Printable Artwork that I love

My gorgeous friend and talented Graphic-Designer-Extraordinaire has just launched P for Printables.

P for Printables is a website that sells beautiful, printable pictures that you can download and use for any number of creative projects, such as cards, wrapping paper, invitations, scrapbooking, anything!

Or you could just stick them into a frame, hang them on your wall and enjoy them.

You can even download reward charts for your kids for free, and they're just too cute!

I love the idea that I can get my hands on unique, pretty, top quality pictures without having to leave the house. While the Hatchlings consider shopping centre shenanigans an excellent source of sporting fun, I'm not so keen on it. Here's to keeping the Hatchlings' sporting fun out of retail outlets! Hooray!

Congratulations Miss Prue.

Jen x

Photoshop - The Time Machine.

Recently I was lucky enough to get my hands on Photoshop CS3. As you probably know, Photoshop is fantastic photo editing software - there is pretty much nothing it can't do. CS3 is not the latest and greatest that Photoshop has to offer (CS4 is now available), but it is more than enough for a newbie like me.

HOWEVER!!!!

There really should be a warning in bold on the side of the packaging, because Photoshop is also a time machine. Really!

I can sit down to do a quick 20 minute editing session, and when I look up 3 hours have gone past. Similar to being abducted by aliens (so I believe - I have never personally been abducted by aliens), Photoshop is leaving me with many 'missing hours' in my week.

There is no time for this! I rush everywhere! I brush my teeth while I make the bed! I wash the dishes while I cook dinner and read 'Where is the Green Sheep?" to the Hatchlings!! Time (or the lack of it) is my enemy...

...I kind of love playing with Photoshop though. With persistance and a little help from The Pioneer Woman, I'm really learning a thing or two.

Take a look:

This is a picture of the Red Star cordyline that sits in a pot on my driveway.

Here it is again with a 70's effect applied to the image. Now it looks like my Red Star cordyline's Grandmother from, well, the 70's I guess.

And here she is again all funkied up for 2010. Vibrant, sharp, groovy cordyline. I like it!

Quality photographers are able to capture the perfect moment when a bee searches for pollen amongst the petals of a flower. What do I manage to photograph?

An ant.

What is an ant doing when he climbs up into the highest branches of a shrub and pretends he's a bee? I think he is an ant with big ideas and a lot of ambition. You can't knock him for that...

With a black and white treatment he now looks like a 'pin-up' ant. You know, a poster boy, a super model perhaps...

And then with some sunshine added he is transformed into a retro hippy-ant on his way to Woodstock. If he wasn't naked he'd be in brown corduroy flares and a paisley body shirt, for sure.

I rest my case. Between exploring the joy of Photoshop and writing questionable posts such as this, the mystery of my colossal laundry pile is explained.

Whatever!!

Jen x

More visitors

When we first moved into our house I pestered Union Jack to make me a bird table. I liked the idea of putting seed out every morning and seeing who turned up. There is sometheing special about somebody that drops in for a visit of their own accord, eats whatever is going and then clears off to the next place...

Hang on, what?!

Please remind me of these words when the Hatchlings grow into teenagers - I have a feeling they may adopt a similar policy to our local birdlife.

Anyway, being the adorable creature that he is, Union Jack built me a bird table. It stands proudly in the garden by our deck, and we are visited daily by some colourful characters.

If birds could shout, that is what these two lorikeets do at about 8am every morning if the bird table looks bare. On the left is Sid, and on the right is Wanda.

Sid has anger management issues, but he's working on it. Nowadays he can generally hold it together so long as a cockatoo doesn't show his cheeky face. Much like the Hatchlings, Sid also has issues with sharing.

Wanda is his loyal partner, who used to be a Rolling Stones groupie but has now settled down to a quiet life with Sid. While Sid fluffs his feathers and does the macho thing, Wanda just stares adoringly at him.

Well, it's either adoration or she's dying to tell him to shut up and stop showing off. Maybe she's just waiting for a break in conversation, which is mostly one-way (i.e. Sid's way)...

No, I am pretty sure they adore each other. Sid and Wanda do everything together. And besides, with outfits like that I'm not sure who else would want to hang out with them. Sid and Wanda are such attention seekers!

Jen x

Have ramekins, will cook.

Sometimes it is dangerous to recieve junk mail. As I described in an earlier post, junk mail was almost a mythical creature when I was a child living in a small town where the mail was not delivered.

Junk mail still holds a certain fascination for me, and when I saw a picture of these little guys staring out at me from the pages of a catalogue recently, I knew they had to be mine.

What are they? They're ramekins! They are red, shiny, pretty, pretty ramekins!

What will I use them for? Something yummy in red, shiny, pretty, pretty ramekins! (I.e. I have no idea what I can cook with them yet.)

Do I love them? Yes, from the very first moment I laid eyes on them.

So, what could be better than eight red, shiny, pretty, pretty ramekins?

Eight red, shiny, pretty, pretty ramekins plus a square dish thing to match, of course!

Any ramekin requiring recipe suggestions you'd like to share? Please help me...

Jen x

P.S: It is really quite fun to roll your R's when you say the word 'ramekin' really loud - try it!
RRRRAMEKIN!

P.P.S: Please excuse this ridiculous suggestion if you are sitting at a computer in the middle of your local library, or in your office and your boss is within earshot.

Floral tribute

When I was a young whipper snapper I had an often snakey and always scarey big sister, Selma. She was pretty good at coming out with snappy one liners (especially to her parents and teachers, I think). But before she inflicted a smart remark on one of the grown ups, she seemed to enjoy trying them out on me. Many of them went straight over my head because I was just too young, but there are some that I have retained over the years.

And who knew that one of Selma's retorts could become an annual mantra???

Yes, way back then Selma unwittingly gave me some very good advice:

"Take a photo - it will last longer!" she'd suggest if I looked her way for longer than 1 second. Well, yesterday that was exactly what I did.

These flowers wont last long once the weather heats up.

And right now they are so new, just waking up on these first few spring-like days.

Yes, they are yawning, blinking slowly and taking a look around.

Some for the very first time. These lovelies came from Lois' garden only a few short months ago as cuttings.

Not like these little rays of sunshine - they make an appearance every year. A bit like Ringo Star at the Chelsea Flower Show...

The beautiful people never hang around long.

And yet, others come back and bring 10 of their mates along too.

This lemon blossom smells like, um - well, it smells like lemon blossom. But I like that smell... Lots.

There's no flowers here, but more nice smells. Sniff sniff, mmmmmmm.

I plan to refer back to this post in February when my garden looks a tad less hydrated. It will give me something to cling to when everything is wilted.

Thanks for the advice about taking photos Selma! Can you tell I'm not scared of her any more?

Then again, after this maybe I should be!!

Jen x

Pincushions by Mother Nature

In late 2004 I planted five hakeas at the back of our place. They were all about 3 inches tall with only two leaves on each plant.

Yes, its been about four and half years in the making, but it finally happened a week or so ago. My hakeas flowered!! I know this isn't going to make front page headlines, but as I said, its taken four and a half years! To see a single flower!!!

Very slowly every day, the flowers are coming into bloom. There is the first burst of colour, followed by the emergence of lots of tiny tentacles, or pins.

Mother Nature's pincushions.

Now they stand about four feet tall, they are getting more and more bushy, and they've got beautiful flowers - woo hoo!!

"Pincushion hakeas", I am so proud!

Jen x

They are NOT cute.

Cuteness can only get you so far in this world.

Sooner or later your cute can just run out.

Or at least fade significantly.

Especially when, as a wallaby, you decide to EAT ALL OF MY NEWLY PLANTED SILVER BUSHES!!!

Hmph. I am friendly, I leave water out for the little guys.

I even leave the odd piece of fruit out in the middle of summer (I worry that they haven't eaten anything tasty for a looong time by mid summer). And what do I get in return?

This:

I can't talk about this any more - the wallaby and I have officially had a falling out.

Jen x

Its been how long??

Sorry.
Its just that...
There's been a lot....
The kids were...
My ironing pile was...

Sigh.

All I can say is that it has been far too long since I last updated my blog. You surely can't be any more disappointed in my efforts than me. Boo!

I have been doing quite a bit of gardening though. Its an annual cycle really. During the heat of the summer as I watch my plants shrivel up and cling to life by their fingertips (yes I know plants don't really have fingertips - or even fingers) I become sad and more than a little despondent about the whole gardening thing. During those months I can't tell you how many times I utter disgustedly under my breath "What is the point?".

But then it happens.

The days become cool but not cold. We receive a teeny bit of rain.

I see GREEN SHOOTS appearing in places I thought were a-goner! And flowers too!

Its about now that my memories of scorched plants and water running straight off hyprophobic soil all but vanish. Suddenly I am full of gardening optimism and can't wait to get busy doing gardening 'stuff' once again. Here is one of my new projects:

Its a fairly simple policy that I am working by at the moment: if a plant is in my garden and looks good right now (ie. at the end of a HOT summer), I want to plant more of this plant. If it is in my garden and it is sick or dead - FORGET IT!

These guys look pretty happy:

Yep, I bought more of them!

I also planted this fella:

He's a new entrant to the garden so we'll just have to see how he goes.

Will do my best work on blog updates from now on - really.

Jen x