Happy Australia Day

It's the anniversary of Europeans landing in Australia and traditionally the day we celebrate our nation. Personally I can think of some much more sensitive days than this one. Australia's first inhabitants, Aboriginals, call this day Invasion Day. It's the anniversary of the day they lost their country and the beginning of genocide, hardship, plagues and starvation. Today I am taking the time today to acknowledge the traditional owners of the country from where I am writing, the Burramattagal people of the Dharug language group. I would like to show my respect and acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land, of elders past and present, of the land on which I live and from where I write.

For more information about traditional owners in the Sydney area visit Barani, a site that explains it all really well.

Political sensibilities aside I love my country and consider myself fortunate to be a daughter of the antipodes. Although I really wish Australia Day were on another day I still want to celebrate my country. So how do I celebrate things? I put it on my nails so I can look at it while I'm knitting.

My Supplies- (from left to right) Seche Vitae (best top coat ever despite the dreadful chemicals), NYC Silver Sparkle, BYS Red and White Nail Art Polishes, OPI -Yoga Ta Love this Colour, tiny silver metal balls for the smallest star in the southern cross, tiny diamantes for the bigger stars and BYS Silver Nail Art Polish, a fine but firm brush for making the stars on the flag and a skewer for picking up the bling. I also used NYC Mushroom over my Seche base as an opaque neutral. The OPI is a little transparent.

The Union Jack (the flag of Great Britain which is a whole bunch of flags united) in the corner of the Aussie flag was done using the BYS Red and White Nail Arts. I painted the white section first (St Andrew's flag representing Scotland) starting with the cross in the middle then adding the diagonals. I added the red diagonals next (St Patrick's flag for Ireland) being careful to leave the white frame for the cross in the middle which represents St George's flag (England). Then I added the middle of St George's cross in red.

The seven pointed federation star, which represents our six states and The Australian Capital Territory, was made by placing a big dot of white below the Union Jack then using the stiff bristled brush to smudge out the points. Next I put the stars of Southern Cross, our famous constellation visible anywhere in Oz. These were also smudged dots, the main four stars should have seven points with the smaller star having only five but I just went for star-like.

Next step was to add the Southern Cross to my ring fingers using BYS Silver Nail Art Polish. I smudged out some points with my stuff bristled flat brush, coated all nails thinly with NYC Silver Sparkle Added the bling to the southern cross then topped with Seche.

Happy Australia Day everybody! We're celebrating Australia's multi cultural heritage by having croissants for breakfast. We're out of Vegemite so it will have to be with jam. We'll be having Chinese take away for dinner to celebrate the contribution of the Chinese people during the gold rush days. There's iced lemon myrtle tea, which is a bush tucker flavour, and Japanese mochi cakes for afternoon tea (no significance for mochi cakes- we just really like them). Lunch will involve meat pies and lamingtons -fair dinkum Aussie tucker.