Last post for May.......

This is where my 'Post a day in May' ends. A little early I know but when I started this I didn't think to much about us going away. Oh well maybe I can fill in the final 6 days in June. Don't worry if I can get near a computer I will try and check in on everybody else I have been following for the last 6 days in this month of May.
Bonne fete de Mere for the Frenchies!

Jet setting.......

We are currently jetting our way back to Melbourne after being away for our first 18 months. How exciting it is going back to see family and friends. Back to haunt the old places and to visit some new ones. These fellows are going to be delivered to Meet me at mikes for the softies for Mirabel cause. I am so looking forward to checking out the shop too. Reading so much about it from afar for so long.
Oh it's just to exciting for words!

Rhubarb & Fairies........

Rhubarb Rabbits

Some finished craft ready for the suitcase.

Bluebelle & Margot

The girls from Wednesday. All dressed, wild haired and ready to go.

Final tick.......

I started a list at the beginning of the week of things that I had to get completed or get together/done before we leave for Melbourne this weekend and I have just crossed the last thing off. Yippee and what relief. I always feel I have a thousand things to do before I leave the house for a holiday(even though I don't). I'm not sure why think this but I do. I like to have the house tidy before we leave so we don't come home to it messy. I like to have all the washing done. That's because I always know there will be a suitcase or two full of it when we are back.

Anyway in the midst of getting the list completed I found time to make myself a pair of mittens for the cold. I found the inspiration here. They were very easy to do. Using the sleeves of an old cardigan and a bit of embroidery. I think they are going to come in very handy when I am out having coffees with my buddies. Oh how I have missed the coffees of Melbourne. This deserves a post all of it's own. While I'm away I will do a bit of tasting and report back.

On my desk......Part 6

On my desk this week are some wip fairies. When finished they will be winging their way across the Pacific to the States.

Hopefully I will have them finished in a couple of days with hair and facial features. This will form their personality and then I can name them.

Stay tuned!

Like mother...........

The little miss of the house is getting the same disease as her mother. I think some of you probably know this one. It's the one when you like and buy way too many pairs of shoes. I doesn't help that I encourage going out and looking for shoes. It is one of my favourite things to do. Go out and admire shoes maybe try on a pair or two maybe purchase some. These ones were way to cute to pass up don't you think?

Shame they didn't come in bigger sizes and black!

Let's get stuffed.....

The woes of living on an island and having a fancy for making dolls. I can't find proper toy stuffing here so I have to buy pillows at an extremely inflated price and hope that nobody nicks them and sleeps on them. I am hoping on my trip back to Melbourne I will be able to get a few packets of real stuffing into vacuum sealed bags suck the be-jesus out of them and fit them snuggly into my suitcase.
Wish me luck!

Not your mama's crochet......

A little book review with a show and tell to go with it today. I bought this book 'Not your mama's crochet' a little while back because I thought the title of it was rather catchy. If you are speaking to non-crafty people and mention the word crochet they usually break into hysterics or tell you some story about what their grandma had made them when they were four. I myself love a bit of crochet and I still get my mum to make me crocheted cardigans and the like. I am not a fabulous crocheter but I can do it and secretly would like to be better at it. This book goes a long way to helping me understand all the crocheting jargon. I know how to do many of the stitches but not always the correct name for them. The author goes into a quite a bit of detail about this and the instructions are easy to follow. All in all I would recommend this book for people starting out, she has info about the differences in the way the Brits name the stitches to the Americans, alot of info on the general stitches as well as a few more complicated ones and also some quite cute patterns. Maybe I would do them all but I have attempted the 'getting dizzy scarf'.

Here's Django kindly modeling it for me. It is done in one long piece and you just keep increasing the number of double crochet you do and it becomes all curly and twisty. This particular scarf is going back to Melbourne with us and it going to be a birthday gift for one lovely lady. I would love one but it would be to hot for here. I need to find some really thin, nice yarn and do it on a big hook so it is all open and not to heavy. That would be good for the winter nights when it's chilly but not cold.
If anybody has any links to finding something light weight and nice please let me know.

Oui Oui........

I really don't have anything for you today except Noddy & Big ears and that's only because we had boiled eggs for dinner. The uneventful evening meal sort of rounded off a fairly uneventful kind of day. I could tell you about the tradesmen who came to fix our shutter or the washing I got in just before a god-almighty downpour but I might leave that that for another day. Lucky you!
I will tell you the history of the egg cups and that is they are fairly old. My brother and I got them one easter way back when I was about 10 or 12 years of age.You ask why I have my brothers and the answer is he is a boy and not really into old egg cups. Especially Oui Oui as the French him.

I did find a funny blog to have a peep at and then it lead me onto here. What cute creatures on the opening page.

On my desk.....part 5

My desk this week is so very boring. Just some paid work in the form of cushion covers. Doesn't need much thought or creativity but I do these things in order for me to be able to purchase goods that are created by others. My something from another crafty peep( which I have had my eye on for sometime) you will see in the next photo. It's a piece of jewelery made by a local girl- Kristine Bourcier. She works with silver and semi-precious stones mostly. This pendant has some Pacific island significance. All over New Caledonia there a petroglyhes- drawings or carvings made on rock by people gone by- and she takes inspiration from these and creates what you see. This particular one comes from an area up north but for the life of me I can't remember where. I should write stuff down.


Anyway I can only hope my next week on my desk is more interesting than this one.

Us........

This is what our family looks like through the eyes of Juliette.
You can see the family resemblance in the shape of our faces!

Pegs.....

Sitting in a friends yard this afternoon I spied these two things on her fence. I thought they looked very cute. I didn't ask her if I could take the photo's I hope she doesn't mind.

Me.........

Today I reveal myself and that's only because I have been to the hairdresser. This is the first and probably the last photo I put up of me. But I have done this because I have a very curious nature,as I'm sure others do, and I am always wondering what you gals look like from all the blogs I read. Slowly over time people put up an image or two and then I say ' ah so that's what they look like'. It's the face to the name kinda thing.
Anyway so here I am newly blonde and sporting a new cut. If anybody else reveals themselves let me know I would love to see who you are.

Looky here for something on this theme.

p.s photo courtesy of my daughter.

The apero.......

We went to our first apero evening tonight. It is a very French thing to do apparently. You are invited around for drinks and nibbles in the early evening which can run into dinnertime but you are not served a full meal. Just drinks and savories as I mentioned but I have heard some terrible stories about us anglo-saxons not quite knowing what to expect from these soirees and often coming home totally starving and probably pissed from not having any food in their stomachs. Luckily we were invited by a English/French couple and Mel didn't let us go home wanting for anything. She, herself, has been to way too many apero evenings where she has returned home starving and drunk from way too many aperitifs!

Thursday.......

Public holiday- Victory day 1945.
Not much doin'.
Finishing the afternoon off with one of life's pleasures.

On my desk.....part 5

On my desk this week is the beginnings of my project for the Softies for Mirabel. I need to get my butt into gear and do them as I plan to do a couple and I also plan to deliver them personally. We are making our first trip back to Melbourne in a couple of weeks after 18 months away. I am excited about the prospect of getting back and checking out all the new stuff I have been reading about and checking in on a few old haunts as well. Like Spotlight! Oh how I have missed Spotlight. I might even make it to a Brown Owls meeting if I can fit it.

Shabby paint and rusted iron........

Around Noumea you often see alot of old architecture left from 'ye olde days' with newer stuff built up around it. I was in centre ville this afternoon and spied this old balcony, all shabby paint and rusted iron next to of all things, a very fancy sushi restaurant!

Drivin'......

With my idea in mind to blog about Noumea for some of the next 30 odd days I remembered to take the camera out with me today on my daily run about. My Monday run consists of taking the kids to school, meeting a couple of gals for a walk, home to shower, back to pick up kids for lunch( very European), drop kids and husband back to respective places after lunch, go do the shopping, pick kids up, take them to swimming, pick up husband and finally home again. In between all of that is a bit of cleaning, cooking and crafting. Now this nice snap was taken as we were sitting in school traffic on our way to swimming.
Somebody must have just put it up because I drive past this place on a fairly regular basis and have never noticed it before. The fish looked fantastic fluttering in the wind.

Nothin' but blue skies......

We are on the last day of a 4 day weekend here and it has been a nice one. We haven't done alot but entertain some friends, be entertained by friends and play the odd game of Junior monopoly. Our seasons are changing here and we can feel autumn in the air. In the South Pacific the changes are only slight, the temperatures move only by a degree or two but the rains seemed to have stopped and every morning we wake up to a magnificent blue sky. I really love it, it's bright and makes for happy people. This brings me to another point that I sometimes find it difficult to have things to write about on the blog because life here takes a very leisurely form and some days we don't do anything more than go to the beach or hang around home with each other just doing stuff. So I am going to take on the challenge of 'A post a day in May' which I found over here. I might make it a bit of a themed challenge and get out and show you all bit more of Noumea.