Christmas decorations ahoy!

I currently have these gorgeous decorations on their way from one of my favourite stores, Polli. They are printed on 100% recycled card, which means no guilt for me!

Image: Polli

I'll be using them to decorate the home-made Christmas tree that John and I fashioned from bits and pieces recycled from Reverse Garbage last year.

I'll be doing little brown paper packages again this year, but instead of the brown twine I'll be using this candycane-inspired twine that was in my awesome package of red things from Cerebral Excrement earlier in the year.

What are you doing to prepare for the festivities in your home?

Office pinboard

I'm going to try and make an effort to regularly curate the material on the pinboard in our office, rather than letting it get cluttered. Here is my first attempt...

Four things about four things about me: Part two

 Here's my remaining eight things about me (started in my last post).

Four things I would like to have done but didn’t

1. Paid more attention in biology class. I took biology in my senior years at high school, but I unfortunately did quite a bit of mucking around. I find these kinds of subjects very interesting these days, so I just wish I’d paid more attention back then.

2. Not gone to see Marilyn Manson on his last tour. Sometimes when bands I loved in my youth tour, I go and see them to reminisce. Even though I would not consider myself to be a fan these days, usually when Marilyn Manson tours, I go along and am thoroughly entertained. I wasn’t so entertained last time. He was older and fatter, and the fantasy was gone.

3. Taken more photos at the Big Pineapple. As you can see over at my other blog, recently my friends and I took a trip to the Big Pineapple. What we didn’t know when we went there was that it would actually close down two days later. It had been for sale for a number of years, but was only quietly sold last month. Apparently it will re-open as a car museum before Christmas.

4. Said goodbye properly. My close friend Shilo is currently (as in, right this very second) on a plane home to NYC. It will probably be a while before I see her again. We will catch up on the internet, of course (after all, it is how we met in the first place), but it would have been nice to have done a proper goodbye in person. We saw each other earlier in the week, and assumed we’d catch up again before she left. But we didn’t, so I didn’t get to say a real goodbye. There is a personal story to explain why saying goodbye properly is particularly important to me, but I won’t share that here.

Four things you may not know about me

1. I just got my licence, aged 28.

That’s right. Last month, in fact. I started lessons with a driving school back in March, having been renewing my learner’s permit since I got it when I was 16. I even went all the way and got a manual licence. I’m still not entirely comfortable driving, so I’m yet to venture out on my own. But I’m getting there!

2. I don’t like dried fruit.

I find it disgusting. No sultanas, dried apricots, or even dried goji berries for me. Gross.

3. I have floppy ankles.

My ankles have roughly 50 per cent more rotation than most people’s. I believe it’s somewhat connected to me walking pigeon-toed as a child, and sitting in some rather awkward positions as a kid. I still sit in awkward positions, often on my feet with them all curled up. It still freaks my husband out. Thankfully I have excellent bones, which I attribute to my excessive milk drinking throughout my life, so the many instances of me rolling my ankles have never resulted in a serious injury… yet.

4. I was a teenage goth.

No need to say any more about that one.

Now, it's time to nominate four more people to participate!
1. Tracey from Quiet Paws.
2. Emma from Down to Girth. 
3. Emily from Kuberblog.
4. Sandrine from histoire de soie. 

Four things about four things about me: Part one

So I guess that means sixteen things about me!

Nadiah over at Playing Fair tagged me for this meme, in which I have to tell you all kinds of personal stuff.  I'll give you eight over this post, and the rest later on when I have more time to think! Enjoy!

Four things in my bag
1. Amazon Kindle. I've had it for just over a week now. I've downloaded some free public-domain classics to start, as well as a trial subscription to Time magazine. Isn't it pretty?!

2. B.Sirius wallet. This is from a Melbourne company that I discovered a little while back.

3. Boston umbrella. This is the best umbrella I've ever owned. It was pricey as far as umbrellas go (about $35), but it folds up really small and can't turn inside out and rip - genius!

4. Ear plugs. We go to quite a few concerts, and many of them are pretty loud. These ear plugs are good at reducing the decibel level without distortion.

Four things in my bedroom

1. Birdy bookmark. This little guy is from kikki.K, and he was given to me by a friend.

2. Fez-wearing monkey. This dude belongs to John, and he's had him since before we met. I am unsure of his significance. Perhaps I should ask. He's kind of cute though, and his head wobbles.

3. Childhood art. You've probably seen the vintage suitcases that we have in our bedroom, but I've never shown you what's inside. The red one contains all the paintings and drawings I did at kindergarten and preschool - my mum kept them all in this little case.

4. Sudoku book. As you can see, I got rather frustrated with some of the medium puzzles.

In the next post, I will reveal more serious matters such as four things I wish I'd done but didn't, and four things you may not know about me. I'll also tag four lucky (or perhaps that's unlucky!) people to go next. Stay tuned!

Stripy red bowls... and giveaway winners!

About a month ago, I spied these ultra-cute stripy red bowls in Kmart for $2.00 each. Insane, yes? I didn't buy them at the time, but filed their existence safely away in the back of my mind.

This afternoon, John needed to go to the shopping centre for something, so I told him I needed to 'look at something' at Kmart. Of course, I returned with $8.00 worth of stripy red ceramic goodness. It's ok, though - it means I can move the remnants of our ugly old dinner sets off to Lifeline to make way for them. Here are my new purchases on a disgracefully unironed Thea & Sami Spoon and Whisk tea towel.

I decided to use my new bowls to draw the screenprinted bag giveaway a tiny bit early. Drumroll...

The winners are... Tracey and Rachel! 

I will email both of you shortly to arrange delivery of your prizes.

More screenprinting workshop... and a giveaway!

You can now see Thea's overview of the weekend screenprinting workshop on her website. The other ladies produced some fabulous designs (many far more ambitious than my own!), and I think we should all be very proud of ourselves. Here's a picture of me at the studio with one of my newly printed bags.

Image: Thea Samios

I also forgot to mention that after the class, John and I stopped off at Love Love Studio (in Newstead, Brisbane) to pick up a print we purchased at a recent exhibition. On hearing that I've just done a screenprinting course, the guys were kind enough to give me one of the screens they had laying around the studio. How awesome is that?!

Now for a giveaway! I'm giving away one each of my apples and pears bags! Keep in mind that these two bags are far from perfect - they certainly have their flaws! If you would like to win one, just leave a comment before 5.00pm Sunday (Brisbane time - keep that in mind daylight savings people!).

Pavlova

One thing I've never mentioned on Flying Ducks is that I didn't take home economics class after the compulsory year in eighth grade (as I hated sewing!). Instead, I took a class called food studies for two years. This class attracted a lot of naughty kids, as they thought it would be a 'bludge' kind of subject. It wasn't. Food studies gave me some skills which I will keep for the rest of my life - basically, the fundamentals of how to cook pretty much anything. You know, the stuff your nanna used to teach you - how to make a white sauce, how to bake meringue and choux pastry, how to make a biscuit or cake batter to adapt for almost any purpose, and how to fix stuff that's gone horribly wrong!  I even won the award for being top of the subject for two years running.

This weekend, I've used those skills during some rather successful cooking sessions. Last night I made a free-range organic goat (yes, goat - sorry vegetarians) lasagne. John bought the goat mince from the organic butcher a month or two ago (I have know idea why), and it's been sitting in the freezer waiting for me to pluck up the courage to cook it. It has an extremely strong flavour, and was perhaps a tiny bit too strong for a lasagne. But it was tasty nevertheless, thanks to my excellent lump-fee bechamel sauce made from scratch.

Today, I made my first ever pavlova. I plan on making one of these for the excellent Shilo before she heads home to New York in a couple of weeks, and I decided to make a trial pavlova today just in case I needed to perfect anything. Before you ask: no, I did not buy one of those White Wings Pavlova Magic things. I made my meringue using good old-fashioned egg whites and caster sugar. And it was super easy! Add whipped cream and berries to the cooked meringue, and you get this...

 

I'm going to see if our lovely old neighbour Merv would like to share it with us.

The china flan dish is from Japan. I picked it up at Lifeline in Toowoomba last weekend for the princely sum of $4.00. It doesn't have any chips or scratches, so I think it was an excellent find.