My Creative Space

Is a bit crazy at present. Lots of orders to fill and markets to prepare for, but, amongst all that a special custom order for a handsome lad. Paddy's Christmas concert was on Friday. He wanted an elf on a yellow shirt...one of his favourite colours. This was a collaboration. Paddy drew his elf, I transferred the design to some fabrics he chose and finished it on the shirt. He was as proud as punch and there was absolutely no chance we wouldn't spot him amongst his classmates.

You can pop in here if you want to see some other creative spaces, I'm running a bit late with mine but masses of other folk were more organised!

Thought for Thursday

Hey, I don't have all the answers. In life, to be honest, I failed as much as I have succeeded. But I love my wife. I love my life. And I wish you my kind of success.

Dicky Fox – Jerry Maguire

With all the end of year hoo-har that is happening about the place, I find myself reflecting on things that have happened this year, where I'm at and where I want to go. When I first watched Jerry Maguire, longer ago than I care to remember, this quote stuck with me. I remember having quite an in depth conversation with some of my cousins about what it is to succeed and the need to match our values with our measure of success.

I think, at this time of year, we can sometimes get quite caught up in really crazy measures of success...how many presents are wrapped, how many jobs are ticked off on the Christmas list, when you mailed your cards...IF you mailed your cards. It's good to take a minute and just remember what success really means for me. How about you?

Balancing Act

Image: The Blessed Nest

We're walking a fine line at Button Central at the moment. Christmas is not so far away and it would seem the term 'Silly Season' incorporates the whole market bizzo which is happening about the place at the moment. As we head into a weekend of back to back markets, I'm trying to balance my desire for a clean and tidy house, my desire for sewing time and my desire to just sit and 'be' every now and then. We're doing OK at the moment. You can see the floors, no one is about to contract botulism or the plague, the stock piles are looking respectable and Mr Button and I are enjoying a quiet cup of tea on the lounge. I'd tentatively like to say we're on track. (Touching wood and crossing fingers as I type)

One reason is because I popped into this blog and had a bit of a read last week. Lots of very good commonsense ideas for navigating your way through crazy patches. I've opted to reinstate my menu planner, weekly organiser and I'm cleaning up one thing a day that bugs me...like a cutlery drawer or something along those lines. How do you keep the wheels on the bus when life becomes crazy and frantic?

You could always pop into the BrisStyle Twilight Market or The Handmade Expo and tell me in person on the weekend.

Thought for Thursday

I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun.

Katharine Hepburn

Just in case you need reminding!

Clearing the Cobwebs and Karlas

During my recent stint of full time teaching, Button Central descended into a bit of a cesspool! No, I'm not just saying that...it really was quite a tip. I literally had to ask people to step over the boxes and market goods as they made their way into the house and finding them a place to sit involved wild sweeping movements across the couch to remove miscellaneous bits and then a fair amount of toe poking to shove the stuff from the top of the couch underneath the couch so the guest had somewhere to put their feet. I don't function well in mess...it makes me dither.

Yesterday, after a family outing I press ganged the Buttons into action and we had a major clean up, a bit of furniture reorganisation and a big toss out. Order restored, I lit the nice candles and cut some Lemon Myrtle branches for the vases. It lifted the literal and the imagined cobwebs and I felt ready for action so I tackled the Made for Me towel order list. I've cut out all but 3 of the names for the girl towels and tonight I'm starting on the boys.

I even squeezed in a bit of train track building along the front verandah with the two Littlest Buttons. As they were busy tootling along the tracks, I noticed a visitor in one of our trees. She'll probably move tonight but today she was lovingly spied upon and chatted to. Will is very fond of 'Karlas' so I'm hoping she picks another one of our trees to munch tomorrow.