Auction: Upcycled blanket neck warmer!

Our next very cute item has been donated by Mezz Coleman, a crafty lady from Footscray, Australia who spends her time making sweet sweet music, hanging with asylum seekers and sewing up a storm. www.mezzcoleman.com. She also blogs at www.mezzmakesstuff.blogspot.com.

This little neck warmer is made from an upcycled blanket, a vintage sheet and a sweet wee vintage button. 

Mezz is an avid urban cyclist and knows that a long scarf can be annoying and dangerous on the bike! So she has come up with this dear little neck piece!

Bidding starts at $10. Please place you bid below in the comments! 

All proceeds will be donated to Green Collect, an innovative, Melbourne based social enterprise. www.greencollect.org

Auction: Upcycled t-shirt neck piece!

Kirri Mae Sampson is a very talented textile designer based in Melbourne, Australia. 

She specialises in unique macrame and resin jewellery and sells at Melbourne craft markets and on Etsy.

I have been fortunate enough to receive this delightful neck piece as a donation. This piece is made from a de-constructed t-shirt.

Bidding is starting at $15. Get in quick in the comments with your bid!

Remember, all contributors go into the running to win a great prize & all  proceeds will be donated to Green Collect, an innovative, Melbourne based social enterprise. www.greencollect.org

Auction!! Item number 1!

Hey kids!

First up we have a fantastic bag made from a reclaimed blanket and a floral bed sheet. The clever clogs that made this item was Marie Reade. Thanks Marie and well done!

What a great way to make use of items that often sit in the linen press while moths nibble at them! 

Please comment below to bid! 

Bidding is starting at $15! What a bargain!

Remember! All your generous donations are going to Green Collect, an innovative, Melbourne-Based social enterprise. www.greencollect.org 

All makers go in the running to win a great prize!

Announcing :: The Upcycled Challenge for Charity Auction!

Hi there!
After a short post-Vietnam, sick-well-busy-sick hiatus I am pleased to announce that the auction for the upcycled challenge for charity auction is upon us!

Over the next few days I will be posting the wonderful hand-made and upcycled items that have been contributed to support Green Collect, a Melbourne based, innovative, social enterprise working to create inclusive workplaces for people that have experienced homelessness and disadvantage.

If you would like to bid for one of the items listed please leave a comment below the post. If you have any dramas posting, send an email to gomumma [at] gmail [dot] com.

If you love all things hand made and want to support a GREAT cause please bid away! All proceeds will be donated to Green Collect. I can accept paypal payments, bank deposits and cash payments if you know me personally.
Please please please share the posts with your friends. I will be posting on Facebook also however bids will need to come via the blog.

Thanks guys! Stay tuned!!

Ash
Xo

(Ps.. If you are still working on an item you have until the end of the week to get it to me (or at least a photo & description!))

(Pps.. I know it is no longer winter but please humour me.. xoxoxo)

Welcome Visit to Phuoc Tien Primary School - Nha Trang

School begins at 7am here in Vietnam so it was a bright & early start for us yesterday morning!

The school is only a few blocks away so we are able to walk. We arrived a little late and assembly had already started. As we walked in, the 1000+ children let out a huge cheer and applauded us until we took our seats at the front. It's certainly the closest I have felt to some kind of celebrity status.

We were part of a very formal assembly with a drum group, flag raising a gift presentation. One boy from Footscray gave a great speech in Vietnamese and all the children were very impressed.

The teachers let us sit in their classrooms for a little while as they completed the morning lesson and our kids got involved in a reading task. It was fantastic! Today the students are in class all day and our teachers are taking lessons too. No doubt our kids will get mobbed in the playground and they will be signing autographs all day.

I am in the hotel with a sick student which is actually fine because I'm enjoying spending some time in the air con. It's 31 degrees and about 1000% humidity, which is apparently cold for the locals!

Vinpearl Waterpark- Nha Trang

It's been a few days between posts so its time for an update!

We flew in to Cam Ranh Airport in Nha Trang on Monday morning and travelled by bus to our hotel "The Nha Trang Lodge" which is right on the beach.

It's really lovely here. There's a bit of a Gold Coast vibe but much more down to earth and with more spectacular views! Actually, it's more like if Lorne were a small city with high rise apartments. It's a popular tourist destination and we have noticed lots of very brown Russians in teeny tiny bathers, but it's the off season so it's mainly locals around now.

After putting our stuff in the hotel we nicked across the road to pho 24 for a quick lunch before heading to Vinpearl Water Park. It's on an island so we caught a cable car over the water. It takes 12 minutes and the views are breathtaking!

We enjoyed lots of scary water slides, the lazy river, wave pool and the ocean beach and the kids ran themselves ragged before taking a tour around the aquarium.

We shared a special birthday dinner for one of the teachers, Josh, on the island too. Something scary happened during dinner, I pulled out the bushman insect repellent as the tiny winged Air Force was coming in for the kill. We passed it around the table and all applied it and suddenly the teacher next to me started coughing and saying she couldn't feel her lips. She had an allergic reaction and thought her throat would close up. Fortunately she had some antihistamines and it settled down quickly but it certainly gave us all a fright! I've decided to stick to the Aeroguard from now on!

Once it was dark the cable car pillars lit up like the Eiffel Tower. It was a great day and the kids were asleep before their heads hit the pillow.

A day in Hoi An

As I said in my last post, Hoi An is a touristy place. I would liken "old Hoi An" to Sovereign Hill as there is a lot of history there but it's been overtaken with gift shops & Aussies.

One awesome thing about Hoi An though is that it is the home of many tailors and you can have clothing made cheap and very quickly!

Many of us had clothes and shoes made. It was very exciting waiting and receiving our packages at the end of the day. I got two pairs of pants and a skirt, a dress for Molly and April got a pair of pants, a top and a special dress for her graduation- see the last pic!

The kids got to make lanterns before we headed out on a boat to the cooking school! We made several dishes including fresh rice paper! I found this fascinating and I will definitely make it again! Other dishes included an eggplant clay pot, Vietnamese pancakes and a green mango salad. It was very delicious and a great thing to do!

Some photos from our day on the farm in Hoi An

Here are a few pics from yesterday! After a quick flight from Hanoi to Da Nang we arrived at The Hoi An Historic Hotel. It's very touristy here with lots of leathery brown Aussie older people.

After getting settled we cycled through the Hoi An streets to a local farm (quite a full on experience, especially as some of the kids had said they were competent riders but we quickly discovered they were NOT!) April did well, no one died.. Phew!

We arrived at a small herb and salad farm and the kids spent time learning farming techniques before being taught how to make Vietnamese pancakes.

We were all full but returned to a big dinner as compensation from the travel company for the pool not being operational. We struggled through the meal and the kids were SO tired that a few just started bursting into tears! The teachers removed gaming and Internet devices from their rooms as many kids have been staying up very late playing.

We are spending just two nights at this hotel before travelling to Nha Trang early tomorrow morning. I'll do a separate post about today's activities as I don't want to have any trouble posting due to too many pics.

Day 3: Perfume Pagoda Cave

(I've tried uploading a bunch of photos with this post & it's not working so ill need to do it some other way.. Until then, here's another big slab of writing about yesterday!)

This morning we travelled through beautiful rice fields on the way to visit the Perfume Pagoda. We passed a few small towns on the way and for the first time noticed lots of signs for dog (thịt chò) and cat meat (thịt mèo). Apparently it's much more common in the north. Vinh explained that during the many times of food shortage the Vietnamese people have learned to see meat as meat and not to discriminate as a matter of survival. He is going to order some "special treats" for us to try tonight including dog & insects.. Yummy!

We went by boat for an hour and were surrounded by beautiful mountains. It was raining quite heavily and some of our flimsy cheap ponchos were torn so we all got a bit soggy. I really didn't mind because it was still quite hot and sticky and the rain was cool and refreshing. I bought a new one when we got there.

Once at the Perfume Pagoda precinct we climbed many many slippery steps to ascend to the lower pagoda. Some of us decided not to climb all the way as our shoes weren't grippy enough and it felt too dangerous.

Vinh explained that there was once a young girl who forewent having a husband and family to look after her sick father. One day the father became sick and the monk told her that the only way to cure his illness was to bring a human arm and human eyes to the temple. She sacrificed her own body parts and cured her father. She later died and it was decided that her spirit was the god of mercy. People come to the perfume pagoda to pray for mercy still.

After very carefully climbing back down the steps (I took my shoes off because it was the only way I'd make it down!) we stopped for lunch at a restaurant at the foot of the pagoda. This meal was very basic but the nicest I have had so far. The ingredients were apparently sourced from around the mountains and very fresh.

With full tummies we climbed more steps to find the cable car and we went in groups of six up the mountain to visit the Hòn Đun Gạo- hưởng tích cave. This is a very special place of worship with a giant stalagmite in the centre. It was absolutely amazing! 

We then boated back again to our bus before making the 2 hour trip back to the hotel to freshen up for dinner. I'm a bit nervous about trying the "special treats" but I said I'd try anything once... 

When in Vietnam...

River boating at & Ha Long Bay on land- Day 2

It was more difficult to wake up this morning. I think the jet lag is catching up with us a little bit!

After another delicious buffet breakfast Vinh arrived with our bus and we made the two hour drive to the Ninh Binh Province to visit some temples (there are the remains of an ancient king and queen there but I don't have the right characters to spell their names correctly so I won't try in case I end up writing something completely wrong). We travelled through rice fields and farming land. I felt like I was in an episode of M.A.S.H. It was so lush and green and many of the built structures were in quite bad disrepair, lots of buildings were unfinished and Vinh explained that there was not enough money to finish them. People rode bicycles and motorbikes but there were weren't nearly as many as in the city. A thick mist lay heavy over the rice fields and farmers worked in their long blue cotton clothing and bamboo hats. It was really like something out of another time. 

We arrived at the temples and were rushed at by roadside traders wanting us to buy their fruit, umbrellas and ponchos but we followed our tour guide's instructions and showed no interest in their wares and they left us to walk past. The temples are set in the middle of beautiful green mossy mountains and are surrounded by a freshwater river. Donning colourful ponchos to protect us from the rain, we wandered around the grounds and Vinh told us some stories about the ancient king and his wife. The queen had been married before (re-marrying was a big no-no as they believed that widows should look after their dead husband's family until her death... Nice huh?) but she was allowed to marry again after her husband's death as he was the king and his wish over-ruled traditional beliefs about morality. The statue of the queen in the temple shows her smiling like the Mona Lisa due to her love for the king and being permitted to marry again.

We learnt the difference between temples and pagodas; a temple is a place to worship and bring offerings to the dead and a pagoda is for worshipping gods/Buddha. In a temple people can bring anything as an offering but in a pagoda only vegetarian food. Vinh explained how you can look at the foot of the dragon on the stone tablet in the front of each temple to gauge how old the temple is by how many toes the dragon has. I don't remember how many equate to which era though... So much info to take in!

As we made our way back to the bus one of the children decided it was a good idea to pick up a rotten human molar that she found on the ground... I drowned her in hand sanitizer while explaining why this was not the best idea to handle something like this.

Lunch next at a lovely elevated restaurant overlooking Tam Cốc (I found the Viet button!) which is also called "Ha Long Bay on Land". We were served a wonderful variety of dishes and it was lovely to feel the cool breeze blowing through as the rain fell outside. We hoped it would stop before the next part of our journey, a boat ride through the caves, but it didn't. 

We were then rowed down the river by very skilled rowers, many of them rowed with their feet! The 2ish hour journey up and back took us through three caves and the scenery was magnificent. Mountainous and tropical with mountain goats (thịt dặ - meat goat) dotted all over the rocky faces. On the way back we were ambushed by boats with people peddling food and drink. They held on to the boat until you bought something from them. I was totally caught off guard and ended up spending the 50,000 dong tip I had been holding for my rower on a drink and snack for him. My wallet was in the bus so I had to ask for more money from Chau to tip as it is expected. Also, the boatmen/women have very limited opportunity for work I think they said only once every ten weeks and the company only pays them 70,000 dong per ride which equates to about $3 AUD for 2 hours work. 

Despite the money dramas it was a beautiful experience! We were all soaking wet from the rain so we decided to come back to the hotel to change before dinner. April and I skyped Molly, Rich & John very quickly before we headed out again on foot to 24 Pho, a fast food soup chain, where the children were required to order in Vietnamese.

A great second day, well and truly ready for bed now!

Night night!