Empress Bat's Journal

DIY: crochet snowflakes

It is heading for Winter here, and although winters where I live never get much colder than -1 degrees celcius, and some morning frost, I decided to be creative with a winter theme.

cue crochet snowflakes

I made this one in cream coloured 8ply acrylic

I learned how to crochet when I was very young, around 3 or 4 years old, and I find it quite easy to do. The trouble is I am not that good with understanding crochet patterns, I always find them convoluted and complex. I find it easier to make stuff up as I go along, or revise a pre-written pattern into one that works for me.

I have been fiddling around with an easy to make crochet snowflake, after success making one out of variegated blue 8ply acrylic yarn I thought I would share it with all of you!

what i did:

using a 3.5 hook and 8ply yarn chain 6 and slip stitch to join

chain 4, then treble 11 into the hole

slip stitch the end of the row of trebles to the start

*chain 5, then double crochet (dc) in the 4th chain from hook
chain 5, dc in the 4th chain from hook
then dc again near the top of the trebles
and one more dc in the next treble*

repeat from * 5 more times

then slip stitch to finish, darn in edges

et voila

if you use sparkly yarn it will look even nicer!

this one was made in variegated blue 8ply acrylic

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About Me: I work full time, I am also studying for a therapist qualification in Naturopathy specialising in Herbalism, I have a small craft 'business', I am co-admin of an auction page on facebook to help other small hobby businesses, i maintain my own 'store' facebook page, I blog at least once a week and I maintain a facebook page created to support small home businesses and hobby sellers

DIY: air freshener

Have a look at a post on my other blog about my DIY air freshener made from roses and herbs from my garden!

Apothecary Greens: DIY air freshener

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Picture this: Schroedinger's cat

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Book Review: No.1 Ladies Detective Agency

I read a lot.

I started reading when i was 3 years old, and my love of reading has never abated.

A series of novels i have been reading in the last two weeks, and now on to the last of the series so far, is by Alexander McCall Smith, author of many books on a variety of subjects, about a private investigator in Botswana.

Fourteen books so far in the series and i have been averaging reading a book a night (i do not sleep much and i read fast). The fifteenth in the series is due to be published later this year and I am eagerly awaiting it!

They are of course the novels about the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, with the private detective Precious Ramotswe and her assistant, Grace Makutsi.

They are about how small crimes/fraud/infidelity have been investigated by these two ladies, and also about their lives in the ever changing world. The sadness of old traditions being lost, and the embracing of the modern world.

I find these books charming, and hard to put down, they have a good juxtaposition of 'feel good' positive themes, tackling real life problems such as domestic violence, and the honour of some traditional ways.

Mma Ramotswe drinks red bush tea, (which i believe is Rooibus tea), and a common thread through the novels is her drinking her tea. It is very English in this respect as tea is made on occasions of celebration, thought, sadness, and any time in between!

I give these books f5 out of 5 bats.

After I have finished the most recently published of this series, I think I shall start on Mr McCall Smith's The Sunday Philosophy Club series!

The series so far!

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Long Weekends: time for creating, cooking, and relaxing

It is the Easter long weekend, four glorious days of not having the two hour each way commute to the day job! It is midday on Easter Friday and despite relaxing I have been quite productive.

I have cooked a Vegan oat slice, it is uber yummy and uses crushed linseeds as the binding ingredient instead of eggs. It is my recipe (i rarely use the recipes of others), and it has baked into a lovely goldeny good semi sweet slice!

I have been working on my art journal pages for the Documented Life Project, it is relaxing to create in an art journal not caring whether it is perfect or not!

I have cleaned the bathroom caddy where i keep my toothbrush , hairbrush, and other detritus of bathroom stuffs.

I have finished reading another of Alexander McCall Smith's 'No 1 Ladies Detective Agency' novels, I wonder if Botswana is as lovely as his novels suggest?

and I am now watching Star Trek Next Generation, not sure which series or episode, but its the one where Data creates an AI with a positronic brain like his.

What is everyone else doing for their long weekend?

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Upcycled Ephemera: making greeting cards out of bits n pieces

Ephemera can be defined as collectible paper objects that were originally meant to be transient in nature, (such as movie posters, postcards, magazine clippings, letters). The word is from the ancient Greek 'Ephemeros' meaning for the day.

I collect all sorts of bits of paper, magazine clippings, wrapping paper, old greeting cards, playing cards and the like, and then recycle them into other goodies.

I prefer to use the term upcycle, as sometimes the magazine scraps become better than the original item, when they are reformed into woven papier mache pendants for example.

I enjoy upcycling my collection of ephemera to make one of a kind greeting cards and gift tags as well as jewellery pendants and these I sell either from my facebook page or my etsy store.

Some of the cards I have recently made and sold are pictured below:

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GOALS check in: My goals for the year, am I on track?

There is no point in making goals if you have no intention to aim for them; or resolutions you know you will break in a month. So if you have made resolutions in the new year, or at any time and want to maintain your resoluions or make progress to your goals, a review every few months is needed. This way you can see how you are going with your resolutions, look at what you need to work on, and congratulate yourself for the targets you have met, are meeting, have kept to.

How am I going with my goals? Time to check in and find out!

Background

If you have read my blog posts before, you may recall my January post outlining my goals for the year, my Goals page where I wrote them to keep myself honest, and my February post where I was monitoring my progress.

We are now in April 2014, the fourth month of the year, time for me to reflect on my progress towards my goals, and to see where I need some motivation, or a kick, to get myself back on track!

My goals this year in summary are:

blog at least once a week
schedule/organise my time efficiently so I can fit in designing, making, blogging, writing, housework; with my day job!
keep new designs ready to sell in my Facebook store page as well as my etsy store
stay positive, keep positive energy and help others to do the same

How am I tracking?

Blogging: I am blogging at least once a week and sometimes more, I have also started a new blog about alternative medicine and green living, called Apothecary Greens which I regularly post to.

Organise my time: this is at times hit and miss, my time may be organised, but I have trouble countering fatigue, so instead of doing the activity I should be doing with the allotted time, I may be too tired to do anything, and will instead go to bed early! As I work full time this is probably the right thing to do as I need to have energy for work! I will need to keep monitoring my organising of time goal until I have it working right for me and getting the results I want.

New designs to sell: I have been making things to: donate to different charities, give away in competitions; stock my Facebook store, my etsy store, and to be sold at auctions. I have not made as much as I would like for all these things, but I am managing to keep up with it all, which is important.

Stay Positive: I admit I am struggling with this goal, but I will not give up. I have experienced the good, happy, strong feeling that thinking positively gives me, so I will keep working on this. I notice I struggle a lot with low self esteem, and any small set back can make me revert to old learned behaviours of self hatred, so by recognising this challenge to staying positive I can work on ways to overcome it.

this printable can be downloaded from my Positive Energy section in this blog

Summary

According to an article in Forbes, only 8% of people keep their resolutions. I am still keeping/working towards mine so I think I am doing okay. In fact just writing this post allows me to see that I do have reasons to be positive as I really am doing okay here at keeping my resolutions.

I think one way to keep your resolutions is to keep doing a goal check in. I am doing that and so far so good! How are your resolutions/goals tracking for you? Let me know in the comments!

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The Documented Life Project: Have you joined in?

I have just found an amazing website about an artistic, creative project called the "Documented Life ". Each week you are provided with a journalling prompt challenge. On January First 2014, which was challenge one, you had to photograph, sketch, paint or incorporate your front door.

I have only just started, and although you can start from whatever week you first found out about the project I want the full year !! So i think I can catch up if I do two pages a week at least.

The creators of the project are using a Moleskine planner/diary, but I am using my limited edition blank paged Minnie Mouse journal as I wanted to use it for something to keep and this seems just the project!

They have a facebook group, if you are interested in the project why not join it?

Information about the group of artists who started this project is at this link.

I think this would be a great addition to my goal to be positive this year! So I have joined their facebook group and have started the challenges!

(I have so many to catch up on considering it is already the end of March!)

These are the weekly challenges they have listed so far:

January 1, 2014 - Week One - Photograph, sketch, paint or incorporate your front door.
January 5, 2014 - Week Two - Selfie
January 12, 2014 - Week Three - Add an envelope from your mailbox.
January 18, 2014 - Week Four - Write a secret message then paint over all but one key word.
January 25, 2014 - Week Five - Add a doodle border.
February 1, 2014 - Week Six - Open your Pinterest board and be inspired.
February 8, 2014 - Week Seven - Draw one shape - repeat - add color.
February 15, 2014 - Week Eight - Add a flap to your flap.
February 22, 2014 - Challenge (Week Nine) - Collage something you recycled.
March 1, 2014 - Challenge (Week Ten) - Make a list of the things that make you YOU.
March 8, 2014 - Challenge - Week Eleven - Draw, photograph or collage a bird onto your page.
March 15, 2014 - Challenge - Week Twelve - Cut up a magazine..add!
March 22, 2014 - Challenge - Ask someone else to draw on your page - finish it

I will post images form my journal to this blog, and if you are doing the challenge to, I'd love to see links to your journals! (just put the info in the comments section!)

I will post images from my art journal for the DOcumented Life on a page in my blog.

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Printables: Purple and Blue diagonal stripes note paper

Always on the look out for happy looking stationery, I have been creating my own of late.

Here are two printables I have created, feel free to use them.

Note Paper

To Do list

more free printables for you can be found on these pages in my blog:

Free Downloads

Positive Energy

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Desk Disaster: Part Four of the 'Organise and Beautify' saga

My desk is a mess... a real disaster! I cannot find anything.. I am a computer nerd so there are many USB drives, external hard drives, cables... I am artistic so there are pencils and pens everywhere.. I read a lot so there are books... I am studying so I have notes .....there is stuff everywhere.

I just tidied my desk... spot the difference??

DESK: BEFORE

DESK AFTER

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Coffee sack tote bag: should I sell them?

I just finished making this bag, it took me three hours to make from start to finish. I do not use patterns and made it up as I went along!

It is very strong, made from double layer coffee bag sack jute and fully lined in good quality poly cotton, double stitched seams and triple stitched handles for strength. .

The coffee sack comes from Cafe Buzz, Peachtree Walk: if you are in Port Macquarie NSW visit their cafe!

The bag itself is 45cm *35 cm making it plenty large enough for books, pens, pencils, wallet, phone, magazines. A great 'holiday' tote bag. Machine washable on gentle, and iron on HOT with starch for best results!

I am considering making more of these to sell in my etsy store and via my facebook page.

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DIY: Easy Fabric Bunting

A few days ago, a friend of mine who has a market stall called Wytchway was asking on facebook about where she could buy some waterproof fabric bunting to decorate her stall.

If you are in the Dayboro Queensland area and interested in Wytchway's stall or to purchase from her online please have a look at the information on her facebook page.

I decided to attempt to make some bunting.

Just to see if I could.

Step 1

Created a template out of cardboard for the size and shape I wanted, allowing for the hem (to feed the string through)

cardboard template

Step 2

Drew around the template on the fabric and then hand lettered the 'WYTCHWAY' with a fabric ink pen

Step 3

Ironed fabric and then placed the clear fabric plastic coat stuff on it, covered it with baking paper and ironed on a low setting

Step 4

I cut out the triangles with sharp pinking shears (keeping my fingers well out of the way for fear I would end up with pinking shaped abrasions on my hands!)

I then sewed around them and sewed the hem in which the jute would go to string the bunting

Step 5

After each triangle was sewn I then threaded them with the jute to form the bunting. After all triangles were on the jute I pushed them closer together and did a zig zag stictch over the hems and the inserted jute.

I then went over each letter adding embellishment in the form of gold paint pen shading. (yes I AM ambidextrous which is why the top photo shows me writing with my right hand and this photo is my left hand)

The bunting is ready to hang!

My sewing machine is old and falling apart, i cant afford a new one at the moment, so it kept breaking the cotton. I think if my sewing machine worked properly i could have made this bunting so much faster, and with less expletives.

Remember this one is only a prototype. So excuse it looking a bit dodgy!

I think these could be improved if a stiffener was used such as stitching the triangles onto acrylic felt, or ironing interface on the back.

VERDICT: easy to make, so give it a go!

For teeny bunting, use washi tape and twine!

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Shameless self promotion: my second blog is called Apothecary Greens

Hello Batlings!

If you read my blog regularly you will have realised that I like to promote small home businesses with reviews and links so you too may become a happy customer of their establishments.

Today however I am shamelessly promoting one of my own projects!

With my studies of Herbalism, and my many years of personal research reading about Medieval treatments, natural therapies and craft with herbs and flowers, I have decided to start a new blog, called Apothecary Greens, to chat about alternative therapies.

Some of the blog post 'discussions' may feature therapies I may not personally 'endorse', but I like to venture forth through life with an open mind, and hope you all do too, and the posts will reflect that.

I hope that some natural therapists I know will also contribute with guest posts, particularly Galaxy Aromatherapy and Ocean Soul Sanctum.

Never fear Batlings, this blog shall continue as well, I have merely added one more thing in my always large to do list!

Please help my new blog get a solid readership as well, and if you know anyone who would like to be in the links page, or who would be happy to do a guest post for that blog please let me know.

Please visit my new blog and bookmark it!

thanks~

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Pages

Background

My goals this year in summary are:

How am I tracking?

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5