Merry Christmas

I know it's been a VERY long time since my last post and I will resume blogging regularly in 2013.  You see I have had a very eventful year.  I am now 30 weeks pregnant and could not be happier!

But unfortunately I have had a very rough pregnancy. I was so ill for the first 5 months, I honestly never thought it would end. I have no idea why they call it 'Morning Sickness' as it lasts all day and night (I totally sympathise with poor old Kate)  I wont go into the details but I totally lost all ability to function normally.  I had to cancel commissions and didn't pick up a pencil or paintbrush for months and months and the thought of blogging seemed impossible. But I am happy to say that I am back to normal now (apart from the usual back-ache and heartburn that comes with pregnancy) and am happy to report that I have been reunited with my poor neglected paintbrushes. I have lots of projects on the horizon which I look forward to sharing with you next year.

I couldn't write my last post of 2012 without sharing something 'crafty' so here are some Christmas decorations that I made last week for my nephew's kindy teachers

I used felt, fabric and some beads

I love working with felt. Its so nice to use and so forgiving

All that's missing is a big jug of hot steamy custard...YUMMY!

Merry Christmas everyone! Looking forward to seeing you all in the new year

xxx

Little Monsters

I made these two little Monsters for two very special little people

This is little Monster Maeve...

 and this is little Monster Leo...

and here are the real, adorable twins,  Leo and Maeve....seriously, how gorgeous are they?

Maeve with her little Monster! I'm so glad they like them...

x

Cup Cosies

I'm not one to brag.....

but I'm about to.

I'm not sure what happened to me yesterday, but I had some sort of creative surge.  As you may remember I am fairly new to the world of crochet, so new in fact that I can only do the basic chain stitch (although I am currently in the process of learning the 'Granny Square')

A while back I saw some knitted little mug warmers which I instantly fell in love with. I really wanted to have a go at making one but didn't have a clue where to start.  But yesterday whilst I was watching Ellen, Inspiration struck, right out of the blue. So before I had time to talk myself out of it, I grabbed a mug, my crochet hook, some wool and got started right away.

Now this is where the bragging comes into it. I had no pattern to follow or no example to look at, nope I just went with it and hoped that it would work......and surprisingly,

It did!

and the great thing is that they don't take long to make. I knocked these two up last night in a few hours! are you impressed?

OK, bragging over now, I'm off to attempt to make a tea cosy to go with my toastie little cup cosies...

x

When Life Gives You Lemons....

My beautiful Lemon tree this morning...

Gin & Tonic anyone?

Have a good weekend!
x

I had forgotten about these

 

The good thing about moving, is that that you come across things you had forgotten about.

I found these little name placement's that I made when we did a 'come dine with me' night in London...

I also did a little witch and a little mermaid, which our other guests took away with them.

Needless to say I won,  although I suspect the high points were for my creative table and not so much my creative cooking!
x

Pet of The Week:

'Peggy-Sue'

Age/Breed?

Smooth Hair Lurcher, Fawn Colour. 4 years old

Owners:

Mark & Mags Lombard - Cork, Ireland

Where did you get her from?

We got her from 'Paulines Rescue Centre', in Newtownshandrum, Cork. She was only 7 weeks old when we brought her home.

Favourite food?

Peggy-Sue has a bit of a funny tummy so is on a special diet, therefore she LOVES any normal human food that she isn't supposed to eat!

Favourite place to snooze?

In front of the fire or out in the garden laying in the sunshine

Funniest Habbit?

Peggy loves to howl along each evening at 8pm with the alarm that goes off in the local refinery. She also does a lot of crazy sleep paddling whilst dreaming

Thanks Mags, I love Peggy-Sue...what a cutie x

Crafty Club: Mask Decorating

Last weeks Crafty Club was held at Jen's house as my house is still covered with unpacked boxes.  For the next few meetings of Crafty Club we are all taking it in turns to choose a project. This week Jen chose mask decorating.

(Vicki & Maria begin painting their masks)

I don't think any of us really planned on how we were going to decorate our masks so we all just kind of got on with it and hoped for the best.

(Jen's cat Merlin wanted to be involved and did so by walking and rolling all over Vicki's materials for the night :0)

We did stop a little way in to discuss how we thought our masks were taking shape....Maria took this opportunity to hang jelly snakes from her mouth whilst contemplating her next step.

And here are our finished masks...

This is my mask, which I personally think is a little bit creepy...it currently lives on a shelf at the back of our garage where I can't see it!

Marias' mask... yep also a bit creepy if you ask me although it looks a lot less creepy now that it's decorated believe it or not.

Jen's cute little cat mask...the less creepy of the four :0)

and Vicki's mask, which she didn't completely finish as the plan was for her to cover more of the mask with the coloured diamonds but she lost her mojo understandably after the pizza arrived!

Next week is Vicki's turn to choose a project...I'm looking forward to it already!

x

New House and a Finished Blanket!

I know I have been quiet on the blogging front lately but oh my goodness, it's been a crazy few weeks.  Firstly we moved into our new home this weekend (yay!)  I'm so excited. It's just a little 2 bedroom house but its all ours and I love it! Obviously there is LOADS I want to do to it and I can't wait to get started but I know I will have to be a little bit patient in making it the perfect home (boo)

Tom and I have moved so much over the past 6 years so you think we would be used to it but we both still hate it.  The boxes seemed never ending and 'where is all this stuff going to go?' was something we were both muttering under our breath with every car load that we packed up.

Luckily the little house comes with a big garage so we threw everything in there and will organise it all over the next few weeks :0)

So, apart from the big move taking up all of my time I did manage to finish the blanket I was making...I am very pleased with it considering it was my first crochet project.

I wasn't really sure how to finish up the blanket, so added a grey border all the way around...

Are you impressed? :0)

 Other news is I am currently sporting a nice black eye.  Last week it was pouring with rain and I was running over to my car and I managed to throw the door open into my face!!  Yep, people really do just 'walk into doors'!  It's healing now but I was looking a lot like Rocky for the first few days afterwards...only me.

So, I will have updates on the new house soon, and I am sure that 'before & after' shots will feature regularly on here from now on....

Until next time...
x

Aliens or Monsters?

I can't decide?

Beautiful Taranaki Falls

Just spent an amazing weekend at Tongariro, National Park with our friends Vicki & Mike.  We originally booked this trip for the beginning of April but had to re-schedule and at the time was worried that the weather would be not so good around this time of year. We could not of been more wrong.  The sun was shining all weekend with bright blue skies. It's Autumn here in NZ, my favourite time of year and a perfect time to go walking.

There are lots of beautiful walks around National Park but we decided to set off to find Taranaki Falls. I'm so happy that we did, it was simply breath-taking.

I always feel so much better after being out in the fresh air amongst nature and this weekend certainly gave me the lift that I needed.

Now I'm looking forward to a nice hot bath and an early night...walking  can be so tiring :0)

Night night
x

Thinking about Christmas! Why??

I'm not quite sure why, but lately I have been inspired to design some Christmas cards! (I know, I am as surprised as you are...it's only April for goodness sakes!) Even though it is slightly bizarre, I have decided to just go with the urge to draw  fluffy snowmen and Santa's and the like as last year when I should have been designing Christmas cards, I just couldn't. I had no desire to do so what-so-ever.

So, above is the beginnings of one of my designs for next Christmas which I started to paint this morning, whilst humming  'Jingle bells' (maybe I have lost the plot?)  I know it isn't looking very christmassy yet, but it will do once I have finished.

I have also been having lots of fun with my sewing machine lately. I have made the cutest little gifts for some very special twins who will be turning 2 soon.  I can't show you what I have made yet but will do once they have received them, so I've left you with a little glimpse for now....

Happy Friday everyone..I'm off to stuff the turkey!?!
xxx

PS, 'Pet of the week' will be back next Friday..I have a long list of beautiful pets waiting to be featured and I am sorry I have not posted a 'pet of the week' recently. I have no excuse other than I lost my blogging mojo for a while, but it seems to be back now... lets hope it stays for a bit.

He's Arrived!

Charlie's cowboy arrived safe and sound in Blighty (apart from a little jet-lag and consuming far too many free peanuts on the flight!!)

I really enjoyed working on this commission and was a little sad to see it go. I have done a couple of 'Wild West' themed pictures now but I never get fed up with them.

I really hope Charlie likes his picture and enjoys it for many years to come.
x
PS: Isn't it funny how sometimes you just get a sixth sense about something.  I just went a bought a picture frame for my latest commission and for some reason just as I was about to open the back I thought, 'there is going to be something wrong with this frame'. I'm not sure why that thought crossed my mind as the frame looks no different to any other frame I buy, but I was right. The back would not come off ... it was totally jammed. Took me a good half an hour of cursing and fiddling before it finally budged and then another 20 minutes after that trying to get in back on. I really should of just gone and bought a new one eh...

A Sneak Peak: Howdie Cowboy!

Here is a little taster of my latest commission.  I have really enjoyed working on this one and can't wait to show you the full picture once its been received by my customer...

Until then...
x

A Very Lucky Girl

At this weeks 'Crafty Club' Maria showed us how to make little gift bags.  They were really easy to make and look so lovely. Filled with chocolates, they would make such a nice little gift.

We also had  a quick lesson from Jen on how to crochet 'granny squares'. I am fairly new to the world of crochet and Vicki and Maria have never crochet before so poor Jen really did have her work cut out for her, oh and on top of all of that Maria is left-handed so it was twice as hard for her as she had to try and reverse whatever Jen was doing!  We have all decided that we need to practise ...LOTS!!!

Crafty Club was a bit of a special one last week as it was my birthday last Wednesday and the girls surprised me by throwing a tea party just for me.

It was such a lovely surprise.We had, scones with jam and cream, little party sandwiches, yummy pastries, and lots of cake...

I feel so lucky and very spoilt. I got so many lovely presents for my birthday, it really was such a nice day.

I hope you are all enjoying the weekend and are having a nice relaxing Sunday...I'm off to practise my granny squares....I'll post a picture of my progress soon!

x