More Cute Six-Year-Old Stuff

Just because I had them on the camera - the other day I found P6 reading a ladybird ballet book (my sister will remember it from our childhood)

 and quietly practising the ballet positions by herself.

Hopefully the cat in those distracted you from the mess ;)

Delicious

Six-year-old girls are really quite delicious.

Being An Aunty

Ooo I so enjoyed having my hugely grown-up sixteen-year-old niece up to play for a few days.

Crazy excited, and ready for the big moment - going to see Florence and the Machine. (She's been waiting for this day for about 5 months.)

 Lemons. Only because they look pretty on my newly-black benchtop. They'll make an appearance later on too. . .

 Playing an endless game of monopoly for her cuzzies:

 Getting TLC - nail polish fun with Mutti:

 Eating home made lemon ice-cream. For breakfast.

 

 Being a good sport and helping with L9's maths homework:

 And just to prove to her parents that there really was work done - being tested on Spanish vocab by Bunce:

We loved having you up sooooo much Miss M! You are just delicious.

Flo!

Whoop! Happy early birthday M16 :)

Chalkboard Fridge

I didn't take these with a video in mind, just clicked away at my freshly-washed children playing on the fridge after I painted it with green chalkboard paint.



Also L9 took this quite artistic pic of his nostrils.

Oh My Leetle Chihuahua. . .

eet's so lufferly to see you! 

Yes, that's a Miss M16 look that says a thousand words. 

Disaster!

Youch. It was all going too well. The second coat of paint on my evil kitchen bench reacted with the first and suddenly it's a wrinkly old disaster. Bugger. Still, even like this it's less hideous than the brown granite eh? I'm keeping the faith that I can fix it and in a week or so, it'll all be good.

I know. I'm a dick for even starting.

Still, I wore my hand-spun, hand-knitted garden city scarf for Me-Made-May and my mutti took this piccie for me.

Manic

I spent my day painting like a mad woman. After my last paint post, I learnt about the mysterious

PENETROL! Sounds vaguely rude. But there is a chance that I may have just eradicated the brown granite-evil from my life. 

Evil:

I'm going to be a tease though, and not show you the end result yet because everything still needs a top coat. I forgot how smelly and slow and painful oil-based paints are. Meanwhile, I'm also now changing the homemade black chalk-paint cupboards to homemade white chalk-paint cupboards since I can now change the evil graphite, and getting distracted because last night I found this delight:

so of course while I'm on a roll I decided to paint my fridge chalkboard green. It's looking horribly olive at the moment, but another coat and a whole lot of actual chalk should fix that. 

In between coats I had to do some yarn stuff, because although it wasn't dry enough to wear it today, I did block my garden city scarf, designed as a Chch fundraiser by the lovely Sheryl, which I finally finished last night. It counts as Me-Made-May if you finished something but don't wear it for fear of getting it painty eh? 

It's home spun yarn too, so a little bit wonky, but very me made.

Grrrrrrrrrrrr. . .

P6 rids herself of her inner grrrrrrrrrrrrr. . .

Experiment With Chalky Glory

Uh oh. I have a new obsession, and it's Annie Sloan chalk paint. Only I've never seen Annie Sloan chalk paint. No-one seems keen to stock or send it to us here at the edge of the universe. Blah to that. I spend a lot of time looking at image searches for Annie Sloan chalk paint. I've emailed in desperation a couple of times too, to no avail. So I have to pine from afar. 

Or google homemade alternatives like everybody else. Yes, today I mixed up my own paint. I had read that some people make it by mixing paint with plaster of paris, and although I imagined that would give the finish I want, I've used POP before and I'm not sure it wouldn't be really unwieldy because of how fast it dries, and quite fragile afterwards? I dunno. I also read you could use calcium carbonate, but I thought that might be a mission. So I opted for the un-sanded grout mix. Then as soon as I got home I read someone else saying that the grout recipe actually makes chalkboard paint, not chalk paint, and people have been recommending it in error. Argh! But I decided that person was wrong and went ahead anyway. Basically it's all in aid of fixing the poxy kitchen cupboards, which have such a ghastly finish even after Geeky Husband had a go at spraying them, that they could not possibly look worse no matter what I do because at the moment they just look permanently filthy. Chalk paint is supposed to require no prep (hurrah!), leave no brush strokes, stick to anything, and sand to chalk. I don't need it to do all the fancy aging bizzo, just be a flat finish. So far it's looking okay, but I need to get some wax to buff it. Fingers crossed. Of course I will want to paint everything in my house wild colours if it works.

If I do solve the cupboards I'm going to start plotting on what the heck I can do about the ugly granite bench. Even google says you'd be nuts to try to change your granite colour, but boo hiss it's oppressively ugly.

Me-Made-May - it was almost sunny enough to wear a cotton dress, so I thought sod it and went for it. I never wear blue, but this fabric was such a cute fresh wee print and I do love it. It was one of the first selfish sewing things I ever made for me.

 P6 was happy that my dress had the same flippy sleeves as hers. I don't know what you call them, but I like those girlie cuffs.

 All in all the dress just reminds me of a 60s preggie dress for some reason, so I always feel a bit odd in it, but at least it's not the school mum uniform on cooler days of trou and fleece. *Yawn*

Knowing What You Are

This is my cute boy playing soccer. Check those lanky legs.

My cute boy was sad today, for a reason that even he couldn't place. It's horrid to watch them struggle with emotion. I have no answers, but lots of hugs. I hope that's enough.

And after going a tad off the rails, I was back into Me-Made-May. I like this cardy when it's off, but wearing it makes me feel like a little old lady in a pink fluffy bedjacket.

Bah, maybe I am a little old pink fluffy lady. Could be worse. 

Home

Geeky Husband is home from his travels. Hurrah! No more of this:

 He brought with him lego for L9 and a modern take on spirograph for P6. I loved spirograph when I was little. But now there isn't pins and circles, there's really good oscillating shapes. Ooooooo. . .

 I did give P6 a go though. Eventually. 

 She P6-ified hers.

 There was cute window writing (which is hard to capture in a pic). 

All is right in the children's world. 

Hallelujah

There is a God! P6 ate green!

And it wasn't bogeys either.

Wowzers - Yarn and Socks. And A Gun.

It's not bad buying more yarn when it's going to be a present for someone else eh? When it arrives all nicely wrapped up I can almost pretend it is my own birthday. Squeee!

 Zzzzzzzauber! Mmmmm.

 Me-Made-May - socks.

 Hmmmm, think perhaps Geeky Husband's life was a bit more thrilling than mine today.

Blah Blah, Me-Made-May Rosa's sleeveless again. . . it's wearing thin (not the Rosa's cardy that is - the taking pics and wearing homemade). Here's a song instead.

Getting Stuff Done

L9 decided to join us while P6 read her school reader. We are sitting on the floor because of yet another light issue, but I'm not even going to begin to catalogue all the lighting problems this week.

 For Me-Made-May I wore my Zauberball socks, but failed to take a picture. Socks just aren't that interesting. I did make something else today though. My jewellery box was a disaster. I couldn't even untangle the necklaces to wear them.

 So I turned them into a picture. I had quite a huge picture frame, and I'd had the picture for years, so decided it needed a re-vamp. It will live up the staircase, because I'm seriously running out of wall everywhere else, and that will be the way up to the bedroom when we get our act together and finish the upstairs room. They are on little hooks so you can grab them as you need them. It was hard to get a pic of though, because it was late by the time I finished, and dark and y'know, no lights.

 But looks cool as a pencil sketch.

 Or neon. . .

 Bored? Me?

Nothing Happening

It was rainy and horrible and L&P were coughing so we all stayed home, and I tried to get pics of them lounging and reading for their Da, but they weren't keen. So all I have to share is a token Me-Made-May. I think all the self-made clothes I have left are well and truly too summery for May, so I'll have to start on my extensive knitted hat collection. Cute as pie fave hat that I wear all the time for a hair-squasher:

Wristicuffs

Zauberball fingerless gloves for Me-Made-May.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day! My invisible friend linked to this post a while ago and I thought it would be a good read for Mother's Day. It made me a bit teary though, so be warned. 

I freely admit I don't have magnetic, alphabetized spice containers, and my children were squabbly and grumpy today. They are both sicky at the mo though, so I'll forgive them. It was still a lovely day. Had the g-mothers around for lunch.

 Blokes hung out and did some boy stuff - putting my new lights in. Yeeha. (I love the little head at the bottom of this pic.)

Although she was reluctant to let me take a pic to remember it,

 P6 did let me paint her face with fairies.

That kept me pretty happy. Home made ice-cream helped too. Mmmmmmm.

(Purple socks for Me-Made-May, but only wore them in the evening - I'm slipping - and although I swear I took a pic, it appears to be AWOL. Socks are not that exciting though really eh?)