2008 » Loobylu

A last word for 2008

seasonsgreet2008

to you and yours.

Thank you for visiting Loobylu again in 2008, especially after I took such a long break in 2007.

I appreciate your kind comments and lovely emails and am looking forward to a busy, bloggy 2009.

I have had a couple of incidents this weekend which make me wonder if there isn’t a mischievous Midsummer Puk in our midsts but mostly it’s been fun and frolicky with some perfect weather to accompany it.

Solstice Goodness:

1. Fairy rings for fairy chocolates. The girls constructed these (above) late last night, as you know Summer Solstice is when the fairies come out, and sure enough there were squeals of delight when gold covered chocolate coins were discovered (way too early) this morning. They managed this despite some discussion as to whether they would come out to play Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Night.

2. Dress-up (fairy wings encouraged) Solstice dinner with roast goodness, chocolate desert and plenty of ice-cream but best of all, a new growly baby guest in a sling at our table.

3. After dinner I walked Kim and Georgina to their car and exclaimed that it really did feel a bit magic-y out. We stood saying our goodbyes and two great owls flew out from the tree across the road – great silent forms in the twinkling dark. Owls here in Melbourne! I know they are around but I have never actually seen one. One perched on the electricity wires under a street light and I couldn’t have wished for a better Midsummer sighting.

4. Christina and Paul’s Christmas get together – macaron mania, beautiful decorations, gorgeous people, new acquaintances with cute patchwork bags, pretty dolls, fancy tattoos…

5. Christmas lunch #1 at Mum and Dad’s. Phil was given a remote control helicopter from my Uncle which is tiny and delicate and hovers like a dragon fly (unless it’s caught in a evaporative cooling airstream and then it’s “duck for cover!”).

6. Happy girls – it has taken a few days to adjust to holidays and rest off that end of term tiredness but I think we are almost there.

7. Happy me – all feels good in the world.

Pretty Frankie

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frankie02

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I am running late for a play date – first day of the school holidays and all that, but I wanted to put up these photos of some of the pages of the newest Frankie. Such a sweet magazine – and there are some of my Brown Owls peeps! I haven’t met them all but the ones I know are gorgeous girls – and the others look so nice it makes me keen to get back into the gypsy-style club house next year. Can someone please do a left – right of names for me? I couldn’t find it in Frankie. xx

Punkdorfing it up

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I’m not exactly sure what I did but I somehow lost the contents of this post this morning so I thought I should put the photos back up but I can’t remember exactly what I wrote about them. The above doll is one I have just finished working on for Lil’s Christmas present. The one below is of Amelia’s doll, still a work-in-progress. I do remember saying that the doll reminds me of a grumpy and slightly aggressive surfy boy who was in my first year Graphic Design class… and that obviously I need to move away from this look and get something a little less surly.

surfypunkdorf

A couple of people asked me how I do the doll’s hair. It’s a bit of a scratchy method which may not lead to hair with longevity but I will work on a simple tutorial soon.

A week goes by

Woah! Where did that whole week go? I know I have been busy and energy levels are on the up and up which is nothing but good at this time of year. I have been sewing and organising gifts and baking and spending ridiculous amounts of time in the local Post Office and having windows put into our dark kitchen which has made a HUGE difference to my general mood. There’s so much light I don’t know what to do with myself. The tree is up, the carols are on repeat, the kids are counting down to the end of school and then to the big day itself… I am starting to think “maybe I should start planning what I am going to feed everyone on Christmas day.”

I have also been reading “The Dud Avocado” which I finished yesterday. I think I read it about five years ago and I still really love it. I have an old original penguin paperback copy of it and I have to hold it carefully with both hands as its pages are falling out. That explains why I haven’t been blogging. I know that sounds like an odd association, but it’s because usually I would read while I do other things – I spend a lot of time stirring at the stove or sitting at a traffic light with an open book in one hand. But not this one or there’d be a curled brown page in the sausage casserole or a completely demolished book sitting on the floor of the car (as I have a tendency to chuck the book with a kind of spasm when the light changes), so it had to wait until I could sit down and do nothing else which is usually when I would blog. So that’s a long explanation of nothing much.

But I am all about the christmas biscuits this year (cookies if you prefer). Have you seen this? Gourmet’s Favourite Cookies from 1941-2008. Mostly when I browsed through the photos I thought about the production team having to whip up batch after batch of vintage goodness. What a job.