drumroll please...

a couple of candle-blower-outers lined up ready to go::

big blowy breathy breaths::

only one left [according to very specific stop-blowing-when-there's-only-one-left instructions]::

who could it be....

commenter number 4::

yay! Tara [and Janaya] you're the winners! I'll be posting your goodies soon...

thank you to all my lovely readers who left a comment - I've loved hearing from you - keep them coming - I hang about the computer entirely too much checking for comments actually ;)

A Bag and An Owl

1. embroidered tree bag:: a quick-I-need-to-make-a-present-right-now-and-I-only-have-an-hour-and-all-my-fabric-is-packed-away present for my darling aunty Christine [yes - it does get confusing when you are named after your aunty - we have always been known as Big Chris and Little Chris]

2. tea cup sock owl:: a gorgeous quick and super easy to follow pattern from Craft Schmaft - a pressie for my darling sis Mandy

P.S. Don't forget to enter my giveaway - you've only got till Sunday!

thread sketching clutterpunk style

Inspired by the lovely Gina from clutterpunk, I did some sketchy stitching on my favourite green well-fitting-but-a-tad-boring-ish skirt. I loved her birdy design so much [I do have a thing for birdies!] I was inspired by sort of copied um, pretty much copied what she did [hey when you find something good why mess with it?]
It was so much fun to do and alot easier than it looks - you really must try it out!

P.S. I'm so excited by all the lovely comments for my little giveaway! [you still have time to enter] Who knew I had that many readers!!! Thank you darlings x

STUFF UP FOR GRABS [A.K.A. GIVEAWAY]

Yes well, I know I said a couple of days but whose counting? You should know me by now.

Looky at the goodies:

~Linen tree brooch [made by moi]

~Fabric pouch with thread sketchy stuff [also made by moi]
~Mini tote bag in mushroom print canvas [and you guessed it - moi made it too]
~Antique treasures retro print fabric
~Kikki k stuff: blank notebook, gel pen, coin purse

Ok, the rules for entering:
1. Leave a comment.

That's all you need to do.

I know there are alot of you out there who have never left a comment before, but it's not hard. You just have to click on the title of the post [in red]. Right near the bottom of the page it will say "Post a comment" - click on that. A new window will pop up with a comment box, so just type in your comment, then choose your identity - you don't need a special account - just choose "Name/URL" or "Anonymous". Make sure you've told me who you are though because you may just turn out to be the winner!

I'll give you till 3pm Sunday 21st March [2ish weeks from now] then we'll do the big draw!!!

UPDATE: Here's a close up of the brooch - just for Gina x


THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED - WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED SOON!!!

Guess Whose Birthday It Wasn't...

Ahh, the big three-oh - well not really (actually only 7 and a half due to birthday being deleted from the calendar 3 years out of 4).

It's actually not as bad as I thought - leaving the twenties. Isn't it funny how you build something up in your mind so it seems really big and scary and it turns out to be just fine! What a sook she is, I can hear you saying, it's only another year. Somehow going from 29 to 30 sounds like it's a huge jump. Like now I should grow up and act my age and stop going off with the fairies and actually do sensible grown up things like cleaning the house and ironing. Who am I kidding! Like that's gonna happen!

I got a bit spoilt today with all the lovely pressies and family and fun times. Look at all the pretty things.

 

Anyhoo since it's my not-birthday and I've got a blog that a couple of people read and I've hit the 1000-visitors mark on my hit counter (did you know I had one of those? - it's right at the bottom of the page - and I happened to look at it right when it hit 1000 and I promise I don't look at my blog ALL the time to check the meter so it can't be ALL me)

 

Where was I going with all this? Oh yes, that's right - I thought I'd do a little birthday GIVEAWAY! Yay! I've been busting to do this! I haven't worked out exactly what it's going to include - but I'm sure I can rustle up a cute little package. Check back in the next couple of days for the details.

Making Stuff For Eamon

There's a new little cutie around these parts. Eamon Thomas is my darling nephew - a gorgeous son for Katie and Ben (my little brother) born three weeks ago now.
We had to get busy crafting as soon as we heard the exciting news. As all my fabric is in storage at the moment we had to get creative with what I had floating around in the studio scrap box. A boyish bib for dribbling on and an Alannah-designed teddy made their appearance by the end of the day. Just right for numerous drools and chewings-on.

Hey That's Us!

Check it out - we sent a couple of photos to Hil and Barn from Hilbarn and now they're on the blog!

Imogen's Classic Quotes No. 4

MUM!!! Polly's bum fell off!!!

Yummy Vegemite (or Bacon) Scrolls

Yesterday the girls made scrolls for lunch. Alannah and Imogen had a bowl each to make their own batch. Imogen decided on Vegemite scrolls but Alannah was adamant about bacon in hers.

It's basically a scone dough rolled out flat, smeared with vegemite [or sprinkled with chopped cooked bacon], loads of cheese dumped on top, rolled, sliced and plonked in the oven.

Here's my recipe [I did a batch each for the girls]

Vegemite Scrolls (makes about 12)

~ 1 1/2 cups wholemeal self raising flour
~ 2 tbsp butter
~ 3/4 cup milk
~ vegemite
~ grated cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 200`c. Rub butter into flour with fingertips till the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Gently mix milk into flour mixture with a butter knife till the mixture comes together in a ball. Turn out onto floured surface and roll out into a rough rectangle about half inch thick. Spread vegemite all over - thickness of this layer is personal preference. Sprinkle with cheese - also personal preference - the more the better. Roll up starting on long side. Cut into slices about an inch thick. Lay sliced side up on tray. Bake 10 - 15 minutes. Eat as soon as possible - YUM!     *variation* substitute vegemite for a couple of bacon rashers sliced and browned

I'm a bit 'whatever' when it comes to accurate measurements so Alannah's dough was a little bit too moist. Fixed it with tonnes of flour on the bench to soak into the wetness. Actually didn't really help much except to make concrete-like residue to scrape off bench!*

Also was a bit tricky to roll up nicely and squished around as we were trying to slice it up. Immy's batch was heaps better - a bit less milk in hers.

Finn decided that half way through scroll making session was the perfect time to wake from his morning nap. Consequently scrolls were hurried into the oven amidst loud protests from down the hall and promptly forgotten about. They turned out a tad dry [similar texture to eating a mouthful of beach]. No complaints from the taste testers!

* best way I've found to clean scone dough off the bench =
scrape off as much as you can with a wooden or plastic spatula [so you don't scratch your bench] then using COLD water only [warm or hot will turn it into glue] wipe with with paper towel - you may need to repeat this a couple of times depending on how much you scraped off previously - lots of water helps and a bit of dishwashing liquid too if you have some super-stuck-on bits. DO NOT use your sponge / wiping cloth for this job unless you want permanent gluey gobs stuck in it. Yes, that means you my Mr!

Meet Mr Shuffle Bum

It official. Finn is a bum-shuffler.

I had a sneaking suspicion that this might be the case. Classic example = put Finn on floor to play with toys - return a short while later - not playing with toys as mummy directed but rather with aunty leesie's frankie mags that mummy had yet to get round to perusing [don't worry lees - only slightly dribbled on and a couple of misshapen pages]

This morning Finn decided hanging out with toys was unexciting and proceeded to chase mummy and big sisters into the kitchen ableit at rather a leisurely pace.

Next on the cards: destroy big sisters' cafe kitchen set up in living room. Then off to yank out cable of laptop sitting on couch.

Oh what fun! I'm going to need to dig out that playpen again

Look at my new house!

 

We got the keys to our beautiful new [old] house today! I'm sooooo excited!!! Isn't it just gorgeous? It was built in the 1840's as a school house, has 6 bedrooms, bakehouse with wood fired oven and lots of sheds to keep the man happy.

There's been renters in it for the last year so unfortunately it doesn't look so well kept at the moment as it shows in the photos [they're from before the renters neglected it]. So lots of work to be done! Hopefully after a new bathroom, a bit of paint, spot of weeding/mowing/planting and lots of elbow grease it'll be looking a little more presentable that it currently does.

So this buying / selling house business is pretty full on! Throw in a couple of birthdays, end of year stuff, christmas, school holidays, camping, catching up with family, sprucing up house, open homes, trying to pack up house and life in general = no time for writing on blogs [or even reading blogs].

It might still be a bit quiet round here for a little while - I will try to pop past now and then and let you know what's going on.

On a Christmas tree somewhere...

...there is a little birdie made with love.

And on 129 other Christmas trees there are 129 more little birdies made with love too [the love nearly ran out though after that many!]

I designed these as a little gift to give out at our annual church Gingerbread Nights. I did have a couple of lovely ladies to help me with the assembly but turned out to be a bigger job than I first thought. [isn't that always the way?]
So I was busy sticking on wings, tails and eyes a day before we were off on holiday!
Busy times but so rewarding!

Birthday Girl!

Our little darling Imogen had her third birthday a few weeks ago - my goodness that's gone quick! All of a sudden she's gotten all big and grown up!

I wanted to make her something special to play with, so Alannah and I decided on a princess and the pea playset - idea totally stolen from SouleMama. (we also gave her the princess and the pea book by Lauren Child - of Charlie and Lola fame)

Lannah was my helper - choosing fabrics, deciding which ones looked good together, colouring the paper princesses, sewing the felt pea [with a little help from mama], turning the mattresses and snipping threads.

Immy loved it! They've been playing princess and the pea all over the house. "MUM WHERE'S MY PEA?" is a common utterance around these parts nowadays.

I also whipped up a little tutu and she got real ballet shoes!

And a washing line to help mummy with the house work ;)

We had a yummy hedgehog cake created by aunty Liesey, dressing ups with little friends and treasure hunting - what fun!

Jetlag

We are just back [tuesday] from visiting my darling sister, Mandy, in Perth. There's so much to tell you and photos to show, but after travelling the red-eye special home - involving 1 hr nap by child no.2 who doesn't/can't/won't sleep anywhere but her own bed, and 5 minutes total shut-eye for mama - we are still trying to recover.

Oh and I will get around to showing you some of Immy's birthday bash... eventually [if I don't have fights with blogger again about too many photos!]

Creative Update

So I've been a busy girl making lots of stuff!

Let me see... 15 little girls skirts, 8 marble bags, 2 pencil cases, a couple dozen button hair ties, ballerina tutu, a princess and the pea playset, and even a dress for me! Phew!

Plus there are a few half done projects that are still to be finished off: dress for a sweet little girl, few pairs of pants for Finn, bibs for Finn and I'm sure there are a few more lurking in the studio!

Things we made for Operation Christmas Child boxes we did last month. This was such a great way of teaching the girls about the huge need there is to care for poverty-stricken in this world.

The girls really enjoyed thinking about what a little girl their own age might like to receive and talking about how and why we should help, making a card and praying for the girls who would be receiving the boxes they made.

We are so blessed in our lives and to teach our children to share what we have with those who have nothing is so important to us. I highly recommend doing an activity like this with your kids.

And here's that gorgeous gypsy gal who sold skirts and button hair ties in the peddler's parade at the school fair.

Her costume was thrown together during a raid on my wardrobe - so much easier than trying to make something which was my initial lofty plan.