we can use it.

Another year older... but am I any wiser?

Short answer? No probably not. Long answer? Maybe, but it is too soon to tell for sure as my day was only on the 23rd. 


Last week I had my X9th birthday, it was a fairly subdued event. I don't like too much fuss and fanfare directed at me, I prefer to get excited about other people's birthdays. I am at the point where I've had enough birthdays to realise that reaching each additional one is an achievement (and a blessing) but not enough to wish I could begin counting backwards each year.


I did get some lovely pressies and my Mum and StepDad took all the family out for dinner to celebrate. Miho and Seth gave me some cute gifts from Zakka Box. There store motto is Nothing You Need But All You Want, I think that is really cute and a very honest sales pitch. Miho and I must pop in for a look... I bet it is full to the brim of gorgeous things I couldn't possibly go home without. ;) Here is a selection of all the little treats I received - also the rug (in the background) is a new one from my Mum.

I planned a girls day with my Mum for my birthday, we rarely get time just for the two of us to natter about everything and nothing at all and just enjoy each others company. Usually our time together is filled with the happy bustle of making kids snacks and giving foot rubs, tripping over toys, giving back tickles, painting very tiny finger nails, looking at ant bites,  and building cushion forts etc. Of course we both adore doing all those things too, but sometimes at the end of a visit we realise we never got time to say more than 4 words to each other amongst the happy hubub.


I arrived a bit earlier than expected because the traffic was so light. I let myself in with my key (as I always do) and found the house quiet and dark. I guessed Mum was having a well earned lie in (a rare indulgence for her as she is always so busy helping us all the time) so I quietly set about doing some of her chores. I hung out the washing, brought in and folded the dry washing, put away the ironing board, washed the few dishes in the sink and wiped down all the bench tops. Then I looked around for something else to do but there wasn't too much (quiet) left so I sat on the sofa and flipped through a few coffee table books. After about 20 minutes I was bored so I decided to unpack the dishwasher. I figured I couldn't do it without making some noise with the pots and pans and I didn't want to have a panicked mother calling 000 (911) to report me as an intruder so I used my mobile phone to call her house phone. When Mum answered I softly said good-morning and that I'd try to be quiet while I unpacked the dishwasher... to take her time getting up and I'd put the tea-kettle on in a little while.


We visited a book wholesaler together and I got Speedcleaning by Shannon Lush. I hate housework and cleaning, always have but I am hopeful with all the great strategies in this book I can't say I always will. I spent the day on Saturday testing out some of the ideas. I must say for the first time ever I actually felt like my bathrooms were clean when I finished cleaning them. I have been scouring ebay for some of the other books in this series.


I stretched my birthday to the weekend by indulging in some cooking. I made some more Raspberry Jam because believe it or not all that I had made last week was eaten or given away and I also stayed home from Mr W's soccer match which was held at Mandurah (a 2 hour round trip from our home ugh!) to cook up more tomato sauce for our pasta dishes. 


We had the first bottle of sauce with our dinner tonight... I hope it isn't too boastful to say it was absolutely delicious.

Blue Stars Class Design

I have finally finished the main design from Barb Suess' Blue Stars class. I love this design and the class was fun to take. I especially liked watching the videos that were included in the class this time.

I'm not sure how keen I am on doing the spider-web back-stitching required for this design and I suspect it is one of the reasons I dawdled on completing it... apart from my elbow which has been sore and resulting in me avoiding hand stitching a bit lately. The design really looks great with the lovely red centres so I couldn't imagine not stitching the spider-webs.

I will complete the other designs provided in this class in the near future but for now I have some other temari that need attention.

Fingers Crossed

We had a huge thunderstorm storm on Friday during which we had 50 or 60mm of rainfall within about 30 minutes. The lightening was spectacular, it really ionised the air, nothing smells sweeter than the air after a good electrical storm. The weather girl on our news tonight said it had been a one in ten year event, but I think they have already forgotten about the big storm we had in March 2010 which was accompanied by massive hail storms and widespread flooding. We were lucky to avoid damage to our property but several people I know experienced various degrees of flooding in their homes or businesses.

We were heading out for dinner when the storm hit at 6pm and got stuck in a massive traffic jam because several of the northbound lanes on the Kwinana Freeway were a foot (30cm) deep in water. When we got further up North (we went to an Italian restaurant in Morley) we almost got stuck in a 60 metre long (and most likely deeper than a foot) puddle. Thank goodness for the X-Trail's extra undercarriage height, my little car would have drowned in that mass of water. Mr W did think it was awesome to drive along with water splashing so high up the sides of his window and over the bonnet. Luckily our WA ground has been so dry that most of the rainfall has quickly soaked right through our sandy soil. I hope the same can be said for the rest of the rainfall this week as BOM Perth has predicted rain storms and showers until Saturday with a big one due tomorrow morning. I am hopeful our luck will keep holding out.

The same can't be said for the poor folk of Nebraska I saw on the news tonight. It looks like your Northern Summer is following the destructive weather pattern experienced by our Eastern States of Australia during our last Summer. I just couldn't help but cry when the reporter said it was expected that this massive swathe of water is just going to continue engulfing community after community as it travels across the US. I am keeping your communities in my thoughts and prayers. 

Be safe where ever you find yourself today and if life has sent you a bushel of lemons this week try to keep positive and just go look for your lemonade recipe. 

Cock-a-doodle DON'T

Oh dear! Last week we discovered for sure something we had been suspecting for several months now. Even though there was no crowing, strutting or other rooster-like behaviours we thought one of the chicken was not what it seemed.

One of our girls in the coop was actually a BOY!!!

Andy, formerly known as Andi

We live in a metropolitan area so we are strictly not allowed to keep a rooster under our local government laws. One complaint from the neighbours about a crowing rooster would have put our entire flock at risk, as the ranger may have demanded we get rid of all our girls. Remember Andi and Lucia? Well Andi turned out to be Andy and so we telephoned the breeder to requested that we exchange him for another her.

We were very lucky that the breeder accepted that she had mistakenly sold us a cockerel (young rooster) instead of the pullet (young hen) we had requested so she agreed to give us and exchange chicken. As a bonus she was coming down near our house last Friday to bring her daughter to a cheer-leading competition so he provided a pick up/delivery service.

It was pot luck for the new chicken, by this I mean the breeder brought us a chicken that (based on her knowledge of our flock) should work in with our other girls. Being winter there is not too much choice for point of lay chickens in Perth - especially as our summer was so hot, many breeders have not hatched new chickens for more than 2 months.

Puffle has features of all the other chickens in our flock.

The new chicken has been called Puffle. She is part Polish and Rhode Island Red (and some other stuff I think) but she is a pullet which means we should soon be getting eggs from her. Eggs is not something Andy was ever going to give us. Puffle has the same colour legs as Lucia, a lavender tail like Toetoe, light coloured body feathers like Itchy, dark coloured neck feathers like Scratchy and a puffy helmet of black feathers like Vegemite. She was in with a heap of Roosters at the breeder so she is a bit skittish but I am sure she will calm down. Feeding Mealworm snacks by hand is how we tamed all the other chickens and I am sure it will work on this one too.