Jikana Damaru: 04/06/12

little artist

both my girls love to be creative. whether it's whipping up cakes & soups in the cubby house or drawing with pastels at the dining room table there is always something keeping them busy. i love watching the concentration & the little hands at work.

i always loved art at school. have always thought about learning to sew. enjoy baking. & of course taking photographs is my creative outlet #1.

what about you? do you love being creative & how?

A Good Friday

It was Good Friday today! and let me tell you it was a GOOD Friday here in the K household. For the first time in years we had no plans to go away. No camps to set up, no traffic to fight, just me and him, at home, together. I had plans in the afternoon but they got changed to Monday. This worked out perfectly as I could spend the whole day with my man and then spend a beautiful morning on Monday with my favourite gal! Perfect! I had a late night last night so I slept in a little and I woke up to Rob building the girls a play gym!

We have been planning this stand for a while now and actually bought the black stand a few months back. It only had a single wooden perch and this, of course, would not do for our girls! We wanted to have something they could sit on but also play on! We also wanted to use natural timber. Ruby loves stripping the wood and making marks in the wood and I hate to think of what chemicals are in the wood they sell at the shops. So Rob got to work and designed and chopped and screwed and tied and created the most amazing bird play gym I could of ever imagined. It is huge and big enough for both the parrots to be on. I LOVE it so much!

TA-DA - The finished product!

Enjoying a chilli each while Dad gets more wood!

Sabrina smashing out some chin ups!

Rob couldn't and wouldn't stop there - he caught the bug and was go go go! Who am I to stop a man who wants to build things for our home! His next project was to build a fishing rod holder that would keep his rods off the floor, keep them straight and also display them. He got the idea from his boss and whipped up this little beauty in about 15 minutes. I think he achieved the look he was going for!

Next on the list was to create a space for the boards so they were off the ground, out of the weather and not taking up too much room. Rob once again designed, measured and created our vision! He started with a couple of meters of steel and turned them into brackets. He cut each piece and weld them together using my grandpas welder! Its still going strong after all these years! He lined them with rubber and screwed them onto the wall and....wallah! A perfect space to store all our boards! Looks fantastic!!!

....and me...

Well you know I just hung out! Helped out here and there! Played with all the animals! Took photos, got the cold beers from the fridge...I had a very big role ;-)

But seriously I just enjoyed being with my husband! Watching him work his magic. I loved just sitting by and watching him work. Everything he does amazes me and every day I thank God for how lucky I am to have him by my side. He's truly talented and such a dam hard worker. I am so very proud of him! Tonight, as I look over all the work he did today, my heart warms with pride! I am the happiest, luckiest wife in the world!

x S.K.K x

Hand-made chocolate carrots

Last year I made pink chocolate carrots with green chocolate tops, but I found that a lot of the tops fell off! So this year I made peach carrots and painted the tops with edible green dusting powder. No breakages so far!

Chocolate carrots
What you will need:

Instructions

Temper (melt) white chocolate
Stir in peach powdered food colouring a little at a time until you have desired colour. Stir well so colour is even
Spoon chocolate into icing bottle or bag fitted with a small nozzle
Squeeze chocolate into moulds
Lightly tap moulds so chocolate lays flat and air bubbles are removed, and leave to set
Turn out chocolate carrots
With a damp brush, lightly paint the carrot tops with the green dusting powder

After posting about my bunny jars for Easter the other day, Bonnie Leigh from the blog Three o'clock on Tuesday suggested making mini ones using baby food jars. What a great idea! So I made some more bunny jars, this time using baby food jars and some very small bunnies I've had knocking about since last year which I bought from Acorn & Will.

Hand made chocolate carrots in mini bunny jar

Have a sweet day!

52 Weeks of Grateful: Slow

Glorious weather and two school holiday weeks shining ahead. Two school holiday weeks that have not involved mild panic - what to do with the schooless children?

Nope, just me, the kids, a week down the coast and guest appearances by a working husbie.

Could a pig in mud be any happier?

So, this week I'm grateful for...

227. The slow life - Got the chickens in, I'm distributing seeds, I borrowed these three wonderful books from the library this week. Says it all really.

228. Cousins - my Tsunamis have a very easy, familiar relationship with their six cousins and we can't wait to spend a bit of quality time with them.

229. Sausages - did I tell you we had 19 adults and 27 children here for dinner last Saturday night?

Come over and see me at Kidspot where I'm celebrating technology in general and, of course, the internet in particular. Where were you when you first saw the internet in action?

Join our Grateful community by adding your post to the list below (please add a link back to our list here or at Kidspot). Then visit some of the other lovely link-ups - it's a beautiful way to spend a little time. Oh, and it would be lovely if everyone visited a few of the 'late arrivals' to the list each week... it's sad to be late and not get any love, don't you think?

[Photo by Tim Coulson]