Refreshing rain. 

Not too heavy, soaking in, greening the grass. The grand daughters will be able to run to the cubby house without raising dust. 

The soothing sound of rain on the tin roof and cooler temperatures mean I can power on with my Show entries.  

A leather shoulder bag for 'Any article made with paper or recycled material'. The leather was salvaged from a lounge chair dumped in the forest, the lining is an old rolled oats cloth bag and the latch a very old key.

I have also finished a black cat pencil case with a zip for his mouth.

OK, cuppa time is over, back to work!

Busy, busy. Making stuff to enter into our local Agricultural Show. 

This tiny journal is finished. Leather bound, attached to a chain with small pencil on chain clipped on for ease of writing in this 'faerie' journal.

Now back to work on the other 14 entries!

 Ahh, breakfast with the birds.....

a galah

a pair of king parrots

a sulphur crested cockatoo

A crested pigeon called in too, but was too shy to pose for a photo. 

All of these birds have babies to feed and I don't mind the mess of seed husks and poo they leave on the verandah because I know they are doing it tough this year. I am surprised so many birds managed to breed and keep their young alive. The galahs park their young ones in nearby trees while they forage for food to feed them with. The youngsters spend most of the morning in the 'creche' emitting the most mournful squeaks. They are able to squeak on both the in breath and the out breath and continue for hours! The parents return with full crops and feed the seemingly starving babes and then park them in another group of trees until afternoon feed time. Sometimes I must admit I do shoo them away! But right now I'm off to shoo the satin bowerbirds off my figs. The greedy pests have even broken through the bags I had over several branches! Grrr...

Finished and ready to wrap for Hubby's birthday. I backed them with bright fabric from Spotlight and because the pictures were not square, added some of the same to one side of each. 

These photos were taken in spring when there was lush green grass for the gnomes to lurk in. More rain falling now, so soon we will have green again.

More inspiration from Pinterest, a magazine footstool.

 A stack of cooking magazines, 2 old belts from the op-shop, a piece of leftover builders ply cut to size, a piece of wooden pallet dressed through the thicknesser  for the feet and a cushion from off-cuts from another project. Voila! Just what daughter number 3 needs in her new house! 

Why should I store her "very useful, not to be chucked out!" magazines? 

Now what else has she left behind....?

Loving this cooler weather, and nearly 10mls of rain is giving the paddocks a soft green haze already. 

2 more days of rain predicted, lovely.

Ahhh, rain, cooler and less humidity. Animals, garden and I are all happier. I've been busy making stuff, look, the first of 3 happy gnome cushions for hubby's birthday.

I sent photos of his favourite garden gnomes (he has a garden full of them!) to Spoonflower to have them printed onto cotton fabric and soon Mowing Gnome will be joined by Sleeping Gnome and Hunting Gnome. 

I am really happy with the results from Spoonflower and now I'm thinking I can have some fabric printed to make dresses for my grand daughters, though maybe not gnomes!

Not made by me, but by daughter number 2 who thought her bed needed something more. Antlers cut from ply, painted and mounted on wall, draped with fairy lights.   

Last weekend was party weekend, daughter number 3 and her fiance had the official engagement party here with a superheroes theme. My daughters seem to like themed parties and dressing up. When they were little their dress ups box was always empty because they were wearing it all. Dressing up was imprinted on them early!

Our front paddock, the party venue, resembled a Hollywood movie lot as more and more super heroes arrived. The party was for older relatives too, so the resemblance was even closer because the oldies looked like a bus load of tourists having a gawk! 

Beautiful daughter number 3 in our dry and dusty paddock.

Some oldies dressed up and played the part well. I interrupted a conversation between my brother The Joker and hubby Spock and got this look!