'tis the season...for consuming

the minnie mouse side of dress 3.  oh and merry christmas from the de Greenlaw kiddies.

aaah christmas.  not to get all bah humbug but with every passing year you get more about 'giving' and less about family, love and relaxing.  growing up christmas was the shizz.  we got six weeks off school, i got a heap of presents and we went on our annual road trip to sydney.  as i got older christmas became more special because no matter how much my parents fought during the year on that one day we all came together and had a day when none of that mattered.  my favourite christmas's were the ones that were just the melbourne family, just the four of us eating tinned oysters on the beach or yogo for breakfast then watching silly movies all day.  now that i'm a 'big girl' all i can think about is whether i'm going to get all my pressies sorted in time and how early is too early to make an escape from christmas lunch with my dad and his new partners family.  it's not that i don't like my dad's lady friend, i really do, it's just that christmas does not hold that magic for me anymore.  i would so much rather just hang out with my best mates who i consider to be my real family.
and don't even get me started on the whole presents thing.  i could count on one hand the things i have recieved that were exactly what i wanted and completely awesome.  it's become so important to just have something, anything, to give on the big day that we just hand over dollars by the fistful without even thinking about it.  i know i would appreciate a thoughtful handmade card and a donation to a charity a million times more that any gift basket or trinket that i will never wear.  maybe that's just me...i guess it will come as no surprise then that i am making all my gifts this year.  and as per usual i haven't started sooo this week is going to be a flurry of stitching and pasting and baking.  i feel at this stage that i have it loosely under control but i will report back...

the pretty pink summertime side of dress 3.  as to what's going on in this photo all i can say is that my bro and i are making a calendar for dad.  can't really explain why we chose to do this for March...

on a completely different topic dress 3 is almost done.  i wore it to the chrissie party and on the weekend, all it needs is a bit of tulle on the hem and it will be ready to party the summer away.

such a big weekend for such a little girl!

one of the major motivations to start this whole thing was to de-clutter my life.  so far my room, my haven, has remained as messy and war zone like as before i'd started the challenge.  this is a major cause of stress.  as much as i love to retreat to my room it makes me sad when i look around and there is nothing but shit as far as they eye can see.  i decided to make some inroads into this problem by holding a market stall on saturday.  i was ruthless when going through my clothes.  previously i had three large racks stuffed to the brim as well as a comprehensive floor-drobe and several shelves just full of STUFF.  i was super happy with myself as i managed to whittle it down to just one rack.  i didn't realise how emotional the process would be though.  as i placed each item in the hallway to sell, memories came flooding back as to when and where i had bought it and the good times i'd had in each piece.  these feelings had been one of the major causes for my hoarding and i knew i just had to let it go.  who cares if i bought it overseas or kissed a cute boy in it or danced til dawn in it.  the memories remain, i don't need a physical reminder to reflect on good times had.  besides a lot of the clothes where from the 'thin' days and i really don't need to fool myself into thinking that there will be a return visit to the fabulous skinny me.  just torture really.

our lovely friend lauren dropped by

  so carla and i i trundled off to the fitzroy market, with help from the awesome brandon and his wonderful truck and the love interest, and set up shop.  unfortunately it wasn't as busy as i would have liked and i only sold about a quarter of my stuff.  oh well i made 175 buckeroos to put in to the overseas fund and had a lovely day.  could have done without the horrendous sunburn though...

little nicky came to visit.  didn't buy anything but did complain excessively about the heat.  

then today (sunday) i had the first ever meeting of my sewing club!  yay!  after putting it off several times it finally happened and was a resounding success.

kim and carla cut out their patterns.

i really do love sewing.  i know that it comes easily to me because i have been doing it for so long but it does make me sad that so many of my friends don't know how to sew.  so i thought since it's just about the only skill that i have i may as well share the love.  kim, alex, bri, carla and my mum all turned up today brimming with enthusiasm and fire in their bellies.  and i have to say that i was like a proud little mother hen when they modelled their finished pyjama shorts.

snowy's sweatshop

despite a slight hiccup in the sizing of the shorts they all looked fabulous.  we used a pattern for mens pyjamas but i'm not sure what man was supposed to wear them because they came out blood restictingly tight.  not to worry though a cheeky little panel down each side and we were in business.  we had so much fun in fact that a second date has been arranged for two weeks from now and perhaps i'm a little over confident but i have slated a shift dress as the next project.  hurrah for handmade!

awesome shorts!  where did you get them?  oh you made them... how clever!

these are a few of my favourite things

so massive fail whale in regards to finishing the third dress.  i have done exactly nothing since i last wrote.  whoops... tee hee?  not completely my fault.  ok it is but in my defence on friday i had a massive meltdown blackhole day.  so many tears.  there were tears in my ears.  what a rhyme.  it's true though.  anyway i have decided to document some of the things that make me happy and in the tradition of the handmade tale they are all mostly free.  love that.

the smell of jasmine
nothing says the turn of the season to me quite like the sweet scent of jasmine wafting on a warm spring breeze.  it hit me like a fairy slap when i left work mid afternoon the other day.  there's something about it that reminds of my childhood, playing in the backyard with my brother.  now it just smells like happiness, the sun warming my shoulders as the afternoon promises to be full of naps, giggles and lazy times.

oh alright i'll have a nap.  if i must

my bed
i only got a big girls bed two years ago.  up until then i had been running with a single bed that i scored from work.  yes it was free but it was time to upgrade.  i was delighted when i found this faux fairytale princess bed at ikea for 2 hunge.  my lovely mother bought me a proper mattress with a pillow top and all those expensive mattress thingys then it was time to catch some serious zzzz.  up until the day that the whole ensemble came together was just childs play.  this bed makes me happy just to think about it.  i know you're not supposed to do anything but sleep in your bed, disrupts your sleep or some such rubbish, but i do everything in this haven of happiness.  i read, sew, watch t.v, write and even eat in here when i'm feeling particularly lazy.  and yes that is 8 toys that you see there.  it may be a big girls bed but i'm still a little girl at heart.  they are my kids and they make me happy so don't judge me.  if the Love Interest stays over i put them straight back on as soon as he leaves because they save me from loneliness and monsters.  so there.

random messages of love
i know that everyone feels insecure about their place in the hearts of the ones that they love but i doubt myself more than most.  there is nothing like a text message from a friend just to tell me that they love me or a real hug just to let you know that you brighten someones day.  the best person for this is my beautiful friend ailen.  every time i see her at work she gives me a huge smile and the warmest hug.  often when i least expect it she will give me a kiss or hold my hand.  it's little gestures like this that let me know that she loves me and the feeling is definitely mutual.  life is too short to hate or be mad so every time i talk to bfffff nick on the phone i let him know i love him and often send little poems or silly pictures just to let him know that i'm thinking of him and that he fills my heart with happiness.

my house and the people in it
i have lived out of home for almost six years but my current situation is definitely the most harmonious and god damn awesome.
firstly the house it self is a constant source of happiness.  it's big, old and falling down but it's home.  every time i walk in the door i can't help but smile because i know that it's mine and i feel safe there.  ok clearly it's not really mine but living in carlton in this big old place has done wonders for my happiness.  i will be extremely sad to say goodbye next year.

the bestest housies a girl could ask for
Jess me Brandon and Lisa

secondly the people in it are just the most wonderful people i could hope to ask for.  i have heard so many peoples horror stories about nightmare housemates but i can honestly say that i have never had one of those experiences.  lisa and brandon moved in at the start of the year.  they are the happiest, funniest, cutest couple that i have ever met.  i have never seen them angry and their very presence makes me happy.  they are so kind and friendly that i defy anyone not to fall in love with them.  jess moved in a couple of months ago and he is my favourite housemate ever.  we work together and i bugged him to move in for months until he finally relented.  he makes me laugh like a drain, always listens when i'm down and gives the biggest best bear hugs.  if there were a prize for most awesome household we would win.  we have never fought, support each other and get on like old old friends.

get in me.  now.

cheese
ok so i'm a vegan so cheese has not passed my lips for what feels like 73 lifetimes.  oh how i miss you savoury food of the gods.  i've decided jan 1st marks the first day of a return to my vegetarian ways.  oh the cheese plate is going to be the cheese plate to end all.  i'm going to stuff my face until i have camembert coming out my ears and i start to sweat fetta.  it's going to be a-mazing.  i hope the animals can forgive me but i gave veganism a red hot go but my weak willed ways just can't handle it.

these are just a few things that are guaranteed to put a smile on the dial.  so come up with a few of your own and next time you feel down just think of that hug that a treasured friend gave you or that wedge of bitey tasty that made your eyes roll back and your lips make a noise like the touch of a very gifted lover...

you never write you never call...

my little sewing nook

woah. so it's been three weeks since my last post. i don't even know why. this past three weeks has been a bit of a black hole of creativity. i think the best thing i have made is heaps of hommous. great hommous but hommous non the less. i'm back on board though. the love interest snaffled me a desk from work and now the sewing room is pimpin, it is definitely a place that the sewing gods can roam free. now i just need to convince jess to stop hanging his underwear up on the cartain rails...
ok so i have one dress to go. it's about time too. i'm not necesarrily bored with the two dresses that i've been running with so far but as summer approaches, or threatens to (bloody melbourne weather), i feel that i need another look in my artillery as i will need to wash more frequently. i have decided to add a bit of flair to the final dress, make it more of a party frock. so this one is going to have a fun full skirt so that i can spin around and feel like a princess. also it's going to have a lower neckline as the couple of hot days that we have had have left me a little concerned about how i will manage through the summer without the trusty singlet/shorts combo that i usually embrace in the height of a stinking melbourne summer.
i had started the dress, as you may recall, in a black and white check and black crochet cotton. it really wasn't floating my boat so i made another trip to trusty sydney road and succumbed to a pretty summery pink and white stripe cotton that i had dismissed on several occasions. it's really light and lovely but it will be a little bit of a challenge with the stripes. i experimented with paper by drawing stripes on it at cutting it up to see how the skirt will look. i've decided on a sort of chevron pattern so hopefully it works out...

hopefully the fabric version works out like my shonky paper experiment...

the reverse is a really cool purple black and white check. i'm meeting the love interest's family on saturday so it need to be finished by then. two days to make the whole thing? no worries...

ok it's much prettier in the flesh. in the fabric?

blankface do ding dong

i haven't done much in the way of craftiness this week. i think after the rush of finishing the recycle dress and getting ready for the halloween party that i over extended my creative juices a bit. i have been powering up with some hardcore naps this week though. my favourite kind of nap is in the afternoon in early summer with the window open and the sun streaming in. there's something peaceful about hearing the murmur of traffic and trams mixed in with the birds and people talking as the sun warms you from head to toe while you drift in and out of sleep. hasn't been too much of that kind of kip though. bloody melbourne. it's the start of november for goodness sake and it's still as cold as a witches tit and raining all the time. harumph. ok ok i still love you ye olde melbourne town.

little nick twiddling his nobs

anyway as i haven't been creating this week i thought i would write about my awesome, wonderful, lovely bestest friend in the world's band. they're called blankface distortion and i went to see them tonight. it is widely acknowledged that i am their no. 1 fan and i was even offered the role of president of the fan club, a position i have gladly accepted. i said i would need a big desk and cat to fulfil the role. pretty sure they thought i was joking. i wasn't. i have seen them play at least 10 times and they are never the same twice. when i first saw them a half hour set would consist of possibly two really long jamming songs but now they've really tightened it up. everyone asks me to describe their sound but there is just no way to pin it down. there are guitars, drums, synths (my bfffffff nick's domain), keys and the latest addition, a sax. all i can say is it's thoughtful music that gets your toe tapping and converts everyone that hears it. every gig they play always attracts people up to the stage at the end to gush over how great they are. so in summary if you see a listing for blankface distortion playing somewhere check them out. you'll love it.

Add caption

youtube sensation

two great things happened today.
1. the love interest took me to world vegan day celebrations at the abbotsford convent. it was lovely. we had yummy samosas and ice cream and cup cakes and i got to be amongst my people. the LI is a meat eater so it was very sweet of him to take me into the hippies lair.
2. jess finished editing my nothing new entry so i got it in on the last day. hurrah! the entry looks awesome. thank you so much to jess and ailen for helping me out. you're both wonderfully talented and i feel honoured to have so many super clever friends.

halloween. BOO

we had a halloween party last night.  obviously it was dress up so i was faced with a bit of a dilemma.  do i wear the black dress and go as a boring old witch or break the project and wear a costume i already have?  that was until my mate matt suggested i wear the haus frau number and go as a housewife.  a zombie housewife.  boom. great idea.  now it wouldn't be a costume party if i didn't make something, so i whipped up a cute little floral lacy apron to really get down with the housewife vibe.  i also made a 'scary' curtain by dying an old sheet with food dye and spraying black bats on it with a stencil i made.  voila!  cheap and cheerful student-y curtain.

what a hottie.  can i get you your pipe and slippers?

what a cute lil apron.  if people wore aprons i'd make more and sell them.

what a creepy bunch.  my bestie carla, my bfffffffff nick and carla's twin jemell.  or jemellatron as i like to call her.

on the subject of the party i have to say that i am blessed with the most wonderful housemates and bffff in the world.  the last couple of  parties that i've thrown have left me as one big ball of stress, rocking in the corner never wanting to touch a sponge again.  lovely lisa and awesome jess were wonderful though.  we all pitched in and got the house spick and span yet suitably spooky. particular fun was had with my dressmakers dummy.  she became jack the creepy watcher.  it's amazing how scary a dummy with a balloon jack o' lantern head and a robe can be.  the house was punctuated with screams all friday night as we placed him behind doors, in the bath and around corners whenever one of us wasn't watching.  tee hee. although not a member of the household, my bfffffff nick was muchos helpful too.  he made a lovely mural for the dancfloor with a moon and a ghost and bats.  also very cheap and student-y but lovely just the same.  everyone drank, danced and was merry.  a good time was had by all.  the abc news theme re-mix by pendulum went off it's nut.  guaranteed dance floor filler for future parties.

the 880 posse. jess was sporting a panda head for most of the night and  lisa was voldemort which was bloody creepy.  except when she hit the d floor.  voldemort busting a move was priceless and something i'm sure j.k. rowling would not approve of.

jack.  that crazy cat.

strike a pose

lovely ailen doing me up.  this picture looks like the real thing. i'm a model!

 so the main inspiration for this little journey was the nothing new promotion put on by the salvos.  my lovely and talented housemate jess is making a video for me as my entry and today we filmed the last part.  the 'reveal' if you will.  so we'd already filmed me shopping in the salvos, cutting and sewing the dress so all we had to do was the bit where i'm wearing the dress.  we'd kind of run out of time to do this part, it's due on sunday, so we had to do it at work.  i can tell you i've never felt like more of a goose.  i was dancing around at the back of the studio with a good portion of my workmates watching.  we did a bit where my beautiful friend ailen zipped up my dress and one of the tradies happened to walk past at that moment and he copped a good look.  it really wasn't meant to look seedy but i guess the proof will be in the pudding.  i finally got a good bunch of photos too so at the expense of looking self indulgent and a bit up myself i'm including a few here.  it was actually pretty fun.  i pretty sure most girls have secretly wanted to be a little model at some stage so this was my chance.  pretty sure vogue won't be calling anytime soon.  guess i'll just stick to my day job then...

jess doing his thing

so this is the party fun time side of the dress.  pretty proud of this one as i made it from a skirt which required a lot of creative fiddling to get all the pieces together from the limited material that i had.



this is my blog so if i think i look half way decent i'm going to post it dammit...

and if i look like a goose that's going up there too.  my other housemate, lovely lisa, is a dancer and i don't know how she does it.  i danced for a total of about 3 minutes and i was frickin puffed out!


 



the best thing i've ever made part deux

woah two posts in one day.  won't be a habit that's for sure.  just thought i should smash up a quick pic of the denim delights side of the recycled dress.  also i did my second french class.  it is tres difficile.  bof.

the best thing i've ever made

i took the house frau side of dress one out on the town for the first time.  i think she enjoyed it.

well i finally finished  dress 2, the recycle dress and it's the awesome.  putting it out there, definitely the best thing i've made.  one side is made from 3 different pairs of jeans and the other side from an awesome skirt i found in an op shop.  it makes me very happy when i put it on as i always get comments on it and i love a little brag about how i made it.  i know, i know, i need to put up a photo.  i just need to take one...
starting this whole thing has really been way more liberating than i thought it would be.  i have a subscription to grazia magazine that i used to previously hang out to receive but now i just look at it's pages and can't help but think how wasteful and frivolous the whole thing is.  the way they present things in those magazines is awful.  so nonchalantly suggesting that it's acceptable to spend 800 bucks on a shirt to throw over a 1200 dollar dress that will 'work' for next season too.  what the what?  it really is ridiculous that us girls place so much importance in what we wear and in particular what other girls wear.  it's so true that we dress for other women.  i've never really been affected by brand envy before as i've always been a bit of an op shop girl but i definitely get jealous of the fitzroy girls with their awesome thrift dresses and cut off shorts and long flippy hair.  they put just as much effort in as the scanlon and theodore girls, the difference being that they pretend it's just 'this old thing?'  well now i can genuinely say 'this old thing?' and it makes me feel good.  i'm not stressing about what i wear and whether people think i'm cool or not.

it was my little bros' birthday so i made him a cake.  as you can see i've never decorated one before...

two weeks and still one dress

ok so unfortunately my social life has decided to reappear and i haven't been able to finish another dress.  out of nowhere a love interest has turned and taken up precious sewing time to romance me. so although i've been running with the same dress for two weeks i have cooked two delicious vegan meals for a devout meat eater and baked a delicious batch of triple choc cookies for my wonderful workmates that lasted all of 7 minutes.
on the dress front i'm in the finishing stages of dress 2 but i'm already a little over it.  one side is black and white checks but the other is black with large eyelets in it.  it looked great on the bolt but in dress form it seems a little chunky and unflattering.  oh well i'll persevere and hope for the best.  the 3rd dress is going to be my masterpiece.  i'm making it out of recycled clothes as part of the 'nothing new' comp for the salvos.  i'm using a second hand skirt and three pairs of mens jeans and it looks sik.  i am having a few troubles with the denim bit though.  the material is really thick and it's definitely not going to be my friend in summer but it looks great with it's panels of different coloured denim.  i'm going to work on it flat out on tuesday so hopefully my next post will be a triumphant one.
on a side note this has been a wonderful week for my 'nothing new' efforts.  one of my lovely colleagues was in charge of a whole bunch of audience giveaways for the morning show i work on so i scored 2 lipsticks, a mascara, shampoo, hair masque and a tin of chickpeas.  awesome!  i love free stuff.  unfortunately the downside of 'nothing new' is that i have decided to only give handmade presents. which would be great except my brother, best friend and her twin all have the same birthday.  which is tomorrow.  and i have nada. oh dear.

my world famous cookies.  almost didn't get this photo as they
 got gobbled up so quickly.

one week down

ok first post. well i'm one week into the challenge and totally rocking it so far. unfortunately i've only made one dress at this stage so i've been running with the same two looks for 5 days now. hasn't really bothered me though. it's actually very liberating getting up in the morning and not having to worry about what to wear. plus the dress pattern that i have chosen is really flattering. you know slimming, makes my boobs look big. makes it a lot easier not having to worry too much about fat days. which is another reason that i'm doing this. so sick of worrying about whether i look fat or ugly in something. now that i have no options maybe i can start concentrating on other stuff. also totally renewed my love of the sewing. my sewing machine is really crap so i borrowed my ma's and i'm in love with him. there's no way she's getting it back. it's a little husky, a baby husqvarna which is kind of nice because the machine i learnt to sew on was a husqvarna. that was also my ma's. until i broke it. whoops. i won't break this one though. i'll treat it like the lovely piece of happiness inducing machinery that it is. in fact i will refer to him from now on as harold. i heart harold.