Fairy Park

I've been meaning to post these photos for a few weeks, they're from a little family outing one weekend to Fairy Park in Anakie just out of Geelong, which is far more famous for being the place where Mad Max was filmed (Anakie that is).  Anyway, we weren't too sure what to expect from Fairy Park; we hadn't really heard much about it so were prepared for a dodgy experience parallel to Kryal Castle in Ballarat.

But we were pleasantly surprised. At the end of the day big tough Daddy even commented that his cheekbones were sore from smiling so much. For us, it was a pretty fabulous and magical place ~ a really special place that has had so much obvious care and love poured into it and completely lacking in commercialism.  We loved the efforts to bring each of the different fairy tales to life, and the detail to attention in the grounds. Pretty special!!

And for the little Princess loving rainbow child, well she was in princess heaven; she got to see her favourites Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.  

I love this photo of her in absolute awe at the first of the fairy tale animations; Snow White. Her only concern was that Snow White normally has short hair and in this one she had long hair.

The attention to the architecture was incredible, so many castle like buildings and all those cobblestone paths!! I love the brightness of this pink castle, perfect for a princess!
A lot of the animations/exhibitions are housed in either parts of small castles or small houses like this one; this is the Three Bears' house.
Even the lunch area was well planned, we took a picnic lunch and ate at one of the hundreds of picnic tables.  There were a couple of huge shelters for BBQs and wet weather to eat in as well; castle shaped of course!  

Lily's getting a bit of exercise after gutsing down her lunch.

Love this draw bridge!
Adn to top it all off, once you've wandered through all the animations (which I haven't included many pics of here as you can see them on the website and they're hard to photograh LOL) there's an awesome playground to explore!! Slides, swings, you can climb up through the castle walls, seesaws, whirly things and heaps more.  
Oh, and check out this cheeky little guy flashing his bum, Lily laughed and laughed over him!!
And of course the place wouldn't be complete without little fairies scattered everywhere to be found.

some knitting pics

for the sister
these aren't all exactly really recent photos but they are some updates of my knitting projects.  I was halfway through knitting this little kimono jacket when I found out I was pregnant. It was a pattern I was keen to try as it's totally seamless (gotta love that!) and was created by the talented Jacki from the Complete Fabrication. It's a great little knit in 8ply, and makes a lovely quick gift :D

These little newborn size longies were knit up in a couple of days when I found out I was pregnant; the yarn is called Chocolate Encased Purple from memory, it's a lovely aran weight BFL that I bought from Baa-Bum. My longies pattern of choice is the Perfection Pants with a few personal alterations. 

Since then the morning sickness that has lingered all day has made knitting pretty much impossible until a couple of weeks ago.

So Lily became the recipient of a cute little hat. This is the Giving Pixie a beaut little pattern that comes from Little Turtle Knits.  This hat was so quick to knit and will be perfect for my little rainbow child for at least a few winters.  It's knit in Monsterknits Rainbow Lorikeet in an aran weight BFL. 

And lastly, now the knitting mojo is back this is cardigan for me; February Lady Sweater (an awesome pattern by  Flintknits based on Elizabeth Zimmermann's famous February  Baby Sweater) knit out of Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran in a lovely blue colour. My progress on this is a bit further than this photo suggests, I just have the sleeves to go :)

some customs

Thought I might share a couple of photos of some customs that I've been finishing off lately. These will explain why there hasn't been a lot of stock added to the shop of late.

Firstly, an appliqued pinnie. I don't usually do custom requests for pinnies as these are a special item, but this is for a special little girl who is about to turn four later this week. Luckily for her she has a very lovely mum who makes absolutely stunning nappies and just happens to be a very nice person also; so I negotiated for some new small nappies for our little bub.:D

This little set was a request from another lovely mum who has a bit of a thing for this dragon fabric. I was out of this fabric when she requested this custom, but luckily was able to track down a handful of charm squares so I could fulfill her request. This little boy is also going to be the recipient of the dinosaur fleece longies you saw previewing a couple of posts ago that Lily grew quite attached to. 

These are a little pair of size 00 fleece longies for a little girl who is one half of a set of twins. They have one size 00s between them already, now they'll have a pair each. Again, a request from another very lovely mummy who I'm hoping is getting a bit more sleep of late. Twin mums are bloody amazing I must say!!! 

some fleece longies up now

at the ozebaby store. Had to squeeze a couple in for the shop in amongst all the customs LOL

Now to finish off my custom list. I've really been enjoying doing customs this time around, usually it stresses me no end as I worry about getting things done quickly ~ and of course, it's Murphy's Law that you always seem to get asked for customs all at once ~ so when I'm doing customs I always seem to end up with a really long list.  I've been trying to work on the schedule of one custom to one stocked item, and that seems to be working well. 

the game

this is a little game that seems to be doing the rounds; join in; it's fun!

The instructions for the questions can be found on Starashan's or Monsterknitter's blogs.

1. Georgina Blu, 2. Flickr Loves Sushi. Mmm., 3. Macarthur - Victoria, 4. Amazing Thailand, 5. July 7: A Famous Magpie Victory 188/365, 6. Mithi chai tea, 7. i hear their laughs like they're here, 8. After a rather gloomy upload i think it's time for some cake! :) Go enjoy, 9. Gliding George, 10. duck to duck to duck..., 11. Zen like a rolling stone, 12. 私の蘭：So Pretty in Pink!

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

I do have a wooden heart

This post of three buttons about finding heart shapes in random places reminded me of something the sometimes romantic one dragged me out to his shed to show me last weekend.

A wooden heart! Cut as a round from a log.

This arrived at our place coincidentally already painted in this reddish colour. I'm assuming it's an off-cut from FIL's mill, he paints the ends of logs he's going to mill into planks and then turn into lovely stuff  (it's a lovely cycle of construction from felling the timber, to milling it to creating furniture) ~ I think maybe it stops the log from cracking or something, but then again I could be making that up a little!!  

FIL and MIL came down a few weekends ago to babysit Lily while we went to an engagement party and they bought with them a load of wood FIL had cut for us ~ I know, how very very lucky and spoilt are we!!!! 

After unloading the wood Andy found this piece, and in his romantic manner put it aside in his shed. I wonder if he'll sacrifice it when it's the middle of winter and it's our last piece of wood LOL 

World Environment Day 2008

Today is World Environment Day.

So yes, you can probably expect another environmental ramble. Look away now if you don't want to read on. 

Anyway, the theme for this year's WED is CO2, Kick the Habit. Towards a low carbon future. If you go to the  WED website  there are heaps of simple suggestions that ANYONE can implement for reducing their CO2 output, like changing your lighting globes over energy efficient ones, switching appliances off rather than leaving them on standby, switching your electricity to green, washing on cold or 30 degrees rather than hot and of course, taking public transport or riding your bike where possible.

Did you know that by merely reducing your car usage by a mere 20 kilometres a week you can prevent 300kg of greenhouse gas emissions from  being pumped into the environment each year?

On this topic, it has been good to hear the topic of reducing our own petrol consumption being raised in the media.  It's actually pretty detrimental, transport accounts for about 25 per cent of all the greenhouse gas emissions; that's pretty staggering really. 

If you're interested in knowing more about your own carbon footprint, take this little test at the Australian Conservation Foundation's website. It is pretty simplistic, and there are others like this out there, but it is good to get you thinking about what changes you can make to your own consumption to help.  It's interesting to also have a look at what is considered a sustainable footprint for Australians; it is pretty tiny.

Anyway, my husband is off to the United Nations Environment Day Awards Presentation tomorrow night; I'm going to get him to take notes on what the meal entails LOL  But I think it will be a pretty interesting awards ceremony with plenty of inspiring stories. He's going along with a group to represent the Australian Underwater Federation who have organised the Great Australian Shark Count. It's been so successful that it has quickly become the world's largest community shark count in a short time; it's pretty amazing. My husband hasn't been involved in the organisation of the count, the brains and guys behind that live in Queensland, and it really wouldn't be an environmentally  friendly option to fly to an Environmental Awards would it. 

Interestingly, World Environment Day has been going since 1972!!  Why the heck has it taken so long for environmental consciousness to catch on. Remember in the 80s all the focus on the Greenhouse Effect, and then that prime minister we had very recently (He Who Shall Not Be Named) who didn't actually believe in the Greenhouse Effect. Staggeringly there are still people who really just don't get it!!  And the government still isn't taking enough action!!

Oh, the photo above is our roofline. You can see our solar panels, they're nearly seven years old so have been serving us quite well for some time.  There are good subsidies available to install solar hot water services and the technology has progressed so much for solar hot water even in the years since we installed ours ;)  

dinosaur love

I've been trying to get some applique for some fleece longies done this weekend. Yesterday afternoon I had a series of appliques cut and all laid out on the fleece legs ready to be sewn. Only problem was that when I went to sew them, some of them had disappeared. Now I can be a little creatively untidy when I sew, and the pregnancy brain certainly doesn't help, but I was sure I'd left them all laid out.

I did find them shortly after, this little dinosaur was tucked away in his "forest" with the little Miss reading him stories.  The shark too, was looking on. I think this child spends too much time hanging out with her mother while sewing LOL

Lily was quite attached to the dinosaur, she had helped me choose what sort of dinosaur to draw after we sat down and looked through Dinotopia, so I guess it was only a natural response. (And yes, it is a very loose translation of a Brachiosaurus) I must say though, for a princess-mad fairy-loving tot, I was a little surprised she was so taken with the whole dinosaur thing, and had a great time talking about stomping and ensured me she loved him so very much!  
Finally, I was able to pry him out of her hands and sew him on.  He's pretty cute I think.  So here's what I've been working on, unfortunately, only two of these pairs are for the shop.  The rest are customs, including Lily's seastars which she is very excited about!

And a pair of black hemp wide legs that are for the shop. The pockets are made from recycled imported kimonos.  Gosh, it is sooo hard to photograph black accurately!!
  

First day of Winter

and some images from our garden

Drooping Sheoak in flower (allocasuarina verticilata) 

wood cut for the combustion heater

yellowgum in flower (eucalyptus leucoxlyn ssp. bellarinsia)

This sub species of the yellow gum is only found on the Bellarine Peninsula, 

unfortunately there's not many left.

Coastal Banksia (banksia integrifolia) 

The first winter flower high up in the tree.

Correa 'Dusky Bells'

Possum Banksia (banksia baueri)

I love the flowers on this shrub, they're huge, this one is nearly as big as my head!

Rosemary ( from the herb garden)

Three year old pretending to be scared of a tiny spider on the outdoor setting.