Have I mentioned how much I love my new bedroom?

Yes, well, I probably have.  But I really, really do love it.  It's the dream bedroom I would have wanted when I was 14 and it's still my dream bedroom.  I'm not sure what that says about me (immature perhaps?!) but I don't care.  I had fun the other day trying to take some nice photos of it, adding a little window dressing and some flowers to show it off, so I thought I'd share them here.  How could you not love this room (warning: gratuitous artsy fartsy attempts by me to do interior design magazine style pics following)?

View from the door, window made by clever Beloved.

View of Chest of Drawers also made by Beloved, under sleeping loft (which, it goes without saying, was made by Beloved!)

Comfy chair in the corner.  Wow, I can see the floor!  This really is the perfect solution to a small bedroom with no storage space.

Another, entirely unnecessary I know, pic of the comfy chair, with my grandmother's bedside table.

A 'pan' from door round to window, composite of several photos.  You'll have to click on this one to see it bigger to appreciate better.  In the corner you can see my nifty solution to needing some quick, cheap but not too ugly storage space for clothes.  El cheapo basic pine shelving from the local hardware (IKEA has something almost identical), and some 'shipping cartons' from Office Works with seagrass handles added, painted the same colour as the walls.  Worked quite well I think.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love sleeping up in the loft.  There's a little square window to let in light, and it's wonderful being snuggled up there in the cold weather when it (eventually!) arrives, listening to the rain pattering on the tin roof.  I don't know why more people don't do this.

Plight of the Bumble-fingered artist.....baby faeries and bedroom make-overs...

Oh, I couldn't resist, I will blame it on my mum, who loves puns!

 My two baby faeries are FINALLY in my Etsy shop.  Yes, I AM the Queen of Faffing About, I admit it.  I considered adding beads or glass leaves to these, but in the end I decided I liked the ribbons the best.  Which is just as well, as I have discovered one of the liabilities of being a guitar player (well, a learner at least) is that I CANNOT PICK ANYTHING UP WITH MY LEFT HAND!  Once upon a time, I had soft, sensitive finger pads that could pick up small beads, pieces of paper, needles, thread......now, I have these rock hard and completely numb finger tips that can barely FEEL a needle lying on a table, let alone pick it up!  I can't hold anything small in them and manipulate it...I spent this afternoon dropping beads and accidently snapping the tops off crystal drops...how frustrating, and how unexpected.  I didn't realise learning a new skill could compromise my old ones!

I ummed and ahhhed about what to charge for the faeries too, and settled on $40.  According to this article on Etsy, I'm not charging enough, but I don't think it's a very realistic formula.  Speaking of Etsy, there are all sorts of changes afoot and not a lot of people are happy about it.  If you haven't checked your Etsy profile lately, I suggest you go and have a look at what they've done to it and judge for yourself.

You can find these two here and here.

Now....drum roll please.  How many of you remember the Super-Bedroom-Makeover?  Well, if you don't or have joined up to read my ramblings since the last SBM post, you can always click on the 'bedroom makeover' label at the top of this post and get the whole story.  But to cut a VERY LONG story short, it is finished.  Actually, it has been for a few weeks, but as I have already admitted to being the Q of FA (now, don't be rude, I didn't mean THAT!) I've only now gotten around to posting about it. We haven't moved all the furniture back in that needs to go in, but it won't be much more anyway, and about all it needs beyond that is a nice rug on the floor.  So what do you think?  He's a clever chap isn't he, that other half of mine!

Composite picture (I do love Photoshop) from the doorway

The bedspread I bought years ago because I fell in love with it even though it didn't go with any of the colours we had at the time.

This WAS going to be Beloved's special TV chair in the lounge room...but it looks awfully nice here.

And in contrast to Friday's music...the world's happiest, coolest song!

Well, it's got to be right up there anyway.  Been a favourite of mine for years and years (it was released when I was 2), you can't hear it and not smile.  And perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon!

Not that today was particularly lazy, we spent most of it masking up all the woodwork in the bedroom, ready to paint the walls tomorrow.  We've settled on a soft, mossy green which will be 'colour-washed' on...I'm a wee bit obsessed with colour-washing, I've used it in just about every room in the house, but there's so many things I love about it.  I don't really like flat colour anyway, in my artwork or on my walls, I like texture and layers, and colour-washing means you can use bright or quite dark colours, but they don't dominate or advance on you.  It's great for hiding flaws in walls, and it means you use WAY less paint so much cheaper, it's easy to do, and really quick...it will probably only take us an hour to actually paint the whole room.  I can't wait till it's all finished, it's been a LOOONNG time coming!

But we did find time to have a lovely afternoon tea out in the glorious sunshine, the last for a while as it's supposed to be raining all week.  But then we do need some rain.  Homemade ginger biscuits and banana cake...mmmmm.  Why is it that I'm not in the slightest bit interested in shop-bought sweet biscuits (I don't even like Tim Tams), but if I make them myself they disappear immediately?!

I'm also busy making new faery outfits for two little faeries turning 6 and 9 in the next two months...I have BIG ideas, but I do need to remember they're just dress-ups and not get too carried away.  Anyway, I'd better go and do some guitar practice, got my 3rd lesson tomorrow.

Sleeping just beneath the rain

Although the bedroom isn't finished yet, we have moved into the loft.  There's still fiddly bits to finish (trims, lights, and such) and then of course, the decorating, but I have to say, I LOVE sleeping up here.  It rained the other night, and there's just something wonderful about sleeping right up under the roof, all snuggled up under the quilt, listening to the rain on the tin roof just overhead.  Of course, we have a panelled ceiling now and a good layer of insulation, so it's not deafening when it rains, which might not be quite so pleasant.  I'm now wishing we'd thought of it years ago.  It certainly is the perfect solution to space issues in a small bedroom.  The room looks huge now, and we've got floor space!

Our beautiful new jarrah window.  Look, floorspace!  It's going to look gorgeous when we lift the MDF boards up and give the lovely jarrah floorboards a good polish.

Stairway to the stars.

It really is lovely up here.  It's like a cross between being on holiday and being a kid again!

There's a small barrier made of pine here now, just in case Beloved rolls over a bit too far!

We're thinking we might whitewash the pine, just to keep the paleness it has now being freshly sanded, as it will yellow over time otherwise (which is lovely too, but we're thinking pale is the way to go here).  I'm not sure about colours, but I'm leaning towards a soft green on the walls.  What do you think?

And here's a gratuitous shot of my morning latte and fresh Banana Cake, both made by my clever other half (he really is a treasure!)  This is our little courtyard, which is a nice little spot, and will be even nicer once we finish that too (my dodgy 'semi-permanent' paving to be replaced and the wall behind painted), but in at the moment you have to watch out for the bees, as the tree here flowers in Autumn and the bees go absolutely crazy!

I have been practicing the guitar like a good girl, and now have a small blister on my left index finger, as I haven't developed the lovely calluses that a seasoned guitarist has from years of pressing down on the strings.  I'm struggling a bit because I have small hands and it's a bit of a stretch reaching the right frets.  However my teacher says that's no excuse!  And did I mention that he asked me what kind of music I like, and I said just about everything EXCEPT Country and Western (well, that old-time, really even rhythm stuff)...and of course, he turned out to be a really big fan of Country music!  He had a chuckle and I figure, well, I can only go up from here!

I'm also doing some experimenting to see if I can work in pencil on canvas, depending on what kind of varnish might make the medium permanent and not so fragile.  Will post pictures when I progress a bit further.

Guitar lessons and my Better-Half.

Thank you so much for all your lovely thoughts and comments on my last post.  I am glad I wrote it now, if it might have helped someone out there know they're not alone.  But there was something missing from it, something, or rather someone who didn't get a mention simply because I would have been here all night writing and you would have all nodded off long before you got to the end of it.  The same someone who just brought me out a nice hot cup of tea, because it is COLD out here in the studio, winter is finally on its way.

I shall endeavor not to get too soppy, but it must be said, I am blessed to be married to this bloke.  He grieved quietly and deeply for his little girl...and carried on working and meeting deadlines and dealing with clients and paying the bills, while I fell into a howling sea of confusion and pain and sorrow.  He didn't understand the way I was grieving, it scared him and he was afraid he'd lost the woman he loved.  I truly was a mess.  But he never stopped being there for me, he never gave up on me, never decided he couldn't do it anymore, never walked away.  We've been through a couple dark times since then too...and he is always my rock.  He is infinitely patient (he has to be to have put up with me for 24 years!), kind and gentle, makes me laugh all the time, and tells me he loves me many times every day.  He is a wonderful dad to his beautiful girls, and he is also incredibly clever and talented (the 'bedroom makeover' for example, which is nearly done!) though you won't hear that from him.  He considers himself a 'simple bloke', but if simple means honest, open, funny, optimistic, gentle and...well, you get the picture...I'll take 'simple' anytime.  And by the way, I DO mean honest...this is a man who is brave enough to tell me "you know, that skirt makes your bum look really big".  But that's ok, because I know that when he tells me "you look gorgeous tonight", he really means it.  He treats everyone in the same open, honest, friendly way, and hasn't allowed cynicism (or past sorrows) to dampen his enthusiasm for life...I love seeing him excited about some new project, he's like a big kid and it makes me feel excited and enthusiastic too.  He has a lopsided grin, the most beautiful eyes in the world, and did I mention that he's gorgeous?!  He's my Beloved, my Bigger-Half (well, he's 6'4" so not hard), and my Better-Half too.

But enough of all that soppy stuff!  In other news...the 'Vagabond King' didn't exactly get finished in time, but I did take it in to the exhibition.  It just went in as a one-sided wall-hanging rather than a piece of wearable art.  Have you ever worked on something that you KNOW is rubbish, but you keep working on it and telling yourself that it will be ok when it's finished?  My epiphany came at 12:30 am Saturday morning (11 and a half hours before it had to be delivered) when I realised that the other side (or the front of the coat thing) which I'd been working frantically on for 3 days, was rubbish.  It was bad.  It was so bad it made the back look bad too.  It was rushed.  It was a compromise because I didn't have time to finish it how I wanted to.  And my heart wasn't in it.  So I spent the next 2 hours undoing everything I'd done in the last 2 days, until I was left with just the big circle on the red background.  At 3am I was so tired I didn't know what to do next, so I went to bed resigned to the fact that I wasn't going to make the deadline.   In the morning, Beloved and I sat on the couch with our morning coffees, me looking and feeling decidedly worse for wear, and looked at it spread out on the floor.  He said "when's it got to be in?"  I said "3 hours."  He said "must be something you could do."  I said " suppose I could just hem it, make a casing at the top and stick something through."  So to cut a long story short, I found myself frantically hemming, by hand, all round the whole thing, while Beloved went and hack-sawed off the end of an old metal curtain rod and rooted around in the garage for some wire to hang it from.  Upshot is, I finished it at 11:35am, leapt into the car, got there at 12:05pm to drop it off, and thankfully they accepted it.  Then I went home and passed out on the couch for several hours!

The other exciting thing (for me, probably not for the rest of the family, or my neighbours) is that today I had my very first guitar lesson.  I've wanted to play for so long (my very talented brother plays beautifully), so I decided the only way I'd ever get around to doing it is if I booked a whole block of lessons.  So guess what Beloved bought me for my birthday?  I have no illusions about becoming a guitar maestro, but it would be nice to be able to sing and play along.  And apparently learning new skills is a good way to keep the brain healthy, so wish me luck.

Morgan's little sister, with her very proud and happy Dad, nine years ago this August.  It's ok, her nose doesn't look like that now!

I've always wanted a treehouse....

Well, it's not quite a treehouse, but it's still pretty wonderful.  My very clever beloved did promise the 'super bedroom makeover' would all be done before Christmas, but with one thing and another, it didn't quite happen.  So it's still 'in progress' but we are getting there.  And the Fairy Shoemaker's blog post about getting her bedroom sorted out reminded me that I haven't posted a progress report recently, so here you go!

Here is the new gable roof line, replacing the old one and giving us a bit more headroom.  That's the front of the garage on the left, so as you can see, the view out of the old window wasn't exactly inspiring!  Of course, the new roof is all done by now.

Bed platform going in, looking towards the bedroom door, oh, and there's a very old and still unfinished painting leaning up against the wall in the hallway!  The stepladder will go up against this wall just inside the door.

Main support beams of the platform, and our little window.  The foil looking stuff is insulation.

The very clever husband doing some measuring...or something!  I'm glad to see he's actually wearing his Blundstones here...I'm always on at him to wear and use safety equipment.  Thongs (aka 'Flip-flops') are not terribly good if you put your circular saw down on your foot before it's stopped running!

Joists are in place, he's just securing them here.  Isn't that window beautiful...he's so clever!  By the way, all that flooring you can see will come up, it's just thin sheets of MDF board to protect the floor.  Which is gorgeous jarrah floorboards.  Very difficult and expensive to come by these days, but standard flooring when this little house was built in 1960.  Hmmm, where did the Blundies go?

I'm the King of the Castle (bare feet again...sigh!)...ceiling boards going in, platform floor is all done.  Just out of the photo to the right is the gorgeous (and incredibly SOLID) stepladder.  And this is about where we are today, he's hoping to finish the ceiling this weekend, and get the Sparky to come and put lights, switches and power-points in.  And THEN...we can move in!   We thought we'd live in it for a few weeks to get a feel for it, before we decide to decorate.  It's so incredibly different to how it was before it might take some getting used to!

The colours of summer...and a Bedroom makeover update!

So my little ones have spent a week with their grandparents in the south west, it's back to school tomorrow, and my baby will be in school full time this year.  There is some gorgeous countryside around where my in-laws live, and so every time we visit I daydream about one day owning my own little patch of serenity.  Though of course, reality is not quite the same as fantasy, and there are things that are not so wonderful about living in the countryside...the threat of bushfires is very real.  But I love the way the countryside changes through the seasons, and though summer isn't my favourite season and generally I prefer rolling green hills to sun-scorched ones, there is something beautiful about the soft yellow of the dry paddocks against a cloudy sky threatening (but, unfortunately, rarely delivering) rain.

In the winter, these hills will be carpeted once again in bright, soft green grass, the breeze will be crisp and cold instead of hot, dry and oppressive...and the snakes will be hibernating.  Then you can light a campfire and sit and watch the sparks fly, but not now...not until March or April, no fires are allowed at all till then.  Just off to the right of the top picture, there used to be an old barn leaning precariously towards the road, and every time we drove through we'd wonder if it would still be there, as it leaned further and further with every trip.  In the last school holidays, it finally gave up the ghost, slipped sideways and crumbled to the ground, though thankfully not all over the road.  If I'm driving through here in the late afternoon, I always slow down way below the official speed limit.  For two reasons.  Because I want to take the time to see the long shadows creeping up the hills, and the setting sun breaking through gaps in the trees.  But also because it's 'roo' time.  I almost hit one on the last trip down here.  Luckily I was dawdling along.  It's not the first roo that's the problem.  But they travel in small groups, and though you brake as soon as you see the first one, there'll be a second and a third right behind it...I almost hit the third one.  And emus too, like to wander onto the road at any time of the day.  And there are the old houses too, abandoned now for newer and bigger premises.  I often wonder about the people who lived in them, who more than likely built them themselves.  Whose castle was this little one, where did the people who built that one come from, as so many people from all over the world have come here to build new lives.  Sometimes I pass by a gate with a name of a faraway country or city on it, and I wonder how hard it must have been to leave that place, leave family, friends, familiar surroundings, and how homesick those people were, who called their new home after their old one.  Sometimes I dream of finding a little one and fixing it up, making it into a home again...I wonder if houses have memories, and miss the sounds of the children they once gave shelter to?

But speaking of homes and doing things up, the super-bedroom-makeover is coming along a treat.  I took these photos a couple of weeks ago, as the super-clever husband was putting the joists for the bed platform in.  The platform is now finished, all the floorboards are in, but still a lot of work before we can actually sleep up there.  But there's something delicious about sitting up there, reminds me of a treehouse.  It's going to be lovely when it's done.  A little unconventional perhaps, but then, who wants a house like everyone elses?!

And an exterior view of the lovely new window, also made by the super-clever husband.  Now all we need is a pergola over it for the poor wisteria to grow on.

A little bit of summer, if your toes are cold...

My 'Followers' box has disappeared again...and it's too hot!  Well, the temperature on the Yahoo homepage says 35˚C (a little below the century in old money!), but it FEELS hotter.  I've been baking so that probably hasn't helped.  This really isn't the weather for Christmas style bake-ups.  I have finished the second batch of panfortes, one more to go, maybe this evening when it's cooled down.  Though at 10pm last night it was still hot and sticky outside.  Progress pics...just poured the chocolaty, toffeey mixture into the dry ingredients.  Then a strong arm is needed to actually stir it (husbands come in handy sometimes...he's also good at getting lids off pesky jars). Finally, some token stirring for luck from the little people. Note the pristine green t-shirt...shortly to be covered in chocolate after licking the mixing bowl clean.  I'll post some pics of the finished product shortly.

But that may be the only 'finished product' I post pics of for a while, it's school holidays till February, and with two little people home to entertain, plus two weeks of swimming lessons, I don't know how much drawing I'll get done!  And there may be some bedroom painting required soon, as the super-bedroom-makeover is moving along at a cracking pace.  Beloved (I really need a better name!) insists he's starting the bed platform this week, but we'll see.  But you can see how far it's come in the last couple of weeks!  All that roof space that usually gets wasted, I don't understand why people don't make use of it.

I mentioned a little while ago that Flynn has decided that the old couch is now hers, since it has moved outside.  So here she is, reclining, but with a just slightly guilty look on her face, as if she's not sure she's allowed to be there even now.

And finally, a couple of pics showing what the sky looked like a few days ago.  When there's a cyclone up north, we sometimes get pink skies, rather freaky and weird, but it did soften the sun's bite for a while.  Meanwhile our bore has gone on the blink, and my garden is looking rather like a desert.  It's rather depressing because last year we grew tomatoes and cucumbers enough to supply the family without needing to buy any for two months, plus lettuces and the usual herbs...sigh!

Delicacy and Destruction!

Inspired (again) by the wonderful artwork of Rima Staines , I went back to my graphite pencils and produced a little drawing of a strange and mysterious lady.  These drawings are so difficult to photograph, the camera doesn't seem to quite capture the softness or the detail of graphite.  Of course, it could always be the photographer!  This is returning to an old and familiar love for me, graphite and colour pencils were my medium of choice as a child, and if I look through my old high school folio (because of course, I still have it) almost all the work is in pencil.  There is something lovely and delicate about it, and of course, total control...pencil is very forgiving.  I love building up layer upon layer of light strokes, creating different textures and depths of tone.  And very good for teaching patience...something I think I have lost a little.  I'm not sure I could spend weeks and weeks on the same piece as I used to in my school art class.  Another thing about my high school folio...so many of the pieces never quite got finished, often a drawing contains a beautifully detailed bottom right-hand corner, and the rest of the page just a vague sketched outline.

So I have been working in tiny, delicate pencil strokes while all the while there were hammerings and bangings and sawings and all manner of loud kaffoofle coming from our bedroom which is having a major make-over in the (mostly) expert hands of my beloved.  An old steel-framed window that faced onto the garage is out and bricked up, and a lovely new jarrah casement window (made by the aforementioned almost-expert) facing the east and the morning sun is in.  Ceiling out and roof-line changed, a new loft bed will go in, and all to be finished by Christmas, he promises me!  We shall see.  But it will be wonderful when it's finished.