Wednesday 11 May 2011

Happy 100th Birthday Nana

I am a little sentimental sometimes, especially when it comes to my family.

I had a lovely 'cup of tea' relationship with my Nana just before she died. I worked a split shift in after school care 16 years ago and would pop in most days after the morning shift to have a cuppa with Nana (Doris Violet Winch). Some days it was for only 20 minutes, some days it would be all day until I had to return back to school for the afternoon shift.

Today would have been Nana's 100th Birthday, even though she died 15 years ago, we all still love and miss her and 'feel' her with us, smiling at silly things we do and heartily laughing at her great grandchildren's antics.


We all have a framed photo of her which was taken at our wedding 16 years ago, some of the younger great grand children call her blue or purple Nana as that was one of her favourite colours to wear.


the 'nana bird' was filled with lollies at her house for when the grandchildren came to call, the tradition stuck.





Nana's creation of icecream on potato wedges.



Mia in Noosa joining in by using Nana's gong.

I didn't want to let this event go by unnoticed, so created a  facebook  'event' to invite all the family to celebrate Nana's birthday wherever they are in the world and to wear Purple/Violet or Mauve to remember this special lady.
We all have some funny family traditions and I love that my family keeps them going.

One of Nana's favourite restaurants to go to for her Birthday was to sizzlers where she would enjoy the buffet style and even took home an extra mandarin, apple or handful of smarties for later. Another unique taste sensation was her dish of ice cream on potato wedges, for years after she died we continued to go to Sizzlers with a framed photograph of her and kept her little traditions up.

Today the majority of my family returned for fun and reminiscing at sizzlers, all wearing various shades of purple.
With the wonderful world of instant technology, we got to see the photos of the fun on various iphones on the table, it felt like we were there too.

I was at work all day, so chose to include the children at my Kindy in a special tea party for Nana's Birthday.

I also offered them activities that I used to love doing at her house as a young child like sorting and playing with her button tin and her giant horseshoe magnet.







We mixed and baked Nana's famous oat biscuits from her recipe (or as my cousin called them, Porridge biscuits) and used Nana's tablecloth to set the table and have a grand tea party.

As the children were too young for cups of tea, they drank cool clear rain juice (water) from the teapot in china cups.
With special thanks to my lovely friends, Anna for the flowers and Tarn who invited us down to her place next door to use her husband's grandmothers proper tea set.
We love you Nana, You never be forgotten.

Sunday 8 May 2011

New ventures

I apologize for the lack of blogs in recent times.

As well as returning to work during the week, I have also been working hard to open an artist co operative with 9 other talented artists on Norfolk Island.
We have been re painting a tired yet historic old building here on Norfolk Island.
Here is the blog (also not very well updated at the moment by me) for our New SOUL gallery



http://gallerysoul.blogspot.com/  You can also find the SOUL gallery team on facebook.

To coincide with SOUL's opening, I also launched a new photography label for myself (you can only find me on facebook at the moment) called 'Captured by Cristina Rose'

This is like the family photos that I was taking, but involves more props for the children and many more edited photos in the package.



I just love the results and my new logo.

 I find it hard to charge people for something I love to do, but am saving madly for a new camera, so I guess we all have to make a living and it is an extra bonus if you love what you do.