Lovely drive in the Country

What better way to spend a Monday than a drive in the country up to Bowral. And so the plans were made on Sunday for mum to drive down to Bowral, and for me to drive up. We'll both arrive around the planned time, call each other, decide on meeting point and start the day with  the first coffee. From there we'll check out the antique and home ware shops. Great! Love this Monday.

Woke up this morning to an unfortunate overcast, windy and overall chilly day. Not really the best kind of day for a country drive. Oh well, it's more about seeing mum, and hey we'll just have more coffee and cake...yum! Of I set for Bowral, arriving nicely near our planned time, called mum to find out where she had parked. Yeah well, about that, mum had run into a spot of traffic. Not to worry, I'll make myself comfortable in a coffee shop. I walked around a bit and nothing really had enough room inside, until I walked into Wild Food, Heath Food Market. Wow yummy yum yum!! They have a breakfast degustation, great for when you can't decide on what to eat and you haven't eaten for say um, a week. Anyway, long story short, mum gets stuck in traffic, i had way too much coffee waiting, we had more food, we starting our walk and I ran into a friend from a long time back.

Walking down the street, on recommendation from my friend, we walked into Three Wise Monkeys. The Three Wise Monkeys is a refreshing change the shops we had passed. It is like this shop is more at home in King Street in Newtown, with its beautiful, bright and vibrant jewellery, homewares and toys from countries far and wide. Wow! The first thing that struck me was this great display of colourful barbushka dolls.

After adoring the many bright wares in Three Wise Monkeys, we wandered further down the road to Dirty Jane's Emporium. Ahh what a gem!  I am as excited as Wallace gets with his love of cheese... cheese Grommet cheese. Anyway, rather than make obscure metaphors here are some photos of wares that people are selling there.

I found these little felt egg cosies in one of the stores, really excited and ready to purchase. Yeah, its the only item in the whole shop that was not for sale.

Here's a cute little children's folding table set. Probably not capable of holding a child given that the tag say's "Great as a prop".

The stall down the end of the emporium struck mum's attention first, we both were perplexed with the white basket of dolls that have the shape of large paint brushes. With closer looks, the stall was full of amazing curiosities like a pottery doctor shapped bag used to warm a bed.

And above the cabinet. Time was starting to run out, so we quickly whipped around the rest and I found this fabulous chair.

We said our goodbyes and pledged to catch up more often, maybe next time in Berrima. And drove away as the sun came through the clouds.

Fine then, I'll make a paperdoll, I know that'll work

After the somewhat disappointing results of the blue scarf, I was determine to make something that works and looks pretty. So out came the newly purchased french craft company's Japanese paper dolls targeted at 8-14 yo (they came from Childplay Toys in Woden). Surely these will satisfy my need for successful outcome, I can do these, I'm way older than 14.

 

So the box was opened, and the sheet containing Uchiwa was chosen because she had a lovely paper fan. Being the control freak that I am, the instructions were read first. Read is a loose term, as the instructions are pictures...must be a European thing as they were as easy to follow as Ikea instructions.

If you look closely at the above picture, you may find that the arms become rather curved. They look really cool, except when you try to glue them onto a smooth surface. There is a technical difficulty with the gluing a curved arm to a smooth body, there is just too much air  in between. Hmm the easy outcome activity option is starting to fail. So, how do I put something in the space? My first thought is that great double sided foam. Yeah that would be great if I had some....people who know me and my collection of craft things would be surprised to hear that I don't have something. Anyway, back to the problem at hand, well arm (yes I know bad pun). How about quilling, yeah I can put a little paper quill in between and it can be the spacer. Great! 

So with some major findling, with card, then paper quils and glueing in the right space the arms were attached. All now that was needed is the hair, and voila a French Japanese Paper doll.

Soon after finishing the doll, my dear flat mate returned home. After some idel chit chat I told her about the little doll and how much a craft genius I was by using quilling to put the arms on. Her response, Why didn't you use a glue gun... Don't you just hate a smarty pants!