Next Project

Ok I have decided my next project will be creating an 1880's dress. I'm very excited about this, I've found some fabulous material. I'm all about recycling so i make a lot of my dresses etc. out of doona covers as they can be picked up pretty cheap and you get a lot of fabric. I will down load some photos as i progress in my sewing :)I may also be having a workshop!

Camping Trip to Lake Somerset

We have been planning this trip for ages! Finally the September school holidays arrived and we were ready or so we thought lol. A friend of Fitzpatrick was letting us use his boat and so the day before we were to leave Fitzpatrick decided to just try the motor and give it a run and guess what? it didn't go! Typical Brown adventure.. But luckily our neighbor is a (Magician) mechanic and fixed it for us! So the next morning off we went on our camping trip with our road tripper friends, Edward,Elanor and Brandon. Also my mum was meeting us there and Fitzpatrick's parents as well. We just get to Kilcoy and i get a phone call from Fitzpatrick that he had done a wheel bearing on the trailer and he was just waiting for some help.(We usually travel in 2 cars when we go camping as all the camp gear goes in the ute and i take mine with the food and kids ) Fitzpatrick's parents were behind him so picked up the boys, who were riding with dad in his ute, and continued on to the camp site. When they arrived they had also picked up the tent and big tarp that goes over the camp site so we could get started putting up the camp site. We ATTEMPTED to put the huge tarp up without Fitzpatrick's help. Very sad job i must say lol but it was the best we could do. So we set up camp and waited for Fitzpatrick to arrive.. waiting...waiting...waiting... finally he arrived, we all cheered and shouted!

The big boys took the boat down to the water and put it in.. the motor didn't work..lucky they had a second motor, but then they got the big one working again but as with all our adventures nothing goes to plan,they discovered that the forward and reverse were around the wrong way lol. As our niece pointed out as she was watching them " How embarrassing " So funny! but typical, Fitzpatrick didn't care and off the boys went!

They spent most days out on the boat but we only caught one yabby which we gave to Fitzpatrick's dad for his birthday lunch.

On Tuesday my sister came out and visited us for the day and we took the kids swimming and when we came back they all went and played in the boat for a while and played make believe. It was fun to watch the kids play.

We packed up on the Wednesday and it took us two days to recover from our relaxing week camping lol

18 th century shoes to die for!!

I would just like to show everyone what elegant foot wear is absolutely beautiful. These shoes would go with practically any costume or evening outfit.

Medieval Costume

A good friend of mine is having a "Princess Bride" costume themed party for her 40th birthday, so i have been costume making again. I'll post photos shortly. I love finding clothes to turn into costumes! And i'm in the process of making a dread pirate Roberts costume for Fitzpatrick :)

more photos will be added as i finish making the rest of the costumes...

Fitzpatrick's birthday cake

I thought i would do a camping theme this year for hubby's birthday cake i think it turned out fairly good ( as i'm no where near as good a cake decorator as my sister)

There is a chocolate lobby net in the pond full of gummi lobbies ready for the fire lol
I used after dinner mint sticks for the fire and firewood stack, tent poles and log seats. I thought I'd taken more photos of the cake but obviously i didn't!

Regency Tea Party

Arrrh my love of Regency!! I used to live in Canberra but was unaware of the Jane Austen group down there until after i had moved away from the area "Bummer" So i decided that since i couldn't go down there for the events i would do something at my place.. So that is where the adventure began..I called my sister and told her that i wanted to have a Regency Tea party, costume required :)I enlisted her to do the invites and they turned out fabulous, everyone loved them. My mother in law who is an op shop addict like me also helped me find all my fab crockery and silverware and of coarse costume hunting (which i must say turned into a bit of an obsession lol)And lots of sewing and bonnet making. My sister rang and told me that she was going to make a regency corset so i decided that i would give one of those a go too. and i must say i am happy with how it turned out. I actually made two with a third cut out ready to go, i made one but made the bust too big but it was able to fit my mother in law so i gave that one to her, then i made one for myself with adjusted bust and then i started making a short stay corset which i ran out of time making for my party but will make at a later stage.. as i have decided to make it an annual event. I took the corset pattern from http://www.koshka-the-cat.com/1830_pattern.html and tweaked it a bit and got my lovely Mr Fitzpatrick to carve me a busk and it was done.

Regency corset Front

Regency Corset Back

My busk nicely carved


I also made a chemise and petticoat..

petticoat and hem

and my dress

And my Bonnet, i took the pattern off the "Elizabeth Bennett" bonnet on the BBC version of "Pride and Prejudice".

i also made out fits for all the kids here is a family shot

I made Fitzpatricks Breeches as well which he went on and on about but i think they looked fantastic and he was happy to wear them on the day so that was nice :)

i really like this one of my hubby

Morning tea spread:

i forgot to get photos of the morning tea table set up but i did get photos of the evening tables:

I really had a great time and am looking forward to doing it again and making more gowns and bonnets !!

my next project is a medieval party so I'll shall be costuming again soon

xx

Camping trips

I thought i'd better do a bit of an update before i added my latest post. We have become campers! We got all kitted out and have been a few times now and our next lot of camping is September so we are very excited. The kids love it and it is so relaxing! Our goal is to go somewhere different every holidays :)

Breakfast at the Beach

We went to Redcliffe on Saturday for breakfast. We were right on the water enjoying our early morning Breakie. Beautiful. We went up with Edward,Eleanor and Brandon. Then the kids wanted to go swimming so we went around to Margate and had a swim and Jayne collected heaps of shells. We then had chips for lunch there. After lunch we headed for Burpengary for a baptism and our friends headed home.The Baptism was really lovely and then we went back to Our friends house for nibbles. It was great to catch up and to see their kids get Baptized.

Glow worms for FHE

Monday night i decided for family home evening we would talk about the creation and as the activity we would drive down to the glow worm caves at natural arch and then have dessert at the caves.So i gave our good friends Eleanor and Edward a call to see if they where up for a bit of an adventure and of course they were! We had our lesson at home then told the kids that for the activity we had to go for a drive...but didn't tell them where we were going. I'd packed hot chocolate in a thermos and chocolate brownies and marshmallows for the treat into my backpack for after the walk to the glow worm caves. We left at 6:30pm to go and meet our friends at their place then went off together. (Roadtrip lol) We got to natural arch late and off we went night bushwalking, all the kids had their torches and were all so excited.The girls where especially excited because they looked like fairies glowing. I was being a bit of a torch Nazi because i didn't want anyone to shine the glow worms with the torches and kill them so i was telling everyone to keep their torches OFF in the cave. lol Then when we walked back up from the cave we found a picnic table and had our treat.There was a couple of bus loads of Japanese tourist who were very interested in us having our picnic at night and we were getting a few looks :) and of course the big boys were playing it up a bit too! And a must before we left was for everyone to experience the drop loos with there lovely fragrance. Then we headed back home and arrived at about 11:30pm with sleeping children and lizzie didn't even get hurt and no one was sick!

Another successful Brownie adventure!

Queensland Floods

So much for a Happy New Year..I believe all those prayers for rain have been answered but sadly some people lost loved ones in this flood disaster. I have donated where possible but unable to help with the clean up but Fitzpatrick has been out there getting muddy and helping people in the community. It was a weird experience as we are about 15 mins from Brisbane and while we were not effected just 15-20 mins down the road there was a major flood happening. Fitzpatrick's work office is along Kangaroo point and he took some video footage of the swollen Brisbane river. He said it was an amazing sight. Hopefully we will be able to continue to support people effected by this event.

Happy New Year 2011!!!

Staying up late and making new goals for the new year..Isn't that what new year's eve is about? Well i didn't stay up late or make new goals as i pretty much have constant goals so they roll over to the next year :) But i did have a fabulous New Years weekend! I went up to my sisters place in Toowoomba for the weekend. My mum lives in Toowoomba as well so we went to dinner at her house with my sister and her family too for New Years eve Stayed til about 7;30pm as my mum was going out dancing (party animal that she is lol) So we went back to our unit where we were staying and watched the early fireworks on TV. Then went to bed. I was woken up at midnight when the fireworks went off but was back to sleep about 12:15am. New Years day we went to the park with my sister and her family and my mum and a friend of my sisters for a BBQ lunch as is the Aussie thing to do! The kids had a great time and Lizzie didn't hurt herself once! We of coarse had way too much food and i think we all rolled home. The kids had a little game of cricket and had a throw of the frizzbie. I think my sister decided she wanted to get wet as she started an ice war!! lol So much fun and bought back a lot of good memories! It was a fabulous day! It started to rain late in the afternoon so we headed back to our unit. My mum wanted me to go dancing with her on Saturday night so i went and bought a new dress,such a shame that lol, it was on sale so that's alright,right? So Saturday night i went old time dancing with my mum. It was great!!! I haven't done dancing since i got married..I so want to start dancing again(sigh)..i could of stayed all night but i had to get home..

Sunday morning mum came over to our unit and we had a BBQ brekkie thanks to Fitzpatrick's great BBQ skills and then we said our goodbye and headed for home so we could get home in time for church...which we did.

Monday we headed up to Coolum Beach for the day and yes i slip slop slapped everyone and we were only out in the sun for a couple of hours and then we went to the maroochy river and had a picnic lunch watching everyone fishing. Then we headed home.When we got home everyone got showered and ready for bed and that's when i discovered i had got very sunburnt!! Och i am really sore! So Fitzpatrick has been playing doctor for the past few days re applying sunburn cream to my shoulders and back... lucky i haven't had to go anywhere much..I've been living in my pj's so i don't have to wear a bra and have straps on my shoulders lol...next time i have to remember to re apply sunscreen to ME too!!