plain old rectangles

cards
Originally uploaded by djbebe

After an exhausting day of running errands and thrifting and haircuts and so on, it seems all my crafting brain could cope with tonight was rectangles. No overlapping, no embelliishment, just rectangles. And now I'm going to bed - goodnight!

tiger tongues

tiger birthday cake
Originally uploaded by djbebe

This photo is a bit old - sorry blog, for cheating - but the thing that I've spent all day working on and just finished (yay!) has to stay secret until Kim has her baby. (Not long now!) So instead, you can all admire the totally awesome cake that HandyMan and I made for my nephew Henry's second birthday. I somewhat foolishly volunteered for the cake making duties since the mother and grandmothers were all sick or too busy. I seem to recall I was also sick and too busy but the alternative was my mother slapping up some cake mix and sticking some smarties on top. Henry might not have cared that much but I did - so armed with the Women's Weekly Birthday Cake book, some pinking shears and a whole lot of butter, we whipped this cake up in record time. Squashed marshmallows for eyes, licorice stripes and the tongue is made from an orange sugar jube, cut in half so the shiny side is showing - and irresistable to a 2 year old. I attempted to get Henry to admire and appreciate the artistic skill involved in making such an awesome looking tiger - yeah, it's a tiger, whatever - but he just kept reaching for that shiny tongue. And there's only a certain amount of time where it's socially acceptable to keep a small child away from his own birthday cake.

tea and sympathy

sympathy flowers
Originally uploaded by djbebe

This has been a very long week, and I'm totally pooped. My grandfather, known to everyone as Pa, passed away on Sunday. It wasn't unexpected but that only makes so much difference. He'd been in hospital for the last five weeks, gradually getting worse. I saw him in the hospital on Saturday and that was one of the hardest things I've done. He looked so small and empty, like a shell. Then Tuesday was my birthday and Wednesday was the funeral. So I've been giving hugs and having cups of tea and washing dishes and looking after my grandma all week. They were married for 61 years. He was very special, always had time for everyone, and is very loved.

It has been good though, in a way, to have the time to spend with family that we don't see that often. I also managed some diversionary crafting, as you may have noticed. But now I'm going to have a beer and veg in front of the telly. Goodnight!

platypus for Henry

platypus
Originally uploaded by djbebe

Inspired by the lovelies I saw at Two Little Banshees - go check out her etsy store - I made a platypus for my nephew Henry's birthday - he'll be 2 in 2 weeks. Think he'll know what it is?

cover for a dvd player

cover for a dvd player
Originally uploaded by djbebe

I whipped up this cover for my little nephew's portable dvd player - he's almost 2 - that keeps him amused on long car trips. On their last trip up this way they said he was very concerned by the viewing - chewing his fingernails, frowning etc. I asked what he was watching, they said Chicken Little - now I remember seeing this at the movies and there were aliens and big spaceships and scary stuff - so I said they should stick to Tractor Tom for the moment.

Anyhow, they said the player was getting dusty in the car so I said I would make them a cover for it. I just hope I've put the holes for the cords in the right places. You know when you measure something and then when it's not in front of you any more you're can't be absolutely sure that you wrote it down right? Well they're back coming back tomorrow so we'll see.