Pretty push pins

I whipped up these pretty push pins the other night. They are so fun to make and you only need the tiniest scraps of fabrics. As you can see I had fun fussy cutting pretty little flowers. It probably took about 20 minutes to make 10 push pins or drawing pins as we call them here. All you need are flat push pins/ drawing pins/thumb tacks, clear resin pebbles and some good glue.

Your can find the tutorial here or over in my side bar under 'My favourite tutorials'. They really are easy and in the same tutorial it shows you how to make these fridge magnets.

And as you can see I had fun photographing them as well!

Crochet progress...........

My crochet blanket squares are slowly growing and I'm really enjoying putting the colours together. These squares are 30cm square and I only need 4 of them. Just doing a little each night.

I love this photo of all the colours stacked on top of each other. These squares are certainly not perfect but I'm getting better with each square I do. For those of you out there who love crochet or just some colourful eye candy I found this blog the other night.

Winter harvest..........

Today I spent most of the morning on my new to me laptop working on my Etsy shop and designing new business cards but after lunch I decided it was too nice a day to spend inside. We've had lovely sunny clear days this weekend which makes me want to get outside. The garden has been a little neglected of late although probably only through my eyes. So this afternoon I cleaned up our veggie gardens and got quite a good harvest of carrots and rather large red onions. Isn't pulling carrots so satisfying especially when they end up a decent size. Now I'm pretty sure my husband is going  to come home from a visit to the supermarket with some more carrots which were on his list. Hmmm...... I think I might be making carrot soup.

And there's nothing like fresh flowers to make a home more welcome. I love the smell of these 'early cheer' flowers. They remind me of holidays on my Granddad's farm. I used to build houses and gardens under some tree's in a paddock that was full of winter and spring bulbs. I even used to transplant some of the bulbs over to my little garden.

And I thought I'd end this post with one of the beautiful Camellia's flowering at the moment. Hope every one's had enjoyable and productive weekend like I did.

A Winter road trip...........

 

I thought I'd share some photos from our little road trip we did last week. We drove to Taupo the first day which is about 3 1/2 to 4 hours drive from Whangamata. We had glorious weather all week, just perfect for driving in the winter. In Taupo we very lucky to be offered the chance to stay for free in the newly built wing of the Hilton hotel so of course we jumped at the chance. To our surprise when we booked in we had the run of TWO apartments so the girls had an apartment all to themselves with a TV 'each'. As you can see from the above photo we had a beautiful view from our apartment  over Lake Taupo and out to the snow covered mountains beyond.

Huka falls is a must see attraction near Taupo. These falls  are on the Waikato River which is fed directly from Lake Taupo. The water is very clear and appears blue from reflecting blue light with the air bubbles intensifying the blue colour.  

The footbridge spanning the river which is at its narrowest width of approx 15 metres from a usual 100 metres. When standing on this bridge you can feel it moving slightly from the water moving rapidly below.

After spending 2 nights in Taupo we drove on to Wellington to catch up with friends that we don't see often enough. Just south of Taupo is the desert road which is intermittently closed at this time of the year when there is heavy snow fall. Thankfully not on the days we drove on it. We stopped about halfway to take in the beautiful sight of  Mount Ngaruahoe, New Zealand's most active volcano.

And Mount Ruapehu in its snowy splendour. Mount Ruapehu is the largest volcano in the Tongariro National Park and is host to New Zealand's largest skifields 'Turoa' and 'Whakapapa'.

And I'm afraid I took no photos in Wellington as the girls and I were too busy shopping, going to movies ( Eclipse) and having fun in one of Wellington's best attractions 'Te Papa'. We did have lunch with the lovely Lara from 'Sew many stitches later' though. So nice to meet up fellow bloggers!

I'll back to post soon about what I've been creating lately.

Linking up with Katie's Road trip post here!

Spoilt!

I felt very spoilt yesterday when I received this beautiful crochet case  in the mail from a blogging friend Michelle. She said she wanted to send me a thank you card but I got a bit more than a thank you card! A crochet case is exactly what I needed! As you can see she has put a lot of work into creating this work of art with embroidered felt pieces and meandering lines of wool. So bright and colourful and so me! I was lead to Michelle's blog 'MadebyMichelle' by her sister Ariane who's blog 'Ariane's Crafts' I have been following since I started blogging. They are both very creative in their own different ways so please go on over and check their blogs out,I'm sure you won't be disappointed.  

This is the inside of the case complete with 4 coloured crochet hooks and an envelope containing "Button plastic". Now I know most people will be now thinking "What the heck is 'button plastic'!?" If you go on over to Michelle's blog she has a great tutorial on making your own covered buttons without using one of those kits you have to buy! To be able to make my own covered buttons without buying a kit is going to come in very handy for me living in a small town 2 hours away from a decent craft shop. With this tutorial you can make any size button you want and save a little money. These buttons just require a little recycled plastic and we all like to be able to recycle don't we Michelle :) 

Works in progress...

These squares are my first attempts at crochet. Last Saturday night I decided to teach myself and with a couple of phone calls to Mum and a couple of hours later I was finally able to decipher the crochet pattern which seemed like a foreign language to me at first. By Sunday night I was so addicted to it I wasn't even looking up to watch TV. Because I had to work full time hours this last week it was a great small project that I could take to work and do in my breaks. I find it really easy to just pick up and do a few stitches when I have just a few minutes. My youngest daughter wants it to be her blanket already so I might have to teach her to crochet as well. I'm using pure wool so its going to be a lovely warm soft blanket.

This is a little peak of some sewing I managed to get done after work last week. I have two more to complete and then I will show you the complete project.

Wishing everyone a great week!

A "modern" Victorian sewing box.

I first made a Victorian sewing box a few years ago, before kids and when I was living in Auckland. My LQS was "Patchworks of Ponsonby" which is no longer there now, used to hold lots of various sewing classes and one I took was to make this box. You can see my orignal box here. I do remember it taking a while to finish but obviously my memory has faded because this time it took a couple of weeks. Even my husband commented on how long it was taking me! To be fair on myself, when I did it in the class we were given kits to work with so this time I had to start from scratch and make the kit myself, work out all the correct measurements and how it all went together. Now that it's all finished  I'm pretty happy with the result. I'm sure next time I make one it will be much quicker.

I used 3 different fabrics, the exterior fabric is an Anna Griffin fabric as is the paler green butterfly print used in the interior. I love the striped fabric (I like stripes in general actually!) which is one I bought in the States a couple of years ago and I'm not sure who makes it. The pockets and gussets are machine sewn but the rest is all sewn together by hand with quilting thread and a little glue to hold it in place while I sewed.

What's great about this box is that it opens right out so you can see and find everything inside. It has 3 pockets, and the other sides have extra padding for holding pins and one with some felt for holding needles.

One last photo to show you the beading detail I did on the lid.

I am going to be putting this in my etsy shop which will hopefully be up and running very soon. Just waiting on my way to busy husband to find some time to help me out a little :)

Just for kicks ball!

Whipped up this baby ball today for a work colleague who is leaving today to have her first baby. Now I've got to be honest and say that it actually took me most of the day! Started  at 10am and finished at 4pm with no breaks not even for lunch although that includes going through my stash and choosing just the right combination of fabrics to hand sewing the final seam. As you can see I chose mostly brightly coloured fabrics with 3 black and white prints.

The pattern is from Anna Maria Horner's book "Seams to me" and was pretty easy really, just a couple of corners needed re-doing. It's made up of  30 hexagons and 12 pentagons and is about the size of a real soccer ball although maybe a bit soft for a world cup game! 

And because it' Friday I'm linking up with Amylouwho for Sew'n'tell friday this week. Just click on the link to check out everyone else's finishes for this week!