What am I working on ATM ...

Plenty UFOs here, dig in a basket or plastic tube and your bound to find a few. Some never got finished cause I ran out of a certain colour of wool, some waiting for a few more designs of snowmen to complete the red work/stitchery blocks and some just to find a matching material to finish the quilting. Heaps of material but not the right one. I really do have to spend more time finishing them off.
The granny blanket is on the go ATM, ran out of the blue and can't find any anywhere. Then got some red and white wool to crochet with and with a little luck I might be able to finish this project. This will go on the back of a 3 seater cane lounge on the veranda on the front deck.



Just tucked the last few threads away of a little pink jug cover/doily with rose beads. The bead are there just to weigh the doily down at little. It's pretty maybe a little old fashioned but who cares. It will stop bugs falling into a jug full of ice cold cool drink waiting to be poured.



While waiting for George at the eye clinic on friday, paging threw a magazine I found a picture of some coasters, that were just screaming at me to crochet one up quickly. We sat there for atleast 2 hrs so I always take something to do with me. Lucky I had some of the same pink yarn and a 3.5 gauge hook in the bag and got 1 coaster made before George was finished. Now I will have to make 9 more cause the dinning table has 10 chairs. If I ever wanted to set the table up maybe I will need to do 10 place mats as well on a white table cloth. (Pic is not the best but it should give you an idea what I am up to.)

And then it's onto the dining room chair cushions, only I have temporary lost the use of my sewing machine, while Tanya's machine has gone in for a service.

Thanks for popping in
see ya soon
Rina

The Deck out the back ...

A little sanding after screwing all the decking boards down.



After the first coat of decking oil, needs another coat, the woods so thirty soaking up that oil.



A collection of water cans. The decorating will probably change after the roof goes up, and a small table and chairs find their spot.



I would love an old potting table with a shelf at the bottom, some weathered terracotta pots covered in green algae. A few old tools and place for the old watering cans. Maybe even an old birds nest tucked in a corner.
Thanks for visiting
Rina

The Queen of the Tea Cosies ...

Now here is one fancy blog you just have to go visit



Never seen so many tea cosies in my life and most definately one of a kind. And she even has a book for sale. "I want one" I want to make one of these crazy looking cosies



or maybe one of these



Maybe this one



This is my pick for sure, not to over the top lol
Now just need to order this book, get the wool and I am set
See ya and have a lovely weekend
Rina

Jar of hearts ... paper mache hearts

Do you shred documents and junk mail? If so, that little bin under the shredder fills up pretty quickly. You can put the shreds in with the recycled trash, compost it or make new paper. I decided to make some new paper from paper mache pulp and use it to make tags.



To make paper from paper shreds you’ll need:
Paper shreds or torn up paper
Water
Flour
Sugar
A large pot
A rolling pin
A strainer
Parchment or wax paper

Place your paper shreds in a pot of boiling water and let boil for an hour or so.
Stir the paper every now and then and add more water if needed. Time saving option: soak your paper overnight in a bucket of water to eliminate the boiling step.
Once the paper starts to get mushy; drain it in a large strainer. I used a wire strainer so the bits of paper wouldn’t fall through larger holes of a sieve.
While the paper is cooling, make paper mache paste. Here’s the recipe:
Combine ½ cup flour and 2 cups cold water in a bowl.
Boil 2 cups of water in a sauce pan and add the flour and cold water mixture.
Bring to a boil again.

Remove from heat and add 3 tablespoons of sugar.
Let cool. The paste will thicken as it cools
Squeeze your paper to remove as much water as possible. Slowly add the paper mache paste. You probably won’t need all the paste. Just enough to coat the paper.
At this point, I added little cut up bits of colored tissue paper to jazz up my paper. Don’t boil the tissue paper with the shreds or it will just become part of the mush.
Roll out your pulp between two pieces of parchment paper using a rolling pin.
Try to get your paper fairly thin.
Place on a cookie sheet or tray and let dry.





Once your paper is dry, cut them into desired shapes.



Mine cooked heaps longer cause I had a heck of a lot of paper, to which I add a lot of pink food colouring. Then after draining most of the water, added the flour glue mix, then added dried crushed roses and leaves, Working it through. Rolled out the ball of pulp thinly (mine could have been thinner), cut heart shaped cookies with a cookie cutter. Let it dry for a few days on a flat surface, break each heart off and cut edges neatly, sand the edges if they a little rough. I took all the hearts to work and sanded them with the linisher and drilled holes for the tries. A hole punch would not go through cause they were a little thick. Painted the edges with a little gold from Jo Sonya paints. Added the raffia for ties and it's all done
Rustic gift labels for the next few years. lol

That was fun making
See ya
Rina

Confession time I am a curbaholic, recycling and re purposing items give me a sense of satisfaction. Making something useful out of trash, take for instants this water bowl in my header. Started it's life as a concrete bird bath, with a little broken pottery, tile adhesive and a sealer and I put together this beautiful water bowl. I love Winter time when the camellias come into blossom, floating Camellia flowers brings a little charm into the garden.



What I am always on the look out for is plants and cuttings. With green fingers and lots of care these plants thrive, and soon get planted in the garden, costing me basically only my time. Nurseries are my No1 favorite shop, followed closely by craft shops.My favorite plants are agapanthus, pansy, lavender, camellias, clivia and roses. Once I found a whole boot full of agapanthus, just freshly dugout and dumped on the curb. No need to invite me twice, grabbed the lot. They're all planted in my garden now.







I hope to have a hedge of these lovely fragrant roses, haven't got a better picture of it yet



We do have a little creek running through our property with pretty water lillies growing in it.

Thanks for visiting
Rina

Welcome ... so glad to see you,

Welcome to my new blog.
So where do I start? What can I tell you about my daily life, love for craft and decorating and collecting of old wares,that you don't already know. With this blog I hope to bring you into my home, and share with you my treasures. Our journey to living in the shack or better known as Rose Cottage. Originally it was to be just a weekender for friends visiting but then they decided to move 2000klm away. Now we are renovating it to live in ourselves.Plans to build a more permanent home are shelved ATM.

Hopefully Rose Cotage will be liveable in the next 8 months, meaning we could actually have a working bathroom and a complete kitchen by then. In the meantime I am busy getting comfy cushions recovered, decorating as we go along. The garden is also happening at the same time. So I invited you to follow our progress and hope to see you next time
Rina