almost sixteen months

gives her baby dolls hugs and pats; still loves her dummies but new molars mean she's chewing through a few of them; walking like a little trooper with a bit of light running thrown in for good measure; likes some bling and is often found with multiple bracelets and necklaces on; gives the best leg hugs; no real words yet but trying oh-so hard and puts in a great show of very expressive baby chatter; has kind of wacky hair; content to stand in her cot, pull the curtain back and look out the window to exclaim at the birds, flowers and trees for hours on end*; still the sweetest little pea ever.

*okay, hours on end might be a slight exaggeration but she has faked me out on having a nap many, many times by just hanging out in her cot, watching the world go by : )

alrighty then.

whew, so much to catch up on, as per usual. short, sharp posts just aren't going to cut it. first of all, maribyrnong maker's market last weekend was super great. the perfect local, low key but steady with lovely folk and just the right way to ease me back into the market scene after two years away. i'll be there again in november and will be sure to do a proper "come visit me at the market" post with all the details beforehand (like i meant to last week but time got away from me).











my table came together despite quilts being VERY hard to display properly; i was lucky enough to have my extra good buddy, heidi, directly across from me which made the day speed by (as did chatting with some other favourite makers i hadn't seen for ages); mae had her first face painting experience and was very pleased with her "pretty cheek flowers" and i limited myself to only one purchase (which was especially tough with milkwood's gorgeous resin wares two meters away), a notebook by green collective. it's made from a vintage book, i love how they have included the old spine as a bookmark.

i have a nice selection of goodies left to put into my shop on saturday, october 1st (8pm, melbourne time if all goes according to plan), including a couple of new cot quilts that i whipped together the week before the market.





this past week has been all about housey stuff and kid stuff, mostly setting up the playroom with the new ikea bookshelf and wall stickers scored from resource rescue.





the reorganised space inspired mae to do a spot of baking : )

pics

aaaah, finally realised i can upload my instagram pics from my ipod touch straight to flickr. this may mean that i will actually get some short, sharp posts out to fill in the backlog of good stuff going on around here. like this little bit of op shopping i did yesterday while the kids were at childcare...



$2 baskets for toys storage and a double vintage sheet set in new condition for $8 were too good to pass up : )

newbies

a new batch of oobees, the first with my very own handprinted linen/cotton, finished up and ready to go to market with me. we had a fun little photo shoot and play with them this morning before packing them safely away until saturday's debut.

back to real life

we've been home a week (flight home was SO much better, kids slept heaps, i got to actually eat a few meals and the ipod touch i bought in canada was worth it's weight in gold) and it feels like we were never away. funny how that works, hey? life at chez keating seems extra busy at the moment. spring weather and freshly painted walls has me inspired to organise and decorate our house. i'm scouring ebay and the local op shops with my list of needed items, perusing the new ikea catalogue and pinterest for ideas and shifting exisiting furniture around in my head. not really what i need right now when i have the maribynong maker's market next saturday and very little stock to fill up my space. so in addition to housey stuff, i'm working on a batch of new oobees made out of my very own printed fabric, dreaming of new blocks to carve and print, setting some of my existing designs up in illustrator so i can get screens made from them, and sewing random bits of fabric together for some baby quilts. and then there is the mother guilt that comes from having too many personal projects on the go and worrying that my kids aren't stimulated enough after having constant adult playmates for a month so i'm keeping an eye out for crafts and activities that we can do to alleviate the guilt...

just need about 10 more hours in each day, please. and maybe an extra set of arms. or a clone. a clone would be PERFECT. yep, back to normal life around here.

updated to add:: woah, i've just been browsing around on meg's pinterest board for kid's activities - SO much good stuff here!

leaving

one last block print that i carved here in canada. we're leaving later today, i am excited to get home, can't wait to see my husband and the new big closet in my sewing room (!) but am terribly, terribly sad to be leaving. i love melbourne, it is now home but living so far away from family is hard, triply so when i see how much my kids LOVE spending time with their aunties, uncles, cousins, grandma and grandpa. canada and australia are just too far apart.

i have many things to work on back home, though, and that is an exciting thought... a sewing room to reorganise and redecorate, screenprinting supplies to play with and four markets ahead of me before christmas, the first only weeks away. more on that in the next little while, first i have to steel myself for the flight home....

more block printing

i've been carving up some new blocks and playing around with colours on my mom's kitchen table for the odd hour or two. the big block with the spotted dots didn't really work out to well, i couldn't get decent stamping from such a large block, even with placing a book over top to try press it down evenly. i ended up trimming a few of the circles out to use on their own and will use the back of the rest to carve something else, one big benefit of using this thick ez carve stuff. one downfall though is that i've discovered the blocks don't hold up too well to repeated use, especially if they are carved with relatively thin lines, the block is just too soft. i'm going to try some different blocks and linos when i get home, might even hit an art store here in canada to see what i can find but i am running out of days!











funny that the latest stamp i'm happiest with was completely unplanned, i just carved out a circle and then cut some lines through it (last image shown). and i like the way some of the carving lines are showing up (on the pink prints in the second last photo and a little bit in the last photo), i cut the background out much shallower than i had before. i like it but others may not - what do you think? too rustic with the random carve lines?

baby oobees everywhere

 

audrey by the multi-talented shannon (aka aunty cookie)

::love all the extra taggie bits::

pink and yellow baby oobees by bek (aka red chocolate)

::gorgeous liberty quilt::

made by julie (aka forestpoppy)

::lucky baby oobee gets a patchwork quilt::

aren't they all just ridiculously cute?? aren't all the fabrics just brilliant?? and i love that shannon made hers for a boy, i totally think they are an awesome boy gift, too. seeing all of these pop up around blogland has prompted me to finally reopen my shop for pattern sales - go forth, snap up a baby oobee pattern and get creating your own bit of cute!

catchup

well, i won't lie to you, the flight was pretty horrendous - mae was good as gold until the last four or five hours when we were all pretty shattered, sophie slept for a rough total of 6 hours out of the 24 we were in transit and was hard to handle in my lap whether sleeping or not. we didn't end up using half of the snacks and toys i brought, the batteries on the digital picture frame were dead when i pulled it out, mae's headphones wouldn't work on the plane (i meant to buy an adapter but forgot), our inseat tvs didn't work for the first couple of hours of our first flight, our gate checked umbrella stroller wasn't waiting for us in auckland for our four hour layover, prompting a mini meltdown from me, prompting air new zealand to organise a stroller for us and send us up to their lounge (so nice!), i don't sleep well on planes except with earplugs which wasn't really an option this time so i dozed for about 2 hours total.

but we made it. we're here! it's summer! we've been hanging out with tons of family and friends and enjoying the sunshine (and the bevy of toys that grandma has provided) to the fullest.

















we actually flew on mae's birthday and we had a small party for her the sunday before with our closest friends and family. she had been talking about her birthday party for MONTHS and was so happy to finally be able to blow out those candles.



and we finally gave mae her new camera, complete with a new neck strap and padded case made by moi. (we've played with her kidizoom plus for a couple of weeks now and i can't recommend it enough to anyone looking at kid's cameras. it's 2 megapixel (unlike many that are .3 megapixel), uses an sd card, has a decent flash, shoots video, includes a bunch of cute frames and accents you can add to the photos. i totally love playing with it and, more importantly (i guess), so does mae.)





we did simple activities with the kids, party hat decorating with stickers (foam stars were a hit) and i bought a cardboard playhouse for them to colour on and play with. it was the first birthday party we've actually had and it turned out perfectly, lots of fun, yummy party food, pretty balloons, perfect company. i'm actually looking forward to next year's : )

countdown

less than a week until we leave for canada and i've started organising the bits and pieces i've been collecting to keep the kids amused on the journey. starting from left, working in a spiral:

• peppa pig headphones for mae to use with the laptop ($19.99 from myer)

• a digital photo keychain that will hold about 100 pics of her daddy,
her sister, her buddies and, most importantly, mae as she looooooves
to look at pictures of herself ($8.50 from officeworks)

• peppa pig stickers (leftover from a sticker book)

• dora surprise egg that i picked up after easter,
apparently has a sticker, toy and candy inside ($2 at coles)

• dora flashlight that has little plastic discs with images that snap on,
making it into a little projector (very weak light, should keep her happy
but not be annoying to fellow passengers) ($2 from toy world)

• flicky pen with six different coloured inks and a bit of paper
($2 pen from toys r us)

• set of four wooden finger puppets ($8 from vic markets)

• glo in the dark bracelet (50¢ from st vinnies)

• two toy phones, the op shop one (50¢) has now been deemed too big
and will be staying home, the other is a newy ($22 from myer) for soph

• dora in a little airplane that mae has been eyeing off at the
supermarket for months, shane will give this to her at the airport
as a farewell gift ($5 from safeway)

• a bunch of junky toys collected from the op shop that she will love,
especially the hello kitty watches and the thomas phone
(big bag of toys, $3.50 at st vinnies)

• colourblast book with pen the only works on the special pages
($5 from toys r us)

• elmo sticker book that has sticker clothes to dress the characters
($2 from toys r us)

• fairy doll whose wings light up ($8 from toys r us)

• chupa chups for emergency mae taming (5 for $1 at coles)


so all that plus the laptop full of favourite shows and movies should keep mae mostly preoccupied, i think. soph is going to have to be content with whatever mae doesn't want to play with at that moment (as usual) and lots of snacking. i'm bringing meusli bars (carman's), sultanas, multigrain crackers, freeze dried apple and strawberries, a bit of fruit for the first leg of the flight, cheerios, cruskits, maybe some digestive cookies (but they are soooo crumbly)... nothing too out of the ordinary from our usual snacks.

any last minute suggestions? we're pretty tight on space but let me know if you think of something brilliant we should take along to play with or eat!