This week

Lately, there has been a lot of eating and drinking, laughing and talking and late, late nights. 
Not this week though.
This week the littlest love picked a basket of her home grown tomatoes.

This week I have been thinking of my one little word and have been taking time to nourish myself with breakfast. Sometimes, I begin my day with nothing more than a quick coffee and a breath of fresh air. Not this week though. I've been taking the time to make myself something good.

This week we had a break from screens. There were cubbies built, board games played and books read.

Multi tasking

This week has been slow moving..just the way I like it. I have been taking time to sit outside and sip my hot coffee instead of sculling a luke warm one. I've been reading books and snipping flowers.

This week has been full of ideas and scribbling down notes.

This week I pulled out my poor, neglected weaving.

This week the kiddos had fun trying out some new art supplies.
Paint your own tshirt anyone?

This week I went wandering and photo taking on my own...just for fun.

It's a dotty kind of day!

Miss 3 tried her hand at making some wrapping this week.

We used some sheets of pattern paper. I use this a lot when I am gift wrapping. I love a simple brown paper package and the pattern gives it just a little more interest I think.

This wrapping however needed a pop of colour as well because it's for a small person.
Lulu used these paints. They are $3.95 each at Riot Art and Craft.

I love them! They are ready to use, practically mess free and super easy to clean up. They are great for toddler hands too. And you can sing the dotty song while you are painting. You know the one...put a dot over here and a dot over there...

Lulu wanted to keep on dotting so we made a little artwork for her room as well.

Have a great weekend!

Smelling the roses

If truth be told my house is a mess at the moment. I have stuff crammed in every nook and cranny. I could show you some photos but maybe you have your own mess (tell me you do) or maybe you don't. You might be one of those super organised people. I am not.

So what to do when feeling overwhelmed by the cleaning, washing, folding, cooking...and that's before I get to the nook and crannies.
You pick flowers. Yep you pick flowers with your littlest love and make a happy space.

Little Miss had a lovely time arranging her flowers and I had a lovely time watching. After she had them carefully arranged in 3 then 4 then 5 jars- I set them up on the dining table on an old piece of wood I had previously salvaged from the wood heap at the inlaws place. It's actually a lovely minty green with a lot of character.

Sometimes arranging some flowers and snapping a few photos is just enough to fill my creative cup!
Now I am off to tackle the mess but every once and a while I'll look over at my happy place and stop to smell the roses.

What is making you happy today?
Do you have roses at your place?
Is your place a mess like mine?

Progress

Progress has been made on Bella's quilt. It is back from the longarm quilters and I am beyond thrilled. I LOVE the pattern. It has prettied up my simple strip quilt beautifully.

The past few nights have been spent handstitching the binding. Three sides down and only one to go!
While the quilt is made of thrifted vintage florals, I decided to use a new fabric for the binding. Just one from my stash...a kona solid in a bright teal. I think it does the job nicely.

I am also throwing in some kids making! I promised Bella Boo I would show n tell her cool new shoes. I picked up some white sandshoes from Big W for about four dollars something. She had so much fun decorating them using some coloured Sharpies. It was such a good value project. Cheap, cheerful and kept her busy for ages;) And best of all...she really loves them. I think she did a great job!

Linking up with Our Creative Spaces.

The lovely package swap

So now that my swap buddy has received her package, a little bit of show and tell.

When signing up we were asked to give a little brief of things we like and words to describe our style.
When putting together Rin's package, I was thinking all things 'whimsical, bright, colourful, imaginative, creative'. Rin's loves included 'airmail stickers, vintage atlases, books, Harry Potter and anything and everything papery'.

I had so much fun with this. I scouted Rin's blog and pinterest boards to give me a better insight into the things she loves. She is a big Harry Potter fan and even celebrated her 21st birthday in HP theme! My Bella is a HUGE Harry Potter fan also, having read every book and watched every movie a gazillion times over. Our family visited the HP exhibition in Sydney earlier this year. Bella and I had heaps of fun looking up Harry Potter stuff online and Bella chose this print from etsy to include in Rin's package.

 

When reading Rin's blog, Bella noticed her cute fingernails so nail polish was added to the list!

Some bright neon was selected and a little bit of papercrafting was thrown in as well as a colourful pencil case. Lulu created the wrapping for this one using the age old technique of potato printing (albeit a carrot in this instance) and I stitched a little paper garland to wrap around.

 

Some more handmade love...

And finally a little bit of whimsy.

As much I LOVE, love, love receiving happy mail, the real joy in this swap for me was in the putting together of Rin's package and the fun that Bella and I shared in working on it together. Guess who else has a new Harry Potter print in their room?!

Kids making

Today the littlest love and I went for a walk to collect some of the last Autumn leaves. Despite the gorgeous sunny days we are having, the winter chill has hit and the trees are almost bare.

We had a lovely time crunching in the brown, dried up leaves. We chatted about the shapes, sizes, colours and patterns. Lulu made some pretty leaf rubbings using oil pastels and then added some vibrant Autumn colour using some water paint (food dye with a few drops of water).

Next up was an easy peasy collage. I cut a big piece of clear contact and peeled off the backing.  Miss 3 arranged the leaves ever so carefully on the sticky side. I love this kind of collage...it's quick, it's easy for little hands, no glue means no mess and it makes a pretty piece of window art.

And finally, some snaps that were taken during a little Autumn getaway in our caravan recently.

Are you ready for Winter?
Has the cold weather arrived at your place yet or are you still enjoying the Autumn warmth?

Wrapped with love

The last gifts have been wrapped.
This year I have not handmade any gifts.
In fact, we have pulled right back with the gifting.

We are having a kris kringle with our extended family so I have bought 2 gifts instead of the usual 15. Our little ones will receive a gift as did all our nieces and nephews over the years. But now they are all adults and so we thought we'd give a kris kringle a go. It has taken A LOT of pressure off shopping wise.
 The Mister bought for our 18 year old nephew-a gift voucher...boring I reckon but he'll be happy.

And I bought a little something for the girlfriend of one of our other nephews. Beautiful Carlie...I had a lot of fun wrapping this one in a simple little kraft box, punched out some music paper and embellished with some feathers and a chipboard letter from my scrapbooking days.
 
 

I find the first part of December very busy with all the parties and end of year functions. While I love every minute of it, it can feel exhausting and my being sick a couple of weeks back didn't help.
This week has been so beautifully relaxing and fun! All the Christmas prep has been geared around the kids. So, I've had some happy time with the children and they've been busy and happy too.

We made wrapping paper using the much loved technique of potato printing-almost as good as foot printing.

Bella created some beautiful finger knitting, just the perfect trim on Grammys gift.

Lulu decorated Nanny's gift with glitter glue and I topped it with some paper flowers that I made from an old sewing pattern.

As well as our snowman cookies and peppermint bark, we also made some rocky road.

The kids and I worked together to make the Crackers for our Christmas lunch. I bought the supplies from Spotlight in the after Christmas sales last year. They wrote their own jokes and popped some Hersheys Kisses inside each cracker. We photocopied some vintage music paper for the wrapping and tied them off with some twine. It was a big team effort, Ollie thinking of most of the jokes (of course), Bella writing them as Ollie was tired after writing the first one, Lulu popping the treats inside and me doing the tying and wrapping with help of little fingers to hold the string tight while I tied the knot.

Just a lovely week together and I am so grateful for these moments.

I do hope your week has been festive and fun too and may your Christmas be filled with much LOVE and JOY, PEACE and HOPE!

Peppermint Bark

Easy peasy Peppermint Bark was on the menu for today.
Crushing the candy canes with a hammer brought much joy to all three.

Peppermint Bark
packet of white chocolate melts
candy canes
peppermint essence (optional)

Melt choc buttons in microwave
Add 1/2 tsp peppermint essence-if you want to
Crush candy canes-we used 8, using a hammer. Pop them in a zip lock bag to crush... clingwrap worked too!
Stir candy cane into chocolate mix, save a little bit for sprinkling on top
Spread over a piece of baking paper and sprinkle with remaining candy cane

Pop in the fridge and break into pieces once set.
Easy peasy!

Oh did I mention how much I love school holidays?!
I've been staying in my jami's until lunchtime most days.
The little two have pretty much spent all week running around in their undies.
Bella asked for a tonne of plaits to make frizzy hair.
We have been eating dinner outside every night.
There has been A LOT of swimming.

I dropped some bags of stuff to the oppy yesterday. I spotted a cheery tablecloth on my way out.
With not a cent in my purse, I raced out to the car to scrape together $2.00
I love it's bright colours and floral print.

Hope your week is lovely too.

School Holidays

Oh I breathe a big sigh of relief when the school holidays arrive. Mornings are often a bit chaotic at our place with Boo-who is NOT a morning person-usually protesting about being woken up and having to do her treatments. We are almost ALWAYS late for school So the holidays provide a welcome relief from the morning regime. Of course we still have the treatment regime but without the pressure of the clock ticking.

So this morning while Boo slept in, the little ones and I started some Christmas baking. They had been awake since 6am so by 8am we were looking for something to do.

As much I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE one of these ...the children love using the electric beater.

working together

So the cookies were baked using this lovely Sugar Cookie recipe and were set aside for decorating, while O and Lulu enjoyed their breakfast. Is 8am too early for beater licking??? I don't think so.

 beater licking...yum!

The plan was to create the melting snowman cookies as seen here...but Bella, chief decorator had other ideas. She has a lot of ideas, our Bella...about life, and friends, and pepole and cookies. She is sure of what she wants to do and very happy to do it even if no one else is. I love that about her. She is not afraid to be herself. I hope that never changes.

Much fun was had making, decorating and of course eating these beauties. If you look closely, you might even see a melted snowman.

Cheap and cheerful Christmas wrap

The first of my online Christmas shopping packages has arrived. Oh how I love the parcel man!
We salvaged this large piece of brown paper which was used as packing and made some cheap and cheerful Christmas wrap!


Lulu had the best time jumping and running about, making beautiful green footprints.

 Even the clean up was FUN!

And so the very first present has been wrapped with much love...