Grateful......

 I woke up on Sunday at 6am to go for an early morning bike ride with my cycling buddy neighbour and was greeted with this stunning sunrise as I stumbled into the lounge. It certainly made getting up early on Sunday worth it. It was a bit of a chilly start but once we warmed up it was a beautiful calm morning for a bike ride too with the bonus of very little traffic at that early hour. 

Yesterday I was reminded of how very grateful I am of the people that have been put into my life in the last couple of years. When you go through something challenging in life you learn quickly who in your life are true friends that 'get' what you are going through and know exactly what to say at the right time. They are the ones that stick around and are not just there for the big dramas. One such person is Lily who lives far far away from me in Dubai. We have actually never met but have connected through our blogs originally and now keep in contact as regularly as life lets us. Lily is a very talented creative person and I wish she lived closer. Every now and then, usually when I am least expecting it a 'surprise' parcel will arrive from her containing beautiful things, often made by her for me and my daughters.  She made all of the above earrings and .....

 picked out this selection of Washi tape on her recent trip to Tokyo. She also made me an ' infinity scarf ' of which I forgot to photograph before the light faded tonight. It is of course beautifully sewn and made with some bright colourful fabrics thoughtfully chosen for me. Thank you Lily for your thoughtful, generous spirit and your faithful friendship.

 Yesterday I spent most of my day in my little sewing attic sewing these new journal cover sets for my Etsy shop whilst listening to podcasts and music. My girls are now back at school and it was nice to be able to completely focus on what I love to do and that is to create beautiful things.

These covers fit A5 and A6 journals and with the elastic band that keeps everything together plus with a penholder on the front of each one they are all ready and waiting for inspiration to strike. The small one is the perfect size to fit in a handbag and the larger A5 one also happens to be the perfect size to double up as a mini Ipad cover/keeper as one of my other good friends found out recently.

I sell them as a set of two over here in my shop. 

Strange but true...

About a month ago I noticed this rose growing up from behind our TV. I was in mid-conversation with my neighbour and happened to glance over in the direction of our TV and took a double take when I noticed it peeking out from behind the TV. This rose is planted next to some stairs that go up to our deck and this particular branch somehow has found a small hole in the floor of our lounge that has been made for cables to go through. 

I find it a little creepy but quite cool at the same time. My daughters just find it creepy but I refused to chop it off until after it had flowered. It's days are now numbered :-)

This week I am....

 Getting my head around the fact that I now have 2 teenagers......

 Not doing any sewing but keeping busy with a makeover of a fairly large piece of furniture and making it up as I go.......

 ....whilst listening and filling my head with some favourite music on full volume, much to my eldest's annoyance :-)

Also feeling pretty happy with some business cards from Moo.com.  Loving their products.

Celebrating with cupcakes....

A few weeks ago I won a giveaway on Renee's blog Nays Place. Renee is a kiwi living in Australia and often blogs about her sweet little girl who seems to provide endless entertain. Anyway Renee had been given some natural food colourings to try and then generously put them up as a giveaway. In the above photo you can see them on the right in that very small little box and that is all I was expecting to receive but as you can see Renee  sent me a parcel of goodies to share with my family, yummy mini Easter eggs and a box of cupcake mix so we had the perfect excuse to try out the food colourings.

I was going to keep them for the following weekend to make up with the girls but with the Royal wedding on last Friday we decided they would be the perfect royal treat to have while watching Kate and Wills tie the knot. The above photo was taken at night so is a bit on the yellow side but we iced them in 3 different colours of lime green, apricot and pink. The mix included the icing mix and the cute little polka dot cupcake cases.

The girls had fun decorating them with what I had on hand and in the above photo is one that Caitlin decorated with 2 cute tiny hearts which I thought was very appropriate for the occasion. Oh and if you haven't had enough of looking at the Royal wedding they have their own Flickr page here!

Thanks Renee for the extra goodies!!

Shhhhhhhhhh our baby is sleeping.....

 Last night Caitlin's cat walked inside with little feet hanging out of her mouth. She often catches insects and little birds and always wants to bring them inside to show us. Nice! Usually I don't let her in but last nights catch was so small I didn't notice until it was too late. When she let it go ( so she could play with it) it ran very quickly away which was unusual because they usually fly away. My husband manged to catch it again and we put it safely in a cardboard box away from the eyes of cats. It was so small and different to anything we had seen we couldn't figure out what sort of bird it was. After a little search online we found that it matched to a photo of  baby quail. It's probably about 2 weeks old and about 2 inches long.

Isn't it cute and adorable! It's little chirping has been breaking my heart all day. We have no hope of finding its parents so we will be its surrogate family for a while I think. We have special recovery food from the vets and we are keeping it well away from our 2 cats...

It has been sleeping in Caitlin's hand all afternoon since she came home from school.

For the last few nights I have been working away hand quilting the border of this quilt. I'm hoping to have it finished by the end of the weekend. Don't hold me to that promise though will you... I do have a baby to care for...



Gone camping....

Just to let you all know that we're off camping for a few days so will be taking a short blogging break as well. We're nearly all packed and ready to take off midday tomorrow after Amelia has completed her run as part of a team in a triathlon  in the morning.

The grocery shopping is done although as soon as I got home I thought of a few things I should've got and why is it when I misplace some item, buy a new one I promptly find the original one. This is the reason why I have 4 pairs of scissors, 5 tape measures and now I hopefully have 2 American plug adaptors. Both mine and Caitlin's camera's were purchased in the States so have American plugs on the battery chargers and therefore need an adaptor for our NZ sockets. I remember putting this adaptor in a safe and what I thought was an obvious place but now can't remember where that place was. This is surely a sign of me getting older or I just have too much to think about at the moment and am in need of a holiday, I'm going with the latter excuse.

After the rain............

Our garden's been getting a good drenching of rain in the last few days............

..........everything is looking fresh and clean.

Our weather has been unseasonably warm for autumn and I still have summer flowers blooming. I love the tiny blue centres of these white hydrangeas and on the same plant we have...............

....this bloom which has a hint of autumn pink ...

and this bloom that is full on autumn colours.

We have more rain to come according to the weather man which is great for the garden growth and also good for my sewing production. I have been working on a few smallish projects that I can hopefully show you soon. Not a lot of sewing time this week as I had a day out on a school trip to Auckland to see the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. Not usually my music of choice but I've got to say I was thoroughly captivated.

It's the holidays....

 

Yes the girls are off school for 2 weeks so to keep them entertained I will try and find some sort of craft activity each day. Today we made these bookmarks based on the latest Alice in Wonderland movie just released. We downloaded them from Disney's website where they have various crafts and even recipes based around the film. Amelia and I are keen to make the 'Alice shadowbox' next which  little bit more involved than the bookmarks. For the bookmarks we just printed them on normal printer paper and glued them on to cardstock then added different coloured ribbon to the tops of each one. Bookmarks always come in handy in our house!

If you have any great craft ideas so share I would love to hear from you.

Blogger Awards!

I've just been given this award from Deborah and also from Marguerite (a few weeks ago now). Thanks so much ladies. Nice to know my blog is appreciated!

The rules of accepting this award are:

1. 
   
   Thank the person who gave you this award.  Thank you again!
2. 
   
   Share 7 things about yourself.
3. 
   
   Pass the award on to 5 bloggers who you have recently discovered and you think are fantastic!
4. 
   
   Contact the bloggers you've picked and let them know about the award.

I have also been given this award from Cheryl of Felt so good. Thank you so much for the 'Circle of friends award' ! The rules of acceptance are similar to the above award and as they came so close together I shall combine them.

Okay here are 10 things about me that you may not know...

1. 
   
   I love to travel if only funds would permit it more...I travelled a lot when I was younger and single and loved going to places where the people and their culture were completely different.
2. 
   
   I enjoy getting out in our garden and often find myself out there for 3 hours instead of 1/2 an hour because one job has led onto another .
3. 
   
   I need to exercise! It's great thinking time for me and I often solve problems or dream up ideas while on a run or out on my bike.I enjoy seeing how far I can push my self physically which is why I like long distance running and cycling.
4. 
   
   I like to scrapbook photos from our travels or just everyday photos of our girls. I enjoy the creative process of it but also like the idea that I'm creating a photo story of our lives.
5. 
   
   I am the youngest in my family and have 2 older brothers.
6. 
   
   I love a good book and enjoy seeing our daughters engrossed in their books.
7.  I  love to sew and just be creative in my little sewing attic!!
8. I love to bake and cook and enjoy trying out new recipes. I have quite a collection of recipe books too!
9. My favourite colour is ...... it's hard to choose because I like colour in general but going by the colours in my lounge its blue and green. ( Think colbalt blue, turquoise and pastel lime green)
10. I made my first quilt when I was 15 from fabrics that you sent away for. No specialty quilting stores back then!

Now to nominate 5 blogs - I'm nominating 7.

1. 
   
   Peek a boo - Sandy 
2. Life Scraps - Diane
3. Ariane's Crafts - Ariane
4. Sew many stitch's later - Lara
5. All things crafty - Georgie
6. Works in progress - Deb
7. Sewing tales - Karen

Hope you enjoyed getting to know about me a little more.