Sushi

Are you familiar with these contraptions? I got this a couple of months ago and it's been pretty good so I thought I'd give it a little plug.

It's a Sushezi Sushi Maker, I got mine at Robins Kitchen. Basically it's just a device which you pop your sushi rice and filling into, compress, and then you push out it out straight onto your nori sheet.

Sounds like something you shouldn't need any kind of device to be able to do, doesn't it? Except I am exceptionally crap at making sushi rolls without it. Without it my sushi rolls are misshapen, deformed messes, barely resembling the shape of a roll at all.

But using this, much better.

I made these this afternoon, they're in the fridge ready for lunch tomorrow.

My sushi usually involves left over chicken (as above) or tinned tuna, with carrot, cucumber or avocado. Whatever is in the fridge, generally.

Therefore I will not be showing my kids the likes of this.

Not even sure what's in that, to be honest.

And while this is not sushi I have to share it with you because it is so stinkin' cute.

A Little Bit Royal

Ok, so apparently not everyone is interested in the Royal Wedding, but it is TODAY and in honour of that, I bring you some crowns. (I neither love nor hate the royals but I will be watching the wedding and I do love me a crown)

Oh my lord, there sure are an awful lot of crowns out there, something to please everyone I think.

Simple ones such as this little lovely found here.

This feathers-and-butterflies-within-a-crown crown I have seen quite a lot on the net, so much so I have no idea of the original source.

One of my favourites, I think, is this book-ish crown from  here

 This one which I call the 'chicken wire and glitter' crown by the super talented Pam Garrison. Would love to make one of these one day. One day.

Oh dear, everytime I go to describe the next crown I find myself saying 'ooh, ooh, this is one of my favourites'. Can they all be my favourite?

Of course Etsy provides some of the very best in handmade crowns.

Such as these next two from sweetvioletjane.

A little more Regal from Kiss the Groom.

Completely perfect, completely simple, and completely accessible to the masses. In yellow. I love. (found here)

After breakfast here this morning we went all hoighty-toighty (I'd ask you if I spelt that right but I don't think they are actual words) and made some crowns of our own.

Ruby's features intricate drawings (done with Crayola Twistables) of the Palace, the Royal carriage, and Royal horses. She wore it to school.

Clary's features some very regal and posh scribbling (again, Crayola twistables, nothing but the best). He took his to kindy.

Mine (modelled by Ruby) is a dunny roll featuring cheap and nasty glitter as my precious pot of lovely vintage glass glitter is currently nowhere to be found. Actually I was surprised at how good that cheap glitter looked.

I'm not wearing it but I just might be thinking about popping it on for the rest of the day after this post.

*I totally want to scream and rant and rave because all of these pictures are so much nicer than they look here. Blogger is doing my head in*

Smile Sewing

OK, I have managed one more sewing project for my self, here it is. Again, from one of my beloved Japanese sewing books 'Smile Sewing' (how cute is that!)

I chose this pinni/apron type dress because it's a style I love and it looked like it wouldn't be too hard.

Just a quiet word on the quality of these pictures. Yeah, it's terrible, I know. I am trying to work it so that my pictures can be bigger,  but in bringing you bigger pictures I have completely lost the quality. So I am going to keep on researching this annoying issue, if you can bare with me. And if you have any tips on this, I'd love to hear them.

I used fabric I already had for this, some stuff I had picked up at the op shop. I'm not sure if it's linen or some kind of blend but when I saw these photos.............ewwww, it wrinkles up nice and good!!! (this dress had been ironed prior to wearing this morning.

I really love it, although sadly it's already got stains on it (chainsaw oil, don't ask).

The top from my previous post - stained also (splattering oil while making salmon patties on Good Friday).

I really must wear my apron more often.

Sewing for me.

Super quick post as I am right in the middle of unpacking and re-packing right now. Travelled yesterday so Clary could have his full cast put on today. He is being very good with his arm, it does not seem to be bothering him much at all (it certainly has not slowed him down!!).

So, to help me deal with my grief over the fact that my children will no longer wear clothes which I have made them, I've decided to start making for myself.

I'm sticking with my Japanese sewing books and really loving them.

 As I am not a super seamstress in any way, I picked something very simple, this top here.

 I used a grey linen (I think it may have been a linen blend, actually), nice and simple.

 My workmanship is pretty poor but I seriously could not care less in this case. I love it. It is super comfortable, my new favourite top.

 My self portraits suck, but this is it, on.

 I think the kids were up to no good when I took this one.

I have plans for more 'me' sewing, as soon as I can.

Un-Fun Times

So just a word of caution which I am very sad to bring you following yesterdays post in which I was saying, in a nutshell, "I want to simplify my life so I can spend more time enjoying my family because they are so precious."

When you go to give your children some extra quality time and attention, choose your activities wisely or you might end up like us, spending the day at the hospital.

Yes. He has a broken arm. We were on the trampoline and had a bit of a collision. I landed on top of his arm.

We spent from 8.30 this morning until 3.30 this  afternoon in and out of the hospital (in and out because they were super busy and we had long waits between being seen).

I've always thought it pretty amazing that he hasn't had any broken bones before now. I've NEVER thought that if there was a broken bone incident that it would be because of me!!

He has just a backslab/splint on there and we have to wait now for an appointment at the Fracture Clinic at a hospital which is about two and a half hours away, for a full cast to be put on. Just crap.

He is being a real trooper but absolutely hates that splint and I don't know how it's going to go. Will have a cast on for four weeks :(

I feel so awful.
P.S. If your were utterly dismayed at my sad Easter Bonnet in yesterdays post I'll just let you know that I did add a couple of little paper pom poms to it and perk it up a little more.........I still have a little way to go with letting go on this stuff. Ruby wore it proudly and Clary proudly wore his old Akubra with some cheap shop chicks hot glue gunned to the brim.

Keeping it Simple

Today everything had to be simple, it had to be easy, it had to be enjoyable.
I am focusing on slowing myself down, simplifying EVERYTHING. I think I will do a whole separate post on this as I think the rewards for simplifying and slowing are going to be amazing.

For today.... just that, today. This is how we kept it simple, today.

In honour of simplicity all of todays pictures are from my phone (Retro Camera app for Droid)

So tomorrow is Easter Bonnet Parade day for Ruby. The old me would have searched and searched for the World's Greatest Easter Bonnet Ideas and be up until midnight tonight creating something that no-one but me would have the appropriate amount of appreciation for ;)

With my new way of thinking ticking over in my head, I grabbed a vintage hat, made some mini paper bunting, wacked it around the brim, and secured some little scary-eyed little chicky's in a basket.

 And then I started to plan the rest of the hat.

And then I stopped.

And printed off a tag that said Happy Easter, and slotted that into the ribbon.

And I walked away.

It was hard to do that.

The manic part of me wants to change my mind and go nuts on that thing. But the part of me, which is the whole of me, that loves my husband and my  children knows that going nuts on the stuff that just doesn't matter has got to stop. Because I get overwhelmed and stressed out and then I really don't accomplish much at all.

Not that I'm saying that decorating an Easter Bonnet would stress me out, it's my attitude to these things (has to be perfect) and the fact that I put way to many things on the old To Do List.

No more.

(I just hope Ruby won't get all heartbroken when she's surrounded by kids in hats that are pimped out with Easter-y baubles from the $2 shop..........but she has seen the hat and she seemed to like it)

Tomorrow is also calling for treats to be shared at Playgroup in the morning and, again, treats to  be shared in the afternoon at school after the Easter Bonnet Parade.

So, the old me takes off with "What will I make? Must make something special, something Easter-y, blah, blah, blah.

My new and improved way of thinking kicks in with 'PACKET MIXES GIRL!!! GET SOME PACKET MIXES AND DO NOT GIVE THIS ONE MORE THOUGHT!!!!"

Done.
 One Rasberry Swirl cake for school, and one batch of Vanilla fairycakes for playgroup.
I would show you a picture of those fairycakes (cupcakes) but blogger has reverted and is not letting me show more than 5 pictures per post.
And if I showed you the fairycakes then I wouldn't be able to show you this little cowboy who is one of the very reasons for all my gung-ho on the simplicity campaign.

Less time stressing over Easter Bonnets means more time to play Cowboys and Farmers (I don't think he's aware of that Cowboys and Indians game other kids play, lol).

Blog: Ugly.

Just a note on the current state of my blog,I thought I was going to have it looking all whiz-bang-pretty by now............but apparently not :(
I waited so long before choosing someone to design my blog for me, initiated the process months ago and now? E-mails are no longer being returned so looks like I made a bad decision. Poo.
So for now, I'll be leaving it as is until I have some kind of light bulb moment on what to do.
In other news we thought our chooks had stopped laying but then we found this under the wheel barrow yesterday.

Lucky we found that because my husband was throwing around talk of chopping their heads off :O

And of course, I would never let that happen!!

Bath Painting

I just want to share this little bath time activity which is really quite simple, but loads of fun for the kids. This picture was taken with my phone so........you get what you get :)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Shaving cream. Food colouring. Muffin tray (I bought a 12 cup silicone tray and cut it in half so my kids could have a 'palette' each). Paint brushes.

Serve it up and let them paint the walls from the bath tub.

As you can see I didn't have very many colours in my food colouring stash, must get some red/pink (hmmm, wonder why I don't have red food colouring in the house, weird)

And the amount of shaving cream I put in was HEAPS (way too much, really)

But they had fun.

And, of course, you just clean up with water and a cloth. Too easy.