NIKKI-SHELL

Meme

I've seen this meme floating  around in blogland and just read Amelia's answers so i thought i'd play along.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?

10 years ago today i was 20 years old and travelling across Canada by Greyhound bus with Kev.  On this very day we were in Jasper staying in a hostel near Mount Edith Cavell with no electricity or running water.  I remember it being freezing cold at night and we shared a cabin with a few other travellers one guy in particular that talked in his sleep.  We walked up to Mount Edith Cavell in the morning, what a beautiful place!

In the afternoon we played board games and sat around the campfire toasting marshmallows at night.  We went walking in the woods even though there had been sightings of a bear nearby.

That trip was the best.  3 whole months travelling with each other starting in Vancouver and ending in Toronto stopping at 13 places in total.  Here are a few more photographs from the trip.  Please excuse the quality, they are scanned from actual photographs.  Ah doesn't film have something special?

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list today- not in any particular order?

Well it's 9:30pm now so here's what i have planned for the next 24 hours.  Sew, read, sleep, clean my house and make bread rolls and soup for when these lovely ladies arrive in the morning.  That's  5 things but i'm sure there'll be more :)

3. Snacks I enjoy

Hmm, i'm not sure i have any particular favourites.  Well i do but they change quite often.  At the moment i like to snack on toast topped with peanut butter and jam and cups of tea.

4. Places I’ve lived

I grew up in Seaham and Houghton-le-Spring, both of which are in the North East of England.
I lived in Middlesborough where i went to Uni, also in the North East of England.
I moved to Nottingham in 1999 with Kev where we lived until October 2004.
We then moved to the other side of the world with Mia and now live in Melbourne.


5. Things I would do if I were a billionaire 

I'm not sure i'd like to be a billionaire to be honest.  That's just too much money in my opinion.  But if i did have that much then i think i'd make sure my family and good friends were all taken care of.  i'd have a sustainable home built, travel whenever i felt like it, make sure i had enough to live a comfortable life with and use the rest to help those that need it and invest in projects and people i feel have potential but need a little help.

Soap and yarn

I made my first ever batch of  olive oil and copha soap last night using a recipe found on Down-to-Earth. 

Man that caustic soda is scary stuff!  If you try making soap make sure the kids are well out of the way when you do, i made mine when they had gone to bed.  It turned out great but i had trouble slicing it today without it crumbling, did i do something wrong or is there a trick to slicing it?  No matter, the bars may not be straight but they'll do.  I grated the crumbled pieces to use in my laundry soap.

On the way home from playgroup yesterday we called into the op shop to look for woolen jumpers for felting.  I found one biscuit coloured lambswool jumper which felted up nicely, it will be used to make playfood for the girls.  I also found this hand knit vest made from the softest gray wool.

Even though it's not my style, for $4.50 i couldn't leave it there.  I also couldn't bring myself to felt it for play food, instead i plan to follow in the footsteps of this thrifty knitter and unravel and reknit it into something else.  No particular pattern comes to mind yet, my first though was a shawl but i'm just not a shawl kind of gal so maybe a simple cardigan or jumper.  Any pattern recommendations?

Zine inspiration

For those of you taking part in the zine swap here are some of my collection.

1. Pot no bills zine, 2. Post no bills zine, 3. Post no bills zine-Vanessa Berry, 4. If we stand very still, no one will notice-inside, 5. If we stand very still, no one will notice., 6. Before it's too late-inside, 7. Before it's too late, 8. Li'l Laundromatic-The search for the impossibly clean-inside, 9. Li'l Laundromatic-The search for the impossibly clean, 10. Scrappy-inside, 11. Scrappy, 12. Dunno?- inside, 13. Dunno?, 14. Kenny n Jenny-inside, 15. Kenny n Jenny, 16. Stolen Sharpie Revolution, 17. Found Things-inside, 18. Found things, 19. KerBloom! #60, 20. Under the craft tent #1-inside, 21. Under the craft tent #1, 22. Animal ABC book, 23. Animal ABC book-inside, 24. How to...be a little more green-inside

You could also try searching for zines on Flickr and Etsy or just google 'zines'.  There are heaps to see which should provide you with some inspiration.  Things that come to mind are:
How the paper is folded
What are the dimensions
How many pages
How are the pages held together? Glue, stitched, stapled, tied with string, paperclips, fabric, etc.
Printed, handwritten, typed, screen printed, etc.
What is inside?  Envelopes, stamps, stitching, paint, fold-out's, small items etc.
Is the zine inside anything?  like an envelope, wrapped in paper or fabric, some kind of bag etc.

I'm so excited to see what everyone comes up with.  I have a few ideas for mine, i just need to make the decision which way to go with it.  Maybe you'd like to make extras and sell or give them away.  If i'm happy with how mine turns out i may make some extra to put in Sticky.

Play Food Saturday

Like i mentioned in my last post the girls need more play food.  So in an attempt to make it myself rather than buying it i'm going to declare Saturdays 'Play Food Day'.  Each week i will make one or a few pieces of play food for their kitchen and hopefully over time their collection will build up.  I'm also going to try making them from materials i already have, although there may be some wool felt purchased at some point.  I'd like to make my own if only i could get the bloody knitting machine to knit more than 10 rows without the yarn unhooking from the needles.
So today i made watermelon

I have another cut out and ready to sew up.  The best thing?  The girls were impressed and that's all that matters :)

500

When i was pregnant with Heidi i was so exhausted all of the time that our routine went to shit. 
Luckily i had my wonderful husband to look after me and feed the kids while i napped and Justine to help out whenever i needed her to.
Heidi is now 4 months old and i'm starting to feel like things are falling back into place.  I'm gradually going from room to room cleaning and de cluttering.  Today was the girls play room.  I went through their toys and whittled them down to two boxes ( i think i could get them down to one eventually!), their doll house, kitchen, bookshelf and blocks.   As soon as i finished they were straight in there to play.  It was as if i'd given them a bunch of new toys to play with!  We were even invited to a tea party, although we don't have a tea set!  I must add that to the list of things to buy.  It needs to be durable, not plastic and not too expensive, any suggestions?  I also need to make/buy some more play food.

One of my goals this year is to teach Mia how to read and write the alphabet and numbers.  Then the aim is to teach her to read.  So today i picked up these flashcards to put up on the wall.  Both Mia and Esme took an instant interest.

We also set up a nature table.

We talked about the seasons and what winter is all about.  They chose the colours and arranged it with things they had collected on a recent walk to the park.  Beautiful!

I borrowed Marie Claire Idee's from Justine yesterday and Mia drooled over all the pretty bedrooms and asked if they could have theirs look like those on the pages.  Unfortunately we rent so there's no way i'd be able to paint their room (pink).  I'm thinking of draping some fabric from the ceiling, princess style.  Any ideas?

Oh and the title?  This is my 500th post!

People Power

Check this out.

Snails, tantrums and style

Nicole mentioned her favourite blog at the moment is Resurrection Fern.  I followed the link and fell in love!  I love that Margaret has snails in many of her photographs.  She posted a tutorial for making fabric snails which i showed to my girls.  Of course we HAD to make them so this afternoon after doing housework, eating lunch and making a cubby house and before heading to the park we made up a few of these slimy little suckers.  They came to the park with us for a little fresh air and a nibble of the grass.

Esme's is missing from the photo because she was doing this,

having a HUGE hissy fit.  Oh boy was she one tired little girl today, my ears are ringing from listening to her whine and cry.  Now how do you like Mia's style?  Nana and Grandad sent over a parcel containing some summery clothes.  It's a little too chilly for them at the moment so she improvised by wearing the vest (singlet) over the top of the halterneck dress and a long sleeve top under them both.  She has worn this outfit for two days running she likes it so much.  I've had to sneak the clothes into the wash tonight!

Make do and have fun!

We ran out of glue this morning while the girls were crafting.

So i whipped up some pink home made paste and they kept right on going. 

Happy children, happy Mamma!

Recipe

1/2 cup of all purpose flour
water

Mix in enough water to make a sloppy paste.  Stir or whisk over a low heat until combined into a smooth spreadable paste.  Stir in colouring.

I will be sending out emails for the handmade zine swap later today.

A little light reading

Just a few of the books on my night stand at the moment! 

_________________________________________________________________________________________

I've just finished reading 'How to be Free' by Tom Hodgkinson who is also the author 'How to be Idle' (which i'm yet to read) and editor and co-founder of Idler magazine.  It took me a while to get through this book, mainly because i've only been reading it when i give Heidi her last feed at night in bed.  I think i got through a chapter a night.  It's a great book for those that are interested in downsizing and living a simpler life, which we are. 

Have you ever wondered why you bother to go to work? Why so much of consumer culture is crap? Whether there might be a better, freer, happier way to live our lives? If so, this book is for you. Following up his cult bestseller "How To Be Idle", Tom Hodgkinson takes us on an inspirational journey towards true freedom and happiness. Read "How To Be Free" and learn how to throw off the shackles of anxiety, bureaucracy, debt, governments, housework, moaning, pain, poverty, ugliness, war and waste, and much else besides.

I highly recommend it.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

I also finished reading 'Comfort Food' by Kate Jacobs over a month ago.  It was a nice light read, similar to her other book 'The Friday Night Knitting Club'.  You can read the first chapter here.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

I'm now listening to The Poisonwood Bible on audio book.  I'm enjoying it but because of all the hype i've heard about it i was expecting more and am a little disappointed.  For me it's not one of those books you can't wait to read/listen to.   I have another credit for Audible, any suggestions?
Im researching vegetable gardening, in particular 'no dig' gardens and i'm finding Esther Dean's 'Growing without Digging' book very informative.  I've wanted to start a vegetable garden for the past two years, the first it just didn't happen and last year i was pregnant and couldn't be bothered!  This is the year for it and i intend to start soon.
I'm also reading up on homeschooling (natural learning) since we recently came to the decision that it is the right thing for us.  We have been thinking about it over the past few years and have had lots of wonderful advice especially from Amanda.  We tried Steiner playgroup last year and although we liked parts of it such as the natural approach they take it just didn't quite fit.  We applied for kinder for Mia last year (just in case) and we received an acceptance letter for her last month.  It was time to make the decision and we believe we've made the right one.  While we're on the subject of homeschooling, if there are any other homeschooling (natural learning) families in Melbourne that would like to meet up please email me.
Other subjects on my list are self-sufficiency, natural beauty (i'm going to be making some soap soon), natural housekeeping and Melbourne.

What are you reading?

Handmade Zine Swap

I was thinking of having a theme, any thoughts?
We will send to each person participating so the zine should be small enough so that you can pay minimum postage to send it.  You will have until the end of August to make and send.

Interested?  Email me at nikkishell@gmail.com with the subject title 'Handmade Zine Swap', let me know your name, blog and postal address.  You have until Sunday to sign up then i will send out info to all taking part.

Edit to add: A zine is a mini magazine just like Mixtape Zine.  Here is a more indepth answer.  You will make enough of your zine to be able to send to each participant and they will be handmade.  By handmade i mean, done by hand by you, either handwritten or drawn, typed, cut and paste, photocopied,   using your computer if you wish, anything goes as long as you have done it yourself.  Each zine should be the same so you could make one then photocopy 10 copies to post out.  Add stuff to them, stick little things inside, secret notes, envelopes, fold out pictures etc.  It can be any size you wish but remember you have to post them out, personally i'm going to go small enough to fit inside a small envelope like the size of a greeting card.

This swap is Worldwide so you MUST be willing to post overseas.  I'm thinking maybe 10 participants maximum but if there are more i can arrange small groups to post to one another. 

I hope this clarifies things.  Let me know if you have any other questions and i will answer them here or in the comments.

I will show some zines over the next few days and share some links that may be useful ofr making your zines.

FULL