Apropos of nothing.......

I am posting today several things which will explain why I have been a bit quiet lately and why the posts that should of happened didn't happen as well as they should......

The expert and I went to the mainland, like all good islanders, by boat. We took the car and drove to the other end of the state and caught the night ferry to Victoria (Melbourne) and I send him by taxi to his sisters, and took myself off to Paperific at the Showgrounds. I was booked into a multi-media course there which took over 3 hours, and left me little time to shop, but I did manage to buy some things........

The stash....

I made a multi-media canvas pretty (already given away to my 12 yo Granddaughter Lily)

There is lots of painting, stenciling, layering and painting, stenciling and layering on here...

It was a big class, taken by Limor from Canada, a multi-media expert......

Yes, that is me on the right, er, I mean left.......I need a haircut badly......

We went on from this day, to spend several days with family, including one where we went to this at Ripponlea.....if you were wondering was this worth it - YES!

 Later in the week we drove up to Canberra stopping one night in Wodonga to visit friends. We arrived in Canberra to fine warmish weather, and got to see the exhibition Bare at the National Gallery........

The David Walsh painting was in the Archibald and acquired by the gallery- aren't you glad I cut off the bottom of the photo....

....... and the WW1 Australian Life at the National Museum....

I love the angles in the buildings in Canberra

In between we celebrated the 12 years of Lily with a Maltesa cake - definitely look it up on Pinterest - a bit dry, would take some liqueur or some cream or both but yummy! 

I made the card for Lily the morning we left Tassie - many things had interrupted that week and lots of things ran very late indeed, but I will not touch on them here except to say I lost two friends that week to cancer before we left on Friday morning......

I do love Tim Holtz's crazy birds!

Suited me really - a crazy few weeks!

A highlight of this trip was being able to purchase a DRESS for the 12 yo - not worn one since she was 6.....but she wanted to wear one for her piano recital. She picked it out and wore it with her mothers tights, hightops and a hoddie! Still, it was a dress. White too....the piano recital was excellent and the pianist looked a picture. She went on to play a game of netball, and piano practice, and then home and we went off after the recital to watch Mr 9 play hockey! In the afternoon - more shopping! I was exhausted! We came home today (Friday) after returning to Melbourne for some more time with family and friends there.

I will sleep well tonight, I assure you!