Swine Shenanigans

A story of a swine feast in pictures, one that took days of preparation...

The clam shell purchased especially for the pig, not for sand or water, much to the disappointment of the children

Coke bottles took a while to collect, but was done with pleasure!

The tool box came out. Things must be serious

A family affair. Extension cords needed to be untangled

The custom made, engineer designed sprocket

There was no shame in using child labour

The all important water wheel coming together

Because we are all about OH&S. Swimming goggles as protection. Tick

Time for action

Cutting to length

Attaching the water vessels

Shouldn't move...

The swine arrives! And fits into its temporary home

Back up help has been called upon. Peel 46 cloves of garlic please

The swine gets a rub...

...before being injected with the garlic citrus secret juice

Time to assemble the spit

This is when we're glad mum and dad has so much junk lying around...

Oma is here to tell us how it's done

The day has come. The potato trays are in place. Coal going in.

Poking the pig

Securing it

The anaesthetist could be a surgeon too

Final touches

Setting up the water-wheel mechanism

The pig turns!!!

The ingenious contraption using the power of recycled water!

The pig is done. Enough to feed 25 people for a few days!

Bible Bag

On Friday, we started a project to make Elliot's bible bag. Well, today we made a dash to complete it. Unfortunately the dash was so efficient that we forgot the appliqué that was meant to go on the front of the flap! Luckily the bible fits...

The flap and the strap

The body of the bad

The bible fits! Phew...

Very happy with his new bag

The design that we were aiming for.

Prelude To A Long Weekend

It was always going to be a good day for the children. I woke up with no voice, and anything I squeaked out just made me sound like Scooby Doo. We got dressed for a very warm spring day with a top temperature of 33 degrees Celsius and set out for our first stop of the day, Costco. We had to replenish our weekly 9L supply of milk, stock up on snacks for our boating trip tomorrow and drinks for a party the following day.

Unbelievably, there was no traffic at 8.51 in the morning. This is unheard of for Sydney roads. Consequently, we arrived rather early at our destination. We took the opportunity to get poll parking position with the Costco carpark and strolled across the road to the conveniently placed Spotlight. We had things to purchase.

Elliot's much loved bible needed a cover. Having looked at the stock standard covers, we then decided that perhaps a bible bag might be better. The inspiration came from a pin on Pinterest. Luckily, instructions were included. We had Malcolm's old jeans to use, as well as Lara's old school uniform to recycle. All we needed was the magnetic snap closure.

Hopefully what Elliot's bag will look like when finished...

The bible that is to be protected

It was rather fun wandering around in Spotlight looking at buttons, various snap closures, materials, bits and pieces for arts and crafts. We ended up walking out with a glue gun prepared to make some hair bows for Lara and a flower corsage for me out of my old pyjamas...Stay tuned to see how far this whim goes!

Walking out of Spotlight with our loot

We headed back to Costco to line up for entry. We had our obligatory Costco lunch and churros after our shopping spree. It was then back home to start on our project. With all the pieces cut out, we needed to wait for Daddy to make our way up north to Oma's house to borrow her sewing machine. Alas, when we got there, we discovered that we forgot to bring our keys! So no sewing for today. Once again, stay tuned for the results of the bible bag!

Costco rope drop!

I don't know why I keep taking photos of churros...I can't help it!

Cutting up daddy's old jeans

Is child labour illegal?!?!

Time to chop up Lara's old uniform for the lining

We went back home and picked Malcolm's grandfather up along the way for a dinner of butter chicken and roti. Everyone loved it! Its an early night tonight in for another big day tomorrow.

Butter chicken, roti and beans

Someone enjoying it just a touch too much!

The Next Project

After a long hiatus and having had the time to marvel at Irene's phenomenal Nemo costume, I have decided to embark on my second sewing project. I settled on a pretty summer skirt. There will certainly be no time pressure to complete this project in a hurry! I picked a pattern from the multiple books that I bought from Amazon.co.uk and took my mother-in-law along for a fabric shopping expedition at the mega Spotlight in Auburn. I was quickly reminded of the reason that I BUY my clothes. Fabric is not cheap in Australia! At least not the ones that I was interested in...

Sew Serendipity, one of the MANY books purchased thanks to Amazon UK's free delivery to Australia offer

I bit the bullet and chose some fabrics. This had better be a skirt that looked different from anything that can be purchased from the shops! The paper for the pattern has been picked up from my mother's and I learnt that mother-in-law owns a ruffler attachment. Bonus! No more gathering ruffles by hand. I'm set to go. I am posting this to keep myself accountable and not shove the project aside. Let's see how long I take...

Pretty in blue hopefully...

My Next New Obsession...Digital Scrapbooking

It all started with this...

I wanted to have a special "front" page for my photo book and it frustrated me that I was not able to create anything that worked using the photo book software. I also had a problem of not being to fit in everything that I wanted to capture from our trip. I then remembered the concept of digital scrapbooking and decided to look into it in greater detail. Unfortunately, I became obsessed! I now knew what I wanted and had to learn how to do it. It was rather fortunate that we had purchased ourselves Photoshop CS5 before the trip...A crash course it was. I had one week to utilise the awesome discount being offered for the photo book and I wasn't going to miss it! I downloaded freebies online, bought some digital scrapbooking kits myself, set to work and the page above was born.

I couldn't stop there...I discovered an amazing site called mousescrappers dedicated to scrapbooking all things Disney! I was in heaven. I now have the solution to capturing those special moments at Walt Disney World in a way that I was not able to in my photo book. I was motivated to create a scrapbook of our first trip to WDW as a family. I purchased a voucher for a 12 x 12 photobook that was 40% off (Yes I know... Many things in my life are driven by discounts.) I have until the end of August to complete my new project. But it doesn't end there! I have now scrapbooked Lara's Birthday invite, an announcement for mother's group at church as well as other "precious" moments. There is no stopping this new scrapbooking machine!!!

Next I need to learn how to credit people correctly for their bits and pieces...

My recent announcement at church for Mother's Group

The invite for Lara's Birthday. One of my very first layouts.

The likely front cover for our WDW scrapbook, inspired by a layout posted on Mousescrappers

Some other pages that I've started