Easter not quite over

I'm taking the decorations down today...honestly. The wreath has already come inside. It's ambling it's way into the leather suitcase (my great grandmother's, Della Milne) where I keep the Easter tit bits.

[BLUE PETER ALERT] I made the wreath from a coat hanger, covered in some duck cotton and printed linen, book leaf leaves and hung with more gilded eggs. It was super fast and easy to make, what with the help of a hot glue gun.

I had an Easter morning tea before the end of term. Unfortunately, I took the photos just before everyone arrived, and I had the lights on, which created yellow overtones.

Those incredible dahlias take centre stage.

The little cakes were a last minute reprise from near disaster inside the indomitable Mrs Patmore. I was so anxious not to burn them I under-cooked the original batch. The second lot were a success. I am having a bit of a raspberry obsession, and so the cakes are stuffed with raspberries and white chocolate.

Easter is over

If I was aspiring to be a super blogger (which obviously I'm not, not least because my posts are too infrequent) I would have prepared and published my Easter photos long before the actual event.

As it is, I'm revealing all today. I'm ashamed to say that the decorations are still in situ...they look so pretty and whimsical, I'm loathe to take them down. The glorious dahlias (bought from a roadside stall near the children's school) have, sadly, faded and collapsed. Such is the beauty of cut flowers. Exquisite but ephemeral. 

The feature decorations are dropped branches from the garden, decorated in bunting, gilded egg shells, book-leaf leaves and pink eggs.

I love the curliness of the branches and the whimsy of the eggs.

The house comes with its own 'tart's boudoir' pink velvet curtains, so I've tried to embrace them in the decoration of the sitting room.

Next up: winter solstice decorations.

Trolley Makeover

In Australia, Op Shops/Charity Shops are no longer bargain-tastic. Gone are the days of finding a remarkable piece of china or silver plate for a steal.

When I was a student I depended on them almost entirely (mostly for clothing) and was so grateful for the reasonably priced, good quality jumpers, coats, dresses and scarves that made up my 1980's wardrobe in the north of England.

So called Opportunity Shops are now extremely commercially driven, and some of the smaller curios are often ludicrously priced - beyond the prices of genuine antiques' shops or online shopping sites like Gumtree or Ebay. On one hand I can see that this benefits the end recipient of their charitable works; presumably the shops' profits are invested in people who need support. On the other hand, I wonder who is buying silver-plate milk jugs for $45, when I can find them in an antique shop for less than half that price?

Anyhow, I did find this wonky, grubby little trolley in a local St Vinnies a couple of weeks ago. Although not terribly robust, I decided that it was worth the $20 and happily wheeled it out of the shop and down to where I'd parked my car (underneath Woolworths).

It was painted a dirty green colour (which actually looks quite pleasing under a tree) but as I was keen to add it to the guest bedroom, I painted it a lovely bright white.

It's now dressed for guests, with spare towels, a scented candle, a lantern, eucalypt leaves and lots of toiletries for pampering.

I collected the pine cones from the grass under the pine trees that fringe the cricket oval next to our house.

I like to feed the cones with essential oils, which fragrance the room and give a new life to these beautiful seed pods.

We have friends coming to stay for Easter, and I'm looking forward to sharing more of our Easter preparations soon. It's not going to be all yellow and spring, given that it's Autumn here.

I'm about to wrap some Christmas presents.

Am I getting ahead of myself?

These are to send to Sydney for the Kiwi Cousins, along with a birthday present, so I sort of have an excuse.

I do love Christmas.

This weekend we are going to make decorations from pine cones and quangdong nuts. The latter are also known as native peaches and grow wild.

The Absolute Gent's father, George, adores pies made from them. Recently, we found a veritable orchard near the shack, and loaded our sun hats with the small, bright red fruit.

I divested them of the nuts and stewed the fruit, adding a generous helping of sugar.

And more sugar.

And quite a bit more.

They were still very, very bitter, with an aftertaste of bitter.

So we didn't eat the quangdongs, but we kept their nuts.

Imogen and Hal are very excited about the decorations. Hal has to take one to his beautiful teacher on Monday for the class tree. We met said lady at our local shops this evening. Hal proceeded to throttle himself as a means of overcoming his excitement/pleasure/embarrassment that his most loved teacher was before him, discussing cacti and carols (as you do).