I found a Ballerina in the Bushes

Ballerina

(instead of a Fairy in the garden).

I have finally done something with the little doll that was going to be a fairy, she morphed into a ballerina – lets call her Belle.

Her skirt was really easy to make, I just looped lengths of ribbon around a short circle of elastic to put around her waist. Her hair was a little trickier. I wound tapestry wool around a business card (along the longer length) and then stitched through it, 1/4 inch in from the end. I managed to break a needle doing this, so it may not have been the best way.

Ballarina Hair2I left the tails of thread (where I started and finished stitching) quite long and used them to sew the hair to Belle’s head, stitching along the line of machine stitching, in a “crown”around her head. I then tied the thread off, after passing them through her head to a spot that will be hidden after the hair is arranged. Finally I wound the long hair into a large bun and tied them with a ribbon. It feels good to have actually finished something for a change.

Ballarina Hair

After a suggestion from my friend Rebecca, who is not well today (we were commiserating on the difficulty of producing dinners on such nights), I thought I would post my advice for a healthy, quick meal on those nights when everything is all too much*.

I have discovered frozen fish fillets in the supermarket that are just fish – not crumbed or sauced, just plain fish. All you have to do is steam the fillets in the microwave, they only take a few minutes. My kids love Smoked Cape Cod fillets. To go with this I cook potatoes in their jackets, also in the microwave. While these are not really quite as nice as roasted jacket potatoes, they become slightly more tasty with a little butter on them. Lots of microwaves have a button “jacket potatoes” or similar that you just have to push once for each potato, just make sure to poke a fork in them first or they might explode! I round this meal off with whatever other veggies I have, steamed again in the microwave.

This meal induces far less guilt than take away, but is about as easy as a trip up the street with three kids.

* Cooking is by no means my forte, I would much rather sew – but I do like healthy, easy food where possible for dinner – lots of veggies especially.

**While i was writing this post this afternoon, I thought that Michaela was in her bedroom, next door to her father, who was in our room. We should have realised that it was too quiet…….

Lipstick Massacre

This is what 5 shades of lipsticks, smooshed together looks like. Arrrrghh.

No more applying a quick slick of lipstick at the red lights. Now I will have to carefully apply my lipstick with a brush before I leave the house (after sticking the brush up into the lids where all my lipstick now resides).

2 thoughts on “I found a Ballerina in the Bushes

  1. Thank you Claire for blogging your fast food tips! I’m so glad you did because now I have a great reference for your fantastic ideas!

    And………….oops! re: the lipstick! My Brooke does that all the time! Just experimenting I guess.

    And as for the ballerina, as usual you are very clever. One day I may well be inspired to take up a regular craft!

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