The kindness of strangers!

The lovely Kayscha decided to have a massive de-clutter a couple of weeks ago and offered up her fabric stash for the cost of a Postage Bag :o

Of course, new fabric ~ especially scraps is always welcome here for inspiration, so I decided to re-home some of her stash!

Imagine my surprise to find this bulging bag of goodies on my front door step last week!

It was filled with charm packs, fabric, chenille, Christmas Fabrics (heart), ribbon, beads, badges and even a quilt label.

I was blown away by her kindness and saddened that she had decided to part with her lovely fabric goodness…

Then – this bag turned up yesterday!

Filled with a heap of fabric strips and a heap of cross-stitch patterns ~ I am feeling thoroughly spoilt! Check out those two gorgeous Christmas Decorations at the front ~ love them!

Thanks so much Kayscha!!!

24 till Christmas ~ Week 4 (?)

I missed a week last week, so I think we are up to Week 4 in the challenge! This week’s entry is a small one only, but one I’ve been wanting to do for years… yet come Christmas time, it never seems to come to fruition!

~ Home made Christmas Cards ~

 

Only 5 to start with… hopefully more to follow.

Wanting a relatively simple design, I added some slave labour to the process. Miss K (3) did the paintings (happily) & I did the cutting and sticking! We mixed up our own paint (see here) and she went crazy on some recycled paper for me! The beauty with this paint is it dries hard and the more you use, the more crackly a finish you can achieve.

24 till Christmas ~ Bought to you by Skips Creative Expressions!

Lovin’ Fridays

With the talk of upping my work to 4 days a week (it’s still talk… but it’s a very real possibility) I’m thinking it will mean Friday’s will become extremely sacred.

I’m envisaging Friday mornings spent like this…

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Of Course Journalling WILL still happen, maybe not as many pages a week, but one or two would suit me fine!

Nic – recognise any of your scraps??? I love the page on the bottom right!  Right now tis’ time for more coffee, and some more pages!

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More Journal Pages & A turtle!

Heaps of journal pages are happening here at the moment, maybe it’s because it would look good to finish one course before my next course starts on MONDAY!!!

Change is good!

 

Left page - When My mind wanders… (love this photo, I managed to get hold of an Australian Wilderness diary for FREE – I just had to pay the freight)

Right Page – Hidden secrets… I loved playing with the paint on this one (as you can see I’ve a long way to go! but loving it all the same!)

Left page – Guilty Pleasures

Right Page – Let’s have a party

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Miss K & I had a party on the Island this morning. While we were there we heard there had been a turtle found under the boardwalk, so we went to check it out. Poor turtle wasn’t in a good state, not moving much so I rang Australia Zoo who sent an animal rescue team. They put her in a sling and took her back to the zoo for monitoring. Turns out she is probably around 50 years old :O and will take several months before she is ready to be re-habilitated to go back into the wild (they will eventually return her to the passage) it was pretty cool getting ourselves a special talk with the zoo rescuer! And she was pretty darn cute too (the turtle!)

 

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Balancing Act

There’s no doubt about it – I am STRESSED! 

Alas all the desserts in the world aren’t helping me through this little funk, so I’m taking it one day at a time and throwing myself back into crafting with a vengeance.

There’s been Art Journalling (finally)

These 2 pages have been half finished for over a month… I finally got off my backside and finished them over the weekend. Feeling re-juvenated, I did another 2 pages this morning :) this one felt good, it was of my 2 best friends ~ I love those girls!!!

And started another TWO!

Of course another project is ALWAYS welcome here, particularly when time is so limited LOL

Inspired by Nic’s 365 photo a day challenge and a need to actually use the gorgeous 365 journal my husband bought me for my birthday, I am embarking on my own 365 photo challenge… only this will be 365 days in my life – not day in day out, I’ve already missed 2 this week! 

And at night between reading my Jackie Collins book, I’ve been stitching! This definitely has to count toward quilting (see the lovely blue sashing LOL) would you believe, it is quicker for me to piece a 34” x 34” quilt top then it is to do this teeny tiny design in cross stich LOL)

Kids & Science!

DH ran into an old mate whilst up at the boat last weekend and as they were chatting and catching up on old times, he mentioned that his wife is Professor Jellybean!

We were lucky enough to get a couple of samples & today opting for a quiet day at home, I pulled them out and let Miss 3 go wild! This provided a couple of hours of fun!!! Definitely recommend it ~ if you don’t mind the mess!!!

First up were Freaky Goo Worms!

Pour the coloured liquid in the solution provided

 

Out come rubbery little worms!

Which turn harder the longer they stay in the solution!

Miss K had an absolute ball playing with these!

We decided to break open the Arctic Chill Snow

 

5 beautiful colours… 

Quickly became ONE big ball of coloured snow!

Best bit is we can freeze it down to make it cold and pretend it’s real snow!

What a FUN morning we had!

Some days…

You should just stay in bed!!!

I have been awake since 4:30am, and right now at 4:30pm of the afternoon I am running on pure adrenalin. Earlier today, after shopping and an unexpected play date at Nanna’s sans mummy – I returned home ready to bake.

Of course much blog surfing at that ungodly hour of 5am, saw me printing off the taste recipe for cinnamon scrolls… yummy… except for this glutinous mess that met me after the dough cycle…

ewww…

not even the breadmaker escaped this disaster

After cleaning the over-run, I’ve done a bit of a thorough stir and found pockets of flour trapped under the sticky dough… do I put it back on the dough cycle again or should I toss and start afresh tomorrow??? 

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Dinner however was a success! an Italian Inspired Casserole from a that’s life magazine – which was incredibly yummy, though I think I will leave the capscium out next time, too crunchy and cold feeling for a winter stew!!!

24 till Christmas… week 2

This little challenge of Skips is turning out to be a really good thing! I am actually managing to finish some WIP that have been hanging out & cluttering up my sewing room!

Today I turned the sewing machine on ~ in what feels like first time in forever!

Several months ago, I had a quilting day with my 2 best friends and taught them how to piece together a simple 9 patch design, one of those friends has gone on to nearly finish a quilt for her sisters little bub and is about to embark on her 2nd she enjoyed the first so much! On the day I had to teach them from scratch, so I grabbed a pack of eye-spy charm squares that mum had gifted me (just because) and chopped them up and pieced together 5 blocks. At the end of the day… I wondered just what the heck I would do with a measly 5 blocks then a brain wave hit. Teamed with some cheap and nasty poly/cotton from Big W – I added a border, a plain back and “wollah”

 

Toddler Placemats! 5 are now in the Christmas present box ready to gift!

Yay for Christmas & Yay for Skip! I love my sewing machine!!!

It’s what time…

I awoke this morning at 4:30am coughing and spluttering. An hour later I was still tossing and turning so ended up giving up and have been catching up on my blog reader ever since… right now it’s time for a morning coffee – alas not a real one seeing how our beautiful coffee machine broke last weekend *I am in mourning* luckily we think it has a standard 2 year warranty, so we need to get it to the coffee doctors and get it fixed stat!

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve joined up on another online journaling class :) this one is sort of an extension of the 30 day challenge I am still completing (ok so I’ve only got 21 pages of that particular challenge to actually complete!!! LOL) but this one is for a good cause! Janel who is hosting this online class is currently saving for her adoption fund. Having dealt with fertility issues personally, I want to be able to give back to others – so for me personally, that makes this journaling a great cause! Good luck Janel!

Today’s agenda calls for an early morning swimming lesson (so glad I’m not needed in the pool anymore ;) followed by a trip to the shops for a REAL coffee, home for lunch, then an attempt to finish a WIP to submit for my 24 weeks till Christmas challenge later this afternoon.   

Reading in 2010

Way back when the ‘read 50 books in 2009 challenge’ started, I suggested that there may be some fluffy reading involved… most of my 2009 selections were fairly mature by my standards (well a love story between vampires may be a little borderline… but I did diversify my normal reading list)

This year… well this year has been all pure fluff & light-hearted, starting off with the Sookie Stackhouse novels (all 10 of them) followed by the Vampire Academy (5 of them) and starting on the Anita Blake (slowly on these… I need to order book 2)

I admit now that this so called reading of fluff has taken a deep dive. A great big giant leap into the world of smut (at it’s best)… it all started when I decided instead of starting one of the 50 un-read books sitting in my bookshelf, I’d drag out the special box of books that I cannot bare (?) to part with and choose one of the well loved & well read favourites!

Yes. A Jackie Collins. This one was a Christmas present from my baby brother way back in 96 (I would have been 19 – he was only 14) My hubby saw what I was reading and said ‘going for the hard core smutty read hey’ I replied, these books are awesome, it’s not all about smut… well blow me down if a word representing 'male appendage’ ** doesn’t appear on the first page – FIRST paragraph. I stand corrected! Guess I forgot how smutty they really were!!!

Regardless, it’s a rollicking good read and blast from the past… who knows, I might continue on with my whole Jackie Collins collection after this one.

Do you like Jackie? What’s you favourite story?

 

** Using mature terminology, because my mummy reads this blog ;)

Milo anyone?

It started way back here… sometime around the 10th March, 2010

4 months and 1 day later…

IT’s FINISHED!!!!

 

Excuse the photos, it’s just on dusk here and I’ve only just cast off the last stitch… I simply couldn’t wait until tomorrow to take some half decent photos. Oh and yes, I still need to weave in the ends, I popped it on little Miss K and she is now refusing to take it off – awww…

I am so proud of myself for perservering with this when it all got too much and hey 4 months isn’t so bad for a beginner (I think)

24 Weeks till Christmas…

and although I am not technically joining Skips challenge as a firm contestant… I have decided to attempt a few little christmas crafts to add to the Christmas gifting pile – not sure I will have 24 completed items by the end, but at least I will have a couple ;)

Today’s creation ~ 2 completed pillows for the dollhouse &/or Barbie!

Each measure 3” square and were so quick to finish… can’t believe I’ve had them sitting there for 10 years ;) I will definitely make some more of these, perhaps 2 more in reverse colours!

Feeling Blue… :(

I Hate winter. I think the winter blues have kicked in for 2010, with yet another dreary day outside, it’s no wonder my motivation has gone AWOL…

Luckily I have a physic post-man… he knows when I need a little brightness in my day ;) LOL

All the way from the States… my new EQ7 upgrade (finally)

Can’t wait to upload it and play with it (in all my spare time ;)

Meanwhile… I’ve pulled out a work in progress from the late 90’s (yes you did read that correctly… a 10 year work in progress – hopefully this will become part of a certain little Miss’ Christmas present (as part of my weekly christmas challenge that Skip is holding, that I am not techncially participating in… I’m more the cheerleader, cheering her along “go skip, give me an S” and of course I am somewhat partial to Christmas you know ;) LOL)

How many days till summer???

Busy…

Working…

 
Image from: Freefoto

Buying Tickets…  

more buying…


image from: notemaker

Reading…

 
image from: bookdepository

**** I dare you to type that name into Google ;) ***

And of obligatory wee bit of crafting… It’s been a busy week and I’ve managed to survive (although the work caper isn’t by any means finished yet…) I’ve balanced it all by knitting 2 more rounds of cables on “THE” vest! (it should be finished in the year 2020 at the rate I’m going!)
As well as some more pages as part of the 30 days challenge.

Prompt 05 – Blogs I love right Now!
(I couldn’t choose, so I drew my blog reader ;)

Prompt 06 – It’s Time for…

Prompt 07 – How are you feeling today…

Prompt 08 – An inside joke…

Prompt 09 – A significant person in your life…

It’s been a Good week!