A sunny walk

Windy Weekend

A couple of weeks ago we went down to the very bottom of Western Australia - to a little place called Windy Harbour which has a very interesting history .
It was a little bit like going back in time for the weekend.

We stayed in a little beach shack belonging to one of Mark's sisters-in-law, whose family have owned it since her grandfather built it in the 1940s.

Here it is -

No mains water or electricity - just a gas heated shower in the back of the shed - privacy provided by these shower curtains...

A shed full of old tools and lamps -

And inside.... vintage heaven!

Windy Harbour was surprisingly windy, and rainy, but it stopped long enough to climb a smaller, less orange Uluru -

And admire all the wildflowers -

And a spot of off-roading...

The End.

PS I'm pretty bad at blogging at the moment - but I'm really good at Instagram - I'm ellimoody over there too if you fancy a look :)

Raku!

Yesterday I tagged along with my friend's pottery group to a Raku day.
Raku is kind of like magic - it involves chemical reactions, intense heat and puffs of smoke. It's unpredictable - you never know what colour your glazes will come out as it all depends on the amount of oxygen and other scientific things which I don't quite understand...
It's the best fun- and so exciting when you wipe the soot off your pots and see what you've got!

I only took three things to fire -

I drew on some lines and spots with melted wax and them painted on the glaze - the small one with spots was supposed to come out a bright copper colour and the other two were a white crackle glaze -

With a raku kiln you can look through the top and see your pots glowing red - mind your eyebrows though, it's about 1000 degrees in there...

Then you carefully lift the roof off the kiln... 

And quickly drop the pots into bins full of combustible material such as newspaper or sawdust...

After they've been in the smoke for a while - you can vary the time depending on the finish you're after - you lift them out with tongs and wipe away the soot.

Ta-dah!

Here are my three - the polka dot one came out an iridescent bluey colour which I'm not sure I like... it might grow on me though!

I made this terracotta pot about 8 years ago - I didn't realise how similar it was to the others until I put them next to each other -

Felting Frenzy

I have a new passion for felting - in fact I love it so much I'm going to have to open an Etsy shop to sell some of my creations off - if I can bear to part with them!

Watch this space!

Op-shop jackpot!

So today is my self-designated Day of Me - in other words Tuesday is my day and I WILL ENJOY IT! 

I may also clean the bathroom but only if it makes me happy to do so.

So this morning I went on my monthly Op- shop trawl. The op-shops in town are pretty good- I never buy any clothes as they're mostly old lady type polyester blouses or cheapy stuff from Supre and Rivers but...

This is what I bought today-

A vintage measuring jug...

                     

A very large vintage Western Australia souvenir tea towel-

                     

Four small plates with sailing boats and seagulls -

                    

And two old atlases and a globe for work projects.

Pretty good haul eh?

But you know that one thing you are always looking for - every car boot sale, swap meet, op shop or secondhand shop you go into.

We all have one thing - the jewel, the absolute perfect find. What's yours?

Mine is....

                   

Peanuts mugs!

I always carefully dig through all the old mugs in the hope of finding one. Today I only went in the Salvos because it was on the way home and there it was, just waiting for me.

So happy :) 

And here are its friends..

   

Selective pictures of my house...

Its the school holidays so my house is, of course, in a huge mess...

So I'm trying to turn a blind eye to the chaos and pick out the nice bits instead!