Archive for November, 2009

It’s cool now!

Today is about 18 degrees. It feels really nice!

The weather just drove me mad in the past two days. Two nights in a row, I was like in half sleep with the body lying on the bed but the mind feeling “it was so bloody hot” tortured me so badly that I was not really sure if I ever had a real sleep or not.

In the middle of the Friday night, I touched my neck and it felt like putting my hands into a pond. I was sweating all over. I turned to another side for a moment and by the moment I came back, I can feel that my pillow was all damp wet.

What a terrible night! Even though I expected that my current state makes me easily get overheated, I still find it hard to take. Now I am thinking how bad this is gonna become in the next a few months, given that now it’s only November.

Most of summer time in Queanbeyan and Canberra, the weather is bearable even in the hottest time. That’s why not many people need an air conditioning in their house. And most of time, temperature drops during the night time and we even need to use a cotton quilt at the night time. But there was some weeks that could get really hot, and I just hope this year is not one of those times.

Finger crossed, just let me go through it this year, otherwise I have to think of using the bath tub as my bed or get a portable air con to solve the problem :-(

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The Great Eggs

My recent experiment on my crafting journey is to decorate eggs. I kind of realised that I should have gotten my hands on this long time ago, given that I love eating eggs so much, you can imagine how many perfect egg shells I have had wasted in the past many years which could have been used wisely in this sort of craftsmanship :-)

Thanks for the “Great Book of Egg Decoration”. When I borrowed the book at the library desk, the lady said I was half a year ahead of everybody. Well, I know it’s the Christmas coming, not Easter, but maybe I am half a year behind of everybody, who knows….When I had an idea, I just got to do it, doesn’t really care whether it is the time.

The book is so inspiring. When I firstly read it, I was thinking “Oh my God, how am I going to do this? It looks so complicated……” But when I really looked into it, I found it probably the best of all time egg decoration books that I could ever use.

The tools are very basic. If you can be creative enough, it almost costs no extra money. The patterns look so beautiful and full of variations but are only composed by some fundamental strokes. I guess to most of the people, they, probably just like me, won’t believe that they can do it until they really try it out.

So this afternoon, I skipped my nap and did a couple of eggs. The strokes look not very even and certainly need more practise, but the outcome was exciting enough to encourage me keep going ahead. Now I am so looking forward to try a dozen more with different patterns, colours…. and now I had just realised how much fun I have missed out before today.

I am picturing myself in the position of blowing 2-3 eggs everyday and working on a basket of emptied chicken egg shells, like an old European lady wearing magnified glasses working on tiny little strokes. But by the way, the egg decoration ideas from this book are really different from traditional Eastern European egg decoration in Slavic culture, like Ukraine, Poland, Croatian or Czech. If they didn’t look better, I would say they at least just look equivalently stunning!

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Say “Joy”

If you want to get your Christmas home decorations sorted before everything gets frantic in the last month, I’d say that probably now is the time.

This year, apart from doing the Christmas tree as usual, I actually want to introduce a few new ideas, something simple, practical and can function well to add joyful seasonal atmosphere into the house. Read the rest of this entry »

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Peg Bag

This is a sewing project that I had finished a while ago. I didn’t mention it because it seems a bit of too “normal” and I don’t want to make it a big deal. To be honest, I don’t know how many people really use a cloth peg bag nowadays, apparently we didn’t need one until the old plastic bag finally was broken two or three weeks ago. My husband thinks that plastic one was perfect and he seems really fond of it. Read the rest of this entry »

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Chipolatas in puff pastry

This is something that even kids can make. I actually got the idea from one of the kid’s cooking books. My husband is not a big fan of sausages, but I get cravings from time to time. I have to say, I am always obsessed with making stuff with puffy pastry. They can create tasty, fun and quick snacks and making less mess in the kitchen. Read the rest of this entry »

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Not Mom’s Embroidery

Knitting, crocheting, sewing…..after having experimented all the stuff that requires a needlepoint job, should I really be surprised that I finally get myself into embroidery now?

I suppose that I shouldn’t be, but I still was. Look, my mom used to do embroidery, as most of women do at that time? I remember she did some flowers to decorate a pair of pillowcases, which was an exquisite piece of needlework and had been used for many years by the family. That’s how I get the impression about embroidery. An embroidery work is supposed to look like that, and certainly I got the feeling that I could never achieve it. So if I can’t, why would I be bothered even trying? Read the rest of this entry »

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