chalk board pictures

Everynight when Elton and Audrey go to bed, I draw a picture on the chalk board for when they wake up in the morning.

I draw a page out of the books we read.

This drawing was from Spot Stays Overnight by Eric Hill.

rva class

Just a catch up on some of the things I have made for the RVA Rachel and Elsie class.

There is only 1 and a bit weeks to go and I will be sad when it's over. I have really enjoyed it and have met some lovely ladies.

plushie sewing machine

plushie polaroid camera with strap

springtime cherry mobile

chair pads for our craft room stools

getting ready for winter

The view from our window this morning.

Winter is in the air.

markets

We had a great weekend.

We had a shop day on Saturday. We went to Knox, had a look around. I got a new pair of shoes and we had some lunch then did our grocery shopping.

Yesterday we took the train to the Camberwell Sunday Markets run by Rotary. It was fantastic. The train and the markets. It was such a beautiful day and the train is so easy to use. We are lucky we live so close to it.

The things people were selling at the markets ranged from old tea cups to material, big old barn keys to wooden frames. There was even a man selling pith helmets. You could have browsed for hours.

We came home with some books, material and an old pears print to hang in the bathroom.

We then caught the train home and met some friends at the Caribbean Garden Markets. Ben works with James and I got to meet him yesterday with his wife and their two little girls and they came with friends who were from England and they had a little boy. They were all lovely and it was so nice to meet 4 new friends and the kids all played together so well.

The markets are huge and they are set in acres of beautiful gardens. There is a huge pond, a jungle boat, a train, helicopter rides, tanks, fire engine, jumping castles, animal farm, bungee trampolines, bbq areas, go carts, an avery, oodles of playgrounds and then the markets.

It was a lovely day.

top 5 movies

Amelie - my favourite movie. It's special.

Dead Poets Society - a fantastic, moving movie. My aim is to raise my children to stand on the desk.

Roman Holiday - I saw this movie when I was 16 and I cried for hours after it ended. I love it still today and I always wanted to be Audrey Hepburn riding on a vespa in Italy...until I saw how they drive and the amount of traffic on the roads!

Lost in Translation - before I met Ben, I travelled to either side of the world on my own. I got this movie. It is how isolated you feel when you are in another country, but also how liberating it is. Plus, it's got Bill Murray in. He's brilliant.

Napoleon Dynamite - Ben and I are Napoleon and Deb. This is a great movie.

brother + sister = angus and julia stone

My all time favourite band are Angus and Julia Stone. A brother and sister duo from Sydney.

They are fantastic and I have both of their albums which I play over and over on my ipod. I never get sick of their music....and look at them! They have some good genes.

embroidery

I have been teaching myself embroidery and I really love it.

It's relaxing and even though it's not perfect by any means, I love the look of my finished product.

I did this little terminator owl last night and he is now sitting on my embroidery wall. I leave the embroidery in the hoops because at $2 a hoop they are way cheaper than a frame.

aprons

I love aprons and needed a place to store them all.

Elsie had a wonderful idea on her blog when she recently organised her walk in robe. Elsie had all her sunglasses hanging from coat hangers that she then had dangling from the wall.

I hung my wooden hanger in the kitchen and pegged my aprons to it. I can now grab them before burning the food, or maybe I will just look at them because they are pretty.

RVA goodies

Today I received in the mail the goodies I ordered from Red Velvet Art.

Sandy a lovely lady who's blog I read, held a competition and I won it. Sandy sent me a beautiful necklace that she made and also a gift voucher to spend at RVA. What a generous present and a lovely gift.

I spent my voucher on the cute underwear postcards. I am going to stick magnets on the back and they will go on my fridge.

I also purchased the lovely little polaroid brooch that will go on my new winter coat and some Jackie O inspired sunglasses.

Elton and Audrey loved to try them on and I was suprised to see how alike they looked to Elton John. :) The bottom pic is me in the bathroom.

What a great way to start a Monday.

Thank you so much Sandy and thank you RVA!

aprons

These are my two spring aprons I made for the Rachel and Elsie pretty class.

I love the ruffles apron. It turned out ok for my first attempt.

Poor Ben....I make him try things on then take photos.

He must really love me.

blood, sweat and no tears

This weekend we did an overhaul of 4 areas of our house - the old study, the "good" room, the tv room and the entry.

We decided that we didn't need a good room. As my dear friend Andie says - you are building happy and healthy relationships with your children, not showcasing a display home.

We didn't need a good room. We walked past it, never went in it and this is not a huge house. We live in a cottage and we need all the room we can get.

We moved our bookcases into the entry. We have a wide entry and the bookcases fitted in perfectly. There is enough room to squeeze in one more in the future.

This is our new computer/craft room which was formally the "good" room.

I have started embroidering thanks to Rachel and Elsie's class and I love it. This wall is big enough to hang all my finished bits and bobs.

My beautiful smelling berry candle from Ikea.

My desk sits under the window and is 2 metres long. I love my new view and probably won't get anything done now.

The plastic clipboards are Rachel's fantastic idea. Such a good one.

We then turned our former computer/craft room into Elton and Audrey's new playroom.

We rounded up all the toys which stop us from tripping over them in the tv room, and their bedrooms and it all has a home in the playroom.

I made this little curtain which lets in more light because in the day I tie it up. We used to have a wooden blind and it was dark and didn't let much light in.

We painted the walls yellow to add more light and painted one wall in chalk board paint.

We already had the shelves which houses all the softies I make and the paintings I do for the kids.

Elton and Audrey love this tent and I pushed an old cot mattress inside it and added a quilt and pillows. They love to play in it and they read books inside it.

The bookshelf is built in and we gathered up all of the books from both bedrooms and combined them so that they can share.

The top shelf are the Sweet Dreams books I am collecting for Audrey.

I found these cute wall stickers at Spotlight. When you don't want them up anymore you wipe them with a damp cloth and they (apparently) come right off.

A wall of string and bright red Ikea pegs for all the drawings to show Dad.

Elton and Audrey will be able to use this room until they move out of home. It will grow with them. The chalkboard will be handy when we are trying to nut out homework from school, they can furnish it with beanbags and old console games when they are older and have friends over, they can play music in there and not bother dear old Mum and Dad.

I love nesting and I will do it forever. I love making our house a home and will do anything for the kids to see those smiles I love so much.

doily tank top project

Rachel and Elsie doily tank top project for the pretty class.

The project was to take a cheap, plain tank top (I used a bonds singlet) and embellish with a doily.

I dyed my two small doilies in tea, used one large on on the front, and then cut the circle from a second doily and used the leftovers to make the frill on the shoulder.

I then had an old brooch that fitted inside the circle of the doily perfectly.

I didn't stitch the smaller one to the top so I can use it as a brooch on my other coats.

moving things around.....

We took Elton to have his hearing tested and the clinic had a fantastic playroom, which got us thinking....utilising our space at home better, so that we can have a playroom for Elton and Audrey.

We have a lovely little lounge room that we never use, so we decided to move our study/craft things into this room and use the larger space for our hobbies.

We are then going to turn our little, skinny study we are using now, into a playroom for Elton and Auds.

It's a lovely little room and it's bright and has a built in bookcase. We are going to paint one wall bright yellow and the other wall is going to be decked out in chalkboard paint. I saw the picture above and I loved it.

We already have long wall shelves lining both sides of the room, and I will leave all the toys and paintings I make on these shelves. The bookcase will be full of their books and board games and now they can share their things.

The good thing about the room is the older they get you can convert it to suit the age. It will make a great homework/tv room for when they are older.

We figured that it is best to use every available space in our house, rather than leave rooms for show which doesn't serve any purpose at all......plus - a larger room for my craft!! I think this means a trip to IKEA!

tinkerbell

She is very quiet.
She loves Elton and Audrey.
She likes her new pink rope and her pink tennis ball.
She doesn't like the tin dog food the lady gave us to take home.
She likes chicken and Ben's irish stew.
She likes to be brushed and didn't mind when I trimmed the hair around her eyes.
She didn't cry in the night.
She likes to sit on the top of the couch.
She sat on our round side table and I didn't see her because she is so small and looked like an ornament.
She is very cute.

400th post!

400 posts since I started this blog and want a coincidence it falls on the day we picked up our new puppy!

Her name is Tinkerbell and she is so small and fluffy and very cute.

Elton and Audrey loved her immediately and have been so good with her. Elton spent the day trying to feed her biscuits and Audrey kept giving her kisses.

We love having her here and it feels like a full house again having a dog around.

who is craig?

These signs have been posted around Melbourne CBD and inner suburbs.

They are so funny and now everyone is wondering "who is Craig?"