December slipped by in a flash and was a fun busy end to a great year with lots of laughter and celebrating. It wasn’t me that had the busy social calendar it was the newly five year old!  The montage below shows just a few little snippets from our crazy December.

Top row: Rohan played ‘Santa’ at his work Christmas function and Caitlin was in on the secret calling him ‘Santa Daddy’; Eloise at her kindergarten ‘graduation’ complete with cardboard mortarboard. It was also dress-up day so she wasn’t ‘Eloise’ she was Barbie Thumbelina; more Christmas party fun

Middle Row: Eloise turned five! She had a brilliant party with her friends in the Enchanted Forest at The Magic Castle; Caitlin enjoying some post Wiggles concert icecream in Acland Street; Eloise backstage at the dress rehearsal for her ballet concert

Bottom Row: Eloise enjoying the last day of kindy; Eloise’s highlight was having Murray read out her sign on stage at the Wiggles Big Big Show; Christmas snow in Montmorency, the Recheilt Street lights!

Zine giveaway: Thank you for your lovely comments, I am chuffed that someone is enjoying my little collection of ’stuff’! I actually have enough Zine’s left to give to all of you that left a comment. I think I have everyone’s address except yours Ali, so if you can email me your snail mail I will send it out in the next week.

I had a lovely surprise this week when I went to check the post office box. Thank you Norma for the beautiful vintage Christmas card and teeny tiny felt bears. Such a thoughtful gesture and I am glad you enjoy my posts enough to come back! I really enjoy sharing the things I find.

I am looking forward to a fun blogging year ahead and hope to be much more prolific than in 2009! Maybe I need to ‘nablopomo‘ more often! Hmmm something to think about…

December 25th 1976. I was 3. This was the Christmas I received the ‘Sally and Sue’ orange A-Frame lake house complete with motor boat and log campfire. Oh how I loved this doll house! It was sold at a garage sale when I was in highschool and wasn’t really thinking about having girls of my own to pass it on to. I have never ever seen one again and can’t even find reference to it online anywhere. Where are you Sally and Sue?

This was also about the time I have a very clear memory of walking near the Glenbrook Lagoon and a lady telling my Mum what a “lovely little boy” I was. It’s funny what you remember. And I remember feeling rather mad!

Now this could be rather embarrassing as I have only had several comments in thirty days (Mum you’re in with a shot LOL!). The comments thing doesn’t really bug me as I do receive lovely emails, verbal validation and the site stats reveal a little of what’s going on. I really do blog mostly for my own enjoyment and to share the things I love hoping that someone out there loves them too!

The zine is small, but like the blog full of goodies that I adore including 6 removable mini postcards and a tiny ‘Clown Fairy’ print….

…and three Butterflyrocket badges! I really do love my badgemaker. Love it!

So go ahead, leave a comment below and you might get it by Christmas!

*a butterfly rocket really is a fire cracker!
** The Cut.Paste edition is a variation of a zine I made in this swap conducted a while ago by Nikki-shell. So if you have one of these already it is pretty similar, but a tiny bit different and it was sold during an exhibition earlier in the year.

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COMMENTS CLOSED!
I’ll get Eloise to draw the winner out of a ‘hat’ tomorrow. Thanks for the lovely comments ladies! I have more posts coming very soon, I’ve been a bit caught up with December festivities over the past few days and have a huge week ahead with a certain little birthday girl turning 5 next Sunday!

I bought the ‘Eloise & Skipperdee Go Caroling’ ornament pictured above the year my Eloise was born. It’s become one of our favourites! (released in 2004 as part of the Heirloom ornament collection by Carlton Cards)

This delicate tree ornament was given to me by my mother inlaw last year. It’s gorgeous and made out of translucent papers. It’s one of a pair of ‘Dancing Fairies’ designed Danish designer Jette Frölich.

We don’t do a colour theme. Our tree is full of ornaments we’ve collected over the years including a couple from my childhood. Lots of surprises hidden in the branches that the girls love finding. They buy one new ornament each year to add to the tree. This year in typical almost five year old fashion, Eloise chose this one. ‘Don’t mess with the dress’ (you’ll get it if you’ve seen the movie haha).

Almost December. So exciting!

Featured Gem 21
Real Photo Postcard

‘Good Luck Black Cat’

Date: 1909
People: Unidentified
Studio: Unspecified
Postcard Back: Blank

Notes: Such a great pose and fabulous costume! (From the same collection as Gem 16) This image is from a series of over twenty postcards from the same old album. Apparently there was a message on the front of the album that read: “To The Mayoress with H Jenkins compliments. 1909 A souvenir of the Childrens Fancy Dress Ball”. What a fancy dress ball it must have been!

Circa Dec, 1978.
Nice look don’t you agree? Christmas must have been approaching!

I picked up this lovely old picture book in an opshop in New Zealand several years ago, just after getting off the ferry on the South Island. It’s in poor shape, tattered and torn, but all the pages are there and it is quite magical to look at! I am not sure the publication date but the handwritten message inside says:
“To Lucy from Uncle King June 28th 1892″

This is around the time my grandfather and his siblings were growing up in New Zealand, so it felt quite an appropriate find at the time as I was absorbed in hunting down some family history while I was over there.

If you’d like to see the entire book it’s free online via the International Children’s Digital Library. The other titles by R. Andre look equally intriguing! Warning, click at your own risk as you might get stuck looking at all the delights this website has to offer! The Internet is a wonderful thing.

{Tathra Beach September 2009}

We lost power on the weekend. At about 1am loud buzzing and zapping noises, big orange glow, sparks flying out where the street wires meet our house. Scary! Caitlin woke up terrified as she has developed a fear of storms and thought it was thunder (Even went to bed tonight still saying ‘no thunder?’ poor poppet). So by candlelight at 1am on Sunday morning I was making some of these hand shadow puppets on the wall complete with silly voices. She seemed to appreciate it, and it even got her giggling her adorable almost two year old hearty chuckle.

This old card is just smaller than A4 and has no details on it other than shown.

If you place your hands as shown in these pictures, and hold them in front of a light, their shadows will make the many creatures shown here.

The girls have a little desk in my studio space where they like to sit and create their masterpieces. I often find random artwork taped to the walls and furniture, my very own gallery complete with two mini curators! This treasure above was left for me the other day! Eloise is into drawing ‘hearts’ at the moment and I often make the mistake of asking ‘and what’s that’ which is greeted by an exasperated ‘it’s a love heart Mummy’ complete with rolled eyes. Ahhh silly me! (They’re love hearts around the top of the carriage, just in case you’re like me haha). She’s starting to get more detail into her drawings and it’s so interesting to see the way she thinks. She can be so slap happy sometimes. She does not care about what she uses, but it’s usually the closest thing she can find even if it’s a blunt pencil or a half dried out texta. But she is lucky. She can be creative, free and unrestricted. I try to just let her go and not influence her (besides, she’d get cranky at me if I started to tell her what to do!). I love watching the process!

The artwork above was really interesting to watch. On her own initiative she decided to trace around scraps of paper, bottle tops, small objects she could find within arms reach, and then used the shape to determine what it would be: an alien, a person with a spotty guitar, a hand with a face and legs, a platypus…and she seemed to have a lot of fun in the process and was really proud of her masterpiece! Usually she writes her name everywhere, sometimes it’s only her name on the paper, over and over again…sometimes right way around, sometimes backwards, sometimes upside down and sometimes the ‘E’s have half a dozen cross strokes! I’m now watching Caitlin start to obsessively scribble, and waiting for the first recognisable face or person to appear. I’ve always been fascinated by children’s artwork, and it’s incredibly exciting to watch my own! A little window into what’s going on inside their head.