our creative space (vale margaret olley)

Today, we decided to celebrate the life of Margaret Olley - an inspiring artist and supporter of the arts - by making our own artworks.

(Terrie, the travelling kinder bear, sitting for his very own portrait)

I loved gathering and arranging objects for our still life... and in doing so, remembering my own art classes at school (still life drawings of flowers were always a favourite).


I also loved watching my girl having fun and getting inspired by using the "good" paints and the special palette and paper...

(yes, I took my chance to relive art class and paint camellias again...)

and wished the wind didn't blow up so we could have stayed painting all day.

I hope you've had fun being creative too.

library party details and nice bits - the invites

I'm still thinking about our party last week - in part because some of the signs and decorations are still in place, and partly because I haven't much else to show for the past week except piles of tissues...

After reading some lovely comments about our party, and because I genuinely would love for others to share the fun of a library party (and I think it would be fun for any age from baby to adult!), I've decided to post about some of my favourite details from the party, starting with the invites.

NB: Most, if not all, of our ideas for this party were not entirely original, but instead adapted from other ideas we found online (just search for library-themed party and you'll see what I mean).

After deciding on a library party theme (after scoring a huge haul of books at a school fete), head to the nearest church fete and pick up a fist-full of library card envelopes... OK, this step might not work for you, but the envelopes would be pretty easy to make from old yellowish envelopes.


I used an old typewriter font (found free with a quick internet search) to make the invitation cards, then printed them and cut them to shape. I added the date with a date stamp (I was going to let my daughter do most of these, but got a bit carried away...).


Because I wanted the older kids to be able to read their membership cards, I used a more modern font for these. We made up some "rules" for the back... including an invitation to bring a book to donate (we'll be donating our books to The Footpath Library and Second Edition).


Finally, because there was a self-adhesive bit on the back of our envelopes, we added a piece of magnet cut from those calendar magnets that real estate agents like to give out...


I'll be back in a day or so with more little snippets to share... please tell me if there's anything you especially want to know about (or if I'm going on too much!).

library parties are the best...

because the invitations are fun...

because we could indulge my love of retro and her love of signs (thanks for leading us to these, Vic)...

because I had the perfect excuse to build more bookshelves...

because this was our menu plan...

because of story time (we love story time!)...

because it's fun to watch little hands creating...

because a cake shaped like a book is pretty easy to make...

because cupcakes featuring all her chosen books are not THAT hard to make when you have a food dye pen (thanks for the tip, Cathie!)...

because it's nice to give as well as receive...

because she loves books, and we love her.

(we had the BEST time, and are happily exhausted today... please excuse my continuing slackness with correspondence and comments...)

flea market find

Once again I've been expanding our games collection. I found these game pieces (without packaging or instructions) and have had fun building our tree and trying to guess the game rules... does anyone know them , or what the game is called?

We had fun with our made-up rules, anyway - particularly given they are flexible enough to cope with missing pieces!

Visit Sophie for lots of lovely finds...

still hanging around

Hi there! I'm still here, just taking things easy for a bit... will have more to show for myself soon, promise!

(PS I've joined Tania's finding faces group here...)