Just a little bit posh

My mother gave me my first tea set only last week. Granted the set is nearly as old as I am! It is so delicate and treasured I am a wee bit anxious about using it.

However, I pulled out the Royal Dolton and indulged in a green jasmine and pear tea in the afternoon sun. So divine! Feeling a bit like a princess.

Expectations from the vampire squid

My husband has been spoilt. There is more to it, if you want to hear why.

He requested new photos of our daughter for his wall at work. He made some outrageous comment that she does not have hair in any of her photos. To be fair, it took her a very long time to grow hair after her luscious locks fell out at birth. I wonder why babies hair falls out after birth? Is it the shock of going from a safe watery world to a smorgasbord of sensory experience? Alas, I am distracted from my main narrative. 

He has been spoilt with many gorgeous photos of our little princess when she was very little. I understand now, as I learn to use my camera and practice I have been improving. The baby phase was great for portrait shots and learning how to use me DSLR. Her big soulful doe eyes glued to my camera lens. Baby smiles at the newness of everything. The quiet stillness of just being in this big wide world. 

Now we have progressed to exploring, crawling and toddling. Gone is the quiet tiny princess, hello my noisy grumble fart. My little grumble fart is too busy getting into mischief to look at the camera lens, too busy eating random pieces of fluff and grot to smile at the world. She is busy making noises and touching and playing with everything she can reach. My skills with the camera are improving but not at the same rate as her growth. 

I suspected he may not find the millions of photos of my sweet grumble fart as pretty as the quiet tiny princess shots. But I went thru the more recent photos (aka where she has hair) and found my favourites. Only a measly 173. I sat down with him and let him flick thru them to make his decision which to print for the wall. He didn't pick one!!!! eeek!

Thus, he has been spoilt with photographically stunning baby pictures and I have to get my dainty grumble fart to work with me to get some nice ones for the wall. Challenge accepted, my love!!!

Making the Mad Hat Step #2: Making the Mad Hat

Must do something about the wire hearts looking like a peacocks arse!

Catch your breath

I thought I was getting better. See, I am able to stay awake longer than an hour and talk without having a fit of coughing. But, after being on my feet for a while and actually doing something mundane,I don't   know, like, cooking dinner, I can't seem to catch my breath. I start to feel nauseous and faint. Ugg. Still sick.

I wonder where the phrase catch your breath came from? Probably a Black Plague creation or some other morbid reference. I am always amazed at how many phrases and traditions are based on our history of plagues and poor technologies. Gothic folk tales have inspired our modern day memories. 

Thank you gothic inspiration for giving me Beauty and the Beast to snooze by this week. My daughter loved listening to Belle get her crush-on and I appreciated that I slept enough thru a significant amount so didn't go insane. Yes, we watched it about nine times over three days. I just didn't have enough energy to change the DVD. I think we listened to the menu screen song for about five hours too. That's how you know you are sick, you willingly hit replay after the third time and don't even mind.

Schemes and scales

The Mad Hat design phase

It's a secret!

I missed step three out on purpose, just cause I am mean like that and it will drive someone insane when they read this blog in order!

My husband brought chocolate home for me, I love that man more than anything!

Spluttering like a dugong in pantyhose and highheels

I am too sick to blog ... I am a big spluttering coughing disgusting snotty germ monster. Ok, it's not that bad. The snot was a bit of an exaggeration. The snot is mostly contained inside my nose and down the back of my throat (yucky!). 

Since I feel bad about not blogging, I made a picture of what I look like being sick, so there is no mistake that I am actually sick. (You can tell I am sick by the coughing and hacking grossness into the air as indicated by the drawing) I decided I would also share my plan to share my icky sickness with everyone. Step one, continue to be sick. Step two, be around other people. Step four, enjoy watching everyone be as miserable as me ... Sigh, such a nice fantasy.

Mucus molluscs and mandarin

Yesterday I finished a Day of the Dead inspired skull crochet doily and shipped it off to a new home. It was inspiring making something completely unique and looking at the world from a different viewpoint. I loved the stitches in white giving that flecked bone appearance. So pretty in a dark kind of way.

One would think that finishing one of my projects I would be ecstatic. But alas, I am sick. It is quite miserable being me today. I have so much creativity waiting to escape, however, my body groans with illness and my mind is sluggish. 

I spent most of the morning just funnelling my energy into little games with my daughter. She must sense that I am not completely well and has been playing quietly and offering me masses of drooly kisses. Sometime I wonder whether the amount of drool indicates how special or generous the offering of affection. She seems to enjoy giving big wet drooly kisses the most. I do not complain, these moments of affection are special and something to cherish as her mother. If you were to say these moments would be so special years ago I would raise an eyebrow quizzically and wonder how much special tea you had been drinking. 

Muffin

Watching a loved classic, Friday the 13th, and my husband looks at me and says right after Mother Vorhees uses an axe to take out another camp counsellor ...

"Those kids are just Axing for trouble"

I nearly peed myself

Day of the Dead

Seems that I am always beginning a project, today I have four underway. I finished a heart shaped purple doily to embellish my daughters purple shirt but am thinking it is too big for the shirt! I might have to buy a bigger shirt and keep it for when she is older. I have two projects I am dying to begin, the Mad Hat and my Granny's signature doily. i desperately want to start these!!! But I bargained with myself to wait until I finished one of my current projects. 

I will have to wait a bit longer to start another project tho, I have a request from a friend for a special doily. I am excited about this one. It's something I have never done before but at the time very similar. I did a bit more "research" for inspiration and found some amazing images. I will leave one with you just to let you marinate in the ideas that it brings to mind ...

Making the Mad Hat Step #1. Research

The first step of making a Mad Hat is to begin with research. When I say research, I really mean, google "make a mini top hat" on google while your daughter sleeps. I am pretty happy with the results, the very first YouTube tutorial is exactly what I am after! 

Excitement stirs!

If you want to join in making your own Mad Hat I will share the link with you, just because I am nice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3Nx0igPai4

Can't wait to collect my materials for Step #2

The Mad Hat

So, I decided my 10,930th unbirthday is coming up and I need a Mad Hat to celebrate ... I considered buying online but with less than a month to go I doubt it would arrive from overseas on time. Thus I am considering MAKING one!!!!

This design just makes my inner Mad Hatter chuckle with glee ... It is quite stunning in a simple yet elegant way.

Twenty goldfish and only one peanut

Every year I try something new. One year I became a scrap booking addict, another year I taught myself to knit, another year I fell in love with photography and this year I am enjoying crochet. Sometimes I wonder whether I will ever find something that is truly me, whether there is an art which will capture my heart completely but then I look back on all the things I have done and realise that this is who I am. I was meant to have the joy of learning a new craft, the happiness of starting a project and the hush and excitement in my whole body while doing each one. I love the challenge of something new, to see beauty in something and watch as it transforms from a hint of an idea to something tangible and real. In my heart I am an artist and there are so many mediums to use for my craft. However, the scientist in me laughs at the whimsy and demands that I "should" find my true craft, the one that completes me. How will I ever find balance with two warring minds?

Time for tea?

Is it time for tea? How about cake? There is a young version of me jumping up and down inside chanting that It is always time for cake! 

I am looking at the options for the visual layout of the blog and decided that I really do need some cake. The options for colour, design and spatial flexibility are complex, the buttons appear so tiny, like chocolate sprinkles. It seems the options are extensive but if you look closely it is like choosing between chocolate fudge brownies and a rich red velvet cupcake. Both deliciously pleasant but not going to cut it when you truly desire banana bread with buttercream frosting. See, I told you I needed cake.

Instead, I will attempt to post pictures, because let's face it. I only want cake because I am experimenting with the visual part of blogging. I don't really want cake. I want to master the visual part of the blog.

 

Nope, didn't help. I still want cake!

10,930 unbirthdays inspires one to do something different!

Inspiration is an elusive thing, it wiggles and squirms and if you don't hold on tight she slips through your fingers like a salamander in a pink beret. Approaching my 10,930th unbirthday I am still trying to keep my mind steady in a whirlwind of creativity and beauty, trying to experience each moment, to capture each flutter of joy and each stab of pain, to truly be. I am a scientist and an artist, the most bizarre combination, and each day is a new set of happenings for me to enjoy in my own unique way.

Forgive me if my musings are too strange or hard to follow, or the grammar is not quite right, this blog is for fun and a means to let my inspiration travel where she wants. I cannot be selfish and hold her tightly, she needs to explore the world and be where she needs to be. I ask only this, remember, as you travel this journey with me, at the Mad Hatters Tea Party there is only one thing that is truly important ... "We're all mad here"