Lounging with a Latte

Necklace out of Scrapbook paper

2012-02-25T08:39:00.000+10:30

You have probably all seen the lovely coloured necklaces around that have been made with various assortments of paper rolled up and sprayed with clear varnish.

On Pinterest last week I came across a tutorial with the template cutouts to make these necklaces so thought I'd give it a go. You can follow the tutorial from here.

Here are my photos of making them.

Above: These are the papers I chose

Oops forgot a photo of the actual pattern and rolling!
Above and below: The rolled beads on skewers.

Above: I placed them into a florists oasis to spray with the clear varnish

Above: All finished

Above: The necklace is now at home amongst my other necklaces and scarves

I quite enjoyed making them. I made mine with the first pattern of the templates but made them a bit longer than what appears here.

Perhaps you could give it a try for a weekend project.

Baked not fried Spring Rolls

2012-02-18T09:30:00.001+10:30

I discovered via a blog some months back that you could oven bake spring rolls. I had always thought spring rolls needed to be deep fried, hence I never made them!

Since that discovery spring rolls have been served up every few weeks at our house. The first time I made them I found a fairly traditional recipe for the mix, but now I just make up a mix of whatever I like.

I fry up whatever minced meat I desire (pork, chicken, beef) and slice or grate up finely whatever vegetable I want and add seasonings and stock to taste. This is very vague but I do just make it up as I go. Allow the mix to cool and drain any excess fluid before placing on the pastry to roll up.I just place a little oil on the edge of the pastry to seal it. No need to brush the rest of the rolls, just pop them in a moderate oven until crispy.

These photos aren't very good, but it was my record of making them at the time.

I have been enjoying building my boards in Pinterest with those things that interest me and my favourite find for the week would be this crotched bag.

I am quite keen to give this a go. The tutorial can be found here.

Remember if you would like an invite from Pinterest to start creating your virtual pinup boards, just ask and I'll send you one. It's much quicker than just requesting one from the Pinterest site where you will have to wait up to a week to get started.

Pinterest....I'm addicted!!

2012-02-11T11:32:00.000+10:30

Over the last week, my evenings have been spent discovering Pinterest! You may have heard or seen links to it of late and wondered what all the fuss was about, like me.

It is a place where you can create virtual pinup boards in your space and add, like, comment, follow and pin all the things that you see on the net or within the Pinterest community that interests you. You create 'boards' with categories that best describe what you want to put in them..eg. Food, Creative Ideas... You can view my boards here http://pinterest.com/nettii62 - If you aren't signed up with Pinterest you can only click on the images and view...once you are signed up you can then do all the fun stuff.

I can 'Invite' you....Without an invite you can only view all the eye candy.
As I didn't know anyone with a Pinterest account I clicked on Pinteret's 'invite' button and waited around a week before I could start the fun. As I'm now a member I can now invite you so you can get started straight away. Just email me or leave a comment if you would like an invite.

Blogging vs Pinterest...Pinterest won't take over the blogging world. I've discovered that even though you can 'like', 'pin' and 'comment' on people's images you don't have the personal communication like you do on blogs.

Here are some things that I have found and placed in some of my boards so I can easily refer back to them.

In my 'Drawn to Pink' board

Source: cutoutandkeep.net via Annette on Pinterest

In my 'Food' board

Source: glamour.com via Annette on Pinterest

In my 'Clever Ideas/Things to make' board

Source: giverslog.com via Annette on Pinterest

To 'pin' an image from a blog or website you install a 'pin it' button which sits in your browsers toolbar. If you see something you like and want to add it to one of your boards you click on the 'pin it' button and the images from that sites page will come up. You choose which photo you want and a pop up window all bring up the list of your boards, you simply choose which board to place the photo into. The 'pin it' button will automatically save the website address of which that image came. So in your board if you pin a tutorial, you just click through and you come to the website of which the image came.

Important...if you want to pin an image on a blog, make sure you click into the appropriate 'post' where that image comes from. If you don't the people might have to wade through a whole lot of posts before coming to what they are wanting...frustrating. I learnt this by mistake and had to go back and re-do my links.

If you want to learn more I found this beginners tutorial quite good http://www.sortacrunchy.net/sortacrunchy/2011/05/pinterest-a-beginners-guide.html

If you have any questions or want to receive an immediate invite, please comment or email me and I'll forward you one so you can get started. WARNING....It is addictive!

61 years of marriage!

2012-02-10T13:49:00.001+10:30

My Mum and Dad celebrate their 61st Wedding Anniversary today...wow what an effort!
The have 6 daughters, son in laws, 10 grand children and 6 great granchildren.

The below photo was taken at Christmas time.

Parcel in the post

2012-02-09T07:50:00.004+10:30

While perusing through the Ezibuy catalogue recently I came across a Deborah Hutton throw rug that was drastically reduced in price. I'm a bit of a sucker for throw rugs so hopped on the net and ordered it.

It arrived a couple of days ago.

I love it! It's so soft and the knitted cable running through it is just beautiful. Another throw to add to my ever growing collection!

Last night I made baked potatoes which I hadn't made in ages. I rolled up the potatoes in alfoil and popped in the oven for around an hour. You can do them in the microwave wrapped in gladwrap with holes poked in the gladwrap.

I then fried up some bacon, capsicum, tomatoes and mushrooms.

I plated them up.

Then topped with cheese, and put the plate in the microwave for around a minute to melt the cheese and then topped with sour cream and chives.

It was delicious and very filling!

Federer and Nadal....funny promo!

2012-01-31T08:36:00.001+10:30

Even if you're not a tennis fan, you'll love this video of Federer and Nadal trying to do a promotional advert....very funny!

A couple of recipes

2012-01-28T08:07:00.001+10:30

Over the Christmas/New Year period I happened to catch the New Ideas Test Kitchen TV show a few times. I really enjoyed the recipe ideas and tips that they shared.
One of the recipes which I have made twice now was a Chicken and Bacon Roll...mmmm delicious!

As I didn't have my camera at the time I took some shots on my phone but they turned out quite blurry. This is the only one I had which was laying it all out on the baking paper.

Here is a photo of the finished product, taken from the New Ideas Kitchen website

You can get the recipe from here and while you're at it you might like to view some of the episodes. It was a great show.

At one of our family Christmas gatherings I experienced a new taste sensation...a Beetroot and Egg salad...who would have thought?!! Not me anyway!! I'd never heard of this and loved the look of it too because it was pink!!

I didn't get any photos of it but have found this one on the net.

The salad has only 3 ingredients...finely sliced beetroot and quartered boiled eggs, mixed with mayonaise. Simple!

Speaking of 'simple'...last weekend we had a group of friends over for a BBQ. The girls usually like to bring something, so I asked if they could all bring a salad. To our amusement when they all rocked up, we discovered the 3 out of the 4 girls had bought the same salad!! It was the crunchy noodle salad that they all said "it's so easy"!!! Hence it was the butt of many jokes on the night, but it didn't matter as they all had a slightly different takes on them. One used slivered almonds, one used pine nuts and one didn't use any nuts. Next time though I might check on what they will be bringing!!

For those that haven't heard of this salad it can be found here.

We came another step closer during the week of finishing our bathroom makeover, but still a little way to go yet. We had the towel rails, shower shelf and hand towel rails fitted along with a new bathroom door. We actually had 5 doors installed from the rooms leading off the passage. Need to paint them all now :(

Here is another sneak peak.

The feature colour I'm using is that green/teal colour of the towels. I purchased them and am happy with how they look, but boy do they give off lots of fluff. They've been washed about 6 times since I've had them and they are just starting to slow down with giving off the fluff. It was driving me crazy seeing all green bits all in the bathtub and on the floor.

I will be joining Pink Saturday today, so here is a few photos I have featured before to satisfy those who are visiting to see some 'pink'!!

Above: From my hutch

Above: A page from a booklet I put together for a client

Above: Some of my favourit things!

Summer Days

2012-01-17T08:14:00.000+10:30

Not sure where to start seeing that I have had my longest break from blogging!! I look forward to catching up on some blog reading soon too as it's been quite a while since I called in on my blog friends.

Our Christmas this year was spread out over a week, with 3 family gatherings. We had Christmas Day with my hubby's family, a boxing day BBQ at our place with our sons, their partners and their parents and then one a few days later with all my family. It was a great time of catching up.

For my family gathering it was a scorching day of 39° so instead of having it at one of my sister's places, they hired the local civic hall, which gave us lots of space and air conditioning. The young kids loved the stage and provided fun entertainment with impromptu dance displays and skits...very funny!

This was the long lunch table at the civic hall with my family.

All my sisters on the steps of the stage at the civic hall.

We had a garden party for a friends 21st. It was a beautiful setting and very pretty!

The only picture I had of the pretty setting!

Us old gals enjoying the afternoon

This was the birthday girl who got dressed down later in the night
and enjoyed choosing a treat from the huge box of chocolates!

I always enjoy our outdoor entertaining area at this time of the year. It's a tranquil place to sit and read, or to share meals with friends and family.

I love relaxing with a good book and a couple that I have read over the past months and really enjoyed are these.

And yes our bathroom makeover is progressing but slowly!! We have the new vanity in now, but still waiting on a few other things to be done before I can show the big reveal!! Here is a sneak peak of the vanity.

I will be back soon with a new delish recipe I came across the other week...yum!

Our changing front garden and house over the years

2011-12-09T08:11:00.001+10:30

Since we purchased our house back in 1994, we have made many, many changes inside and out, with our latest project of renovating the bathroom. The bathroom is at a bit of a standstill while we wait for our new vanity and shelving to be built, but I will show lots of photos once it's all finished.

When we bought our house it had mission brown window frames and a huge palm tree. Here is a shot of back then.

After a few years we had the palm tree removed. It actually got transplanted into someone else's garden so it is still alive and well today, overlooking the River Murray. I will have to dig out the photos of the removal as it was a feat in itself with 2 cranes used to get it onto the back of a semi-trailer!

Around 7 years ago we had the outside of the house painted in creams with country blue window frames and last year we added a bullnose verandah which you will see in the below photos.

About 4 years ago, due to the drought we had the front garden re-done and planted out with grasses and roses. Roses were proving to be very water wise and I liked colour so that's why we chose them. The grasses however, became a bit straggly and I didn't really like the look of them, so a few months ago we pulled them out and planted up some petunias in their place. The petunias still need to fill out but they are getting there! The water restrictions aren't in place, but we are still water conscious.

Here is another shot of how large the palm tree was.

I am really enjoying having the colour back in the garden again.Notice we have some twinking lights hanging on the verandah for the Christmas season.

Holiday pics and a sneak peak at our bathroom makeover

2011-11-26T06:04:00.001+10:30

Gosh, not sure where the time has disappeared to since my last post! I do know we had a week's holiday in Launceston, Tasmania which was a very relaxing and enjoyable break.

This will be a bit of a pictorial of a few things we saw while over there.

Our introduction to Launceston was stepping off the plane and it was pelting down with rain. We ran from the plane to the terminal and got quite wet. It hadn't let up any by the time we needed to get from the terminal to our hire car, so once again we got quite wet!!! From that time on thought the weather was nice to us with mild sunny days.

We discovered that this was 'typical' Launceston...very hilly.

A place that I loved was the Swiss Shopping Village of Grindlewald.
It is home to the Tamar Valley Resort which offers accommodation and a function centre.
The Village however is open to the public to wander in and delight in the little
privately owned village shops.
It had a lovely gift /clothes/accessories shop, bakery, coffee shop, and newsagent/supermarket supplies/gift shop along with a lake and facilities for a picnic as well as putt putt golf.

The houses you can see in the background are across the road. I think they are private residences but set in a retirement village setting. That would be my pick of where to live if I ever moved to Launceston!.
It's only about 10-15 minutes from Launceston and you have your own shopping village just across the road. The road driving up to Grindlewald had a lot of new housing development but many of the homes were keeping in with the Swiss theme. It is a very pretty part of Launceston.

Around the Neighbourhood

We stayed in East Launceston, just a few minutes from the city.
It was very hilly! One afternoon we went for a walk around the block where we were staying. As you can see there were some lovely homes and roses were everywhere!

The Cruise

We went on a 2½ hr Tamar River Cruise one afternoon. It was a wonderful way to spend a few hours.
We cruised up through the gorge and then back down and along the river.
Afternoon tea was served on the way up and then on the way back there was wine tastings which was great.

There were some beautiful homes along the river.

High Tea

I had planned to catch up with a client/friend in Launceston.
The week before our arrival in Launceston she contacted me and advised that she had booked us into something on the Sunday afternoon and she would pick me up from our apartment but wouldn't tell me where we were going.
I couldn't have been more delighted as she drove up to The Grand Chancelor Hotel and announced that we are going to have a High Tea!
It was lovely. We were seated and served with a champagne and the platters of delicious treats! A coffee pot was brought out and we spent 2 indulgent hours eating, drinking and talking.

The Cataract Gorge

Late one afternoon we walked along part of the gorg. It was very tranquil and beautiful.

While walking along we looked back and discovered this amazing house
perched right up on top of a hill overlooking the whole gorge!
.

This house is near the start of the walking track and it is actually a private residence.
Looking back on these photos I can see we are 'house obsessed'!!!
Anyway, that was a brief look at our holiday which went far too quick!!

We are currently doing a bathroom makeover. It started many weeks ago. I will do a whole post on it when we are finished, but here is a sneak peak.

Before we started

At the moment.
The floor tiles were laid while we were away and we have been painting the wall tiles over the past few weekends. They have come up a treat.
More later.

I have hardly done any blog reading in the past weeks, but hopefully I will be visiting and catching up on all your posts soon.

We're about to head down to McLaren Vale for a friends 21st. Happy Birthday Hannah!

Delicious Sandwiches and some Home Decor

2011-11-02T17:31:00.000+10:30

On the weekend I attended a Mad Hatters Tea Party for a friend that's getting married.

It was a very pleasant afternoon, playing a few games and enjoying the wonderful company, not to mention the abundance of food!!! The 'hero' food for me wasn't the cheesecake or pavlova but the sandwiches!!! I'm sure they are the best I'd ever tasted. The friend who made them emailed the recipe to me and so I made them the next day!!

You might enjoy them too, spread on some lovely fresh bread.

Mix in a bowl:

Roast chicken chopped (I bought a chicken, took off the wings and legs and chopped up the remainder)

Celery (I used 4 sticks), finely chopped.

Small packet of Pistachios (I used the whole packet) finely chopped.

2 tablespoons chopped chives, or to taste

2 tablespoons sour cream

Mayonnaise to mix to desired consistency

Black pepper.

Use thin white bread, spread with minimal butter.

For a nicer presentable finish, spread mix between 3 slices of bread, cut off crusts and cut into small rectangular ‘fingers’

After some lovely homewares?

I have just finished developing a website for Lavilla which is a beautiful homewares and gift shop in my home town of Loxton. We are so fortunate to have it here as it has such a great range of things. You can visit the website now at www.lavilla.com.au

I'll leave you with some images from Lavilla.

When I popped in there this morning they were unpacking boxes which contained new Christmas decorations and lots of other tempting things!

A new toy and easy lamingtons

2011-10-22T17:09:00.000+10:30

My new toy is an iPad! It's wonderful for sitting in the recliner at night and being able to be online and search around the net and catch up on facebook! I used to do that with my iPhone but it's great to have a bigger screen. We are off on holidays in a couple of weeks so it will be packed in my bag. I will need to check how to load photos in case I want to do a post while I'm away,

As well as being a toy it is also for work purposes...The ever increasing smartphones and tablets mean I need to make sure the websites I build work on those platforms and I'm also learning about developing mobile applications, so it's not just all leisure!!!

The rose in the above picture is one of my first Pierre de Ronsards which are really starting to take off now that the warmer weather has come along. Here they are starting to climb up the trellis.

It's always exciting to get a special looking envelope in the mail with an invitation inside. We recieved this lovely wedding invitation this week.

LAMINGTONS
And last weekend I made some lamingtons the way my Mum used to make them. You buy the plain unfilled sponges and cut them up. Simmer 3 ingredients together and coat the sponge with the mixture and coat with coconut. They make a lovely crunchy coating not like the soft ones you buy in the shop.

The chocolate mixture is...(wait for it, it's quite naughty!!!).

3 cups sugar, 3/4 cup water, 3 dessertspoons of cocoa. Place in saucepan and bring to boil. Allow to cool slightly before coating the sponge. I use a slotted spoon to dip the sponges into the mixture and then toss into coconut. These freeze really well too. I wrap them individually in glad wrap. Ideal for lunchboxes.

Catching up...herbs, a recipe and choosing tiles for a new project!

2011-10-10T17:48:00.003+10:30

Our family enjoys following the AFL (Australian Football League), Adelaide Crows in particular and we also follow the V8 Supercars (go Fords!), so the past 2 weekends have been a feast of TV watching as the AFL grand final on the long weekend and the endurance race at Bahurst yesterday. My hubby usually goes every 2 years to Bathurst with a few mates but it was his year off this year.

Besides those activities which were enjoyed over wine and nibbles with some family and friends, I potted around in the garden, planting more petunias and organising some big pots for some cherry tomatoes and herbs. One of our sons made a planter box for me and I've placed it alongside one of our sheds. I managed to get 4 big pots into it, so hopefully they will grow well.

Our next project for the house is to give our bathroom a makeover. We are just in the planning stages so no photos yet, but we did visit a shop to start choosing floor tiles and look at vanities.

We brought a few tiles home to try and I think we will go for the chocolate one for the floor in the photo below. (not a good photo!!).

Instead of getting our wall tiles re-tiled we are going to paint them. We've done a bit of research on it and have decided to give it a bash!! We will paint them white and our son will probably build us a new vanity. Lots of fun planning, but will be more fun hopefully when we start to do it.

Have you painted ceramic tiles before? I'd love to hear from you about your experience with it.

Spring and an easy dessert

2011-09-24T07:45:00.001+09:30

In Australia we have entered into Spring, a wonderful time of the year when nature 'springs to life'. My garden is very much a spring/summer garden with flowering plants and annuals and creeping vines which have all awoken from their winter slumber and growing rapidly with the warmer weather we're experiencing. I love it!!

We have been re-doing parts of our front garden but I'll show you that in a later post, once things start to grow a bit more.

Our lavender borders down the back have just started to come into flower and the bees are plentiful.

A few weeks back our town had a special Sunday Trading Day and launched a Gift Voucher concept for the town. To promote this day a few of us on the committee decorated the central roundabout to the main shopping district with gift boxes and a sign, drawing attention to the voucher launch. The photos below show a very thick fog which we contended with to put the displays together!

After a simple dessert? I made these Apricot Turnovers the other week. Just buy some puff pastry sheets and dried apricots. Stew the dried apricots in a little water first with a tablespoon of sugar and then allow to cool a little.
Lay out the sheets and cut into quarters. On one side place some of the apricots and then bring the pasty over and seal down the edges with your fingers. Brush with milk and a sprinkling of sugar on top. Bake for around 15-20 minutes in moderate over or until the pastry has browned. Then cool them on a baking rack.

And to add a touch of Pink here are some bits and pieces from around our home.

Here are some Pierre de Ronsards that were featured on a garden tour that I went on a couple of years back. Hopefully mine will look a bit more like these this year!

Blogger....Is anyone else having trouble with loading photos lately in blogger? The last few posts it has been a pain, very slow and my photos are al small image sizes. Not sure what's going on there.

I will be joining Pink Saturday, so head on over if you want to see some more 'pink' related posts.

South Australian Country Photography

2011-09-11T08:46:00.000+09:30

One of my sisters, Joy, loves photography. Whenever we are together or have a family gathering, Joy is always snapping away. She is good at quietly sneaking around and taking shots that you don't know about. When Joy and her husband travel, they are always stopping so Joy can capture the beauty that she sees. She has finally had some of her landscape photos produced onto museum quality canvas and is selling them. You can view and purchase them at the Madeit website.

Here are a few that are available.

Above: Moonta Bay on the Yorke Peninsula of South Australia

Above: Brinkworth, near Clare in South Australia

Above: An old trike that has seen better days!

Joy also makes her photos up into cards. You can discover more about Joy's photography and purchase her cards at her website. www.postcardsalive.com

Who doesn't love a quick and easy meal? One that I've discovered lately just has 2 ingredients, pasta and prosciutto. Boil up some noodles. Cut up the prosciutto into small pieces and fry. Once both have been cooked, toss the noodles into the prosciutto. Whalla!. You can of course add extra things to it, but it's surprisingly nice on it's own.

New life to an old 70's footstool

2011-09-02T07:36:00.004+09:30

I know many of you who love the vintage style would like this original orange footstool which I picked up at a garage sale for $2.

However, for me I felt the urge to paint and recover it so that it would fit in with my decor which is definately not orange!!

Here were my results.

Now I can sit im our tub chairs with a cuppa and magazine in hand and put my feet up!

For some inspiration and fun I will be joining the following:

Grandma's Best Recipes

2011-08-28T07:30:00.000+09:30

I am currently developing a website for one of our town's beautiful homeware and gift shops. While I was taking photos for it last week, I came across the Grandma's Best Recipes book and it just had to come home with me!!

The cover alone would have made me buy it, as it's a book that would look nice on any coffee table or standing in a book holder. The inside pages are nicely designed and of course the recipes will be useful too!

Here are a couple of shots of some other things that took my fancy!

A new range of children's party packs had just arrived. The set is made in Australia and is called 'Circus Party'. The range has a lovely vintage feel and includes invitations, cupcake holders, cups, serviettes, plates and a cake wrapper. Pity I haven't got any littlies to host a party for!

Hope you are enjoying your weekend.

Some unexpected surprises!

2011-08-24T17:40:00.003+09:30

I own up, I have never owned a 'proper' pin cushion! My pins have always lived in the box from which I purchased them from. A couple of my friends who are much more experienced sewers than I, have often laughed (been disgusted, paid me out!!) about that fact!! (all in fun of course).

One of those friends came around for coffee last week and guess what she had made me? Yes, a pin cushion which sits in a delightful tea cup!! It's beautiful....thanks Janette!

Her daughters also made a few pin heads out of shrink wrap. Aren't they just the sweetest?

My pins will now live in the lap of pink luxury!!

Another little surprise I recieved was this lovely neclace...I love the colours as it goes with so many things.

I hope you are enjoying your week.

I'm joining "Pink Saturday', so hop on over and see some lovely 'Pink' things!

A few ruffles and easy bread recipe

2011-08-20T07:04:00.000+09:30

A couple of months ago I made a chocolate brown ruffled cushion cover for our bed (my post about it and tutorial are herel)

and last weekend decided to make one for a gift, this time in cream colour.

Would be very tempting to keep it for myself!!

I enjoy cooking and baking, but one thing that I've never had nuch experience with, or success with when tried, is baking with yeast. I came across a post the other week that had an easy recipe for bread, so decided to try it.

My first attempt, true to form with yeast, didn't work!! The yeast when added to the warm water didn't expand as supposed to and when I let it rest in the mixture for 30mins it still didn't rise. However, I baked it and was heavy but the family still really liked it.
After getting a bit frustrated by it as it was such an easy recipe I searched a bit on the net about yeast and discovered that you can kill the yeast by having the water too hot.....'AHA' that was a 'light bulb moment, could that have been where I was going wrong?

Not to be beaten by this so called 'simple recipe', I tried it again the next night and just had the water lukey warm. Things started happening how they were meant to...YAY, I'd discovered where I had been going wrong with yeast. Like magic when I peeked under the cloth that covered it for 30 mins it had puffed up like it had life!!

It tasted really good with a nice crunchy crust. Maybe next time when I see a recipe with yeast I won't turn the page!!
You can visit the post with the recipe here. I just used self raising flour for my recipe.
I hope you have success the first time!!

Annette....The last couple of posts I've had trouble with uploading my images, hence I just couldn't insert my signature image!!!!

My fabric birds and their adventures!

2011-08-16T08:05:00.003+09:30

My creative urge on the weekend led me to making some fabric birds. I made a pair, blue and pink.

The pattern I used for the birds was from Spool, you can download it here. After making one the other week, I tweaked the pattern to have a more rounded head and put in a felt beak.

After I made them I let them fly around to explore their surroundings. Here is where they flitted.

After receiving some lovely rain yesterday, I let them out in the back garden to take a drink from our bird bath.

After their adventures it was time to put them in their resting place.

This morning I let them inside again, and as I type this post, I have two little birdies watching me!

I hope you enjoyed following my birds adventures. I did make something else on the weekend too that included ruffles, but I'll keep that for my next post.

I'm joining Inspiration Friday at the Picket Fence and
Pink Saturday

My purchases this morning...now what to make with them!!

2011-08-13T11:53:00.001+09:30

I woke up this morning with the urge to do some sort of sewing this weekend.
I wandered up the street and purchased a few pieces of fabric. I do have some projects in mind but as to how much I'll get done, you will have to stay tuned!!

Here is what I bought.

The piece below is a heavy backed curtain fabric which I thought might be just right to re-cover a little footstool I purchased at a garage sale some months back.

Time will tell as to whether my sewing urge got me anywhere!

A giveaway and a few other things!

2011-08-07T07:08:00.002+09:30

It gives me great pleasure to introduce back to blogland, one of my best friends Jo, from Vintage Lane Stitches. She has had a few months break from blogging, but has returned and is celebrating her 100th post with a beautiful giveaway. The picture below is the giveaway. As you can see there are lots of pretty feminine things, so head on over and say hi, I'm sure you will enjoy getting to know Jo and reading her posts.

Living in the Riverland region we are fortunate to be able to buy locally grown oranges. They are just superb at the moment, so sweet and juicy. I love living in the country where you can buy produce straight from the growers. I purchased a bag at a roadside stall last week. You just pull up, choose the produce you want to purchase and put the money in the tin. It's an honesty system which is still nice to have around in this day and age.

Last Saturday I decided to make a big batch of soup which I quite often do in the winter. So I got my stockpot out and loaded it with all the veggies, chicken and water and placed it on the hotplate to simmer away. However I started hearing sizzling so presumed I had spilt some water on the element, so wiped it up and put the stockpot back only to discover it started sizzling again. After taking the stockpot off and placing it on a tea towel I discovered my trusty stockpot which would be over 20 years old, had a small hole in it!! As I didn't have anything as big to put the contents into, I quickly raced off to the shop and purchased a nice new shiny one. Hopefully this one will last me as long!!!

On the craft front, I've bought a cute cream birdcage and want to make a couple of fabric birds to go in it to sit on the perch. I found a pattern and picked some fabric for one of the birds, so maybe today I might get around to making them. Stay tuned!!

I don't have too much flowering in the garden at the moment, but this pretty cyclamen brightens up the back door area.

Until next time...

Food, fashion and fixing up!

2011-07-28T22:42:00.004+09:30

Wow, i feel like I have to blow the cobwebs off my blog as it's been so neglected of late!

We've had a couple of great social weekends. One of the weekends we had friends and one of my sisters come up from Adelaide for a couple of nights, It was time spent talking, laughing, sharing, shopping, eating, drinking and catching up with others as well at our place.
Last weekend Paul and I spent in Adelaide as we had a reunion dinner on the Saturday night with the group of friends we mixed with when we lived down there over 21 years ago.Some we hadn't seen in many years and had lost contact with.
I had such a good time that taking photos didn't hit my radar!! I did find this photo of the place where we dined last Saturday night. It was the Red Ochre Grill on the Torrens in Adelaide. A lovely dining experience with good company.

This is not my photo - I copied it from a Restaurant review website

In one of my previous posts I featured how we took out a glass door frame from our kitchen. By doing this we were left with unstained floorboards where the panel was taken out.

We had to decide what to do. The floor people could have tried to stain it to match, but we had a feeling it would always look lighter as the polished floor had darkened with age. They suggested they put a 'header' on it, which is what we went ahead with. They cut the floorboards the whole way across and laid wood going in the opposite direction and stained it as close as possible to the existing floor colour. We were happy with the outcome as it looks like it was meant to be there.

For the fashion conscious one of our local fashion boutiques, LamiSaru has developed a website for their clearance items. There are some quite good brand name items at very discounted prices. Take a look at www.electriccharlie.com.au

Over the past weeks I've also been adjusting to a new computer and operating system, which hasn't come without it's frustrations! I think I'm nearly on top of it now and have my settings and programs all installed and inplace.

On the cold winter nights, we've been enjoying kicking back in our recliners and watching The Block and The Renovators. One thing I detest though is the previews...I HATE them, so I close my eyes and my hubby mutes the sound while that's viewing.....that's love!!!

A mixed bag

2011-07-09T18:20:00.003+09:30

A couple of weekends ago we went to Melbourne with friends. We left early Friday morning, arriving mid afternoon. We settled into our motel rooms before heading out for a bite to eat, then onto the footy at Ethiad. After the disappointing result, we walked back to our motel, got changed and headed up the road to the Crown Casino, for a relaxing wine.

Saturday was a lovely day of discovering the shops in the city. Bourke Street Mall was alive with people. We stood for around 10 minutes watching these human statues.

They were amazing, they just didn't move, not even a blink!!. At one stage one of them did start to slowly walk to shake someone's hand when they put money in the hat.I don't think I would last a few minutes, let alone however many hours they were there for.

While meandering up the mall we came across a huge line up of people and discovered that the 'Zara' store was having it's opening. You would have to be keen to wait in line for that long. We passed on that!!

Saturday night, the guys went off to the MCG to take in another AFL game, while Wendy and I had some tea and took in a movie...Water for Elephants. We enjoyed being transported into a different world of the circus for and 1½ hours.

Last year one of my sister's gave me an old hard covered Walt Disney book that had my name 'Annette' in the title. Well, my birthday has just passed again and you guessed it, I received another Walt Disney Book from her with my name in the title...classic!! I look forward to reading it as the first one was actually very exciting!

One of my other sisters asked if I could email her through some of my favourite tea cup photos I had taken. And what do you know...my present from her was greeting and gift cards with the images of my photos on them. What a lovely gift idea...I won't be short of cards to give now. She is a very good photographer and turns some of her photos into cards which you can purchase at www.postcardsalive.com

As you would agree there's nothing quite like a home baked cake, the shop ones just don't cut it as far as I'm concerned. My favourite one for baking at the moment is a Buttery Vanilla Cake, it goes great with a coffee. It's one of those recipes where you just put everything in the bowl and mix it.

The recipe is:

250g butter, 2 teaspoons vanilla essence, 2 cups castor sugar, 4 eggs, 2 cups self-raising flour, 1/3 cup custard powder, 1 cup milk.

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix with an electric mixer until well combined. Spread into prepared cake tins. Bake in a moderately slow oven for 1 1/4hr. When cold dust with sifted icing sugar.

While I'm on favourites...my favourite drink at the moment is Malted Milk...yum. A couple of heaped teaspoons into a glass. Mix with a little milk first and then pour the rest of the milk in. It's a bit like milo in that you get the nice crunchy bits on the top.

My day job!

2011-06-28T08:34:00.001+09:30

As nothing much has been happening on the shopping, decorating or craft side of my life, I thought I'd share with you a visual snippet of some of the designs I've been working on.

As some of you may know, I am a self employed graphic and website designer. You can find out more at my website That's Graphic

You can click on the images to see a larger and clearer view.

A large part of my business is web development. I create custom designed websites which make them unique to each business. Keeping up with all the ever changing technologies and compliances is challenging but keeps life interesting!

I hope you've enjoyed viewing some of the things that quite often prevent me from having time to blog!!

The kitchen is painted!

2011-06-16T14:45:00.000+09:30

If you read my last post you will see that we had the 70's amber glass framework removed from between our kitchen and family room. This then led me into wanting to re-paint our kitchen which I did last weekend.

Photos tell the best story, so here goes!!

Below: This was the framework before it got knocked out

Below: The framework gone

Below: Some before and after shots of the kitchen

That's painting done until I get the urge to do another room!!!

While going through photos I came across a few of our kitchen when we did some other minor changes a few years back....

Hope you have a great weekend....We are off to Melbourne early tomorrow morning for the weekend with friends. We plan to go to the football to see the Crows tomorrow night and then might have to do some retail therapy on Saturday!!

A work in progress

2011-06-10T21:52:00.001+09:30

Yay, the long weekend is here!! I've been waiting all week for it to come as I'm eager to give our kitchen a mini makeover with changing the paint colour. The urge to paint started when we had a 70's amber glass panel and sliding door removed from between our kitchen and family room. We have never used the sliding door and we've always wondered what it would look like with the frame gone....now we know as one of our sons Daniel, knocked it out for us last weekend!

GOING....

GOING...

GONE!

We will be keeping the doorway open, but since last weekend, Daniel has built a new frame and has also made me a shallow cupboard and wine rack to one side of the frame.....here is a sneak peak

And Daniel also finished off making our wall mounted coat hangers for our bedroom. Or as you will see in I'm using mine for my scarves. Very handy having a son who is a cabinetmaker!!

You will have to stay tuned to see some more photos as I endeavour to give the kitchen a small face lift!

Hope you enjoy whatever it is that you are doing this weekend.

Something fishy and a new project

2011-06-03T08:47:00.001+09:30

Wow, how time flies! I haven't done any blog reading all week. Hopefully on the weekend, I'll make a cuppa and catch up on what's been happening in the lives of my blog friends.

The town where we live is on the Murray River and this year, due to the abundance of rain the river has been high which has meant Yabbies are in abundance. This hasn't happened for many years. A friend dropped us of a box of cooked yabbies last week. We just had to peel and eat them!

I spent a few hours re-potting last weekend, pulling out the petunias and planting pansies. These pink thrifts are giving a cheery greeting by our back door.

Between our kitchen and the family room is a very 70's glass panel and glass sliding door which we never use. I have talked about getting rid of it many a time to open it out into a wide opening. Anyway it is now happening!! Our second son Daniel started pulling all the frame out last night and will re-do the frames on the weekend. Here is just a teaser photo of Daniel starting the process. Yay!!

Stay tuned!

Lots of pinkness!

2011-05-28T07:51:00.000+09:30

Today is Bev's 3rd anniversary of hosting 'Pink Saturday' so I've gone through my photos and chosen some of my favourite pink related images from our our home that best describes what my blog is about.
If you want to see some more pink, head over to 'How Sweet the Sound'.

Congratulations Bev and thanks for hosing the Pink Saturdays!

Bedroom - Before and After

2011-05-22T10:30:00.000+09:30

Well here are the photos of the makeover I did of our bedroom over Easter. I'm still waiting on wall mounted coat hangers to go either side of the walls, but not sure when they will be ready.

The paint colour I used was Wattly's Pascol 'Smoke Pearl'.

I enjoyed getting out in the garden yesterday, pruning the roses, and replacing the petunias, with pansy's. Hope you're weekend has been fun!

The colours of autumn

2011-05-16T07:34:00.000+09:30

We had a lovely extra long weekend, taking Friday off and catching up with our parents, friends and family. One of my sisters and her husband have taken up the position of Assistant Managers at the Rawnsley Park Caravan Park in the Flinders Rangers, so on Saturday we spent the day helping them pack up and clean their house ready for their move.

The hint of winter is in the air with much cooler nights and chilly mornings. Our large Claret Ash tree is working it's magic at the moment, with a beautiful show of coloured leaves.

I've been enjoying reading Monica McInerney's books. She is an Australian writer, originating from the Clare Valley. I'm currently reading her latest one 'At Home with the Templetons'.

New canvas for bedroom

2011-05-10T15:50:00.001+09:30

I've been in the process of making over our bedroom (photos coming soon!), but with any new colour change it requires a few new decorating pieces. The cushions are done as in a previous post, one of our sons is making 2 wall mounted coat hook racks and I've finished painting a canvas for above our bed.

I started off with a white canvas and mixed some dark brown Jo Sonya's paint into the paint I used for the wall to ensure that the tonings were the same. I took a sponge and cut pieces out of it and started dabbing.

Once on the wall I wasn't sure if it was too bland or whether less is more. So I lived with it for a week and then decided that it needed some more guts to it, so got out the paints again and created a band of reversed colours and dabs I'm happy with it now.

You will see how the colours tie in when I show the finished room at a later date.

On Sunday for Mother's Day we had a lovely lunch down the local hotel with the boys and their partners. We're catching up with our parents this weekend as they live a distance away. I was spoilt and received these candle holders that match in so well with my other decor.

We live in a regional area and mice are quite a problem at the moment. The supermarkets keep running out of traps and bait as everyone tries to keep on top of the little nuisances.
We've had our share inside and out. While watering my plants last week, something caught my eye and there was a mouse eating away at a large candle that I had sitting on the BBQ bench. He and probably others had eaten their way through this large candle!!!

Hope you are enjoying your week.

Delicate tea cup and saucer

2011-05-03T08:06:00.001+09:30

While staying at one of my sisters a couple of months back, we were intrigued by a tea cup and saucer that had been given to her by her Mother-in-law. We had never seen a piece like it before, it is very light, like a shell type texture, almost translucent with a pearl sheen.

It is a Belleek Mark (Second Mark - Second Black 1891-1926).

I couldn't help but take a few photos to share with you!

I will be joining Sandi at Tea Time Tuesday , Marty at Table Top Tuesday, and Lady Katherina at Tea Time Tuesday.

A ruffled cushion and knitted cushion

2011-04-30T16:58:00.002+09:30

We had a very enjoyable Easter, a nice blend of relaxation, socialising and getting some jobs done around the house. I painted our bedroom and was really happy with how it turned out. I'm still putting some finishing touches to it, so will show you some photos in a later post.

One of the finishing touches were to make a couple of new cushions for the bed. I got inspiration for a ruffled cushion from the tutorial here. As my fabric was a bit thicker I had to do the ruffles a little differently than the tutorial, but it still turned out not too bad.

For the ruffles I cut 3 2" strips and sewed each of them down the side and

then ironed them down flat.

Eew the colour didn't turn out right in the below picture but you can see how I pinned the ruffles in place and then stitched them in place from the back.

The seams were then sewn up. That's one cushion ready for the bed!

The next cushion I made from a large knitted cardigan that I bought at the opp shop for $3.

I cut out a large square from the back of the cardigan and then measured out the size I required and sewed a similar coloured fabric to the backside of it.

This has made a lovely soft cushion.

So my creativeness for today is done...2 new cushions for our bed!

Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Kombi Camper ready for Easter

2011-04-22T08:40:00.003+09:30

Our eldest son LOVES the Kombi and over time has collected 7, some for parts and some for restoring. His latest project has been to make one into a camper. After a lot of work he got it finished in time for him and his girlfriend to take off for the Easter break. We look forward to hearing of their adventures!

BEFORE IMAGES

AFTER

And as it's Good Friday, I'm sitting here having the traditional Hot Cross Buns for breakfast!

We haven't got too many plans this Easter, just catching up with a few friends, but I plan to paint our bedroom. I've taken some 'before' shots, so hopefully next week I'll have some nice 'after' shots to show you as well (cross fingers!!).

Happy Easter to you all.

First attempt at a smocked cushion

2011-04-14T21:21:00.005+09:30

I've have enjoyed learning a form of smocking which my Mum used to do so much of, making us girls pretty dresses with smocked bodices.
I was quite pleased with my first effort, however now that I have the hang of it, I will be making a couple of others with more suitable fabric for my colour schemes.
I took a few pictures as I went along.

One of my sisters gave me this fabric for my trial cushion as she had been given a whole bolt of it. Lucky me!!

The area to be smocked had to be marked out in a 1" grid.

The fun part beings....this is the wrong side of the fabric where the smocking is done.

The smocking is complete and one side is drawn in.

Time to stuff it!

And draw that side together.

I thought I took a photo of covering the buttons, but I mustn't have!

The middle of the cushion needed to be stitched through to create a well in the centre and then the buttons are sewn in place.

Here it is!

Next time I will smock the pattern closer together so the pattern is more dense..not so loose.

You would quite often have found these type of cushions sitting on the parcel shelf in front of the back window of the old Holden cars.

Tomato and Zucchini bake

This recipe is a really easy dish to accompany any cooked meat and other vegetables.

Spray a baking dish with olive oil and layer thinly sliced zucchinis then tomatoes over the top. Shake some salt and pepper over with a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkle with a layer of shredded cheese. Repeat the above as many times as you want. Cover with alfoil and bake in a moderate over for around an hour. Take the alfoil off in the last 15 minutes of cooking to allow it to brown.

Ready to go into the oven.

Ready to be devoured!!

Thanks for visiting!

I'm joining

My pink quilts

2011-04-09T09:11:00.001+09:30

Over the years I have collected a few pink quilts and a couple of pink cushions. I've laid them over a dark pink chenille bedspread that I purchased for $3 at a garage sale.

And I'll leave you with a picture of my favourite Rose, the Pierre de Ronsard.

I will be joining Beverly for Pink Saturday. Pop over and view other blogs who have dedicated their post to Pink!

To see more of my posts go back to my home page here.

A victorian house - with a difference!

2011-04-07T07:46:00.000+09:30

Many years ago I purchased a very special book that has proved a great hit with any little girls who visit our house. It opens out into a display of 8 rooms of a very detailed Victorian house complete with everything that opens and closes. A few cardboard cutouts of people make it a delight for 'playing house' and using the imagination.

Hope your day is a happy one.

A bit of this and that!

2011-04-01T17:31:00.003+10:30

The end of another working week. Haven't done too much in the way of crafting this week. The smocking of my cushion is complete but will wait until Wednesday night to find out how to do the next part of it, so the photos are coming!!

You probably all have this recipe but these 'savoury fingers' are a great meal when you're after something quick and easy.

Recipe
Spread slices of bread with a small amount of butter (dripping or lard was used back in the early days!). Beat 1 egg, add enough grated cheese to thicken, 1 dessertspoon of Worcestershire Sauce, 1 tablespoon tomato sauce. Mix altogether and spread on bread. Place strips of cut up bacon on each slice. Bake in a moderate over until crisp. The quantities depends on how many slices you are making. The above makes about 2 slices.

I love tulip fields. I think I might have featured some tulip field pictures before on my blog but I just find their vibrant colors so amazing. It's like a patchwork of flowers. Here are some images of them. Imagine flying over these fields, what a spectacle that would be.

And a tulip festival

Here is a picture of my humble albeit synthetic tulips!!

I think I had enough pink in this post to join Beverly at How Sweet the Sound for 'Pink Saturday' !

Something Blue!

2011-03-29T07:42:00.003+10:30

I thought I'd share a couple of blue tea mugs to show that we do have other colours in our house other than pink! One of my sisters gave these to me a few years back. They are really nice to drink from and are from the 'Misty Charm' range from Royal Bone China.

I will be joining Sandi for her 61st Tea Time Tuesday and Lady Katherine's Tea Time Tuesday.

New Blogger...Wendy, my sister who gave me the above tea mugs, has just started a blog and is in the process of learning all the 'blogging ropes'!! I'd love you to visit her and welcome her to blogland. You can visit Wendy here wendy-countrysampler

A few pink things!

2011-03-26T09:52:00.001+10:30

Last weekend while visiting my Mum and Dad I took these photos of their hydrangas.

They didn't think they were going to bloom this year as the buds were very late. But they have and the heads on flowers are huge! Mum and Dad have been asked if they could keep the hydranga heads so they can be used in a wedding in the coming months.

Whenever I go into gift shops I'm always drawn to the pink corner. I love this display from one of our local gift outlets.

And this beautiful welcoming table at a Bed and Breakfast accommodation.

And a few pics of some pink flowers around our home. These cyclamens put on a good show last year by our back door.

And these verbena just keep on flowering!

Look at my previous post to find out how to make a very simple necklace / scarfe. Always good to add something new to the wardrobe!!

If you want to see more pinkness, make a cuppa and hop over to Beverly's Pink Saturday party

Easy necklace / scarfe to make

2011-03-24T20:59:00.000+10:30

A couple of months back a friend made a beautiful smocked cushion for her niece and I loved it so much she came over last night to teach me how to make one. While crafting and chatting away, she said "have you got an old t-shirt?" I went and got one and she started making this scarfe come necklace!! It was so easy. I took pictures as she went along!

Lay the t-shirt flat and cut 2cm strips. It's important that the t-shirt has
some elastine in it so the fabric curls up

Once you have as many as you want, double the above pieces over
so it looks like below. Then cut a rectangle piece out of the t-shirt
and wrap it tightly over and over the end that has all the joins of the t-shirt
and stitch in place.

This is how it ends up! She has 2 on in the below picture.

I wore one of them today

As you can see it's amazingly simple. I know now that I'll be keeping an eye out at the Opp shops for nice coloured t-shirts!!

I made good headway with the smocked cushion, but it's a work in progress so I will show you when it's all finished!

We've added a bullnose verandah - before and after

2011-03-22T08:59:00.000+10:30

Earlier in the year we had a bullnose verandah added to the front of our house. My hubby has just got around to painting the posts and gutters so I can show some pics now!

Here is a photo of a few things I picked up at garage sales on the weekend. A really pretty single sheet set and pillow case which I bought for the material and some china. Just some more pink things!!

And this cute little cane thermos or wine bottle carrier. My hubby actually found this in a car park in the city!

A new blogger

2011-03-20T21:05:00.001+10:30

I've just spent a lovely weekend with some of my sisters and friends down south at Victor Harbor and McLaren Vale. After explaining about how blogging works to them one of my sisters started one on the weekend...yay!!!
Please visit her and make her feel welcome at Wendy at her new blog here.
She is a creative girl and I'm sure you will enjoy her posts.

I didn't take too many photos on the weekend, but we had a lovely time, opp shopping, having lunch and checking out the local shops. We visited Goolwa and took a photo of this beatuiful gift shop. Will show some of my opp shops find in a later post.

And the rose garden next to it.

Don't forget to show some love to Wendy at her new blog.

Shelley - Fine Bone China

2011-03-15T08:07:00.000+10:30

My husband's grandma gave me this delightful tea set many years ago. The series is called 'Charm' from Shelley in England.

I'm joining Sandi at Rose Chintz Cottage for Tea Time Tuesday again this week.

Painted Cross Stitch Wall

2011-03-12T08:09:00.002+10:30

While enjoying a coffee with a friend this week, she said "have you seen the cross stitch painted on a wall?". I hadn't, so we hopped onto the computer and I was amazed at what I saw.
See for yourself.

I love it!! Eline Pellinkhof is the creator. Visit her blog here, she is a freelance designer and illustrator and her blog is full of creativeness. Enjoy!!

We also got given a pumpkin during the week...just couldn't resist taking a photo of it with the 2 squash that are still looking like porcelein! (See a few posts back for more photos of the squash!).

I'm joining Beverly for Pink and Green Saturday.

Tea Time Tuesday

2011-03-08T08:12:00.000+10:30

I haven't joined a 'blog' party before, but always enjoy visiting Sandi at Rose Chintz Cottage for her Tea Time Tuesday , so today I decided to join the fun and feature the lovely cup and saucer I purchased last week at a garage sale.

Follow the below link to discover some more 'Tea Time Tuesday' delights.

Out with the paint...before and after

2011-03-06T15:26:00.000+10:30

A couple of posts ago I showed some items I'd bought from a garage sale. One was a turned pine reading lamp stand and shade and also a shade on it's own. Today, I took off the shade, sanded the stand, primed it and painted it a very light beige colour and then placed the other shade on it. I really liked how it turned out.

White I had the paint out, I decided to give a new lease of life to a couple of dark wooden picture frames.

Late Friday afternoon we organised to have some friends come over for a casual pizza and wine. It wasn't essential that we had dessert, but I opened up my cupboard to see what I could make in a short space of time and saw a Chocolate Instant Pudding mix. I quickly whipped that up along with some cream to which I added some icing sugar, vanilla and instant coffee which was dissolved in some water. This gave the cream a nice delicate coffee flavour to compliment the chocolate mousse. I had some strawberries in the fridge, so cut them up and grated some chocolate over the top. A nice quick and easy dessert.

Not too much is happening down in the garden, but my pink butterfly's are having their second burst of flowers after I cut them back.

I hope your weekend has been enjoyable.

Playing with cute squash!

2011-03-04T08:01:00.000+10:30

We got given some squash the other day. I tried yellow squash once and wasn't a real fan, so not sure if these will end up on our plate, but they looked just gorgeous to me!! The colour is a beautiful pale green with the stems a darker shade. I couldn't help myself, just had to take some photos with the squash sitting in prettier surrounds than on a dinner plate!

Aren't they cute? I wonder how long they will last as a decoration?

Some garage sale finds

2011-03-01T08:28:00.000+10:30

Yay, finally got to go to a couple of garage sales on Saturday morning and came home with a few things!

I have a plan for this lamp. I've already sanded it back and will paint it white. I'll remove the shade and replace it with this one

At one of the garage sales they had a couple of boxes of old china plates, cups and saucers. I spent a bit of time going through the boxes and found the above saucer and cup that matched. I also managed to find a plate, cup and saucer set which I loved as it had pretty pink roses on it. When I went to pay for them, they guy said "Oh you've found a set, I didn't realise there were any amongst all that. Do you mind if I keep it!!!" What could I say? So, I just ended up bringing the above set home and left the other one there. Was I too kind? Should I have jumped up and down?

Pretty Pink Pictures

2011-02-23T08:33:00.002+10:30

Well there's still not any opp shopping, sewing, crafting, gardening etc going on at the moment. Work is really busy and our weekends have been busy with other things of late!
I'm loving my Country Collections Diary! It's a week to an opening and on the opposite page has a beautiful image, which is nice to look at as I write things in and check up on what I need to do!
Here are 3 images from the past 3 weeks.

And some wise words of wisdom that just came through in an email.

Prayer is not a "spare wheel" that you pull out when in trouble, but it is a "steering wheel" that directs the right path throughout.

So a Car's WINDSHIELD is so large & the Rear view Mirror is so small? Because our PAST is not as important as our FUTURE. So, Look Ahead and Move on.

Friendship is like a BOOK. It takes few seconds to burn, but it takes years to write.

All things in life are temporary. If going well, enjoy it, they will not last forever. If going wrong, don't worry, they can't last long either.

Old Friends are Gold! New Friends are Diamond! If you get a Diamond, don't forget the Gold! Because to hold a Diamond, you always need a Base of Gold!

Often when we lose hope and think this is the end, GOD smiles from above and says, "Relax, sweetheart, it's just a bend, not the end!

When GOD solves your problems, you have faith in HIS abilities; when GOD doesn't solve your problems HE has faith in your abilities.

A blind person asked St. Anthony: "Can there be anything worse than losing eye sight?" He replied: "Yes, losing your vision!"

When you pray for others, God listens to you and blesses them, and sometimes, when you are safe and happy, remember that someone has prayed for you.

WORRYING does not take away tomorrow's TROUBLES, it takes away today's PEACE.

60 year old wedding dress

2011-02-16T21:35:00.000+10:30

As mentioned in my last post my Mum and Dad had their 60th Wedding Anniversary and we had a celebratory lunch at one of my sisters places on the weekend. Mum brought her wedding dress to have on display and I don't think I had ever seen it. It was beautiful, even though it had a few dirt marks around some of the edges. The lace was so fine. Her are a couple of pics of it.

The following picture is my Mum and Dad with their 2 friends who were their bridesmaids at the wedding.

And Mum and Dad after they cut their cake....aaawww!!

Here in the Riverland region of South Australia we have finally got water flowing back in the Murray River. It is flooding in some parts, but not threatening floods that are effecting homes or anything. In Loxton the riverfront road is currently closed and the lower part of the caravan park is under water. The caravan park is still very operational as they moved all the cabins up to the higher area where there are many sites as well. Here are some photos down by the caravan park.

I haven't done any craft or made over anything since November, so I was looking back on photos to see what I could show you!! Here is a wall quilt that I made on the spur of the moment a while ago. It hangs near my recliner.

Celebrations

2011-02-10T08:32:00.000+10:30

I'm sure this year is moving even faster than last year did!!!

Today is my Mum and Dad's 60th Wedding Anniversary...What a great feat in today's world.
Fortunately their health is still pretty good and they live independently in a lovely Retirement Village. We will be having a celebration lunch for them on Saturday down in Adelaide.
Here they are on their wedding day.

and a more recent photo.

It was also my hubby's 50th last weekend. He didn't want a party, so we just went out to dinner with a few friends on Saturday night and then on Sunday his family came up from Adelaide for lunch. As he doesn't like me putting his photo on the blog, I have cropped this photo down of him unwrapping the present I gave him.

It was a 1:18 sized classic EH model car. It is amazing the detail that it involves. The Saltbush Green EH was his first car and he has always had a soft spot for it and would like to get another 'real' one some day! He has started collecting model cars, mainly of the V8 Supercar variety.

And just a simple pic of the top shelf of one of my bookshelves now that the Christmas decorations have disappeared!

Manicured Courtyard Garden

2011-01-30T18:51:00.002+10:30

When I was at one of my sister's places the other week, I asked her if I could take some pictures to put on my blog of her lovely garden. She agreed!

I hope she doesn't mind me having a photo of her in the picture!!

It was the only one I had of the garden from that angle!

Isn't her garden lovely? While I had my camera out I also took a snap of one of her chairs and ottoman, that I just LOVE!! I could sit there anyday and read a good book!!

The below photo came through via email during the week. I don't know who it is or who it was taken by but don't you just feel for the poor Kangaroos, who, if not for some kind hearted person may have not survived the Queensland floods. Must have been quite an adventure for them as I'm sure they wouldn't have been in a tinny before!!

Today we have had temps of over 41°C. It didn't stop me from cooking some crumbed chops and veggies for tea, after all our house is nice and cool.

I pulled out the Breville Crazy Shake, the milk, iced coffee mix and ice cream and made some delicious Iced Coffees to go with it. Went down well!

Hope you have a great week.

Finally...some more holiday pictures

2011-01-26T09:21:00.000+10:30

We're back from a lovely 8 days away in Perth. While we had our laptop and phones with internet access it was taking ages to load photos into my blog, so thought I'd wait until we were settled back home. Well that's well and truly happened as it was back to work Monday with loads of follow ups and work to catch up on.

Anyway here are a few snapshots of our time away.

After a few days our apartment was strewn with these.

I love the fact that on holidays I get to read during the day instead of just before I go to bed at night. I also buy the 'goss' magazines instead of the home and lifestyle ones, so I find out about celebrities and what they are up to and get the chance to do the big crosswords. We nearly finished two of them!!

On the 'Getaway' TV program a few months back they had a special on half price car rentals, so we took the offer up and had this little Mini Cooper to zip around in.

The last 3 nights we spent staying in an apartment at Fremantle overlooking the Swan river. These were the views from our balcony.

When we got back to our apartment on Saturday afternoon after a day out, I sat out on the balcony with a coffee and people who were all dressed up started arriving in the gardens below. We realised there was a wedding going to take place. We had a good view of it all and could check out the fashions!!

One night we drove around taking night shots, but none of them really turned out!! But in one of the fancy homes there was this amazing chandelier twinkling away giving light to passers by. I got hubby to turn around so I could take a pic!!!

In our apartment's garden there was this very unusual palm.
Hadr to explain so here is a picture.

I had fun roaming around the garden taking photos...this was one I particularly liked.

In Fremantle there is such a contrast of 'eyesore' sights and 'picturesque' sights.

On the cruise we saw the drastic contrast very clearly.

On one side of the bridges you saw all these commercial shipping yards

and on the other side of the bridges was this!

The best meal we had while away was at Outback Jacks Bar and Grill.

I had the Bushranger Salad Basket, which was full of fresh salad and grilled spicy chicken, all contained within an edible basket of very tasty crunchy tortilla. It was delicious!!

Anyway that's probably enough of our holidays! Happy Australia Day to all you Aussies!

I plan to catch up on blog visiting today as it's been a while!!!

Holiday Pictures

2011-01-18T19:52:00.000+10:30

Yes we are on holidays in Perth, Western Australia. We have been having a very relaxing tme, doing the touristy things.
We have just come back from a river lunch cruise.
This is a quick post with a few pics of the past couple of days.

This picture was taken across the road from a restaurant where we had breakfast with some friends overlooking the very picturesque Swan River.

We visited York, a rural town which still uses these old phone boxes...very quaint!

York's lovely lolly shop

We went on a lunch cruise on the Swan River. It was a lovely way to spend a few hours.

AAAHH, Im having lots of trouble uploading photos from the laptop etc. Might have to leave it for now and try again another day.

A clever little 3 seater

2011-01-10T12:13:00.001+10:30

We had a lovely day yesterday, travelling with friends to Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills to have lunch with other friends for a birthday. We had a beautiful smorgasbord lunch at The Old Mill and then wandered along the very busy tourist town before heading back for coffee at our friends at Woodside.
We visited Handorf only a couple of months back and was amazed at how this quaint pretty town is so alive with loads of people enjoying the many eateries and shops.

Under our pergola area there has been a corner that I've never been happy with but didn't know how to change it. Before Christmas I had an idea of taking out what was there and replacing it with a bench seat. We went on the search for a 3 seater that would fit into that spot and found one that was just right! Here are the pics.

Before...just had some plants in pots.

After...removed the pots, covered the dirt over with pebbles, placed a couple of my ficus plants behind the 3 seater.

The middle part of the 3 seater turns into a little table if just 2 people were sitting there. How clever!

A couple of shots of the other part of our outdoor area that gets well used during the warmer months.

And a few pictures of the swollen Murray River at Loxton that is nearly at road level.

Catching up and some renovations

2011-01-06T07:48:00.000+10:30

Wow, what a last few weeks...We had a lovely couple of days hosting my family over Christmas (25 all up). As they all travelled a couple of hours they made a mini holiday of it and stayed a couple of nights. Some stayed with us, others at the caravan park (wretched mossies by the river!!). I didn't actually take many photos over that time.

Before Christmas I made these easy little treats. They are made with Marshmallow biscuits. Just drizzle over some white chocolate, place a Jaffa on top to represent the cherry and cut up some green lolly snakes for the holly. I got the idea from someone's blog but can't remember who..sorry!

On one of the days with my family we had a picnic by the river. Once we protected ourselves from the mozzies it was very pleasant! Here are 3 of my sisters with the swollen River Murray in the background.

We decided this year not to do the Christmas present thing between all the families, but one of my sisters (naughty Wendy!! on the left in the above photo), made an identical bracelet for each of us sisters. It was a lovely idea and they are beautiful. My new favourite piece of jewellery!

One of my nephews was keen to make scones on one of the mornings. He did a great job...they didn't last long!!

A couple of days after everyone left, we received these lovely flowers as a 'thankyou' from the family. A very unexpected surprise.

On a different subject....our son's Music Shop which sells musical instruments and accessories has been in business in Loxton for 7 years and over that time has expanded a couple of times at the same premises to include extra shop space and music tuition rooms. However his original premises was overflowing so in early December we took over the lease of an old unused Petrol station and take away food complex which needed lots of cleaning, painting, renovating etc. BUT most of that is behind us now and Adrian opened at the new premises on Tuesday.

This is a before photo of the shop part. The tuition rooms will be located upstairs.

And how it looks now.

This is just part of the complex. His music and party hire equipment is setup to the left but we haven't started on renovations for that yet...so we still have more work to do. That has been part of the reason my blogs have also been a bit sparce over the past month!

A couple of inside shots.

And a photo of some petunias that have been putting on a lovely show by our front door. Pink of course!

An early Christmas present...and it's white!!

2010-12-23T07:26:00.001+10:30

How lucky am I? One of our sons is a furniture maker and I had mentioned a while ago that I wouldn't mind a new bookshelf for my ever growing collection of magazines! A couple of weeks back he asked if I'd like him to make it for me for Christmas. We worked out the measurements and he dropped it in the other night as he wanted to clear his shed!

And of course I had fun dressing it which included a few Christmas decorations.

I also got the ivory paint can out and sprayed a couple of things. First the Christmas trees and then a couple of brass looking candle holders.

And some closer shots of the bits and pieces in the bookshelf.

I think this will be my last post before Christmas, so hope your Christmas is a happy one.

Gingerbread Sleigh

2010-12-17T11:11:00.001+10:30

Just a quick post...we received this beautiful gingerbread sleigh which was made by a friend. Each piece was intricatally decorated.

I am hoping to finish work today (I'm my own boss so can make that decision!!). I am planning to get the spray paint and glitter out to decorate some things in preparation for hosting Christmas with my family. Looking forward to it!

Hope your Christmas lead up is going well.

Personalised Christmas Placemats

2010-12-11T06:47:00.001+10:30

Wow, what a week...as many of you would be aware many parts of Australia received an enormous amount of rain over the past week with many peoples homes and entire towns being flooded. We can't complain but we did have lots of water come pouring in our family room windows which saw us empty out the linen cupboard of sheets and towels and use all our tarpaulins to try and stop it soaking into the carpet. The carpet is still drying but we came out of it ok. Hence not much blogging going on this week!!!

In 2007 we had all of Paul's family up for Christmas. I wanted to give them some sort of keepsake of the day, so I made some personalised placemats with digital scrapbooking. I created them on the computer, printed and laminated them. Each placemat was the same but had a picture of them with their name. We had 17 people so there were 17 placemats!

A couple of elements I used for the placemat were a gold leaf and gold lace.

You can dowload the transparent png files to use in your own projects. Download lace here. Download the leaf here.

Another year I made some other placemats and coasters using Gold cardboard. I cut out the star shape in the middle and laminated it. I then used the star shape and pasted it onto a square piece of cream card, laminated it and used it as the coaster.

Here are a few shots of our family room on Tuesday night when the heavy rains invaded our space.

We had someone come in and soak up the water from the carpets which got very wet despite our attempts at keeping it off. A few days later and its not too bad but we have a commercial fan still going this morning, trying to dry the last of it up as it has still been soaking it up from the cement underneath.

Anyway as I said we were the lucky ones, not too much damage and we didn't loose power like many others around our area.

You always know Christmas is on it's way when the cherry's appear in the shops. We got given a large bag from a local grower...yum!

A few garage sale finds for Christmas

2010-12-06T07:59:00.000+10:30

As all my family are coming for Christmas this year I am starting to plan decorations and food etc. A few things I have been thinking of getting was some large glass jars to put candles in to dot around the outdoor area and a larger candle candelabra than the one I already have.

Well what do you know...on visiting a couple of garage sales on Saturday morning I found a box of large glass fowler jars and a candelabra!!! Also a couple of other things that might make an appearance at Christmas time!

The Jars...$5 the lot!

The candle holder for $2....I will give it the white paint treatment!

And a few other things for $3. I'll also give the basket a spray of white paint.

This old 'Church' vase...that's what I call them as that's what the ladies always used at Church for their beautiful flower decorations!

I might create a Christmas arrangement with gold painted branches and some sort of simple decorations...need to think about that more.

Here is a shot of my wheelbarrow by the back door. The petunias are starting to flower nicely. On the weekend I planted lobellia's amongst them, so by Christmas time it should be full of colour.

Christmas sidebar freebies

2010-12-03T08:03:00.001+10:30

I'm getting a bit excited with the approach of Christmas day and all the festivities that happen along the way.
We are having all my family coming for Christmas this year (20 at last count). As we live in a regional area they are all travelling between 2 and 3 hours to be with us this year. It's always good when we have a family Christmas up here as they all usually stay for a few days and make it a mini holiday.

A couple of years ago when I had a different blog I created some Christmas sidebar graphics so thought I may as well offer them again for you to use in whatever way you please.
Click on any of the below images, right click your mouse and save to your computer. You can give the image a link back to my blog but it is not essential. Enjoy!

My favourite shabby quilts

2010-11-28T09:53:00.001+10:30

As much as I love quiting and quilts it's never something that I really got into making myself besides a couple of real simple ones. I've tended to buy them along the way.
Here are a few of my favourites.

And my most favourite is about 6 years old and I use it most nights. It lives on my recliner and when I sit down and relax at the end of the day it just becomes automatic to put it over me...a bit like a security blanket. I always take it whenever we go away as well. It's so soft. I've always hand washed it in velvet soap whicih makes it smell nice too!

A few posts ago I featured my sister at her art class working on some tulips. Here is her finished piece. Not bad for something that was meant to be a test piece. Excuse the photo as it was taken off my phone, so not very good quality.

Quilt Hangers

2010-11-21T14:49:00.002+10:30

Our second son is a qualified furniture/cabinet maker with a local business. In his spare time he is kept busy making various items for people. He was approached by a local retail outlet to make some white compression quilt hangers, which he has done.

There are many wood stained hangers out there but those with shabby chic quilts might be interested in these Antique white ones he has made. They are a simple design which goes with today's minimilistic type style. Here are a couple of pics, one with the different sizes and one just to show how the quilt is held.

The compression quilt hanger is designed to hang your quilt, wall hanging or tapestry firmly across the width of the hanger. The material is held securely between 2 pieces of timber that are compressed together by tightening the knobs. Your quilt will not come into contact with the screw thread of the knob, ensuring that your quilt is not damaged. The back piece gets screwed to the wall with screws and fittings that are supplied with the hanger. The screws will not be seen.

The quilt hangers come in three sizes, 900mm, 1200mm and 1500mm and there are 3 x 60mm screws, 3 x 50mm wall plugs for brick walls and 3 wall mates for gyprock walls also included.

If you are interested just email me and I'll provide more details. They are available to Australian residents only.

Easy cushion cover

In the November edition of Notebook magazine there was instructions to make a cushion cover with a shirt-front. It's super easy. I wanted to use the shirt-front as the back for my cushion as I had a nice piece of fabric that I wanted to turn into a cushion for our guest room.
Simply find a shirt that complements the colour of the front of your cushion.

Cut the shirt-front to size.

Place right sides together and sew all the way around. This is the great part, because all you do is undo the buttons to turn it the right way out and place the cushion insert inside. Whalla a new cushion cover!

I have seen one on a blog with a pretty white ruffled shirt which was used for the front of the cushion but I couldn't find it to show you.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend.

This and that

2010-11-19T07:39:00.000+10:30

At a recent wedding the bride and her mother made, iced, decorated and wrapped some lovely shaped biscuits and wafer thin butterfly's for each guest at the wedding. Contained in the wrapping at the back of the biscuit was a lovely thank you message from the bride and groom.

And now for something completely different....Our friends have converted a child's cubby house into a very cute home for their chooks.

Through the glass door

2010-11-16T08:13:00.001+10:30

On the top shelf of our hutch I have a mixture of pink and green cups, saucers, plates etc that I've collected at various places over the years.

Here are a few shots of what is in one corner. The cups, bowl and plate came from an old church that was closing down. I love the subtle curves and shape of them.

A sweet little dish!

2010-11-12T07:47:00.000+10:30

The other week I bought this cream dish at a garage sale.

I popped it away in a cupboard to bring out and use when the time required it. However last night when I was taking off my jewellery and putting it on my bedside table, strewn along with other pieces I wear regulary, I thought of that dish and how it would make a nice holder for that jewellery!

Just right! And here is a close up of the little love heart shaped jewellery holder that I fell in love with many years back.

Box pleat cushion cover

2010-11-08T20:51:00.001+10:30

A couple of weekends ago you might remember I bought a cute little cream chair.
After seeing some cushions made with box pleats at the blog of Much to do with Nothing I was inspired to want to make one for my chair.

It was a big ask for me as I'm a very amateur sewer but loved the look so much that was prepared to give it a bash! It wasn't without headaches as I will explain later!

I happened to have quite a few metres of a white cotton fabric which was great as I needed a couple of metres in length for the pleats. As I wanted an off white colour, I coffee dyed the fabric and it turned out just the right colour.

Then I cut out the seat shape and the width for the pleats. I doubled the fabric over for the pleats and ironed it down. I was now ready to pin the pleats on.

All was going smoothly...had a few issues with the corners but not too bad. Once pinned on, I sewed it in place. That's where the headache started!! Can you pick from the above picture where I had gone wrong? Yes I had pinned and sewn the folded edge of the fabric to the cushion....aaaahhhh!!!! I was really frustrated with myself and was in a quandry as to whether to start all over again as I had plenty of fabric, or sit for ½ hr and unpick the tiny stitches....I made a coffee, put something good on the TV and unpicked!!!

I won't make that mistake again.

Anyway sometime later I finished it. As you can see I didn't get the corners quite right, but I'm happy enough with it.

Before the cushion!

I fell in love with this outdoor seat when i was in the hardware store on Sunday. Hubby liked it too so it came home with us and has made it's home under our large Claret Ash tree. I just need to remember when our boys dogs come over to take the cushions off!!

I'm quite happy with the show the pink butterflies are putting on around the birdbath at the moment.

Hope you're having a great start to the week.

Art Class

2010-11-06T08:11:00.001+10:30

I went down to Adelaide Thursday afternoon as I had to be at the Adelaide Airport at 6am Friday morning to pick one of our sons and his girlfriend up, who were arriving back from a week's holiday in Bali. The had a great time...couldn't spend all of their holiday money as everything was sooo cheap!!

I stayed with one of my sisters who has been attending art classes in recent times. I went along with her on Thursday night as an observer and had so much fun. There are only 7 in the class, and they get on really well together. Their tutor who is very talented and has a great sense of humour, casually roams around to them, giving gentle instruction and assistance with whatever project and medium they are working on. Bronny is doing pastels.
Here is a pic of her at work.

She's currently doing an abstract style and is working on Tulips

This was by the end of the night

This is her first pastel that she had framed - a lilly pad. We picked it up from the framers just before class so she could show everyone. It's not a good photo as I've got the light reflecting badly but you can get the idea, it looks very lifelike.

Bronny was so excited about having her first picture framed she brought along Champers and nibbles, so I played waitress!!! I'm not usually a champagne person but I really liked this one, it was called Jansz Premium Curve...yum!

Chocolate Crackles with a twist!

You've all probably made Chocolate Crackles, they are so easy, kids love them and they are great for fetes and parties.

This is usually how they look, placed in patty pans.

My mum always did hers a bit different and so I've always done them that way too and that is by adding Pascall Marshmallows to the mix and placing the mixture into a slice container, so they are then cut into square pieces.

For those that don't have this recipe here it is.

4 cups Rice Bubbles

1 cup icing sugar

1 cup coconut

5 tbspns cocoa powder

250gm copha

1 pkt Pascalls Marshmallows (I use the pink and white ones...of course!!!)

In a large bowl combine rice bubbles, icing sugar, coconut, cocoa and marshmallows (you can cut them up if you wish, but I use them whole) .

Melt copha in a small saucepan over medium heat. When completely melted, pour over the dry ingredients.

Mix well, ensuring all ingredients are covered with copha.

Spread into a large slice container and set in the fridge. When set cut into pieces.

These are my father-in-laws favourites, so I always make a batch and take down to them when we visit.

Mmmm....a whole weekend ahead of me...what am I going to do....haven't decided yet!!
Hope yours is a fun and productive one.

Vintage Classics

2010-11-03T07:56:00.000+10:30

One of my friends was given some old Women's Weekly's. It was really interesting looking through them and having a few laughs at the fashion. However the old saying 'everything old is new again' was evident in some cases, where decor from back then is re-appearing in homes of today.

Contained in one of the above magazines was this white croteched pant suit. Can you see yourself wearing that?

I have received a few emails over time with some humorous adverts from a time gone by. I can imagine there would be huge uproar if some of these adverts appeared today.

How times have changed!

Handmade Ring

2010-11-02T07:58:00.000+10:30

Just a quick post to show you what I received in the post yesterday.
A few weeks back when I was down at Victor Harbor we visited a beautiful silver jewellery shop at Port Elliot called Seabreeze Silver. It showcases handcrafted jewellery by South Australian based artists. They had some lovely designs and I tried on quite a few rings. I'm a bit of a sucker for a nice silver piece! I tried on a 'rope ladder' ring which the lady at the shop had made. It didn't fit me but she offered to make one in my size, so I ordered it.

It arrived in this cute little box yesterday.

and here is the ring...not a real good photo!

You can visit their website at Seabreeze Silver, not that there is much on the site, but the shop is full of really different classy jewellery.