Happy Halloween :: Sionara Blogtoberfest

A nice light I've always admired and perfect for tonight:

{from here}

I would love to have this on my front gate....

Many more fun Halloween decorations {like this one here}

This is true because Martha confirmed it!!!...

Which Halloween Character Are You?

You are undoubtedly A witch

With your throaty cackle and divine skills at the kitchen cauldron, there's no doubt you're a witch. You and your coven of girlfriends enjoy sharing the best of everything together -- whether it's weekend gossip or recipes for toad stew. We wouldn't be surprised if you had a penchant for pointy hats, either.

{do the quiz here}

If I was having a Halloween party I'd serve these {{from here}}

I'd light up my garden with these:{{{from here}}}

And my guests would see this at my front door: {from here}

In fact, someone like this DID just appear at my door!! - five of them in fact, children from a few doors up, all dressed up like the person above! I'm very ashamed to say that I had nothing to give them :-((

Next year I'll ditch the virtual and get myself organised to have a real Halloween House, with all of the above and more .. I hope they come by again!

Happy Halloween to all!

My weekend outfits

My my, I am such a sponge for other people's fun blogging ideas - thanks fleurfatale for the great idea inspiration and your gorgeous jewellery - hey, and you've got music on your blog too!

I've morphed My Friday night outfit into My weekend outfit, mainly coz the boots look more like a weekend thing ...

1. Ternate Boots, 2. Sun Stallion Tote, 3. Pokahontas Earrings, 4. Pretty Birdie's Scoop Neck Jersey Mini Dress, 5. leaf me not - necklace, 6. A Posh livingstone daisy ring


Created with fd's Flickr Toys






On the other hand, this has always tickled my fancy as a great outfit for tomorrow pm ...

From here

The month in review ...

he best things about blogtoberfest?



osting daily. It's been a great discipline for me and I've found it surprisingly easy. I have missed a couple of days but found I posted asap the next day. It's been so much fun and even though I know I'm mostly talking to myself (and perhaps one other - thanks for following delores d!) I'm finding a few good things are emerging:

 
napping lots more images with my little camera.




aking soft trees - well one at least!



uantifying the good things around me (I had to find a way to use this cute Q!!)

iscovering all the lovely talented people on the other side of my computer screen!






So, Thank you to Tinniegirl, Chunky Chook and CurlyPops, plus all the other inspirational people out there - you are all

 {lovely letters thanks to Daily Drop Cap's Jessica}
 {{topic thanks to Chunky Chook}}

Equine leanings

Too much time spent on my new shuffle ipod last night (v.cool) so forgot to post :-(

So, here's a link to a very sweet horse I found this morning.

There are more lovely things from astulabee

And this gives me an idea of my own! More later.

Rocking my world

Just discovered a fun new toy today, MixPod - it's right here on my blog now and I'm busily adding to it - just hit an 80s vein and started adding stuff like XTC and Style Council but I'm back to the now again, adding a new band, Them Crooked Vultures (Dave Grohl, the guy from Queens of the Stone Age and John Paul Jones from Led Zepellin!) as well as Perth singer Felicity Groom - I really prefer her song Treasures, sounds very Go Betweenish.
As you can see I'm a bit of an indie girl, but I'll be adding plenty of mainstream stuff too. What fun!!

The thing I really wanted to blog today is jacaranda. I'll let this picture gallery tell the story:
Jacaranda

 This great (local) shot is by schizophonia

My new blog thingy - Time Travel Tuesday!

I've been having some fun making my newest obsession, soft trees (well, one soft tree so far.) When this first one (below) turned out a little Parisian-ish, I started thinking,  what made it so?
It was the cherry blossom, sketched delicately, the soft beige, chartreuse, the touch of black, the .. hem hem, yes, I am about to say it .. the pink  ....... anyone who knows me will know that I am not a pink person, yet ... here it works, and with the Paris in spring thing, it's a must. That led me to think of Gigi, so I started Etsy searching for any Gigi, Paris, spring type images ... et, voila! A new idea for my blogging week emerged, Time Travel Tuesday (also fitting nicely with my scifi leanings).

So, each Tuesday, if you want to play along, pick a themed time (like Paris in Gigi which was turn of the century) and blog as many inspiring things as possible, including yummy things that people are making via Etsy, your own images, music, video, really whatever! Should be fun, n'est pas?

Here are my first offerings for the inaugural Time Travel Tuesday ... think Paris in the springtime with Maurice Chevalier serenading us in the background ...



This apartment is very much at the centre of my idea, this and the park where we first meet Gigi and hear the opening song from Maurice.

honeytree

All these lovely things say it all really ...

japonicas

 

SaSeaBoutique

SnappyChic

AliciaBock

TheSavageCabbage

mulberrymuse

BagatellesAndCo

Parlene

GreenAcresCottage

Perfume is a must in this little time capsule ...

"At the turn of the century, perfume was a single-flower fragrance. Rose, violet, lilac, and lily of the valley were in high demand." (from here)

Coty was one of the early Parisian perfumers and I know that Eau de Cologne was huge at this time ...

urbanrose

And the bird that Gigi had to learn to eat delicately? ... an ortolan

BirdNerd

Oh dear, we ate there the other night, but I'm very glad to report that there were none on the menu!

One more pretty Parisian image

 

MarionetteMoon

Ah, tres jolie!

Bonsoir, mes amis!

My first soft tree

At the start

Then, a little further on ...

Ta da!

Looks a little Parisian to me, don't you think? A little Gigi for some reason.

Ah, thank heaven for little soft trees!

I'll make some little companions for it tomorrow.

Soft trees by others

This is what I'm working on - sweet aren't they?
I found this here, in a great little Flickr set, soft trees. They are by the person who invented them Stephanie Congdon Barnes and her gorgeous blogs little birds and 3191 miles apart show more of her wonderful stuff.

In progress (kind of)

Confession time.

I got as far as delving into my fabric stash, and then got completely sidetracked looking at all the amazing vintage fabric. Boy, there are some treats in store there ...

Meanwhile, these two scraps came out of the lucky dip of fabric, right at the bottom of the bag - and the shape of the floral was so completely a soft tree in the making! It's sitting here, patiently waiting for me to construct it. I've paired it with a rather lovely taupey velvet that must have been a scrap from one of Nan's upholstery projects - I think I remember it on a straightbacked chair, one of the ones she used for bridge?
I'm not sure what Nan made with the floral - my memory is not clear on this one either - I can see curtains but I'm also thinking a shift dress. One or the other (leaning more towards the curtains)

The floral has to be from the 60's (perhaps even the 50's?) I have a larger piece as well. I think I remember a time that I didn't like this at all. Now, I think it is rather interesting and I'm even prepared to embrace the pink - it is only a very small amount. I'll print out the soft tree pattern shape tomorrow at work so I get this right - in my usual perfectionist, procrastinating way, I'm prevaricating! I know I could have done this today without the pattern ... but it's the thinking about it that is fun too.

Making ...

Something.

shall report back later ....

12

Ate here (great food!)

Dad sent these


Jasper approved

Bought a couple of books - this and this

Walked! Feet got sore so only did 20 mins. Interesting thing is that I wore sandals out to dinner tonight and before I got up from the table, I did a quick stretch of my feet, pulling on my toes (under the table.) Feet felt OK walking back to car and are OK still. Hmm, might have to try this more scientifically!

Happy Anniversary!

Scifi Friday - it must be Spocktober

Finally I think it's time to do this, mainly because it's SGU night. What better way to celebrate this than with a scifi meme!
Ha!
Do they exist? Can I make one up of my own and join all the cool girls out there blogging their own memes? ...
So, I googled it. And yes, scifi memes exist ... perhaps not quite like the ones I've been finding elsewhere but this could be a bit of fun, yes, I shall give it a go...

Scifi baddie?
A Goa'uld because they have handy regenerative sarcophagi, very cool hand jewellery that allows them to read people's minds, a deep scary voice and flashy glowing eyes that glare menacingly. Not so keen on the symbiote version though ...

Scifi hero?

Starbuck (Kara Thrace) from Battlestar coz she (spoiler alert) basically saves the day but mainly coz she gets to be a supremo fighter pilot, she drinks, she smokes cigars and she has a thing with Apollo
(image from here)
(Or Korben Dallas from 5th Element because, among other things, he has such a cute cat)

Weapon?
Not really a weapon but the Doctor's sonic screwdriver of course - it can do pretty much anything!

Scifi boyfriend? (or girlfriend if you prefer)
Liking the idea of David Tennant's Dr Who but you might find you were Rose and you could only be together in a parallel universe, or perhaps you were Donna and you were just mates, or Sarah Jane and you got left behind, or even poor Martha and it was only one sided ... no, better to pick Apollo (Lee Adama) (I keep mentioning him don't I?)
Hmmm, just remembered Captain Malcolm Reynolds, mm, yes, well! (image from here)

Setting?
On board the Serenity with Mal and the gang in a western set in space

Special Power?

Vulcan powers - how good would it be to be telepathic and it would be pretty cool to do a mind meld! They live longer, are stronger and faster than humans and the logic thing is useful. (Not so keen on having to be a herbivore and teetotaller though! And that seven year thing, hmmmm)

Transportation?

The tardis of course! Go anywhere in space and time and there's a great wardrobe of clothes for any planet, time or galaxy in there somewhere!! (image from here)

Planet?
The planet of the Nox - they live in the woods but have the power to make things like cities (and themselves) invisible (they're from Stargate - we see Armin Shimmerman yet again in one of his many scifi turns!) (and why do I keep picking vegetarians?)

Non-human character?

Lorne (Krevlornswath of the Deathwok Clan) - I love that he can read people who sing, and he gets to sing himself quite a bit. (photo from here)
(Still feel v.sad about Andy Hallett, too young, too much talent.) 

BTW, this is not all my own work, it's inspired from here

What’s Hot + What’s Not Thursday

Saw this at Hazelnut's and it was for Wednesday, but now it's Thursday and I have no great inspiration for today's post so here goes (yes I agree these cute memes are fillers but I need fillers too at the moment, until I get my craft life in order) ...

Hot

1. This pair - I have just spent a lovely wee while scrolling through Ernie & Toby's photo set. What a sweet couple, I just love pale dogs, especially when they have cute caramel noses like this one. And Toby thinks he is a dog! Can't get over what great buds they are, and they're aussies!
So adorable!!

 2. Grey, any shade, anything really. Grey is swoonworthy.

Loving these

 mamabetsy

 polarity

 

halpal28

And these too

yystudio

dukestreetduchess

mmmm, grey.

Oh, one more lovely grey thing:

 

Jasper (and Rufus)

3. Baci. The yummiest of chocs. Not my absolute fave but up there. These were one of the birthday presents and we're nearly through the pack.

4. Ikea fabric

I am thinking of covering these chairs with this. UV thought it might be too modern but the colours are good in this new room. Loving this plus a couple of other designs I got the same day:

5. Homemade pyjamas!

Bought this pattern and plan to go through my stash to make lots of lovely pj pants to pair with cute tshirts for summer. I like this combo although I don't have enough of the blue spot. The gingham will make a cuff and band around the waist.











Both fabrics are vintage from my mum's stash. I think my grandmother bought the blue spot in Hong Kong.








What's Not
1. People who waffle. I wish they would tape themselves and listen back to how unintelligable they are, particularly when they don't really know what they are talking about. And when it takes up too much of other peoples time .... grrrrrr
2. Staying up way too late doing fun things like this. Starting to feel v.tired now but I don't feel like I have enough hours in the day to do the fun things. (which is why 1. is so annoying coz your valuable time gets taken up dealing with faffers!)
3. Grey wintery days when it should be getting warmer and more summery.
4. Sore feet. :-(   I want my old feet back. Please come back feet, all is forgiven.
5. Way too much stuff. I have this. Everywhere. I have to move it on, once and for all.