day at the Royal Show

This weekend we had a public holiday on Monday.  We took the opportunity of going to the Perth Royal Show.  I hadn't been for quite a few years and John had never been.  We figured that a lot of people would be home watching footy finals and the crowd would be lower.  Wrong.  It was a beautiful day 34 degrees, but after weeks around the 20 degrees mark and a lot of rain this week, it was a bit much, people sat in every bit of available shade.  This is the part of the show that we enjoyed most.  The horse events in the main arena.

 The animals in the children's baby animals shed, lots of children enjoying this area.

 We always enjoy the woodchopping arena, behind that is showride alley's

 These big beauties John enjoyed, I liked how thin the chrome made me look, can you see me

 there where animals all around the show ground, it must have been bewildering for them

 there was a wonderful area devoted to an earlier era, above they where demonstrating sending morse code, this gentleman's hands are tapping out the message, to the gentleman below who was about 5 metres away typing out the message on a wonderful old typewriter.  Its sad to think that these skills will be lost in a generations.  Morse code is something I could never fathom, how from all these little beeps they got a message over many miles away

 a lot of the old machinery was in working condition and displaying the way it was done a hundred years ago, hard physical labour

 in our little scrap of shade, John enjoyed a hot dog and chips

part of the huge crowd enjoying the show.  As you can see we avoided the showride area and the show bag alleys where the biggest concentration of the young ones where making most of the event.  Some of those rides we could see from a distance seemed pretty hard on the internal organs, being hung upside down and shaken around, but was well patronised, so, kids must like them.  that will be us for another few years.  Next time we will take the train, where you can get off right in the grounds and we will chose a cooler day and perhaps a day when it is not quite so crowded.  Being a country girl crowds are overwhelming for me and the shuffling along, very tiring.

Workshop this weekend

Last month at the workshop Little book of matchbox's was a full on two days and the girls did really well to complete these gorgeous little books to take home with them.  I really enjoy teaching these workshops as it is a chance to complete bigger projects that are not achievable in a 2 hour class.  It is challenging to see the varied and insightful work that comes out in the workshop.  There is another workshop this weekend which will be totally different to the other workshops, it will be full on as each page of the journal has many layers of paint.  I think the girls will enjoy the challenge.  Following photo's of the girls with their little book of matchbox's.

 Linda

 Mandy

 Karen with a good view of her cover

Janet

Well done girls, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did

Medieval Carnivale Part 2

 colourful tents abound to create the right mood

 the fighting of the medieval knights was fierce, lots of bruises at the end of the day

 with the gorgeous ladies in their medieval finery keeping a close eye on the proceedings

 this monk had good shade from the sun

 back to the melee that is real chain mail, a lot of effort in making it realistic

 this happy fraulein enjoyed mixing in the crowd

 and she had a ball, look at that smile

 there where saxons, friars, crusaders

 oh, and a cute Japanese in modern dress

 mixing and mingling

 and a camel ride into the sunset

hope you enjoyed our foray into the past, we had so much fun

Medieval Carnavale Part one

We had such a great time at the Ballingup Medieval Carnavale, as we drove into Ballingup there was all these colourful totems to greet us.

 This is the sight that greeted us on Saturday morning 7 am, thick fog, and cold brrrr... froze my fingers taking photo's.  The camels stayed on the side of this lane, then gave rides to children and older ones as well.

   Met this menacing looking warrior striding down the lane way.  It was great as I am reading The Game of Thrones and am up to book 5, so was very meaningful for me.  Great book.

                                       Everyone was very creative with their tents and shelter.

                The dragon on the bonfire was set alight later on Saturday night, very medieval.

            This poor baby was all rugged up for the cold, what a big boy though

  View from our tent, the wattle is in flower, some thought it was rather cold down there, but we got the sun so was nice and warm.

   Our medieval tent, Phil made all the bunting, clever girl isn't she, got us into the spirit of things.

                                           This was as close as I could get to one of the birds of prey, there was a demonstration of them in action on the Sunday.  There was two beautiful owls but they where inside a white tent and too hard to photograph, damn it!!!!

                          Two fair maidens sitting in the sun waiting for the action in the arena

                     And this very regal looking chap sitting on his throne, had a nice tent too

 On Saturday about three quarters of the people there where dressed in Medieval dress, you could hire the outfits for $10 a day, but a lot had their own.

                            I think this cute boy caught me taking photo's, everyone was so friendly

                                         What about these handsome dudes...........

                                            and this wench.............

Balingup Medieval Carnivale

http://www.balingupmedievalcarnivale.com.au You will find us here this coming weekend, Phillipa and I are sharing a stall, dressing our tent up and dressing in medieval dress, should be a laugh if only looking at two ageing medieval maidens haha.  I will have handmade journals, art canvas's, magazines from Stampington and some jewellery tools. Below are some little handmade journals I will be taking to sell.

Living Journal Challenge

 Are you up for a challenge,  a Living Journal Challenge.   I know this was done a little while ago, but, it was a USA blog and it was winter over there and summer here.  And when you get 4 or 5 months with no rain its not quite the same.  So, I thought I would put one out for this side of the world while it is still winter.  Heres the deal, gather a collection of papers, sandwich items inside that you think will leave a mark or imprint. Tie it all up with string or something similar and hang it outside in the weather for 3 months.  I have photographed how I have done mine.

 add paper bark and green flax leave, oh, I stitched mine together with a non waxed thread as I want to see if that ages as well, up to you!

 weed with roots and dirt as well as green leaves

 nasturtium flowers and leaves I pressed mine down with a roller to bruise and start some of the colour moving

 sourgrass

 another weed

 parsley flowers and leaves, can you see the stain from pressing with roller, cool aye

 non water proof inks

 dill

 all wrapped up with brewed tea that we used for staining papers poured over and the tea bags stuffed into the pages to continue giving out colour

and the other side with tea bags stuffed under the string at top, sprinkle with hose to help it on its way.
Do you get the idea, I am sure you can come up with heaps of ideas that I haven't thought of, rust would be good.  I am going to do another one using paper and fabric, will put rusty metal in that one, also boil up some red onion skins, maybe brown ones too, some seeds.  I will wet it, then wrap in some fabric and bury it in the garden, making sure I mark the spot.  Some other ideas that I have heard about was burying it under a barbecue pit where the ash would fall, in water, Corinne did that but it washed away, so many idea's.  Will you join me please, just email me a photo with a description on what you have put in it, maybe put your procedure on your blog and send me the link and I can direct to your blog.  When the 3 months is up let me know how yours went.  I will also take photo's maybe once a month of the hanging one to show the progress.