Well, sometimes having no sense of smell is a bonus... Catherine has been spewing up all day, and I'm sure the house smells putrid. She has so many qualities from her Dad, even though she only sees him once a week... she moans like anything when she's sick , like, out-loud-MOOOAAANN... I didn't even make a peep when I was giving BIRTH (no pain killers either). Not that I'm trying to sound tough... I just do all my moaning on the inside, and it's interesting how some things seem to be passed down through genes... like moaning.

Photo's for August!

I came across an idea on Mark's blog, who came across an idea on Beth's blog who decided to join the August Break... a break from blogging and post one picture a day for the whole of August. Not that I really need a 'break"... when I need I break I just don't blog! But I thought this exercise could have some value in just taking the time to see beauty in life (I don't take photos for pleasure that often), and also show people the beauty of my everyday surroundings. Like our Lawnmower man said the other day (yes, that's what we call him), Auckland is often voted as one of the most beautiful cities in the world... so let's appreciate it! Can't promise I'll really do it EVERY day, but I'll do what I can :)

Boy Dolly Jumpsuit pattern

Here is the pattern for the jumpsuit for the free dolly pattern for Dolly Donations, a website that gets people to make doillies for children in need.

This is my pattern and free for anyone to use. The dress pattern is here.

The pattern prints out as an A4

DOLLY DRESS TUTORIAL

As promised, here is the dolly dress tutorial. This may also end up on the Dolly Donations website in PDF to download, I will post the link if it does :)

Click on these to enlarge them. For printing, they are exactly A4.

Stickers for Trade Me

I just came up with these. I had a request for other designs of my Jesus stickers, so this is what I did. I think I will make them individually and photograph

them for my etsy and felt shops.

Boy Dolly

Another dolly made! And I made him a little jumpsuit. I may have to get back into serious blogging again and do a little tutorial for the clothes to share with Dolly Donations.

Dolly Donations - Haiti orphanage...

I made a dolly! There is a blog that colects handmade dollies for children in need, the latest being an orphanage in Haiti. The link is here.

Hopefully I will make more, because I've discovered... I really like making dollies! In fact, when I first saw the website I woke up every hour during the night with thoughts of dolly-construction going through my mind.

The website has a free dolly pattern, which is what I used, but this is actually the boy-body pattern, and I made a dress for it (the girl dollies had the dress shape as part of the body... I thought this would be more fun).

So anyway, now I've made my first dolly I have the right to add to dolly button (to right) to my blog, and I will be sending them the pattern for the dress to put on thier blog. I've just realised they actually need more boy dollies than girls, so I may also make a jump-suit pattern.

Oh yeah, and I made her a little bag to put a letter in, and probably a page from the Haiti Bible I found on the net.

Hello, my name is Janet...

and it's been 4 days and 12 hours since my last cup of tea. Just thought I'd share that with you. Pretty successful for a spur of the moment thing. You may wonder what the big deal is, but I've been an avid tea drinker for about ten years now. Not that tea is bad for you... I just think that too much of any one thing can't be good for you (eat a rainbow!!)... and the fact that I couldn't drink tea when I got pregnant HAS to be some kind of sign that I'd just had tooooo much of a good thing. ANYHOW... I'm rambling more than I intended.... I'm off to have a Milo!

Hello, my name is Janet...

....and its been 27 hours since my last cup of tea.

I have a dull headache, but I'm doing better than I thought. I threw up three times yesterday, but apparently it takes 48 hours to recover from a caffine addiction.

If you don't know, I've done this many times before. This time is kind of forced on me, because I skipped my tea break twice and ended up with a silly headache, and thought, right! this is not good... I can't end up like this every time I miss a tea break. So at a whim, I have decided to try again. My tea habbit is not as bad as it used to be... in fact, the way I realised I was pregnant with Catherine, was that I could'nt bring myself to drink tea anymore! I spent over 9 months without a drop! But invariably, I went back to it.

So my hopes arn't high for completely getting off it, because what can really replace it?? What is yummy, cheap, non-fattening and perks you up in the morning?

Like Oprah's been saying since the eighties "Love yourself", so I went out a bought some Jasmin, green tea. I'm also thinking splash out and buy nuts. And then maybe water... it's sposed to boost your metabolism. Who knows? maybe I'll succeed this time?

Well, sometimes it's good to get help

My uncle has been helping me with advice for my business lately. Sometimes it's good to get help. I bounce ideas off my mum, because I live with her, and sometimes her feedback is even more irrational than my question... and I think it effects me in a bad way. Like she used to say "don't bother your Uncle! He's all tied up looking after his boys!" who are around 35 and 40-something years old! Well, I went over to do my cousins truck (both cousins work at my Uncles house), and it turns out my Uncle is actually more than willing, in fact extremely willing, to help me out with my problems.

And what happens when you isolate yourself and bounce ideas off people who are just as strange as you? You make STUPID decisions. My uncle is now walking me through the process of cleaning up several dumb business deals, explaining what's actually normal in business deals (ie. don't work for free!!) and will be helping me with things like getting contracts written, so I maybe able to get somewhere with this little business of mine!

This mighty power

Here's a sermon from me to me. The topic? Don't confuse conviction with condemnation.Conviction is God bringing something to mind that is wrong. You confess, repent (turn from it) and then don't think about it anymore! "As far as the East is from the West, so far has he removed our transgressions from us". Psalm 103

We are now free to talk to God, to worship him and enjoy him.

Condemnation is that nagging feeling that God is just not happy with us (me), that there's something I'm not doing that I should and that, in fact, whatever I choose to do - is not the right thing. Especially in the area of doing nice things for myself - relaxing or doing anything I enjoy - I just feel guilty!

But the bible says "But God longs to be gracios to you! He RISES to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of Justice. Blessed are they who wait for the Lord" Isaiah 30

New Lesson I am learning : the word of God is a sword. USE IT. I have memorised Ephesions Ch 1 and am just memorising verses that pop out at me. Especially useful has been the (Ephesians) verse: the incomparable power for all who believe. This power is like God's mighty strength which exerted itself in Christ to raise him from the dead.

What else I've been up to

Hey, I have been being creative... just havn't been documenting it. Here's some stuff I found on my camera. This is all pretty recent.

1. Truck I did for my cousins business. I spent the day with them, and saw my Uncle and Aunty, and my two cousins, Dean and Ashley. I was pleased with the way it turned out, especially since I took the time to go around each rivet with a heat gun. (It took 5 hours)

2. That box is made by me! as a mock up of my work for a client to present to his "team". If they like it , it could be in the supermarkets!

3. A shop I've been working on for the last fortnight. The Flying Pizza in Maraetai. It's such a beautiful drive... I started to really like travelling there, the sun and countryside was wonderful. Makes you realise how some people live every day, outside of the city.

4. Some 'booties' I started testing for the next Craft Revolution. They ended up so big they fit Catherine! Oh well, shes pretty stoked to have a new pair of bed socks. :)