making and mending

water-based oils

My sometimes careless approach to cleaning up has led me to make friends with water-based oil paints.  

Like normal oil paints they take ages to dry (leaving lots of wriggle room for those of us that sometimes* forget to clean their brushes) … but also … they clean up with warm soapy water.  No stinky turps (hooray).  

Anyway, I bought some.  And I have been doing some landscape oil painting from photos I took along the great ocean road (I had one weekend at Airey’s Inlet and then the next at Kennett River … lucky me!)

This is a painting of Eagle Rock Parade.


And then I tried to paint a cockatoo that was sitting on the balcony at Kennett River.  They’re workshops in progress!


*often/nearly always

pom-pom flowers

Last year at Alphington Community Centre our charity knitting group was super productive and made so many things … hats, scarves, beanies, dog coats.  It was pretty ace!  

And then they spent a couple of weeks on pom-poms. We had plans to pom-pom bomb our front garden.

And finally, in preparation for our Autumn Fete this past weekend (did you come along?) I put them in place.  They look super I think.


I stuck them on those skinny bamboo canes using a hot glue gun.  So now we have a permanent flower display in our yard.  And every child that passes stops to have a good look and feel the flowers 🌺… it’s pretty cute.

And … if you are in to pom-pom making we are still taking donations – you can just drop your pom-poms off any time and we’ll add them in.  You can never have too many, don’t you think?

clay beads and ace necklaces

We made these necklaces for the school fair craft stall.  

In actual fact we made most of the beads a year ago but never got around to firing them … And used the fair as an excuse to get going on this half forgotten project.

I am so happy with them  (well done crafty friends and me).  And they all sold. We will definitely make some more for the shop at Art4All I reckon (if we get time).  Look out for them Helen and Julie!