Little people and Nail art.

Missy has been doing some nail art.

I'm very pleased to see my ridiculous supply of nail polish being used.

It took her a couple of hours!

and she even roped the little brother in to do some tasks for her

when she was incapacitated with wet nails. 

I think he may have even done some of the painting!

She had better have made sure the lids are all back on tight!

wow, there is a hell of a mess in my kitchen!

I'm not sure I'll allow this again.



Australia Day

Our daughter drew this last night after seeking out some lessons on youtube!

She immediately facebooked it and we found it this morning.

What a great way to start Australia Day.

I was going to photograph a couple of knitted jumpers that
I thought I had kept, with koalas and kangaroos on the front of them. My mother had knitted them for me when I was a kid, but I can't find them. I think in the last wardrobe cleanout of missy's she must have ditched them, I tried and tried to get her to wear them but to no avail. Tee Hee

I can understand cos they were a bit like those funny christmas jumpers!

And not that fashionable.

I have spent the day decluttering and organising stuff.

And reading blogs.

Now we are going out to an Indian restaurant!

hahahaha for Aussie day!!

Love it.

Love the diversity of people in this country!

How did you spend your day?

Happy Australia Day everyone!

2012 whipcracking

We are gearing up around here for the start of some whipcracking events. In 2 weeks the Queensland titles are on in Clifton, this is where it all started last year for missy. Itty Bitty is a bit more old hand at it he'd already done a few competitions before this one.

Supre skirts.

These were recommended on the blog abeachcottage. I had a looksie online and took a punt, my daughter is usually the one who buys the supre. I just bought the L and XL and they are fab. Mine are black and grey and black and white. If you have a supre near, have check and see if they have any left, I can highly recommend them too!

1st Ebay sale

All my nerves were unnecessary. 

Yay first ebay sale came through.

The buyer took the buy it now option.

I've set up the rarely used, Dining room as a staging area!

Photo taking, weighing, wrapping and packing stations.

Its a big table!

My morning.

* Pic made with Nostalgio app for iOS ( http://bit.ly/nostalgio )

Iphoneography

I've been having so much fun checking out new Iphone photography apps.

But then last night I saw that another couple of people on Instagram had done collages.

So to the Itunes store I went.

I found a few different apps, but the ones I wanted need to have a frame around them.

so I picked out

PicFrame

34 frame combinations allowing 1-5 photos

you can mirror image and turn the photos all around in the app.

Here's my yesterday.

Cracking practise, visiting the podiatrist and getting strapped, and what I wore (for a beach cottage, I can see I need a new mirror as this one is crummy, taking weird shots, wide and all!)

Dyptic frames

27 frame combos allowing for 2-4 photos

allows for in app photos and some great adjustments

not so clear, but I may have saved it in low res!

and Nostalgio

20 frame combinations allowing for 2-4 photos

allows for in app photo taking

then I Instagrammed it

I think that the in app photo taking is a huge bonus, especially seeing how the nostalgio worked so quickly in this collage.

He's such a great little cat burning the candle at both ends in the companionship tasks.

New Iphone camera apps

I am so impressed with the new iphone.

 Miss mdk picked out some new fun camera apps to try out.

Colorsplash

this

From this original

Its got lots of different quirks and I can see quite a few uses for it. 

Camwow

just made me look weird and i didn't even try it with the flowers but has fun colourful changes that can be made..

and of course I am still loving Instagram.

Sunsets

We get pretty good sunsets around here.

It probably has a lot to do with all the flat.

In this shot there is a storm/shower next to a sunset!

And I thought I was pretty clever getting both even on the iphone.

Fun and Ebay

We have been implementing lots of children's craft around here.

 They started with boats for the pool.

Miss MDK rescued the Lipton Iced tea bottles from the recycling.

It was fairly unsinkable.

Itty Bitty used 'airbags' -some packaging that came with a parcel, and one of those floppy water bottles.

Big son made a full on water raft with 3 empty water bottles, a ton of duct tape, a pirate, a helicopter and toy soldiers.

And yes look closely- a frog!

He tried to hide under the helicopter.

I think we need to increase the salt level to deter the frogs from swimming here.

Along with a restocking of the duct tape.

Then they moved on to painting pet rocks.

Big rocks were sourced.



Then painted like a smurf.

and pig

Then photographed with the Iphone,

then Instagramed.

Yet another new tool!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In other exciting news,
I have been learning heaps of new things, Twitter (which I set up 2 yrs ago and haven't touched) twitpic, webstagram, Picasa photostreams,
And........

Today, for most of the day!
Miss Mdk and I tried our hand at listing a couple of things on Ebay.

I've done a bit of buying but never any selling.

It took me hours and hours, and she was not happy about my attention being on learning that new skill and not on helping her to buy some supre gear.

I was able to set up a template and list a pair of shoes (that I had bought on a group selling website and were too big plus I left it too long to return them) and a handbag of Miss MDK's.

Which we are thrilled to see already has a bid within a few hours!!

They bidder hasn't taken the buy it now option, but it will be interesting to see where it ends up.
We thought hard about it and set a start price that we would be happy to accept.

I have told her to wrap it up and get it all ready to take to the Post Office.

She will get the proceeds of this sale.

When I explained this, she was so excited and has decided that she will go through her DVDs and pull out all the Barbie and princess ones.

I am not sure that I have the postage costs right but am going to the Post Office tomorrow to get the post packs and get it sorted in my head.
The Post office staff here are so lovely I'm sure they will help me out with anything I ask.
I have deliberately started with just a couple of things as I don't want to sell like my husband, who listed at 99 cents and then offered free postage, so in effect paid 12 dollars to be rid of the item.

I'm pretty pleased as I had these shoes in the bag to take to the charity bin.

We've scouted around and found quite a few things that we can sell.
Some new, some barely used.
I have plenty of rarely used things that I can live without.
A couple of grill pans are next.
I've used them once and couldn't stand all the smoke!

But I think I understand why I have just given things away before, Ebay listing is so time consuming!

But I loove learning new skills!

Husband thinks it's great seeing boxes leave and not arrive!
Yeah right, HA!

Stuff I found while looking through my Iphone photos.

Miss MDK flogs my phone quite regularly and wanders around taking photos.

She really likes the new Iphone 4S, and I have to agree it has a great camera.

Here's what I found.

She opened a bag of these and waited for the troops to behave.

And they did.

The new crackle nails.

The remote control helicopter.

Sneaking a bottle of bundaberg ginger beer.

  

The brother has now got the camera.

And running.

And then itty bitty in the back 

And now for the money shots.

I explained to them that these are called sunflares and are pretty good.

I think Itty Bitty might have the paparazzi skills!

and was trying to have it look like she was holding the tree up.

Yep he has the gift.

For sure!

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Happy dog days

My dogs were all very happy this morning.  

We woke up to the sound of them all playing and running around chasing each other. 

I haven't seen the Young Cairn terriers play with the new German Shepherd Pup.  

I think they believe that she is annoying and will never leave them alone, but this morning it was a different story. 

Bella the snake catcher from the other day and the baby GSD were having such a nice time chasing each other and rumbling.

I tried to sneak out to take a photo but they heard me and came running to the back door.

Then the big guy jumped in on the fun and he can be a bit hard on the little ones, but all in fun, then it kind of slowed down. 

This little kid used to always be putting himself inside a dog crate, like it was his special quiet place, just like the dogs.

I found him in one the other day.

I'm not quite sure how he locked the door but he was pretty happy in there.

But posed a different face.

Amazing that he still fits!!!!

Hide loving kid

On our way home from Sydney the other day we stopped at a hide shop. Much to my husband's disgust ( these being brindle and all) I bought two of the hide cushion covers. If they'd had more good thick ones like this I 'd have them all.

I knew this little fellow would appreciate them when he'd get home from his extended holiday with Aunty.
The eyes in his head almost popped right out when he got home a week later. Of course he wanted them in his bedroom and kept begging me for 24 hours straight.

I know one day when I'm not looking they are going to disappear.

I'll know where to find them!!

I made a big mess

This morning we had a rather terrifying incident. There was a snake on the back verandah trying to kill one of the little dogs. Or perhaps it was the other way round.

There was the most horrendous flapping sound as she was trying to shake it.

I won't let anyone in on how I got it, it took me an hour to find it after it was lost sight of behind the doggie blanket washing machine that sits here, I thought it had gone up inside the washing machine and had tipped it upside down.

 I fixed the problem and made a very big mess of the Verandah.

Can you believe that a whopping big black snake could fit in such a tiny space.

Little Bella had to be carefully watched all day long to make sure that she was okay and she is, she's perfectly fine.

But a bit wary of us due to all the screaming.

I made a fairly big mess, but that piece of wood was a bit rotten and needed replacing anyway. I guess its sooner rather than later.

After a calming down time, I decided to whipper snipper the edges and mow away all the long grass that has grown again.

8 hours later and I'm still not finished.

The latest toy

He is trying so hard to attack his sister with it.

Just like a giant mozzie.

Roses and cases

We are having our real summer weather here at the moment, yesterday it went up to 41 degrees Celsius (about 106 F)

Hot as. I cooled off by having a swim then hosing down the back verandah for a couple of hours.

(our 7 dogs can make quite a big mess, especially the puppy- she had torn a bag of potting mix up and scattered it everywhere)

These roses won't be lasting long in the heat.

We are loving these Ivyskin phone cases that I ordered from the USA. We have put them on all the phones and iPods in the house.

I had one on my last IPhone for almost 3 years, so I knew just how fantastic they are.
These wrangler ones have a glass screen which does really protect the phone.

We learnt our lesson about IPhones and cases 3 years ago when my sister dropped her 10 day old one on the first day on holidays in the USA and the whole screen smashed into a billion pieces. Useless, and a total write off.

I found these online and have been a devotee ever since.
I could bang on about them for a good while.
Hubby prefers his otter box which is waaaaaay too chunky for me.

Loving the red and it matches my favourite Opi colour,
An Affair in Red Square.
It has just the right amount of sparkle for me.

Morrocan chicken

The second food post of the day!

Whilst trawling around on the net today (for almost all of the day, cos I can, I am holidays!), I got on a tangent, Low carb, as our diet is, and followed a link to a link to a link (or blog to blog to blog)  and wound up at this blog/website. http://www.marksdailyapple.com/#axzz1idrSQQ3j

He works/lives/advocate Primal living. Ah ha, not that I have a clue what that is about, nor am I quite in the mood to learn, nor did I really have the time, cause I was a bit more interested in watching people on you tube cooking the recipes.

But the recipes are fab.

There is a whole recipes section, hidden right down in the right hand side! I will definately be returning to learn more and check out more recipes.

I made the Morrocan Chicken, which uses cauliflower as the rice and it was great.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/moroccan-chicken-casserole/#axzz1ifYiKjNn

I made it a little bit differently to the instructions, using chicken legs, green bell peppers rather than red, cos that's what I had, and left out the carrots, I think they might be a bit too carby at this stage of the food plan.

We all devoured it, even the 14 year old male!!

~

In other exciting news, whilst checking if some cattle were on the road this afternoon, we spotted a mother Emu and her 5 young ones.

I have never seen these birds on our place before!

Not a good photo, we should have had the Canon with the big lens.

Big boy wanted me to drive closer, but I am pretty sure that they would have RUN.