Friday favourites - Mooza Designs

While I have favourite things for the house on the brain... I will add Mooza designs to the collection! I would like one of these on our ground floor toilet door for the new place :-) Unfortunately they can't make it to the next handmade market but we hope to see them again... Actually no reason they can't go on my current toilet door now!! Divine

Quiet on the creative front....

Well, there is always good reason isn't there?! I have been mega tired and not in the zone because I am 3.5 months pregnant and trying to keep up with a 2yr old! I am starting to get my energy back thank goodness but have been very slow on the creative front and very un-motivated I have to say. But with less than 4 weeks to go till the next Handmade market I do need to get my butt into gear. Yay for no morning sickness and having a very helpful husband!

Anya's 2nd birthday

Finally, I have been able to post some photos of Anya's 2nd birthday party! We had a red and white spotty theme! It was very easy to find something red and white and I made her little top, which I will have to post a better up-close photo of. We were supposed to have it in the backyard but the weather was very cold the day before and knowing we couldn't all fit in the house if it rained or was just miserable, we decided to use our back up venue! We have a great sized hall at the back of our church where we have playgroup and it has a lovely outdoors area too - so we did make it outside for some bubble blowing fun when the sun came out! All in all it was a lovely little morning and apart from being a little overwhelmed at times, she loved having a party, getting presents and blowing out the candles on her cool cake (if I do say so myself).

Handmade market - Christmas Handmade

We have some lovely new stallholders this next market which is fast approaching!!! Gypsy Tutu is one of them (my link doesn't seem to be working but it's www.gypsytutu.com.au :-) How cute are these... I tell you this next market will not disappoint! There is even a free bus especially for the market from the city to the Yarralumla Wool shed - you can't say Market Girl doesn't care about your parking woes.

Monday Meanderings - Tara Dennis

Macro Mondays are taking a break for a while!!! Over the weekend we had some visitors from Sydney stay which was lovely. We love hosting laid back guests :-) It always means we eat really well over the weekend too!!! Weekends are generally lazy for me & cooking. On the Sunday we went out to Crace display village and saw Tara Dennis give a talk on decorating, the basics of "where to start". She put together a story board for making over a room, based on a colour palette found in a fashion magazine. Since fashion is always ahead of home furnishings in colour trends it is a good way to 'future proof' your home... (in Tara's words). The photo of the paper lantern is one of the free craft projects found on Tara's website. There are a few Christmas themed crafts - it's not too early to start people :-) Hope you had a nice weekend.

Friday favourites - Amy Butler Rugs

I have rug envy! I would like to have one of these Amy Butler handcrafted rugs in our new lounge room. I do have a lovely shag rug that we spend more time on than our leather lounge.... but a girl can dream for a pretty new one!

Birthday Trike

How cool is this new 'old school' retro trike we gave Anya for her birthday!! She loves it. The pedals are a little hard to manage at the moment but she will grow into it :-) She still has a go or takes teddy or dolly for a ride instead :-)

FREE - Craft Projects

While I am on the Bloesem kids bandwagon, I may as well point you in the direction of their free projects section! So many cool crafts/projects to do with your kids, suitable for a mix of ages! Great for school holidays or at home with your under 5's!

MACRO Monday - Tomatoes

This was taken a while back when I was getting ready to make tomato soup. I used Roma tomatoes on this occasion instead of vine ripened and the skins were far too bitsy in the soup. Vine ripened tomatoes seem to blend really well. Next time if using cheaper tomatoes I would just peel the skin off after roasting before blending... although that probably takes away a good deal of nutrients? Anyhoo - care factor?... I do like taking food photos!

Don't you love sticky beaking into other people's homes?!

Irene Hoofs from BloesemKids has an amazing blog but one of the features I love is her open house tours from around the globe! I love to see how other creative ladies decorate their homes. What a fantastic source of inspiration and that is just the home tours. The above images are from different home tours.

{photos - courtesy of Bloesem Kids}

Friday favourites - my new terrace home

Oh I am soo late with my Friday favourite post!! The most exciting thing to happen to me this week was the display village finally opened in the new suburb Crace that we bought in! I was finally able to go and see in person what our place is going to look like! Sooooo excited. I am picking hubby up from work today then scooting off to show him as he was away on business and has only heard my ranting and raving :-) There has been a real lull in creativity around my place and I am missing it... so hopefully next week I will be getting back into the swing of it. Have a great weekend.

Build a Buzz

There are so many great resources here on the web but this is one of my favourites. Build-a-Buzz is a fantastic daily email from Marina Echavarria, owner of Realm Media Productions and creator of Build-a-Buzz. Subscribe to her emails or RSS feed, either way you get lots of great PR & marketing advice to help put your business forward. Oh and the celebrity addresses to send your product too are always fun!

I would like this on my wall...

Maybe this colour, maybe in another lovely shade... this is by Bernadette from Sugarloop - a talented NZ artist. Mmm pretty

MACRO Monday - Lilac

It has been a very big and busy week/end for me. I hope to slow down a bit more this week. We celebrated my daughters 2nd birthday on Thurs and I can't believe I took NO photos!! Very unlike me. But I did try and make up for it on Saturday when we had her little Spotty Red & White birthday party. She found it a bit overwhelming at times I think - the bubble blowing outside was a highlight. I'll post some photos when my Dad sends his! These lilacs are outside Anya's bedroom window and they remind me of my childhood - typically grown in cold climates. Beautiful aren't they.

Friday favourites - Family!

Some of my family are coming down to help celebrate Anya's 2nd birthday on Saturday! This is all my siblings with partners and my parents. It was actually miss A's birthday on Thurs but I have had a really BUSY week I haven't been near my blog... you may have noticed! Can you believe I didn't even take 1 photo :-( I will make up for it on Sat. She did have a lovely day though.

Necklace Craft

Celeste is wearing the latest in children's craft - pasta and cupcake liners on silver thread! Available in a household near you. What a quick, fun craft - Anya and I made this last week. We didn't do much crafting last week - we were very busy with outings :-)

Etsy Treasury - Dark Night featuring Grace Designs

Here is a dark and moody treasury from Lavenders. I love those earrings down the bottom... unfortunately my 'print screen' always looses the last line of a treasury! It's always nice to be included, especially when the creator lets you know.

MACRO Monday -

My dandelion photos are some of my favourite macros I have taken, although my little collection is running out - I might have to find some on Flickr or take some more :-) How was your weekend? We are enjoying a long weekend although the weather is stink :-( I love hanging out in the backyard with my little family - playing out in the fresh air - but alas we are stuck inside. At least Gordon doesn't have to go to work, still gets paid and I am off to have coffee with two lovely friends. And looking at the bigger picture, because I like things in perspective - at least we aren't suffering the wake of a cyclone, tsunami and earthquakes... it's been a rough week for the world.

Sewn

I totally forgot to mention that Sarah from SEWN came and took some photos at the Handmade market and has featured a couple of mine on their site. If you go to the gallery section, then Handmade market in Bloom you will see some lovely goodies that were on offer. I am picture 14 and Gret was picture 13. Sewn has some great features including interviews, find a fabric search tool, sewing and quilting glossary (great for beginners), free patterns, tutorials - what isn't to love?!

Friday favourites - Charlipop Kids

Charlipopkids are having a sale and I got two little pieces of OUCH clothing for Anya for summer. She has so many hand-me-downs from generous friends with lovely taste but sometimes I love to buy her the occasional outfit that is very 'me'.... for her of course! Charlipopkids stocks lots of lovely brands, reasonable prices, delivery was super quick and Kat was lovely to deal with - what are you waiting for??? Jump online!

Photo courtesy of Amanda Keeys Photography.

My Treasury

If I could ever get my 'draft' treasury onto Etsy this is what it would look like! I gave up after half a dozen goes! It is always full. I even used the Craftopolis Treasury Clock but that didn't help either!! It was going to have some snappy name with blue in the title - ha ha. Half these items are probably sold by now.

* Nb: I forgot to mention the first picture is one of Gret's purses - from A Little Red Ribbon