Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Craft wrap

Here's a little of what Little D (craft machine) has been up to recently.

Various mobile phones and computers. These things get around and are considered very precious. Little H needs his own so D makes them for his little brother. I have to check pockets before putting clothes in the washing machine because there is normally one of these inside. I don't have a photo of it but he made a really big computer a week or two ago and when he was doing it he called out to ask me how to spell Campos. When I looked at his computer later there it was, Campos scrawled across the screen. D explained that the Campos website is his homepage! Awe.

Little D calls this a Turtle Race. What that means is anyone's guess. Little H has been playing with it the past few days. He likes to put his hand inside the hole and, surprise surprise, shout out 'to the rescueeeeee' while making the motions of a rocket blasting off!

One afternoon last week Little D made this bunch of flowers and presented it to daddy when he got home from work. Each bottle top has a flower or two stuck inside.

A castle. The dungeon is that pink area on the left and there is a person inside it. He lives in the dungeon.

The middle figure is a knight riding a horse and together they rescue people. The far right is a knight wearing armour including a helmet which opens and closes, see previous photo for a view of it closed! Notice the metallic pen? D came running to me the morning he made this and said 'We have a problem mum. It's a big problem. We have LOST the lid to this pen! (Shoved lid-less pen in my face). You have to find it mum. I'm really busy with my castle and I'm having too much fun to stop and look for it!' He was extremely excited about this castle that's for sure. (I found the lid where most things go when they are lost - under the lounge).

Turtles, with shells made from things gathered at the beach recently. From left to right Little D tells me these are himself, Little H (who is sick and has a red face because of his high temperature - mmm, I wonder whose little brother was unwell recently?!) and me. It depicts us 'pretending to be turtles, we are not turtles in real life mum'.

Just one of MANY signs that Little D has been making for months now. A while back Will brought home from work a Seton catalogue. (If you follow the link you'll see why it is one of D's most treasured possessions)! It contains every single sign you could ever imagine and D has been copying them and putting them all over the house. Here's something else that was inspired by said catalogue, which if I remember correctly took place just days after it's arrival on D's craft table.


A couple of recent drawings. Both, like most of D's drawings at the moment, show himself, Daddy and Little H. It's rare for mummy to feature in his pictures which is why I included that turtle one above! He has taken to labelling everyone with their initial and arrows to avoid any confusion as to who someone is.




We toasted marshmallows over a camp fire on the deck this afternoon. Little D collected sticks on our walk (car free Wednesday folks!) home today and together we worked out how best to make a pretend fire. Highlights for Little D included using the stapler to join coloured paper together for the flames and working out how to stop the flames blowing away (play dough did the trick). Little H enjoyed taking the marshmallows on and off the stick and on and off and on and off and....

I've been collecting bottle tops and lids for some weeks now for no real reason other than the thought that they'd make an interesting craft supply for D. Once I had a good pile I placed them on D's art table without even pointing them out to him (yeah, that old trick strewing)! I knew it wouldn't be long before he found a way to use them and this is one of them. He calls it Swimming Pool and More Swimming Pools. You'll notice the bottle tops feature in several creations in this post. I saw this way of using bottle tops yesterday which we may have to try, I think the little one would especially dig it, he's pretty into shakers and just percussion instruments in general lately.

Something a little more obscure. D calls it his 'catching thing'. Coat hanger, straw, spoons, string, lots of sticky tape. Doesn't look like much, but obviously if you are inside D's head there is something very special about this - he played with it for a couple of hours today. I love how something strange but simple like this, along with a good dose of the ole imagination, can be so entertaining.


O.k. This isn't Little D or the result of his crafting efforts. (Boy- that'd be some serious crafting effort if it where)! But it is what I see my little one doing a lot of lately and how he spent some of his afternoon today. He is all about Bay-beeee at the moment. Few things sweeter if you ask me!

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Delicious Weekend

Well that was a weekend I would happily do all over again. I'd say that Will and the boys would agree. Nothing completely out of the ordinary or amazingly spectacular but plenty of sunshine, and little adventures. On Saturday I got along to my Tai Chi class and then onto a movie with a friend. It amounted to over 5 hours of 'me' time, which is not to be scoffed at my friends! The kids ran exciting (for them) errands with Will. The sort that involved purchasing a new plug for the kitchen sink - which we've only needed for about oh, 12 months or so - and hunting down an unusual size light bulb. They then spent the duration of our very long movie with mentioned friend's hubby and children at the playground. The day ended with a delicious meal at our favourite Lebanese restaurant.

Today we took a drive down the coast to one of our wholesale accounts, just for fun. The food was delicious and the coffee was of course fantastic too. We took the scenic route home through the National Park and saw a whale! How cool is that?! Our afternoon consisted of pasta making for our delicious dinner this evening. Plenty of deliciousness, of the food variety and otherwise, this weekend.







Thursday, August 5, 2010

House bound

Little H has reverted back to day sleeps while his body fights off whatever lurgy lurks within this week. This afternoon is the first time all week that he's let me put him down while sleeping and my back is cheering! We've had a very sedate week so far and have barely left the house.


Which doesn't seem to bother Little D one bit. The child is so content just doing what he does. Playing and crafting, for the most part by himself. Lately all his playing involves him quietly muttering to himself, being the 'voice' for his toys who talk to each other about what's going on. I love tuning in. Words that come up often are - rescue, mission, refuel, fire, emergency, space, delivery and computer.

I, on the other hand, am feeling a little bit restless from all this trapped in the house business. Saturday mornings Tai Chi (sword form) class is looking extremely attractive right now. I went along to my first ever class last weekend and I. Love. It. Wow! Where have you been all my life Tai Chi?!




Sunday, August 1, 2010

It's done!

The pruning that is. Will likes to prune. Pruning is his favourite thing to do in the garden. Not weeding or re-potting or planting seeds or watering. He likes his gardening adventures to involve the use of secateurs and a ladder. A shame we don't have an orchard of some kind. Instead we have just 2 little trees, only one of which requires pruning. Anyway, it's the right time of year for pruning Crepe Myrtle's and while it took less than 10 minutes to complete - it was quite possibly the highlight of the weekend for Will and Little D! The Crepe Myrtle has been pruned. And that's it for another year of pruning for my beloved.

Little H and I enjoyed an afternoon of sitting in the sunshine by the back doors. He isn't feeling so well and has been spending most of his time the past couple of days (and right now in fact) in my arms.


Drifting in and out of snooze land while I work on what is quite possibly the longest running project of my life. A crocheted blanket which I kid you not, I actually began about 18 years ago around 14 years of age. A few of the granny squares give some real insight into my mind as a teenager - some of those colour combo's leave a little to be desired! Anyhoo, it has thus far had no running theme or anything to tie it all together so after poking around my wool stash and purchasing a few extra balls I have decided to try to tie it all together with Red. Wish me luck - this is (or should I say will be eventually) my first crocheted blanket!






Friday, July 30, 2010

Sulawesi great, next up Gautemala

It's been a crazy busy week here work-wise but Will has finally been able to write a little about his Sulawesi experience over on the home-page of our company website here. Also check out the Updates From HQ in the Campos News section for more details and photos....for some reason I'm having trouble linking directly to it.

I'm so excited that the kids and I will be tagging along on our next direct trade coffee trip....to Central America this time! Picking season is December through to late February and we've yet to knuckle down and book flights etc. but it has to happen within that timeframe. Guatemala is a definite (we've already met the lovely family who will be hosting us there - a crazy and wonderful couple with a baby girl who treated us to a night of Guatemalan food, music and dancing right here in Sydney last year) and possibly El Salvador and /or Costa Rica too.

Totally unrelated to coffee, here are a few snapshots from our week.

On the beam. Little D began a junior gymnastics class with some other wee homeschooled children last week. He LOVES it!

Doing the dishes. This is the favourite job of the month. So much so it's kinda driving me crazy. Deep breaths, plenty of towels to mop up the splashes and letting go of the notion that doing the dishes should only take a few minutes is helping me to get through it!

I don't know what Little H is playing here. But the headband was necessary, as was the little red sticker on his hand which he kept 'pressing' so that it went beep! And choo choo!

Side by side but lost in their own separate tasks in the Craft Corner. Which continues to receive a crazy amount of attention from Little D. Below is something I found on his craft table this afternoon. Obviously the mountain of craft materials at, under and beside his table wasn't enough today and he went looking in the fruit bowl for inspiration.

Happy weekend to you all!

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Rainbows and umbrellas

On his way home from Sulawesi Will had a stopover in Bali. Nothing says Balinese like a tie dyed sarong! He got Little D and Little H one each to play with as they please. And after a couple of days of being stuck inside due to rain here's how they're being used at the moment. Colourful fabric and pegs - everything you need for a fantastic cubby. Oh and one can not forget the sleeping bag, a cubby simply isn't a cubby without a 'bed'. Little D's favourite thing about the cubby? He can stand up in it! Our normal attempts at cubby building usually result in something less grand and require crawling into and sitting only.

We ventured out for a rainy walk this morning. Just because. Any excuse to put on gumboots and use umbrellas goes down well with these boys. Little D is looking out for his brother here, telling him to Stop! Driveway ahead! Little H is wearing his cape or as he calls it his 'tooo-tha-res-queeeeeew" (to the rescue).

Saturday, July 24, 2010

So I finished something finally...

Introducing Roberto Robot. My first softie. I first came across him here. Which lead me to his creators blog, which lead me to this post here. I deviated a little from the pattern, both intentionally (those square button eyes) and by accident (the un-boxed lower body - you can see how it should have looked here).

I used fabric entirely from my stash including that super duper metallic stuff and the fluorescent orange velvet which mum gave me recently. At first I thought the result a little scary and left him unfinished for a few days by the sewing machine while thinking about what to do. Should I take out all the stuffing, turn it inside out again and box the corners of the body to get rid of those hip wings? Should I get ready for some serious unpicking and re-do his whole face without those freaky big square button eyes?

What I hadn't counted on was Little D coming across him before I was done thinking...and Little D LOVED what he saw. The kids rarely venture up the spiral staircase to my sewing area but on Wednesday D asked for some orange fabric for something he was working on at his craft table and I didn't think to run ahead and hide my robot-in-progress until it was too late.

So apparently my concern that I had created a nightmare-inducing freaky toy was unwarranted and he is not so scary after all! Last night I finished up by hand-stitching the opening and left him on D's bed to discover in the morning. That was his idea. Mum, he said at bedtime, make sure you finish my robot and put him on my bed so I see him when I wake up.

Today his robot, as yet unnamed (but not Roberto thanks mum!), was the centre of all D's play. And he even obliged me with a cheesy photo session as you can see...