A dress for my daughter! (Am really proud of this one)

THANK YOU to everyone who replied in my last post. For those of you who signed in with your blog id, I ended up visiting your blogs and looking at your creations and yep, finally got inspired to try this. So big big thanks for helping me re-discover my sewing mojo.

A few months back, the beautiful Button Beauty gave me some gorgeous japanese fabric. I have been wanting to make something really special with it. Anyway, so finally I got up the nerve to do a major project with it. My daughter had a dress that was her absolute favourite dress. Unfortunately, it got ripped irreparably, so using the old dress as the template and inspiration (plus my love of 50s style clothing), I made this for her:



Though she really prefers the ribbon down:



From this creation, I re-used:

• the white fabric and zipper (from her old ripped dress) and
  
• the thread was from an op shop

The headband consists of me sewing a fabric tube and slipping it over an older headband. I then raided my mother's odds and ends stash (she keeps some wonderful things) and found some fake flowers which I twined on to the headband for her.

Anyway, I'm really pleased with how this turned out. More so, 'cause my daughter's verdict is that its "even better than the old dress".

I am now in the mood to sew more stuff! Ideas for a 4 year old Super Hero/Wiggle boy would be most welcome.

Edited to add: I've posted about reusable menstrual products over at Simple Green Frugal Co-op Blog! Eeek! I hope I haven't grossed people out too much...

Reconstructed skirt (size 4 to size 6)

Happy Australia Day all!

Okay so I meant to blog yesterday about this skirt and today, being Australia Day and Chinese New Year, I was going to blog something about Australia and China. So what happened? Real life happened. I had a fantastic last 2 days catching up with friends and hanging out with the kids. I am so lucky to be surrounded by such fantastic and inspiring people and I am truly blessed that 2 of those people call me "mum".

Anyway, so I've just come back from the ONC Australia Day Finale and I'm in a festive mood, so will keep this short. So here's the skirt I reconstructed last month. It was a pair of size 4 jeans (with adjustable waist). I set the waist at the largest setting and then I cut the bottom off. Next step, I cut up some scarves and added it at the bottom in a tier-like style. Overall a 30 min sewing project and my daughter LOVES the "floatie" bits. I should've shaped the last "floatie bit" like the previous 2 tiers but my daughter had gotten impatient by that time. Oh well, I'll probably do it some other time.



On that note, I need to get inspired again to sew. I haven't really brought out my sewing machine this year. So tell me, what gets you motivated to sew/knit/craft? What are you sewing at the moment?

Homemade Ice Cream Cake Creations

Well...technically its not 100% homemade. The ice cream is from the shops. I would love to learn how to make ice cream from scratch one day, just like Mr Button Beauty, but that would have to wait until I move into my own home. :) But I digress...

So my family (including me) LOVE ice cream cake and now that its summer, its always the top choice for dessert around here. Rather than buying it already made (aka expensive option), the kids and I always have fun making it ourselves.

There's not much to it. Simply put your ice cream out until it is a little soft (not so soft its runny but not so hard you can't shape it). In a typical Aussie summer's day, this means leaving out your ice cream for about 10 mins. Once your ice cream is soft, then just *go for it*. Make shapes, have fun.

Some tips:

• Plan the shape you want and the steps you need to do to get that shape beforehand... you're going to have to work quickly here and you won't have time to sit down and have a cuppa once your ice cream is soft.
  
• Spring-form pans are easiest to use as mold for the ice cream but you can use a normal pan lined with cheese cloth (or for a less-eco friendly alternative - foil... you can wash the foil afterwards :P)
• Check out http://www.icecreamcake.com.au/ice-cream-cake-recipes/ for ideas.
• Sponge cake is always a good and easy base for ice cream cake but you may want to try Madeira cake too for a liquor twist.

Here's some ice cream cakes we made last month (yes, I've finally found my camera cable!):

The leaning Princess cake (above) is because I had the 'brilliant' idea to take it out of its mold and drive 30 mins to the venue... um...don't know what I was thinking there.

This is the one the kids and I made together to use up left over madeira cake:

Just cut up cake to fit into spring-form pan.

Plonk ice cream on top - refreeze the whole thing, then decorate. We chose to decorate it with some chopped up Scarborough Fair Milk Chocolate (slave-free of course) and um.... Christmas decorations... My kids choice and hey, it works for me!

Incidentally, the ice cream I buy is Bulla Creamy Classic Vanilla. This company scores lots of points for me. Firstly, their vanilla ice cream is just HEAVENLY. I can go on and on about how much I LOVE their vanilla ice cream, but I might just come across as a bit weird so will leave it there.

Secondly, they are a local Aussie company. Lord Wiki tells me that Bulla was established in 1910 by three inter-related families and that those families still own the business today. They are based in Colac, Victoria.

Thirdly, they are not affiliated with Nestle (boo)- Peters ice cream is owned by Nestle.

Anyway, its late so I'll sign off for now. Tomorrow, I'll try and upload a pic of my daughter's reconstructed skirt. :)

P.S. Note that I am aware that store-bought ice creams have a lot of numbers (aka chemicals) listed in their ingredients. Bulla uses Emulsifier 471, Vegetable Gums 412 and 407, Colour 160(b). Always check the ingredients before purchasing. My children are particularly sensitive to numbers starting with 6 and 2, so I tend to avoid them. :P

Shopping for swimmers

Last weekend, my daughter and I were shopping for a new swim suit for her. It took us a whole day - simply because I couldn't find any swimmers appropriate for a 6 year old girl. The sun is particularly fierce here in Australia (we have the highest skin cancer rate in the world - with over 380,000 people diagnosed with the disease per year). So I wanted swimmers that would cover up her shoulders, torso and upper legs. It surprised me that such swimmers were hard to find for my girl. If you looked in the boys section or the adult section, it was quite easy to find that style, but the girls section were full of skimpy swim wear (I was particularly surprised at the number of bikinis available for this age range). I would've thought that in this country, there would be a high demand (and therefore high stocks) for children's protective swimwear. According to www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au:

The amount of sun exposure and number of sunburns a person has had, particularly during childhood, has a big impact on their likelihood of developing skin cancer later in life.

Two in three Australians will develop some form of skin cancer before the age of 70. Yet most skin cancer can be prevented by being ‘sunsmart’, particularly during childhood.

The second problem that I encountered was that when I did find protective swimwear, there were often slogans on it that I deemed inappropriate. I refuse to buy children's swimwear with sexualised slogans on it. I truly think there's something wrong with splashing the words "Hot Babe" across my 6 year old's chest.

Which brings me to my second point - why is it so easy to find protective swimwear for little boys but little girls are subjected to skimpy swimwear?

I went to Big W, Target and David Jones and couldn't find any good swimwear. All was not lost though, my daughter and I had great conversations about sunburn, getting sick from too much sunburn and why I think some swimmers are more appropriate for adults rather than for children. One particular swimmers my daughter *loved*. It was swimmers styled after "Ariel - the Little Mermaid". Nothing wrong with that if you're into Disney characters EXCEPT the swimmers had padding around the chest... so that the little girl would have breasts behind the seashell graphics on the swimmers. Um... sorry but pretend BREASTS?? For 3 to 6 year olds (the size range of this outfit)??? Who designs these things? What message are we telling our children??

So this outfit provoked another chat between my daughter and I about how her body is a perfect 6 year old body and that forcing her body to appear older than it is just stops her from appreciating her body the way it is. Then she comes back at me with this astute observation:

"But all the clothes [at this shop] for girls are trying to make them look like adults and most of the clothes for women adults are trying to make them look like girls."

And I looked over and I realised she's right! Here she is holding a pair of children's swimmers with padding across the chest and across the aisle were a multitude of adult clothes and swimmers designed for women with no breasts or hips! What are the messages behind such clothing? All I can say is UGH!!

So I gave up on the big stores and toured the op shops (which I have to say still had some provocative and/or inappropriate swimwear for girls but not as much). We finally found a pair of protective swimmers for her for only $4... and with the added bonus of us supporting a charity as well as being kinder to Earth.

Anyway, so that's my little ramble for today. For those who are also looking for protective swimwear, I found out that The Cancer Council has an Online Shop with some great protective swimwear for girls. Unfortunately, I can't quite see the logos/slogans splashed across their swimwear, but I guess worse comes to worse, one can always paint over it with fabric paint.

Oh and for those who are concerned about the issue of the consumerism and sexualisation of children (though I have to admit, I've started to think that sexualisation is the wrong term - chidren *are* sexual beings...I think eroticisation is probably a better word for it) I found this video on youtube with some great tips:

Just me rambling..

So I've realised that I've had quite a few "heavy" posts of late and well.... I don't want to give the impression that my life consists of just depressing observations :P. I've done some sewing (but since I can't find my camera cable I can't upload the pics) as well as just having fun with the kids.

Oh and update - I'm also now completely shampoo-free. Yep, not even bi-carb - just water now and my hair feels great. I posted about it in the other blog that I write in: Simple Green Frugal Co-op (I like to call it SGFC). The actual post is here: http://simple-green-frugal-co-op.blogspot.com/2009/01/going-poo-free.html. Check out some of the comments - they're great, with suggestions for alternative shampoos for those who don't want to give up the poo altogether. :) (hmmm... just realised there are more comments on there since I last checked. Must get around to answering more questions).

On that note, I am scheduled to write another article on SGFC on Wednesday, 28 January. I'm tempted to write about re-useable menstrual products... I just need to get brave enough. I know I've written about it here before, but that blog over there gets a hell of a lot more traffic than here.

Anyway, I'm going to make a concerted effort to find my camera cable this weekend, so hopefully I'll be able to load pics up soon for this blog! Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend.

Edited to Add: - Thank you to anonymous in my last post for reminding me that just because people are poor it doesn't mean they're miserable. You're right, my entire journey to a simpler life have shown me that the more I gave up/gave away the happier I am. Having said that I do think that fighting against poverty should be the priority of every government - in poverty it is the children who suffer the most. It is my opinion that systemic and abject poverty kills humanity.

Impressions of the Philippines

Happy New Year all!

I have just come back to the ONC after spending 10 days in the Philippines to visit family. Its been 18 years since I last visited the Philippines and on hindsight, I realise that going there during this difficult period in my life (of adjusting to single parenthood) was not a great decision.

Visiting a developing country is always confronting. The differences between the rich and poor are blatant and extreme. Visiting such a country, I think, is an exercise in balancing impressions and emotions - it is a matter of allowing what you see touch you but not break or harden you. With my emotional reserves already on low, I think I was not very successful in balancing my own reactions to the environment there.

Some of what I saw and experienced broke my heart. I saw children in rags, some around the same age as my children, walking the streets late at night selling sampaguitas (native flowers strung together to form a necklace). I saw those same children drive another, smaller child also selling sampagitas off their area by viciously throwing large rocks at him (while I sat in an airconditioned car and did nothing). I saw a Department store employee losing much of his (already modest) wage simply because he made a mistake in pricing a product and the Department store manager decided to take the difference out of his wage. I saw people living in dwellings made out of cardboard. I saw a mother carrying an obviously malnourished baby. Some 40% of Filipinos live in poverty.


I wonder how much of these injustices are the result of the corruption and greed by those who are supposed to be looking after the country? I was fortunate enough to meet a person in the Philippines who was patient enough to give me an insight to the cultural aspect of corruption. She explained to me that family bonds and friendship are very strong values for Filipinos. While those values are admirable, it is also those values that maintain that it is okay to make decisions that benefit family and friends even if those decisions are to the detriment of other people or the nation as a whole.

I wonder how much of these injustices are being perpetuated by our consumption habits? When people are vulnerable and extremely poor, they are more willing to (or have no choice but to) work under hazardous conditions for little pay. While we in the West continue to demand more and more goods for cheaper and cheaper prices, it is the poorest among us who are bearing the price of this attitude. Governments in developing nations are less likely to enforce workers' rights for fear that foreign companies would just take their business elsewhere - and that an easily exploited workforce is better than no workforce (or more cynically, an easily exploited workforce is but a casualty in the search for more campaign contributions).

I truly enjoyed catching up with family again, but as I said my current situation has left me not well equipped to handle the emotional impacts of visiting a developing nation. Perhaps later I will be able to look back on my visit without feeling like crying. ... It is humbling to realise that I am only able to assist in the fight against poverty from afar.

For those who may want to learn more, here are some links:

Assortment of pictures from the Philippines (I have somehow misplaced the cable to upload my own pictures, but I think this site provides a more balanced visual impression of the Philippines from an outsider's point of view).

Synopsis of the Philippine's economic outlook and Australia's aid (from Ausaid)