Fairy shoes and coming home

I have taken about 12 photos of these little fairy shoes, and this is the best I can come up with, my camera does not like glitzy things! I have had fun over the last couple of days making these little shoes, instructions courtesy of an Annette Emms workshop in the March 2005 edition of Workshop on the Web. I had forgotten all about it till I saw some fairy shoes at a local craft shop. They are quite quick and easy to make, and I have two seven year old grand daughters who will love them! I wasn't happy with the xpandaprint and Jacquard paint decorations, shall have to buy a much finer paintbrush next time. I think I will make several mor pairs of these, I will have worked out the best way to make them by that time.

The other wonderful piece of news I want to report is that our oldest son Dougal and his wife Nikki and four children are moving to Mackay at Christmas. Dougal will open a new office in Mackay for his company, new challenges for him and great for us to have them all here close by. The next big challenge will be to find a house large enough for them which is affordable - we are a mining community these days, with affluent miners pushing the prices of housing ever higher. Fortunately Gladstone (where they now live) is also an affluent mining and industrial city so the prices of housing are still fairly high there, so they should get a good price for their current house. There is a huge skills shortage in Mackay because so many people say they simply cannot afford to move here - very sad. We are all hoping Dougal and Nikki can buy a house in the same general area where we live, the schools near here are excellent - and so close that I can imagine the kids calling in here on their way home in the afternoons. That would be so much fun.

I keep hoping I will have some pages to show you from the online journal course which I have downloaded. Six weeks have passed since it began, I have read all the material, but have reluctantly put the whole lot away for a few weeks till I have time to go through it all. Dale's embellisher course starts in another week, we have a huge booksale to organise at the University and there are some very big events about to happen at the Botanic Gardens. Late September to start the journal is looking realistic!

I need to go and send out some notices before I take my knitting with me to watch the last episode in this series of Foyle's War. I really enjoy the realism in that show, without the huge amounts of blood and gore in most shows. This one is all very quiet and subtle.