Beautiful Scandalous Night

God gave me a vision of a new take on my previous Tree of Life canvases & I absolutely love it!!


My friend showed me a coloured glass bowl she loves and I knew straight away I wanted to make a canvas that incorporated those colours, and would help decorate her new home.  The picture below is a photo I snapped off quickly of the bowl while I was visiting :-)

This project ended up being the quickest that I have ever completed a canvas, even though I employed a new technique!

But the first step was choosing the right colours and layering them correctly.

While that was drying I gathered the lyrics of one of my favourite songs of all time and printed them out in a nice font on standard printer paper. 

Beautiful Scandalous Night

 

go on up to the mountain of mercy
to the crimson perpetual tide
kneel down on the shore
be thirsty no more
go under and be purified

follow Christ to the Holy mountain
sinner, sorry and wrecked by the fall
cleanse your heart and your soul
in the fountain that flows
for you and for me and for all

Chorus
at the wonderful tragic mysterious tree
on that beautiful scandalous night you and me
were atoned by His blood and forever washed white
on that beautiful scandalous night

on the hillside you will be delivered
at the foot of the cross, justified
and your spirit restored
by the river that pours
from our blessed Saviour's side

- Chorus -

Bridge
you carry the sin of mankind on your back
and the sky went black
go on up to the mountain of mercy
go the crimson perpetual tide
kneel down on the shore
be thirsty no more
go under and be purified

- Chorus (2x) -
on that beautiful scandalous night
beautiful scandalous
miraculous night

 Miss 21 helped me to reverse the whole document so that the finished product would have readable lyrics.

Then took my standard Kaisercraft wooden tree that I have used on my previous Tree of Life canvases and, using gel transfer medium, applied the page of lyrics to the tree.  I left it to dry for 24hrs.

I have only used the transfer method once before and that was transferring photos to pine.

Removing the paper was a very delicate task & sadly some of the words did peel off.  I didnt have any problems with the photos peeling when I did them, but my SIL in law did, so in a way I was ready for it to happen.  Overall though the results were very good, and pretty much in line with how I wanted the tree to look when finished.

Once fully dry I sealed both the tree and the canvas, but separately.  Then I attached the tree to the canvas & it was done!  From start to finish the piece took me 3 days. :-)

But best of all.....my friend LOVES IT!  And she saw straight away that the colours matched her bowl!  How awesome is that??? :-D

Crispy Choc Peanut Slab

Hi this is Lyssa, commonly referred to here as 'Miss 21' and this is my recipe.

Ingredients:

Chang's Original Fried Noodles 100g x 4

Nestle Plaistowe Milk Chocolate 200g x 4

Smooth Kraft Peanut Butter x 8 Tbs

Rainbow Chocolate Chips

Melt the chocolate and peanut butter together, either on the stove or in the microwave, until combined & smooth.

Add noodles straight to your chocolate mixture. I crushed my noodles ever so slightly. Mix until noodles are fully coated with chocolate.

Line a 21 x 31 cm baking tray with greaseproof baking paper. Use a tray with larger measurements if you desire a thinner slice.

Pour mixture into prepared baking tray. Even out gently with a spatula.  Top with rainbow chocolate chip sprinkles.

Refrigerate until set. Mine only took a couple of hours. When set cut carefully. It is quite sweet so completely up to you how large or small you cut your servings. :-)

Lemon & Cumin Lamb

This is my go to marinade for lamb chop night!

But you can use it on any cut of lamb.  Mutton steaks were really cheap when my boys were little & I used this recipe all the time. Delish!

Simply marinade your lamb cut of choice in olive oil & cumin. The amounts really dont matter. Enough oil to coat your meat & a generous amount of cumin. You want to know it's there.

An hour or more is great, but honestly this can be done right before cooking, its that easy.

Sear the first side of your meat in your pan.  When you've turned your meat to cook the second side, squirt lemon juice straight into the pan, over the meat (watch out! It spits!)

Continue to cook until the lamb is as you like it.

That's it.

A winner every time.... ;-)

The Hat!

Miss 21 found a very well presented tutorial on YouTube (via Pinterest) on how to make your own party hat. 

You can view the video here.

We had to watch it through twice to fully understand the components and how the whole thing fit together but that was because the picture in our mind of how it should work was different to the reality.

While we made the hat we also had the video playing on the TV screen & we paused & rewound as needed until we were finished. 

I didn't take as many photos during the process as I should have as I was feeling a little stressed out that day, but I took a couple which I'm glad of now.

But once you watch the video you'll get the gist of where we were at in these pics :-)

Adding the final decorations was probably the hardest part as in the video the stems have soft wire to bend but everything miss 21 brought home had stiff nonbendable stems :-/

 

 As you can see Miss 21 was very happy with the results :-)

A Lalaloopsy Dance Party!

For Miss 9's birthday I knew straight away that I wanted to do a Lalaloopsy Doll theme.

Now just to fill in a gap; my mother has been making my childrens birthday cakes since about 2002. Because I know how wonderful it feels to prepare for a party without the added task of making the cake, I in turn have been making birthday cakes for other children on their birthdays. So I know how to make a decorated cake, but my mother is more experienced.  Well after Miss 5's birthday she hung up her apron.

It was probably biting off too much at once, taking into account the new task of cake making, but I didnt just have an idea for what cake I wanted to make. I had a THEME!  Lalaloopsy Dance Party!  Miss 9 had previously held a dance party at night. This one was going to be during the day so that we could all appreciate the costumes, and save myself a laser light hire... Not satisfied with the work load already I decided I should make my 3 little girls costumes myself so that they would be unique.  Hubby couldn't stop shaking his head at me....anyway....

First step; create Pinterest board! Easy! My Pinterest page for this party can be found here.

Miss Almost 21 & I spent a stressful hour at Spotlight trying to choose suitable patterns that were marked 'easy' (I haven't sewn in a while but Im sure its like riding a bike yeah?) while Miss 2 lay on the floor on her back, wailing & pushing herself across the floor with her feet.  So once we got home the thought of going back for material was like 'I don't wanna' so I raided the vastly reduced selection in my sewing cupboard. (I gave a whole tub of material away in the last 12 months...stupid, stupid...)

I found everything I needed for Miss 9 & Miss 5's outfit and the only material shopping I had to do was for Miss 2.  The pattern suggested bandana material and quite randomly, I had some! Yay! One less thing to find.

With school holidays approaching it was my best chance to knock out the costumes. Not everything went according to plan but I got them all finished at the end of the first week school returned. That worked out to about 3 weeks of sewing every other day.

The cake I had chosen seemed relatively easy except for the fact that I didn't want to use premade fondant. I wanted to make my own, but had never done it before. I used a very easy recipe from online. It can be found here.

Firstly I made a double batch to practice & used the practice fondant to make a stack of coloured fondant buttons, of which I needed 2 for the eyes but I made as many as I could because they were the backup plan for my cake if anything went wrong. I would just cover a round cake in buttercream icing & coloured buttons if all else failed. The recipe said the icing could last several weeks if stored correctly. I kept the buttons in Tupperware containers divided by layers of baking paper.

I baked the cake the day before. To mix things up a little bit I used a red velvet cake recipe and the layer of icing under the fondant was cream cheese icing. I was hoping it wouldn't be too sweet. That was the main reason I chose cream cheese icing over buttercream.

When I was ready to decorate the cake I made a fresh double batch of fondant & separated it into 3 portions; a large portion for the face (thanks to being made of marshmallows the fondant was already a beautiful pale pastel pink!), a very small portion to dye a darker pink for the cheeks, and a final large portion to dye yellow for the hair. I considered dying the hair blue but I had already decided I wanted her to have blue eyes so I made the cake doll blonde like Miss 9 :-)

It worked out really really well. To make up for some of the extra tasks I'd given myself the party food itself was very simple. Hot dogs & potato chips. It was a dance party after all. Everyone danced. Everyone had a blast playing the games.

I was a really really great morning & the cake was delicious! It wasn't too sweet, which had been a worry point. The kids ate it all up no dramas :-)

It was a party filled with coloured curled hair, lots of frills & ruffles, polka dot balloons, dancing & even a mermaid!

Thank you to my MIL who helped keep me focused & stay on track. She played with the kids so I could sew, helped me with a difficult part of the dress my tired brain couldn't figure out, and put her hand on my shoulder & said "relax" when she could see I was struggling to hold it together. :-)

A Slightly Different Art Journal

I had really wanted to give my daughter something sentimental for her 21st. My own parents had given me earrings & a mizpah charm which was engraved on the back. I wanted to give her something like that. My husband wanted to give her a practical gift so we purchased her a brand new laptop. She had only ever received hand me down computers.

A friend of mine came up with a wonderful gift idea for her daughter who was turning 18 & she was kind enough to share the idea with me.

Remember UP! ? Ellie has an adventure book which later becomes Karl's. My friends idea was to give her daughter her own adventure book. 

I went in a slightly different direction with the adventure book. I wanted a scrapbook that would be my daughters, captured some of her past & present to take with her, with 'the future' being soley hers.

I found a suitable journal straight away from The Scrapbook House. It was a good quality art journal. Due to a few things going on at home though I packed it away for a bit...and promptly forgot about it!

With about 10 days to go until party time I suddenly remembered it again. Panic stations! I could only work on it while my daughter was away at her night job. So I sat up every night she worked, until midnight, in order to get it finished. 

And then like the complete dumbo I am, on the day of her party, I was so caught up in hosting the perfect party, I forgot to give it to her! :-/ 

Anyway I remembered at a time where some of her close friends were still hanging around watching her unwrap her gifts. So I gave it to her & she 'got it' straight away & was very happy with it. 

I am very proud of what I made. I still need to add some journaling but over all this was a win. The finished result matched my vision :-)

Door Sign - Craft

Helped a friend get her craft groove kick started. We went shopping together a while back to grab basic supplies. We both topped up on what was needed from our own collection of 'things' at home.

The request was a door sign for a 1 yr old girls room, but not too girly; they are not really into pink. And the budget was minimal which is why we used as many items from our own supply as we could.

We cut the animals out of off cuts from the wallpaper that already decorates the little girls room. The letters of her name were cut with the Cricut, from complementary scrapbooking paper. All paint is Kaisercraft.

This is a good example of how great a basic low budget craft project can be.

As long as you take the time to plan and work on layers you can create something really great. 

Allowing for layers & paints to dry, including Dimensional Magic, we probably could have knocked this sign out in 2-3 days; but working around 2 households of kids & hubby's & all the others chores & demands that come with  our role as Mummies, it took us about a month.

Enjoy the Little Things

My husband & I have been married 10 years in August & I have only just recently been able to see my Mother in Law more regularly. 

We've made two trips to the NT to see her & she has made 3 trips to see us, until recently. At Christmas we went down to be with my husbands family & received a surprise visit from my MIL. That made two visits in less than 12 months.

She's now living in Perth & plans to stay with us regularly.

You may wonder at my excitement, and it is for me, I love my MIL and enjoy spending time with her, but it's for my children I am most excited.

When my Oma died in 1998 that visit to see her was going to be the 3rd time I had met her. I was 22 and I didn't even know if she would still be alive by the time we arrived from West coast to East.

We got to spend some time with her, my mother, brother, daughter & I. She spoke about things that were on her heart; the younger generation, her fears the world hadn't really learned from both World Wars...and then she passed away, 2 of her 3 daughters with her.

I had experienced a similar limited relationship with my Fathers Mother until I moved down to Perth when my eldest daughter was still an infant. She only lived an hours drive from me and I loved putting Lyssa in my car & taking her to visit Nana Campbell. 

But I only spent two years in Perth before moving North again. When I made rare travels to Perth I still went to visit but eventually those petered out due to her health. My Nana Campbell lived to be 97. She outlived my own 75 year old Father by just 3 months. But none of us had seen her in years as she had dementia & visiting her was upsetting for my dad & his family. 

I have a very special picture of my Miss 9 who was then just a baby. We drove down especially see Nana Campbell as we were told she would pass soon. She didn't know us, or the baby, but chatted happily & held her great grand daughter while we took photos, & I held her frail arm and prayed for her. She lived another 5 years. :-)

My children have been very fortunate that they have grown up with Grandparents living in the same town. Miss Almost 21 had 15 quality years with her Nan & Gramps before Gramps sadly passed away. The rest of the kids didn't get so much time, but they made the most of it and I certainly cherished it. 2 little grand daughters missed out. 

This is why I am so excited about my MIL being around more often. It's her time to be with the Grandkids, enjoy their company & let them get to know her. But it's also the younger children's time to learn what a wonderful relationship can be had now, to be cherished in later years :-)

My children won't just share stories they've heard of their Mad Nana, they will KNOW them & it will be THEIR children who will hear the stories.

Memory Lane, Craft Style

When I first started making photo gifts for the Grandparents, and other people, I didn't think to take any pictures & even if I did it wasn't as easy to share them back then, just a few short years ago.

In fact the last time we went to Mad Nanas house I looked at her display of items I'd made & realised I'd forgotten making most of them until I saw them again!

So when my MIL came up recently for a visit she brought back the first photo gift I ever made for her, as it needed some repairs, and I had the unique opportunity to revisit it, repair it & take pictures of it.

My skill has advanced a long way & the children in the frames are getting bigger, but the sentiment remains the same :-)

I'd say this item is from around 2006-07 approx; possibly earlier...