This is a joint project that I completed with my 7 year old niece. It's a bit wacky spectacky, but she loves it. This is our diorama we whipped up for our amusement this year. Since it's sans snow around here at Christmastime we thought we would bring a Christmas winter wonderland to our new cabinet. I must admit my purchase of new cabinet was based heavily on that little window display area. Although it does have a great sliding bottom storage area as well. It's a 70's number and is actually made in Australia - rare these days! I got quite giddy thinking up all the dioramas I could produce and display throughout the year. I remember, being fascinated, watching lots of American TV shows as a kid and American kids always seemed to be making dioramas for their school projects. I don't remember ever making a diorama for school - wish I had though I would have gone off!!!! Now, as for the features in our spectacular, spectacular display. The log cabin I constructed out of sticks and cardboard with a bit of fleece and wadding for the roof. I then sprayed the whole thing with fake snow in a can, which was both stinky and weird. I then lit the whole cabin both inside and out using tiny strands of battery operated lights. So incredibly cute. I then constructed an ice lake/ice skating rink out of opaque plastic, tissue paper and blue fabric. I glued all the layers together and then used a hot glue gun and swirled glue all over the plastic so it looks like people have been skating on the ice. The rink is then lit from underneath with icy white, battery operated, LED lights to give a lovely glow. The other little houses, which aren't exactly to scale, but very cute were bought at a junk shop for $15 each and have optic fibre lights inside each. The snowy grounds were made with wadding on the bottom, to give a snowy depth, and with white fleece on top.
Stay Tuned for tomorrow's post on the knitted nativity scene.
Here are some new dolls I've been working on. The top one is Barry and the bottom one is his mate Pepe. They're funny and cute and ever so stylish. I had a smile on my face the whole time whilst making these cool dudes. They rock the Amy Butler print on their shirts don't you think?
Here are my Christmas Tree Softie decorations which went gang busters at the market. I did the prawn softies last year for my tree and thought other people might appreciate a bit of prawn action and I wasn't wrong. The Joy to the Thong (flip/flops I think in the UK and US) proved very popular as well. The Joy to the Thong also doubled as my Christmas card this year. Thongs are big time here in Summer so a Christmas tree of thongs, I'm sure, many Aussies would appreciate at this time of year. Me, I can't wear the thong they just don't stay on my feet. They just sort of flop sideways and an unbearable pain develops between my big toes, so I've given up on the thong even though one of my friends has even offered to jimmy up the thong with velcro. Sounds a bit ouchy so I'll leave the thongs to my mates to flip flop around in.
Some lovely press from the lovely Julia from 
This is my sister's piece de resistance of birthday parties so far. Takes the cake and the kids were jumping for joy. They were a bit scared at first to hook in, but once silver shovel in hand they scooped away with gay abandon. Oh the joy to be seven and come home with your little mates from school to be greeted with a lolly buffet- heaven!!!! Happy Birthday Miss Seven. Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss!
Finally finished the two versions of Christmas dresses that I will be selling at the next Olive Tree Market. I can't wait to model them on Rosie when she's next around. They are made with a lovely summer weight linen/cotton (white) and quilting cottons for the sleeves. And in exciting news I've been accepted into the Newcastle Art Bazaar on Laman St in Newcastle on the 5th of December. I go each year as a customer and it's absolutely packed so hopefully I can keep up the pace as a stallholder.
