Amazing Felt: Chairs

A few years ago I stumbled upon felt and fell in love with it. Which would explain I guess why the house is pretty much packed to the rafters in the stuff. Not just happy with buying some felt and making things...I've gone through the process of buying the raw wool - (it stunk by the way and drove Jessie crazy) - which I still haven't used after opening the bag once and decided to put it in the too hard and stinky basket. I have rolls of pure merino wool that has been nicely cleaned and dyed. I tried my hand at making felt myself on numerous occasions just to gain an appreciation of it. Which I do appreciate and want nothing of the process of making it quite frankly. But I'm thinking next week I might write up a little tutorial for those of you who would like to know how to make it....any takers??

Anyway....felt is an ancient material, believed to be one of the earliest techniques for making textiles. Made by matting together wool fibers with humidity and friction, felting requires little technological expertise (sounds good to me) and is an extremely versatile material.

I've found amazing things made of felt. One item that I was shown by my felt distributor was this amazing chair carved out of very thick felt. I've search and can't find a photo, but have found some other really great chairs made of felt that I love.

Images: Peacock chair produced by New York studio Dror for Italian furniture manufacturer Cappellini. Bless You chair. Designed and made by Louise Campbell. Denmark, 1999. 10mm technical felt and 750 sheets of gelatin. Joseph Felt Chair 2 designed by Lothar Windels. FF1 Chair by Fox and Freeze (not actually a wool felt but synthetic felt but very cool)

Hide the Spinach: Try this again

I'm still trying to get my kids to eat some green stuff and even perhaps some spinach. So the next recipe I've tried on them is again one from Jerry Seinfeld's wife and her book Deceptively Delicious. This one is like a granola/muesli slice hiding the spinach in amongst the blueberry jam. I have to say, once I mixed it into the blueberry jam it looked like mud, but it tasted so so. A bit earthy but I was hoping that it would all mesh together nicely once cooked and wouldn't be noticeably when done and served up.

My brother in law and his kids came over and he was noticing something cooking in the kitchen that caught the attention of his nose. "can I try some?" "Well, yes as a matter of fact you can try some!" ;-) Well he really liked it and wanted more. I told him what was in it and he was very impressed. Hurray, I think I'm on a winning combo this time! I thought it wasn't too bad myself, though I could still taste the earthy bit (dirt?) and wondered weather the kids would notice.

So the true test...the kids. I think they each took

one bite, turned their noses, went back to their DS games and that was that. My husband didn't even try this one. It sat in the fridge a few days until I just threw it out. Again, I thought it was ok but to my 5 and 8 year old palates, was a flop. Their cousins didn't even try it. I thought it looked OK, geez, hard crowd to please. At least they didn't throw it back at me.

Well next I'm trying some good old fashioned pumpkin scones. No spinach, surely they'll eat these, right?!

Couch Potato to 5k's?

I finally went to the gym last month and got my assessment done. Well to my surprise I was told I have high blood pressure and that I wouldn't be able to have my free personal training sessions until I produced a doctors certificate. Huh? I was going to the doctor that week for a checkup anyway and the blood pressure was still high. Probably didn't help that I was freaking out since my Mother had a triple by pass a couple years ago. So the advice from the Doc was to lose a few kilo's. I know I have a bit of an extra tube around the waist, but I don't consider myself overweight. Though yes I sometimes dream about being a size 10 (US size 6) like everyone else.

I'm really disappointed with myself as four years ago after a grueling diet of chemo drugs (very effective weight loss program but one I wouldn't recommend) I was down to about an 8-10 (4-6us) and my old levi's fit beautifully! So four years of too much chocolate and smelly cheese I'm back to a 12 (8 us). Not particularly overweight - and I went to the weight watchers site to just double check. Anyway, I'm thinking that exercise is probably the answer to my blood pressure (and less yelling at the kids and dog) as I have become a bit of a sloth over the years.

Since I'm no gym junkie (I promptly sold my membership to my sister-in-law who just ran a half

marathon with the cancer group http://www.cantoo.org.au/ well done Shazza!)

I've decided to dust off my treadmill after finding a little iphone application called Run Mate. I've started the program couch to 5k's by http://www.coolrunning.com/ and I'm onto week 2. I can't see myself running non stop for 25 minutes but we'll see after week 9.

So of course to look great while sweating in the neighborhood and on my treadmill I'm purchasing these great pants from www.ahpeele.etsy.com How flexible is this yoga chick?? That is just scary. Now there's another challenge for you Shaz!

Have a great weekend everyone!

A Dog's Life: Possum Pie

I had come home from a really nice walk the other night. It was so invigorating to be out in fresh air. I tend to just sleep most days. Well, I try and sleep, Kaz makes a terrible racket hammering whatever it is that she seems to be doing all the time. Hard on a dog of my age (10 in human years) and my ears.

So, back to the story. I was out with my 'other' owner (long story I'll share someday) and the two kids. I jumped out of the car and headed for the door. It was dinner time and I was famished. But hang on, something a few doors down caught the attention of my nose. Something that perhaps Kaz would be interested in serving up for dinner. I mean, I am a retriever breed by nature and all.

So I made a bee line for the neighbors and ha ha, I found what I was looking for! They will be so excited that for a change I am providing my own dinner tonight. It was a brush tailed possum that I had carried so tenderly back in my teeth, mindful not to hurt him. I didn't want to kill the poor thing, just wanted to show him to everyone as a possible option for dinner perhaps? Possum pie maybe?

So I dropped him at the feet of everyone and they just started screaming at me!!! There was so much commotion I was starting to freak out. Kaz started screaming at me to get in the house. And when Kaz screams at me, I know not to mess with her. So from the door I could see all of them huddled around the possum. One breath, two breaths, and that was it. Apparently he died of shock. Michael came out and I'm not really sure what happened next. I just know that for dinner I had dry kibble and not the possum pie I was hoping for. Everyone that night kept calling me names - names I'm too embarrassed to repeat. Will I do it again? I don't know, it's just, it's just the smell, it takes over and I just go a bit crazy. I vow to try and hold back on the retriever instinct in me.

Note from Kaz: Possums, a native marsupial to Australia, are a protected species (though the brushtail is not endangered) and in no way do I condone Jessie's behavior. She'll will not be off the lead again in the evening when the possums are out. They do leave an awful mess with their poo droppings, but I would never serve one up for dinner.

Art and Design: Bubblegum Portraits

Yes, that is indeed a portrait of Avril Lavigne made from Jason Kronenwald's bubblegum.

Who would have thought to make a portrait out of your used up bubblegum?? Now that's thinking outside the bubblegum wrapper for sure! Canadian Jason Kronenwald from gumblondes.com is one such man. I don't even remember how I stumbled upon this one but I was really quite intrigued and impressed by the portraits.

I wonder how they smell? Juicy fruit, hubba bubba, black cat? Do they still make black cat bubble gum?

Hide the Spinach: Chocolate Brownies

I'm on a non stop quest to get my children to eat something other than raw carrots as their vegetables for dinner. That's pretty much all they'll eat at the moment. I've been looking at the palms of their hands and checking that they haven't turned orange yet. I know raw carrots are good, but they need some green.

So I figure the only way they're going to get it is if it's hidden in some deceptive way. Back when my Son was a toddler I had all sorts of clever tricks to hide veggies in his food. I often thought it would be a good cookbook to do, but 8 years of procrastination on my part, I find Jerry

Seinfeld's Wife has done it recently with a bit of shameless promotion from Oprah. Which now the book has no doubt made squillions. So of course I bought the book Deceptively Delicious as it looks really promising. In fact, I

was really excited about some of the recipes.

So the first one I tried was a chocolate brownie made with carrots and spinach. Very simple ingredients and pretty easy to do.

I have to say that it came out looking pretty good, and to me, it tasted pretty good too. But of course the real test would be the kids.

Well, the kids didn't like it much and didn't finish their slice nor begged for more. Which really surprised me I have to say. I mean, they look good right? They cut really nice, would be perfect to put in a lunch box. I guess they were kind of an odd texture. Perhaps reminded me of an egg slice in consistency. I think for an 8 and 5 year old palate, it wasn't a success at all. For a toddler I think it would be great. Chocolaty, spinach, carrot, egg, minimal sugar and fat and pretty much mess free. For kids over 5 who know what real brownies should taste like, not a great hit. But hey, those would be my kids who can sniff a green vegetable for miles. They eat steamed broccoli more than they would the brownie. Well, I refuse to give up the quest to hide the veggies.

Next week I'm going to try the blueberry spinach oat slice. The photo looks great and the kids like musli/granola bars...

What to Wear: It's still raining, cold and miserable

It's been cold , windy and rainy in Sydney this last week, but who says you can't still be fabulous and funky even in the cold and rain? I've spotted some interesting little items to keep you dry and fashionably funky. Or perhaps just fashionably freaky?

This bootbag is by Belgium designer Saskia Marcotti. Yes it is a bag made from a rubber boot.

No, that's not a photo of me. Yes, it is perhaps more freaky than funky. Yes, you could make

one very easily and cheaply from a rubber boot of your own choosing. Yes, you could make another in case you lost the first one. Moving on...

Now this is a boot that I love and not one I'll be putting my wallet or phone into. It's by Danish designer Ilse Jacobsen. I love the little hooky things at the top just like when I was a kid putting on my ice skates.

Maybe that's why I love them so much...a bit of childhood nostalgia from when I was a child freezing my toes off in Canada where I had to take outdoor skating lessons in the freezing cold. Lessons were only cancelled when it was -10F that would be -23C. Yes that's right, minus 23 celsius. And my children complain that it's cold here in

Sydney in the winter when during the day it probably never gets colder

than + 15C!!! And they want to visit Grandma and Grandpa one winter...which I keep putting off...But I would rock in these boots in the transit terminals and The Great White North!

And also from the Scandinavian neck of the woods, from Sweden, the Hanna raincoat from Didriksons. Just a little bit of blue to go perfectly with the boots. I think I should have been born Scandinavian....

Jessie's choice for some cold weather gear is from http://www.acmecouture.etsy.com/ on her wish list is this particular fashionable number though probably not the best choice for walking in the rain.