Wednesday 15th September 2010

G'day, my name is Buddy

I'm an Australian Yellow Bearded Dragon.

 My relatives vary from dark grey and sometimes reddish-brown, yellowish-brown, or dark brown in skin colour depending on the variety but I am a very special type - or so I think. 

 Here is a photo of one of my relatives.  Not nearly as handsome as I am!

When I came to live with my pet human Jesse, I was 6 weeks old and 10cms (4 inches) long.  Now I'm three years old and measure 34cms (around 14inches).  When I am fully grown I will measure a full 24 inches or 60cms.   We're called 'dragons' because we puff out our throats and look very fierce when threatened.  We also open our mouths very wide and that makes us look even fiercer.  And aren't our spines impressive?

I eat crickets, woodies (a type of native cockroach that live in woodpiles), mealyworms, fruit and vegetables.  My favourite foods of all are lettuce, pumpkin, strawberries and - most of all, sweet corn.  I'm a bit skinny at the moment just coming out of winter, but I'll soon fatten up a bit.  Here Kylie is hand feeding me.  I really enjoy being hand fed.  Spoilt?  Me?  What do you mean?  I am only getting the treatment I deserve!

I came to visit Kylie today because my pet's mum is her good friend.  And Kylie's mum Sandra took these photos.  I must say they don't do me justice - silly goose left her camera at the caravan and had to take the photos with her phone! So of course I had to have a good look at the phone to see what she was doing.

Aren't I a handsome fellow?  Do you think the photo above  is my best side?

Or do you like this view better?

See how I like sitting on people's shoulder?  It helps keep me warm as well.  In the wild I like to bask on rocks and things to warm up.  That's because I'm a reptile, of course.  When I came to live with Jesse I lived in his bottom drawer at first,and that was fun.  But now I have an enclosure that has rock walls on three sides and a glass front.  It has an earthern floor and rocks in it.  Heating and temperature contol keeps it very comfortable for me.  Jesse's family has to have a special licence to be able to have me live with them. 
  
Sandra took HEAPS of photos, trying to get a good shot of me eating some corn.  But I fooled her - I shoot out my sticky tongue so quickly to grab each kernal, just like I catch an insect, that the best she got was a few blurry ones he, he, he.

So it was very nice to 'meet' you.  I hope you enjoyed it too.  Life is certainly interesting having Jesse as my pet.  I get to have all sorts of adventures.  Bye for now.

Sunday, 12th September, 2010

Welcome Lainie and Marlene!

Hi Marlene and Lainie and welcome to my blog.  I hope you enjoy it here and visit often.  I really appreciate you taking an interest in my ramblings vbg.

Mini-ing with Shailee

Something different to share with you today. Our grandsons Cameron and Luke were intrigued with the latest of the Town Square series (Dickens Bookshop) that I did here while visiting, and want to do some miniatures. I promised them that when Pa arrived I would ask him to cut some of the thin MDF I have so that they could build something.

In the meantime, our daughter Kylie’s neighbour and friend Fiona and her two daughters also came to admire Dickens Bookshop and the younger one Shailee (pronounced Shay-lee) in particular was keen to do some miniatures too. Fiona asked whether Shailee could come and watch me do some work on my miniatures, then remembered that she had been given a kit for a small wallhanging of a fruit and juice shop in a frame.

So Shailee brought the kit down to the caravan today and I helped her put it together. Shailee is just nine years old, and like many of us has been making small things out of foil, cardboard, fabric, paper and other bits and pieces for quite some time. This is her first ‘formal’ introduction to miniatures and what fun to be the one to introduce her to the pleasures of this fascinating world!

She was surprised that it wasn’t as difficult as she thought it would be and as you can see in this photo she really concentrated on it. I showed her what to do and then she did it herself. I did help some of it but she did 90%. Not a bad effort at all!

Shailee was very very proud of the result, and so was I – of the result and of her efforts too.

I asked permission of her mother then Shailee herself before I included photos of her on this post. They were both happy for me to do so.

And by then the boys had returned from bowling with Peter. I cut some of the MDF scraps to make shelves for them like the shelves in Shailee’s vignette, and they started to glue them together. Cameron is 7 and Luke is 4 so their patience can’t be expected to last as long, but they got them glued partly together. They were waiting for me to cut more shelves and for the glue to dry and went off to play, and will finish them tomorrow or the day after. And Peter will be cutting something else for them tomorrow as well.  I am really looking forward to doing some minis with them as well!

Friday 3rd September & Sunday 5th 2010

Fourth in the Town Square series.....

…….is a bookshop, aptly called ‘Dickens’ Books’. It is a building with real character, stucco finish with and timbering outside and one of my favourite wallpapers used upstairs inside.

The kit this time came with a desk and chair to go upstairs, and kits for two wooden bookcases and a sales counter as well as the till. Sunday was Fathers Day here in Australia, and Kylie and the boys spent the day with the boys’ father so I was happy to have the day to work on the Bookshop and I certainly got a lot done.

Here are the ground and first floors with the stucco and timbering on the outside. The door and windows are put in without glue while the timber is added. Then the stucco goes right up to the edge of the openings for the door and windows. I did get stucco on the timbering, and scraped it off. But I still needed to touch up the wood with paint again. And then I needed to touch up the stucco again as well vbg. Which was fine because I decided that I wanted the stucco a bit lighter anyway – it had dried slightly darker than I expected.

I chose to do more of the exterior and interior decorating than the instructions said before joining the two sections together and it certainly made it easier to wallpaper the ground floor. This next photo shows the inside of the two sections. The side walls and ceiling of the first floor had not been papered at this stage. They are done in one strip. The ground floor has been done in the co-ordinating paper supplied.

Here you can see the two sections joined. You might be able to see that I dry-brushed areas of the exterior with a bit of brown to ‘weather’ it a bit. This is an old building, so it can’t be pristine but it is occupied and I don’t want it to be decrepit either.

When I sprayed the windows and door I first did them with the plastic primer, than absent-mindedly did them with white spray paint as well. That was on Friday, so I left them over Saturday and today (Sunday) I sanded each of them and did them the correct colours: brown for the outside windows and door frame; blue for the outside of the door; and latte for the inside of the door and the inside windows.

And here is Dickens’ Bookshop. Well, so far anyway. Still a few things to go.

 I want to make a sign in slightly different lettering than the one provided but haven’t chosen the font yet. The wooden sign is painted and ready though. And I feel that there needs to be a ‘scroll-y’ metal arm holding the sign rather than just putting it up on the front, but I need to experiment a bit. I think I could make that from a sliver of tea-candle holder metal, and being away from home I might have to buy a pack of those to get some.

The Spaniel at the front is from Grace Shaw, who showed the most amazing patience with me when I was working out an order for animals to put into ‘Feathers and Fur’ Petshop for the Town Square. She really is the most amazing supplier! Grace painted this gorgeous Spaniel for me
specially. I am more of a cat person than a dog person (apart from loving the little white fluffball that has adopted me) – hence having a cat or several in each mini project I do, but I do also love spaniels and have been owned by two in the past.

Today I also constructed the bookcases and serving counter and painted and ‘aged’ the desk and chair. I have glued the desk and chair in place upstairs but haven’t glued the bookcases or counter yet, hence the bookcases are on a lean and look crooked. I need them to

be accessible to add the books and the things to go under the counter.

On the tall bookcase you can see the grey cat that has climbed up so she can look down and observe all the happenings from her lofty perch among the books; and upstairs a pretty white fluffy cat is enjoying a snooze on the warm chair seat – perhaps the shop owner has just risen from that chair and the seat is nice and warm. Finishing touches needed of course: books, books, books and more books; something to go on the wall; some vases of flowers; paper to wrap purchases in; paperwork for the desk; ornaments perhaps for the desk etc.

This one is another really satisfying little building for the Town Square. It is now 5th September, so the invoice for the next in the series will be arriving probably tomorrow or the day after. I wonder what that one will be?

Thursday, 2nd September 2010

Kylie's Christmas Stocking

The first Christmas Stocking I did for my family was this one for Kylie, our oldest daughter.  Just as Kirsten later chose the design she wanted for her stocking, Kylie chose the chart and I did it on (I think) 14 count Aida cloth.  The two stockings are very different and each reflects the taste of the girls.

Looking at the date on the stocking, I did this one in 1993.  It was quite a complex one to do but it's really beautiful.  The colours are really rich - it has come out slightly pale in this photo.

If you haven't seen the one I did for Kirsten, I have already blogged about it - it will have the same label 'Counted Cross Stich' as this one does.

And just to show that it is real life, and not miniature, here it is with a ruler beside it.  This ruler has both inches and centimetres.  So you can see that the stocking is more than 12 inches (30cms) long.  Proof that I do do things other than mini petitpoint lol!

And today I ordered another full-sized stocking for one of the grandchildren.  Either Cameron or Luke.  I already have one for one of the boys,

Before we came away I sorted a lot of my cross stitch and put all the Christmas stockings in one place.  I haven't found all of them yet, they are in another large tub in the storage container so when I go back to Sydney I will rummage through it until I find that one as well.   I really would like to get going on the stockings for all the grandchildren.  The only stocking that had the project, the chart and the threads all in one place was the one for me!  That's what happens when someone else packs things for storage.