Abuse – part 2
Well, I’ve taken down the abuse story I posted the other day. Unfortunately the shit hit the fan far more than I expected.
My family isn’t speaking to me, but from what I have heard it’s being denied as a lie. Which is understandable really, though sad. Unfortunately that’s not all, however. I’ve been threatened with implied violence, someone tried to hack into my facebook account, stories have been made up about me, and I’m now being told if I don’t remove [it from] the blog and facebook, I’ll be sued for defamation.
So… the emotional and verbal abuse goes on… but I have removed the posts as requested….. for the time being…
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Almond Oat Choc Chip Cookies
This recipe started off as the cowgirl cookies recipe that I had to modify to get it to fit into smaller pasta sauce jars I had so I could give them as xmas gifts… then I decided to try replacing some flour with almond meal and tweaking it a bit more.
1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 cup wholemeal SR flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup choc chips
1/2 cup butter (melted)
1/4 cup raw sugar
1 egg
1tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp cinnamon
About 2tb ground linseeds (which you can leave out)
Method:
Mix together, roll into balls, flatten (they won’t really rise much) and bake at 180ºC for 15-20 mins.
Minecraftyness.. part 4
It’s a bit graphic intense 
I’m a bit proud of it
Now with added youtubeyness!
Awesome afternoon at the park
Just had an AWESOME time at the park!
They opened a fenced dog park over a year ago just down the road, but we’ve been hesitant to take our dog (Fudge) because since puppy preschool (7 years ago) he’s only ever really met 2 other dogs and that’s my sister’s dog who stayed with us once (and Fudge spent the whole time looking depressed because the little dog was bullying him), and my BIL/SIL’s dog who I think he’s met twice, many many years ago…. and he’s sniffed a couple of dogs on the street, but he’s generally pulling at the lead to get to them, and he barks at every dog that goes past the house. I don’t think he’s aggressive, just really excited to see another dog…. and when he’s excited he’s all jumpy and I’m sure it looks like he’s aggressive.
Added to that, the one time we let him off the lead at a park when he was younger, we had trouble getting him back….. while we’ve tried to teach him commands …. he’ll really only obey if he wants to…. and if he’s distracted by something, like freedom…. there’s no chance… not even with tasty treats as bribery.
(Our beautiful boy!)
So we weren’t sure if he’d shame us by barking and chasing the other dogs (in excitement, not aggression) and if we’d ever be able to catch him to put him back on the lead… So we’d desperately wanted to give him the opportunity to socialise with other dogs, but we assumed it would end badly.
But he was PERFECT! When we got there I put 2 leads together to make one long one so he could walk a bit but not get away, he was a bit nervous and stayed around us just sniffing, then a dog came over and they calmly sniffed each other and Fudge then went back to smelling all the exciting smells the grass apparently has…. so we walked around a bit and he seemed perfectly calm and uninterested with the other dogs, so we decided to risk letting him off the lead…. Well he just calmly sniffed around a few metres from us…. no taking off! So we did a lap of the area and he pretty much ignored all the dogs, then we went to sit down and he wouldn’t leave our side, so we walked around with him. (or I did – MiniObsi and MrObsi went off bike riding.)
He had some other dogs come up and sniff him, and he sniffed back, all nice and calm, then they wandered off and he got the courage to join them. We still had to walk around or stand near the action or he would just come to be with us, but he had a whale of a time, hanging out with the other dogs, going up to all the people for pats (good thing we bathed him first!)
There was one dog who decided it wanted a bit of rough housing, but while Fudge was the one barking, he was playing the submissive role and letting the other dog jump on and nip him, so while the other dog’s owner was apologising and worried I’d think his dog was aggressive, I pointed out that it’s just play and if the dogs considered it more than that, we’d know…. (though since I was sitting down and Fudge wouldn’t leave me, I ended up having 2 dogs playing about almost on my lap lol)
So he was great. So that’s given us confidence to be able to take him again! I kinda wish we’d given him the benefit of the doubt and taken him before now…. but now we know, we’ll be able to take him more often. He was doing the doggy equivalent of grinning the whole time 
Xmas goodies
I was very spoiled this year (as all years really)…
(I think that’s everything, we haven’t fully unpacked yet)
MiniObsi made me a bed (from icypole sticks)… since I like to sleep in which has a chest of drawers with an alarm clock that has a power cord and she made a powerpoint on the back of the drawers (love detail like that!). In the drawers were 2 LEGO minifigs, Luminara (who I’d desperately wanted!) and an Imperial Guard
Mum and dad gave me a juicer (which I’ve wanted for YEARS!) and some chokkies…
Hubby gave me some portal socks, MacGyver DVD, LEGO pirates game, Undead Nightmare game, Zelda game, 2 Star Wars novels and the cutest thing – he made me peg dolls of Nathan Fillion (as Castle and Mal) so I can perve on them LMAO!
The Inlaws gave me some purple cons! and some groovy soft woollen socks and a very awesome spicy drawer sachet (so my socks and undies can all smell like chai! haha)
From my BIL/SILs I got another MacGyver DVD (now I have the entire set), Dark Angel DVD set, Xmas apron and plate, and a pack of chocs and stuff (not pictured – which I have to share with hubby )
And at our pre-xmas xmas lunch I got Big Bang Theory DVD, so I’m including it here.
And we got a gift voucher for the family, which we’re going to use to go towards buying the Star Wars blueray set! (woot!)
White Xmas….
So… interesting Xmas this year
It started out as a hot humid day, with air-conditioning going full pelt… then we get in the car and drive out to have dinner with the other side of the family, and I see what I thought was white pebbles by the side of the road…. Odd… then I saw more…. they can’t be pebbles – but it’s still quite warm, it can’t possibly be hail….
ohh yes it was! We’d just missed a hail storm
We didn’t miss the flooding though…. a fair amount of water on the roads, and a few places they had police out blocking off lanes..
The drive normally takes 45 mins… it took about an hour and a half…. With the water and people driving carefully, the freeway was crawling along.
The police had blocked off one lane on that side due to flooding. We weren’t sure we’d be able to get back along that road…. but the water was gone by the time we drove back… though we did see big hoses and SES guys, so I’m wondering if they pumped it out… since it’s a major road
You can see the white on the oval – it’s hailstones. And this was about 15 mins after it hailed.
The streets (and several cars that went past) were covered in leaf bits, and you could see where the water had washed over the roads…. I couldn’t really take pics as we were driving, but this is as we slowed to turn into a street… this street was quite clear compared to the road we’d turned off!
MiniObsi shows one of the hailstones (again, take into consideration that it had hailed about 15 mins before we got there). You can see more of the leaves that the hail broke off.
As we were driving there, we were discussing whether the round about would be flooded…. MiniObsi was concerned we’d have nowhere dry to park if it was… I said that if we couldn’t find parking up the street then it would mean the house we were going to would be underwater and we’d be using snorkles to eat dinner.
When we got there, that roundabout wasn’t flooded at all… in only about 10 mins the rain came down heavily again and it started to flood.
Which was when the hail started again, and since some of the people who had been in the earlier hailstorm had their cars damaged, MrObsi and I raced out to throw our picnic rugs onto the car to protect it…. We got quite drenched… MrObsi luckily got a new tshirt as one of his presents, so that was fortunate… I had to stay damp 
We stood on the porch looking at the parked fancy car… saying that we wouldn’t want that to be our car… and that the owner must be away…
We watched as within minutes the water had risen from just below the bottom of the body of that fancy car, to being well and truly at “seeping in through the door” level…
The water was running down the street…. Unfortunately photos don’t really show how much water there really was…
The dude who owned that car came out… he was there all along! Apparently he’d been “occupied” with a lady friend…. who I must say, must have been quite talented… for him to have chosen her over saving his car….
Amazingly, he got in the car (letting more water inside) and managed to drive it up the hill to dry land…. it was billowing plumes of smoke though, it did not look healthy… but then he parked and went back inside. The fellas we were with said he should have driven it around to dry it out… but I guess the lady friend was waiting for him…
It was quite funny to see the cars get to the round about and stop… obviously considering if they should attempt to go up or not… Similarly we could see card come down the hill, stop and reverse back. 2 cars decided to brave it coming down the hill, one hylux and one 4WD… both drove up onto the left hand footpath to do it though… A bit later on when the water had gone down a bit a couple of other cars came down the hill successfully…
One tried to make it up… and stopped halfway. Whether they conked out or stopped we don’t know.
They stayed in the car for a while, then a woman climbed out the passenger window, and was fiddling with the rear window – we realised then that there were kids in the car with her. Luckily there were a lot of people around and they came over as she was pulling one kid through the window, they took the child and carried it to the other side of the road (where someone happened to have a towel they were using to keep themselves dry), and went back to help her carry the other child out….
They all walked down the street, so I assume they sheltered them for a few hours until the water went down a bit, and they pushed the car up out of the water. They had left it with the window open though, so it’s going to be a bit moist inside for sure!
The water was knee deep in the deepest part…
Then some idiot parked, got out and walked around for about 15 mins in the water, slipped over on that right hand side road but couldn’t get up because he had an umbrella that he was waving around catching it in the water (and because the water was running fast).. he ended up sliding down the hill (it doesn’t look like much of a hill but it is)…. and we were a bit concerned he was going to get into trouble (though he seemed to be waving to people as he slid), but someone waded in and grabbed him by the hand and pulled him out… we think he was wasted though… Luckily he eventually got back into his car and drove off, before he could drown himself or something.
So something a bit interesting this Xmas evening!
Doughnut Seeds
So I stumbled upon an image of some cherios in a pack, labelled “doughnut seeds” and I thought that was the cutest thing ever… and since my brother-in-law said he wanted doughnuts for Xmas, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to have a bit of a joke. I liked the look of some seed packs I found, but I wanted to be able to see the seeds inside… since I wanted to go to the effort of making different seed “varieties”. So I made my own packs. You can download it to print for yourself if you like.
There are 4 varieties in my packs. Cinnamon, Pink iced, Choc iced and a mixed pack. I’ve left the middle blank so you can cut it out, stick some plastic behind and show the seeds off
To make them, just take come cherios… For the cinnamon ones I tossed them in some cinnamon and sugar mix (you could leave them plain, but they look a bit more realistic when coated, especially since I’d bought the honey ones and they looked shiny) If you leave them out on a plate for a couple of hours they go a bit sticky and the cinnamon will stick better. For the iced ones I made a small amount of icing and dipped them in, then I dipped them in sprinkles. I crushed the sprinkles a bit to make them smaller to fit the scale better.
Then print the packets, carefully cut out the inner section, bend it on the dotted lines and stick it together
Fill with your cherios (make sure the icing is set) and you’re done!
Download all 4 varieties as a .pdf (1 of each pack, 2 pages)
Download Sprinkle variety as a .pdf (2 of each pack, 2 pages)
Download Cinnamon & Mixed variety as a .pdf (2 of each pack, 2 pages)
Or download each of them as images (the writing won’t be as clear as the .pdf version)
And here’s a blank one if you want to make your own text for it
The “Textile MacGyver” Award
So I’m in a gaming group, and we not only game, but we have great chats and shenanigans over voice coms and in our forum too… and every year we have an awards night, where we celebrate the work, good deeds and hilarity that has happened through the year.
Much to my surprise (and great honour), I was awarded the “Textile MacGyver” Award
The description of my award was thus (I’ve linked to the bits they were talking about for reference):
The “Textile MacGyver” Award for Pure Creativity goes to Obsi, in recognition not only for her pure creativity, but of her ability to turn the idle talk of drunk video gamers into real objects that make you proud to be a human being. If all she had ever invented was the postable candy bento, Obsi’s reputation would be beyond repute. But she also turned Wusker’s idle verbal diarrhea into a real life bacon pad. And her attempt to MacGyver a backlit purple keyboard was foiled only by cruel cruel fate. A true genius who can make anything into something, or at least make anything into something purple, Obsi should be recognized in her true capacity as TOG TF2′s fabrication laboratory.
I’m honoured and touched!
Matchbox Advent calendar
Not how I’d originally planned to make it, but I like it. I’d gone to spotlight to get some Xmas scrapbooking paper… they didn’t have any. Nor did they have any kind of numbers to use…. nor anything to use as doorknobs for the drawers. Pathetic! I did get those wing pin things, hoping they would work, but they don’t…. but more on that later.
So… to make it, I started off by painting 24 matchboxes (just the outer part) white. they took several coats. Then I stuck groups of 3 drawers together. Then cut out strips of scrap fabric (I was cutting out Xmas pads today) to go in each drawer. I put glue on the front and inside front of the drawers and stuck the fabric on, I didn’t bother gluing it down all the way into the box, but the fabric extends to cover the whole inside (if that makes sense).
Now…. Matchboxes are normally opened by pressing the back of the drawer part to make it come out. When assembled you won’t be able to do that, so it’s VERY DIFFICULT to open the drawers without some sort of knob or thing to pull. The wing pin things I mentioned (those pins that have two “wing” bits that you bend over to keep the pin in place), aren’t knobby enough to use to pull the drawers out. OK.. well they kinda are if you put them in so they are a bit loose and you can get your nails in behind, but they don’t work as well as I’d hoped they would. But you can use them to hold a section of ribbon and use that as a tab to pull on, which works brilliantly!
but I didn’t like the way the ribbon overhangs the drawer below, I thought it looked messy…particularly when they all have one… and the ribbons get caught in the drawer below… and to be honest, poking holes in the boxes by hand (I didn’t have a suitable hole punch) was a PITA!
Another option for you, is to take some ribbon and glue or stickytape it to the bottom of each drawer, so that it’s sticking out a little and you can pull that to open the drawer, which also works well and doesn’t have as much messy overhang as attaching the ribbon tabs to the front(except the ribbon them pokes directly out, rather than down)
There’s probably other options to help open the drawers, feel free to suggest some… You’ll be wanting to make sure the glue is dry before you slide the drawers in so they don’t glue themselves shut.
If you want numbers, put them on. I did want numbers but I couldn’t find any… and I didn’t want to hand draw them, or print them on the computer, so buggerit, we’ll just randomly open a drawer a day… not like it really matters which is which anyway (though I was toying with the idea of having a different line in an Xmas poem in each drawer, which won’t work unless you open them in order)
Also cut sections of fabric to cover one side each of the stuck together matchboxs(covering where the striking stuff is)…(so you need 8) but don’t glue those on just yet…. You first need to assemble the boxes to work out which sides need the fabric covering them.
So arrange the matchboxes like so, and cut a piece of cardboard the same size as that square they make. (actually, cut 2 and keep one aside) Glue them onto that piece of cardboard, and glue the fabric onto those exposed sides. A tip for you… leave/put the drawers in for this bit, so the boxes have enough rigidity to withstand having a coffee mug or something put on top to weigh it down while the glue sticks. Then put glue on the tops of the matchboxes and glue your next layer on, making sure you’re alternating the drawer/flat sections. Weigh that down while it dries too.
I used 3 fabrics for mine, 2 were red and one was green, so I have a red & green theme, so I made sure each side had one green and one red flat section, and I made the drawers so that they alternate in colour too. Once that is done, stick fabric to the other square of cardboard you cut that is the same size as the top of the assembled cube.. and glue that onto the top.
If you wanted a box for day 25, you could just cover the matchbox in fabric and stick that to the top… I didn’t bother.
(These pics were taken before I added the drawer pulls)
It’s a small world!
Isn’t it funny how sometimes worlds converge…
Years ago…. as in like 11-12 years ago, I was quite addicted to IRC (chat rooms)… and a friend of mine was on an alt.tv.buffy newsgroup which had a chatroom, so she dragged me in, so I could chat to people there. I loved the people there and would chat away all night with them. I even (ashamedly) made a website to showcase our hilarious chat conversations and profile each chatter. *ahem* (thank you geocities for your demise that took all those embarrassing websites with it)
We had a couple of real-life meetups and stuff, and one was where I met hubby. He had never come onto the chat room, nor had posted in the newsgroup, but he’d seen the meetup and decided to come along. I think it was going to see the first X-men movie I thought he was hot, he was trying to chat up someone else 
but I found an excuse to e-mail him (to send him a link to my photos from a previous meetup), and I managed to snare him with my incredible wit
(I started my e-mail with a polite “I hope you don’t mind me e-mailing you”, to which he replied saying it was fine and something about him having no reason to not want me to e-mail him… to which I replied “Ohh, then I guess you didn’t get the Melissa virus I sent, ohh better luck next time”… he laughed and our e-mail chattering started and we got together )
Anyway… it was a great group, but slowly we all seemed to dwindle away. I don’t really keep in touch with anyone from there much, except I have a couple of people on my Facebook friends list (not that we really interact much)… and the friend who originally introduced me to them… and hubby of course…
So 11 years or so on…. I’m playing Tf2 with my new friends (all of whom I met just from playing that game), the subject of Facebook comes up, I (kinda) feign disappointment that one of the women there wasn’t my FB friend, so another friend sends me the link to her page. I click the button to send a friend request and notice the “mutual friends” list… There’s 3 people on there. OMG, she knows 3 of the people I used to chat to in IRC…. how weird is that…. then I take another look at her name….. hmm… vaguely familiar….. I sneak a peek at one of her photos – OMG the guy in the background is definitely from those IRC days, and she does look familiar, I know who she is…. I can’t believe it!
So I manage to squeak out a “hey, we have some of the same FB friends” – so she asks who, and I tell her, and she does an OMG
So yes… we knew eachother way back in the IRC days! She was in the other newsgroup group of people (for x-files fans), but we used to mingle in the chat room and sometimes at gatherings also.And somehow we both managed to join the same TF2 gaming group!
She asked me if I knew someone else from that IRC group, and if I’d been to her wedding, and I laughed – as I was one of the celebrants (and that was actually where I proposed to hubby – we snuck out of the reception for a walk, stopping by the tree next to where the ceremony was, and that’s where I proposed).
– Almost as trippy as the night I was out to dinner with my inlaws (and extended inlaws)…. one of whom had brought along another couple and their young child. Us younger generation (hubby, his sister, brother & his wife.. and our kids) were all sitting up one end of the table, and the oldies at the other, with this couple (who was our age) …. So we hadn’t spoken to them, but their child was sitting down with us. Later in the evening, the guy came over to say hello, and introduced himself, with a really unusual surname, and asked jokingly if we could spell it. The only time I’d ever heard it before was a guy I knew at school. So I looked at him again…. and the similarities were striking. So I mentioned that I didn’t know if I could spell it, but I used to go to school with someone who had that name. He’s asked which school, I’ve told him and yes – it was him!
So amazingly, he’s very close with my hubby’s cousin (as in basically an adopted member of the family). And since he’d just moved to QLD, and that’s where we were (helping my SIL move house), he got invited out to dinner with us all.
Embarrassingly I did have to mention that he once held the back of my skirt up with a ruler in Computer class Bwahahaha (in one of those times your mouth starts talking before your brain has a chance to say “hang on, may not be appropriate an anecdote here”)… which embarrassed him more than it embarrassed me (since his wife was there – though she assured us he hadn’t changed LOL!)
It’s a small world, after all!
I’m probably related to Kevin Bacon also…
Our Family
You know those “my family” stickers people have on their cars… well I think they are kinda cute, but sooooooo many people have them, I didn’t want to just join the masses…. and hubby has a strict no adornment policy for the car. But when I found these Star Wars versions, I just had to get them!
http://www.starwarsspoofs.com/star_wars_family_member_car_stickers.html
They arrived yesterday, I put them on today
of course that got me thinking that since our car is white and black, how awesome would it look if we had a huge Stormtrooper helmet on the bonnet But I did buy some carlashes…. which just make me giggle. Which hubby has already said no to (before I even bought them, secretly)…. but I’m hoping I can find a way to put them on with a magnet or something, so I can take them off when he drives the car…
Matchbox Advent calendar
MiniObsi likes advent calendars – who wouldn’t really…. but the choc they use in the cheap ones is terrible, and I’m all about the reusable things… so I’m making a matchbox one. I’m going to go with the style for the first pic below I think. I’ll get some Xmas mini M7Ms to put in there or something. I haven’t made it yet, but I’ll blog when I do (mine won’t look as nifty as these, I can guarantee it, but that’s ok)
So, here’s my inspiration…. as I know it might inspire some of you too!
Reusable Fabric Cards
It’s coming up to Xmas time again, and again I have the struggle with the phenomenal wastage that occurs. We’ve already switched to reusable wrappings (fabric bags and roll-hemmed fabric for using like wrapping paper) and gift tags (I printed out a tag for everyone we’re likely to give gifts to, laminated them, and use them and the bags again next year) for all gifts, but the card situation always poses a problem.
I’m really not that into cards. Any cards. 9 times out of 10 I don’t bother with birthday cards and such… I find them a waste…. Other than collecting them to put up somewhere and go “look how popular I am, I have all these cards“, really…. what purpose do they serve? but the problem is, they are expected by a lot of people…. So I have to participate or be considered anti-social…. So I’m always left wondering what to do. Do I go buy expensive recycled paper ones that won’t be as glossy and interesting (and are a lot more expensive).. do I just buy cards like everyone else and take solace in the fact I and some of the people I send to will recycle them… or find another option…?
So I’m going to give fabric reusable cards a go.
My family all knows I’m a bit weird and hippyish… so it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. The only issue is whether or not they will just bin them after Xmas (making it a pointless exercise), or will actually save them to pass on again. I guess I’ll never know (unless they send them back to me). I suppose it’s worth a shot.
The only problem is, if I made them all from fabric, every year…. it’s a bit expensive, and it’s only an eco-friendly idea if the person getting the fabric card is going to reuse it. So I’ll have to see how it goes I think… I think most of the people I sent it to would not send it on to someone else (I think they would be too embarrassed at the idea of it) but if they each send them back to me as the card they would normally send me, then that’s one less card they will need, and I won’t need to buy paper cards, so it’s helping a bit.
So here’s my idea… Now, those people who are into embroidery and patchwork and appliqué can go to town here… I’ve seen some cool felt ones with hand sewn Xmassy designs on the front. I’m about as creative as a brick with it comes to stuff like that, so I’m sticking with printed cottons… also, I don’t want to spent 3 hours embroidering on a dodgy looking snowman, only to have the card tossed in the bin. But, if you’re crafty, and can be bothered, go for your life.
But I have come up with a way to look somewhat cool, with minimal effort – put a pocket on the front to pop a candycane (or marshmallow santa or something) in. hah!
(Some of you may notice it’s a weird looking candycane…. it’s a Star Wars one…. yes, go ahead laugh now…. and while you’re laughing at me, also know that’s from last year too! Not because it wasn’t yummy, just because I forgot it was there. But I have remedied that situation now… nom!)
So… To make a pockety card you’ll need…… One piece for the back, one piece for the front (I like them in contrasting colours), and the pocket bit. Now here I’ve used one side candycane fabric and one side plain white, coz I’m stingy…. you can of course cut your pocket piece on a fold so it’s the same both sides and you won’t have to sew the 2 pieces together…
The card can be any size you like, but if you’re going to buy envelopes for them, then you’ll be wanting to make sure the envelope fits your card. I plan to save some of the nicer paper wrapping paper we get on presents given to us this year, and make those into origami envelopes for sending out next year’s cards in. If you want the measurements for this card (which you’ll want if you download my inserts below), they are:
Card outer – 11.5cm wide X 16.5cm high
Card Pocket – 26cm wide X 9cm high
Now, when you cut these out… you’ll want to put the long/high side of the card outer on a fold. The pocket part, you can either cut it so the long side is on a fold (so you don’t have to sew 2 pieces together). Or if you’re wanting to save “wasting” the expensive nice fabric on the inside of the pocket, then cut one from a lining instead. So if you do that – sew the lining and outer piece together (right sides facing), then flip it over and sew (or iron) it down neatly, and then you have one pocket piece (or you could hem it, but I find it easier to do it this way)
Put them together with right sides of the card outer facing, with the pocket inbetween. Make sure the outside of the pocket is facing the same way as the outside of the card front. If you put your pocket on the fold so it’s the same both sides, then you won’t need to worry about which side is which. Sew around the edges, leaving a gap in the bottom edge open for turning. Turn it, and you should get something like this – with a big long pocket.
Iron it flat, and then fold it in half and give it a really good iron on the fold…. you’re wanting to press a good crease into there. Because then you run a line of stitching along that crease, to define where the card is to fold.
Almost done! Now to do the part you write in. Take a piece of thin ribbon (30cm long works well), and hand sew that into the centre back of the card, about 2cm down from the edge. Just sew one little section. It’s just to keep it attached
I’ve made some inserts you can download… (they are a word file). There’s the front with Xmas tree and holly border, and there is a “back”, which will print onto the right spot on the back of each insert, which says it’s a reusable card. You can edit the wording if you like. I cut them out just before the line, you can cut on the line if you prefer.
Xmas Card_Insert | Xmas Card_Insert Back
Or you can make them yourself. You just need some paper a little smaller than the half of the card.
Punch 2 holes in the top to thread the ribbon through.
If you laminate the paper inserts, people can use a fine-tipped permanent texta to write on the insert and it will rub off with a bit of metho on a cloth. Making a completely reusable no-waste card. But if you don’t think your card recipients will have metho or textas don’t laminate them… they will be single use then, which is a shame, but less paper wastage than a regular card. Whiteboard marker will likely rub off onto the fabric, and those markers are generally thick and not nice to write with, so I wouldn’t recommend those.
If you print several of the paper inserts and pop them in the back pocket, your recipient will have a fresh insert for writing their greeting on, and so on.
Personally I find writing in the cards to be troublesome…. what do I write? If I write just the “dear so and so” and “from Obsi” that just looks lame… but “I hope you have a Merry Xmas and a happy new year” written on every card, just seems very boring and impersonal, but I have nothing else to say really, I’ve never been good at card writing…. I wish I could just print that on the inside and be done with it, but I suppose I should be good and personally write something :Þ
Now, these do ok at standing up on their own, because the pocket gives them a bit of rigidity… but if you want a really stiff card, or you’re not going to do the pocket, then I’d suggest adding something in there to stiffen it. You could try interfacing, but to make it completely card-like, cut 2 smaller sections (10.5X14cm) from some clear plastic or thin cardboard (something like a cereal box, plastic from the lid of a gift box or something)
You want it a bit smaller than half of the card.. so it fits inside.. and what you’d do is when you sew the card up, leave the whole bottom edge open, sew that middle seam in, and then slide your 2 stabiliser things in each side, and then sew around the whole card, sewing closed the opening.
Variations
Plain card
You could just make a plain card with no pockets. You could just tie on a few extra inserts behind the one with your message on, so the person can take off the written one and use a fresh one.
Single Pocket Card
I did experiment with a pocket just on the back…. But I thought that made the front look very plain by comparison, and it was a bit of fart-arsing-around given that I think the pocket for lollies is a better idea…. Although – I put it on the back, but you could make it an inside pocket…. And it could hold the message insert instead of tying on with ribbon….. It could work nicely if you wanted to appliqué the front or something…. so if you want to do that… here’s how:
Cut one card inner (11.5cm wide X 16.5cm high [on a fold]) and one pocket (13cm wide X 9cm high [on a fold]). Then you need to cut the card outer in 2 pieces (12.5cm wide X 16.5cm high).
Fold your pocket piece over and lay it on one of your card fronts. It should overlap slightly on the sides. Lay the other card front piece good side down. So it looks like this:
Sew down the right-hand side, so that when you open it out, you end up with this:
Then lay the card inner piece ontop, and sew around 3 edges, leaving the bottom open.
You will probably want to put something in to stiffen this card, so after you do the middle fold-seam (as mentioned in the tutorial above), shove that in each side.
Then just sew around the card to sew the bottom closed… add your ribbon and insert. Done!
Birthday Bento
I’ve switched to posting all my bento stuff on a different blog, but I wanted to share a special bento I made for MiniObsi’s 8th birthday!
Sticking all those sesame seeds on, and moving them into the right positions, took a phenomenally long time!
Top is boiled eggs with some coloured noodles I bought from a Japanese store, nori eyes, ham cheeks and “rollup” (fruit leather) mouth (though that melted with the moisture, so I’ll have to remember that next time)… with carrot, kiwifruit and blueberries. Bottom tier is rice with tuna and sesame seeds, with coloured cheese and pea pod bits.
And I wrote a birthday message in rollup… and it’s in her special Monster High bento box – made by taking an otherwise boring bento box, printing out a pic of her favourite character on sticker paper, cutting it out and sticking it to the lid – then covering it with clear packing tape, to make it a bit more durable.
I think next time around, I want to come back as a man….
You know… I’d like to wake up in the morning, get my own breakfast, dress myself, make my own lunch… go to work…make a decent wage…. come home, read the paper, eat my dinner… watch some telly… go to bed.
Maybe mow the lawns every few weekends…. take out the bins… reach high stuff on cabinets, kill the odd spider… that sort of thing.
Compared to ……
Waking up in the morning, either by being jumped on by a small child, or being yelled at by them “where’s my {something irrelevant to that time of morning}”… getting dressed and making sure the child is dressed appropriately for the situation – often including arguments and “you’ll catch your death” or “no, you can’t wear one orange kneehigh sock and a black ankle sock to school”… or “you’ve got half of lastnight’s dinner down your front, put that shirt/dress in the wash and get another one”. …. and the ever present “did you put clean knickers on?”… sometimes with the clarifying remark “that means did you take yesterday’s knickers off and put a new pair on, not just putting a new pair over the top”.
Making breakfast for them (seldom for yourself) – because even though daddy was in the kitchen making his own breakfast or lunch while the child was up and about – he didn’t have time or couldn’t be bothered popping in a bit of toast for them….. But you can only make it after they take 15 mins to decide if they want cereal or toast (and god forbid if you have more than one creal or toast-topping choice to offer)…. Making sure they eat it (good breakfast is important!), and arguing over why the toast is now cold or the cereal soggy, and that no, you’re not going to make another one just because it’s now cold/soggy because they arsed about too much and they no longer want to eat that…
Then packing their lunch, in the lunchpacking equivalent of tetris… Something for “fruit time”, something for recess, something for lunch…. something that is hopefully nutritious, that they will eat, that won’t spoil or spill or crush or go soggy by lunchtime, something they can open easily by themselves, and something that you actually have in the house because you’ve done grocery shopping to ensure you have the stuff to make it… and that actually all fits into the lunchbag/box you have for them.
Then brushing their hair, checking for nits/lice (god forbid you find any!) and trying to put it up while they move their head around to look at something that’s clearly more interesting than you think it is. Making sure their face is clean…. being horrified that their nails aren’t. Finding the vanishing shoe/s so the can finish getting dressed…. Making sure their schoolbag is packed, that nothing is forgotten and then taking them to school. And sometimes coming back again when you come home and find something like a lunchbox, drink bottle or other essential thing has been left in the car/hall/kitchen. And maybe while you’re there, checking the lost property box for the 50th time for the hat/jumper/lunchbox/whatever that’s mysteriously vanished.
Then, with a sigh of relief, you come home… and it’s now time to perhaps make your own breakfast, and/or a cuppa….. Then maybe it’s time to clean the kitchen, do other housework (that seldom gets noticed or appreciated)…. go grocery shopping, do laundry, buy your child new clothing, sew up/fix a broken toy – and all those other day to day things that mother’s do. Or if you’re a “Work at home mum” like me, then you’ve got customers to deal with, stock to make, orders to pack, supplies to buy… and all that… only to actually earn a fraction of what you’d get paid for any “normal” job.
Then, after watching the clock all day to make sure you won’t be late (because you’re “the worst mum ever” if ever you are late and your child is standing at the gate, crying, because you’ve abandoned them [not that I know from experience or anything *cough*]), it’s time to go pick up the child from school… either standing there on your own because nobody wants to talk to you, or chatting to the other mums you actually have very little in common with, else you’ll be considered antisocial. Come back home, sometimes an afterschool snack will be required, newsletters/forms etc. from school to deal with…. and listening to the child about what they did that day…. or perhaps a shopping trip or a Dr/Dentist/sports thing/dance classes or other such place will be visited….
Then it’s time for dinner… preferably something nutritious that the entire family likes to eat… something that’s also within the budget, and something you feel like cooking…. so you slave away cooking… trying to valiantly juggle preparing the food so that hubby can come home to find dinner cooked and ready for him (and trying not to sound annoyed when you get the “sorry I’m going to be late” phonecall that spoils that effort), sometimes only to find someone doesn’t particularly like it… or you get a “ohh, that’s not how my mother makes it”…. or a “so… do you like it?” comment. Then time to get the child ready for bed, and deal with the “I need a drink”, “just going to the toilet”, “my doona has disappeared into my doona cover” and half a million other reasons they get back up again….
Then it might be time to watch some tv and go to bed. or not… you might have a hundred and one things left to do, since the day isn’t long enough to fit it all in.
… And of course that’s not counting all the other stuff….
Birthdays for example…. If it’s someone else’s birthday, you have shopping for or making the birthday presents. Most of whom you don’t know from a bar of soap, but have to pick a suitable present that you think the child will like, doesn’t already have (like you can know what they have and don’t have), doesn’t cost a fortune but doesn’t make you seem like a stingy paper either. And you have to take your child to the party… chat to the other mums, who you don’t know and may not be interested in talking to. If your child is young and you have to stay at the party, then you’ve got hours of boringness ahead of you… and get banged in the head with a balloon all the drive back home.
But then if it’s your own child’s birthday… then likely you’ve had to shop for the presents (again juggling the cost vs coolness factor)….. organise invites and played diplomat to your child with who they can invite or how many…
And if your child’s school is like the ones MiniObsi goes to, you’re obligated to bake cupcakes for the entire class every birthday your child has… so you have to bake them the night before (or that morning), so they are as fresh as possible… making sure you’re not going to kill a child with allergies, but making sure you’re not going to embarrass your child with the cupcakes you make – so they have to look and taste excellent, so you can be the cool mum.
So you have to set up the party, cleaning the house (because the lack of housework is only going to reflect badly on you if it’s not done – no matter whether the mess is all made by everyone else – it’s universally seen as the woman’s job to keep a tidy house)…. baking (often a monumental task taking the entire day, if not several days in advance)…decorating (with balloons, streamers, lovely matching disposable plates and things that you don’t normally agree with using, but make the exception for parties because you know you’ll end up washing every dish you own otherwise… except the ones that get broken during the party, which is another bonus for paper partyware)
…You spend the majority of the party playing waiter, bringing out all the food – a large portion of which gets left uneaten on plates, falls on the ground and other ways of being completely wasted…. and being party co-ordinator, trying to organise a bunch of rowdy kids into doing stuff to hopefully keep the rowdiness to a minimum. Remembering to thank each child for coming and giving them a lollybag – which itself is not a simple thing – Gone as the days of old where a lolly bag just had a few lollies in it and maybe a balloon, one of those ball mazes and a whistle thing to piss off the parents all the way home… Ohh, no…. Now you have to decide if you’re going to give lots of lollies and impress the kid, or few lollies and impress the parent. You’ll probably want a bunch of small gifts in there too… notepads, pencils, hairbands and the like. You need to make it look good without spending much on it. And you’re competing with the parents who go all out and put expensive things in their kids lolly bags. When their parent comes to collect them you flash them a “it’s been fantastic” smile, while secretly going “thank god that’s another one gone home, when can I put my feet up, because I’m about to cry”…. Then of course there’s the packing up….. with mountains of dishes to wash, stuff to put away, wondering if the leftover salad has been spat into, has been left out too long or will be ok to serve tomorrow… Just as you think you’re at your most exhausted moment and it’s all finally over, it’s time to work more.
… Don’t get me wrong… I do have a wonderful husband who does a lot more to help than I know some other husbands/fathers do… but damn, it’s still a very unfair share of the workload being the mother!
This joke is so true:
A man came home from work and found his three children outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard.The door of his wife’s car was open, as was the front door to the house and there was no sign of the dog.
Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall. In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door.
He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened. He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls.
As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went. He looked at her bewildered and asked, ‘What happened here today?’ She again smiled and answered, ‘You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I do all day?’ ‘Yes,’ was his incredulous reply. She answered, ‘Well, today I didn’t do it.’
Pink lemonaid
So… I was making a batch of my purple carrot cakes (that went blue), and a batch of homemade lemonaid to take over to a friend’s house….. and when I was grating the purple carrot for the cake, I was left with an end, and I thought I’d have a go popping that in some water and boiling it for a while, to make purple water…then using that water in the lemonaid mix… which I figured would go pink due to the acid in the lemonjuice (see here)…. and yes it worked!
Awesomeness! (and no, it didn ‘t taste of carrot at all)
So we had blue cake and pink lemonaid thanks to purple carrots…..
all-natural funky Noms and a science lesson, all rolled into one!
In case you don’t know how to make lemonaid….
Pour 1 cup water and 1/2 cup sugar into a saucepan, and heat until the sugar dissolves. Then pour this into a large jug with 1 cup of lemon juice and 5 cups water. Then keep it in the fridge.
Homemade Cleaning Products
I’ve been meaning to take the plunge and make my own cleaning products… for ages…. and just haven’t got around to it. Well, finally I did.
This is some “Citrus vinegar” brewing away.
The idea is that you 3/4 fill a jar with white vinegar, shove as many citrus peels in the jar as you can, put the lid on and leave it be for 2-3 weeks…. then strain out the peels and use the vinegar 50% diluted with either water or regular vinegar as a sort of “spray and wipe” substitute. I plan to do that, but also use it in other cleaning recipes that call for vinegar… since I love my hot chips with sauce to smell like vinegar, but my house… not-so-much.
Good thing I started saving all our pasta sauce jars! I was intending to fill them with nuts and rainbow cakes for Xmas presents, but this is much more fun!
I’ve written on the jar with whiteboard marker to date when the jar was filled, so can start the 2-3 weeks countdown. Which I can wipe off later, so it’s not spoling the jar. (I actually turned the pasta sauce jars around so you can’t see the mark, but was too lazy to turn the red-seal jar lol). I’ve been making a bit of lemonaid recently, from the lemons on our tree, so I have lots of lemon peels… Hubby takes an orange with his lunch every day, so I’ve asked him to save his peels, and encouraging MiniObsi to eat more oranges so I can keep an orange one happening… but I love lemon scent in cleaners, so I don’t mind if it’s mostly all lemon vinegar I make.
I first off just put the peels in as they came, but then I tried chopping them smaller so I could fit more in the jar… hoping to make it a bit more concentrated. I’ll see how that goes. They look very pretty though!
The came some Laundry liquid. (which isn’t as pretty to look at)
I used the recipe from here – http://down—to—earth.blogspot.com, but without the borax because we divert all washing water out onto the garden.
- 1 cup grated soap
- ½ cup washing soda (“letric soda”)
- ½ cup baking soda
I wasn’t sure if baking soda was needed as a replacement to the borax, but I figured it can’t hurt to pop it in. I already had grated plain olive oil soap from when I was making my own rebatched soaps, though it’s smelling a little “old” now (it’s a few years old) and it has gone yellow… I figured it would work fine for this. Maybe if I’d added a few drops of food colour it might have made a slightly more appealing looking liquid but who cares
Very easy to do… just put that above in a saucepan with a litre and a half of water… heat it until the soap has all dissolved. Then pour that into a large bucket and add 8 litres of water.
I wasn’t sure how tightly packed the 1 cup needed to be, so I didn’t pack it tightly, but the mixture didn’t thicken really… so after leaving it overnight and it still wasn’t thick, I figured I’d probably only done the equivalent of half a cup, so I poured a litre of that mix back into a pot, added another loosely packed cup of soap and melted that down, mixed it all bath together.. and that thickened up nicely. So make sure your cup is a tightly packed one if you’re using hand grated soap that won’t be as fine as using pre-grated or flaked soaps.
I also added some eucalyptus oil to the mix, though next time I think I’ll use lavender, as I’m getting a bit sick of eucalyptus as I put it in most loads of laundry I do… But I think next time I’ll put the essential oil in after pouring it into bottles so I can make each bottle different (maybe lavender, lemon and eucalyptus ones)
You need to leave space to shake the mix before you use it, as it goes sort of clumpy and separates a bit – like you can see below….rather than a smooth liquid, but a bit of a shake fixes that. So I poured mine into 3 3litre milk cartons and one 2litre one… so that there was plenty of shaking room.
The recipe says to use 1/4 cup in a load, but I’m used to using less than recommended, and our clothes aren’t generally very “dirty” as such… so I think I probably used maybe 1/8 cup in the load I did to test it out – which was a cold water wash (I only wash in cold) and included my cloth pads…. and everything looked and smelled fine…. I call that a success!
Some people complain that their whites go grey with this – as it doesn’t have whitening chemicals added… but that doesn’t bother me because not only have I never used a laundry detergent that has brighteners added, we don’t own much white clothing anyway because it’s a stupid colour for clothing 
So, next on the agenda is to make dishwashing liquid…. and a cleaning spray when my lemon vinegar is ready… And a liquid soap (though I still have a lot of natural shampoo base I’ve been using as liquid soap as well, so I’ll wait for that to be used up before I make my own.
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I’ve made a little homemade recipes booklet of interesting recipes like these that I’ve found online. You’re welcome to download and print out. It prints to an A4 page, which you then fold in half to make a smaller booklet. It prints front and back, so you’ll need to print page 1,3,5,7… then grab that stack pop it back in the printer (the correct way) and print pages 2,4,6,8.
It’s got recipes for laundry liquid, laundry powder, dishwashing liquid, dishwasher powder, liquid soap, shampoo, conditioner, spray cleaners, bath products, moisturiser, lip balm.. and more.
Bacon!
ok, I know this is weird, but bear with me here…
A month or so ago I posted a picture to my personal facebook page of the pads I was donating (these ones). One of my (male) friends later that night (while we were gaming) commented that the picture I’d posted to fb looked like a stack of bacon. So then that got everyone laughing about pads made from bacon (as well as drooling over the concept of bacon) Because of course discussing “feminine hygiene products” is apparently funny anyway, and even moreso if they are made from bacon :Þ
So of course I had to go out and find some bacon fabric and make a pad from bacon…
(yeah I know, its not particularly realistic, but it’s supposedly been photographed from real bacon and printed onto fabric so who am I to argue)
So BaconPad is a bit weird… ok… a lot weird… but it made the friend laugh, so that’s mission accomplished!
I do now however have enough weird bacon fabric to make 4 bacon pads… so hey, if you’d like your very own bacon pad – let me know!
Purple cakes of WIN!
I’ve been a fan of purple carrots since I found them in my supermarket, but I was disappointed that when baked in a cake they seemed to go blue – I presume due to some chemical change – I’ve read that you can make pink, purple and blue natural food colour by adding vinegar (pink) or baking soda (blue) to water that you’ve boiled purple cabbage in… So I’m presuming the baking soda in the flour is what makes the purple carrot go blue.
Anyway, last night I made some, and while they did initially go blue, this morning they were purple! WOOT!
Also, delicious! (so recipe at the end)
In the bowl… lovely!
For once I didn’t alternate my cupcake cups and just put them in the pan in whatever order they were in the stack -it messes with my head not being in an even pattern (blue-pink-blue-pink-blue etc.), but I was in a hurry to bake them so I could go to bed.
Last night – blue
Today, purple!
I should have used the same plate so you could tell it’s not just a platey affect making it seem more purpley.. I swear, it did actually change colour overnight!
Recipe… (of sorts)…
What I do is make my standard cake mix, and then just chuck extra stuff in, and adjust the moisture as required, so there is no set recipe as such…
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar (I tend to use raw)
2 cups SR flour
2 eggs
Some milk *
2 purple carrots, grated
Some coconut
Some linseed meal (ground linseeds)
Some vanilla essence
Some ground cinnamon
Some ground cloves
Some ground nutmeg
* The recipe I got that basic mix recipe from said to use 1/2 a cup of milk but I find that’s not enough, so I just keep adding until it’s the right consistency. You want it slightly firm, but not too dry. So in total I probably use about 1/3c maybe… for this cake though, with the added coconut and linseeds I used maybe 1 cup.
I actually use powdered milk for making cakes, coz it’s easy to keep powder on hand for cooking so you’re not using the drinking milk up… I always just mix about 2tb of powder in with the water (or just pour some from the container into the cakemix ), so it’s probably more creamy than using milk.
Method:
“Cream” the butter and sugar (mix those together until it goes pale and smooth), then add in one egg, beat that in, then add the other egg, beat that in. Add 1 cup of flour and about 1/4 cup of milk, beat that well. Then add the other cup of flour and 1/4 cup of milk, beat that in. Add extra milk in if you need…
Then add in the grated carrot, about 1/2 cup of coconut, about 1/4 cup linseed meal (you could use the almond/linseed meal stuff instead), about a tb of cinnamon, about a tsp of cloves and maybe a teaspoon and a half of nutmeg – that’s really to taste, and I just shake the container in and guesstimate what will taste good And a splash of vanilla essence… perhaps a tablespoon? Sometimes I use the natural vanilla extract which is stronger (and better), so I’d use less (maybe a teaspoon and a half?), sometimes I use the imitation stuff….
Add more milk as needed and mix it all up into a cakemixey type consistency… spoon into muffin cups, bake around 20-25 mins… they are super yummy while still warm, but good cold too.
I never bother to ice cakes like this… so they become a sort of mini muffin.
Minecraftyness – Part 4
(See part 1 here, part 2 here and part 3 here)
This is stuff I made on our “survival” server… one with monsters that like to kill you and blow your stuff up. Makes things a bit more challenging.
Minecraftyness – Part 3
Minecraftyness – Part 2
(See part 1 here)
So… my castle made, it was time to wander off and find somewhere else to build on. Basically I found a mountain, hollowed out the inside to build my abode, and built stuff around it.
Minecraftyness – Part 1
So… I play Minecraft, and we’re about to update to a new version and start off our multiplayer worlds again with new ones, so I’ve been going around photographing everything.
So this is my first Minecraft construction. Obsidian Castle. It started out as a dirt hut of course, and got bigger as it went. Looking at it now, it’s not particularly flash, but it has sentimental value to me.
Minecraft Cake
I saw some minecraft cakes, and I thought I’d have a go… and Father’s day gave the perfect excuse to make one.
Pad donation for Days for Girls
Last week I sent these pads off to Days for Girls
(25 waterproofed bases, each with 2 bamboo fleece inserts)
There are many many women around the world who don’t have access to menstrual products, and this is particularly problematic in schools in Africa. Some organisations are working on getting cloth pads donated to these needy women, so that they can have a better quality of life, and in some cases, stay in school and finish their education.
I’m very passionate about this, so every now and then I spam people reminding them about this cause I donate pads (not nearly as much as I’d like to), and try to spread the word. If you can sew pads to donate, there are a few organisations who will gladly accept them. If you can’t sew, then you can make monetary donations (these usually go to help cover costs of getting the pads shipped out to the communities in need).
See my “Donate Pads” website for more information
