Thought for the day...

via pinterest


Too many days of mediocre...time to be amazing!

It's the first day of Spring here tomorrow, which is always a good time for making changes...Spring cleaning...taking time to enjoy the sunshine!

Bring it on :)

TTFN xxx

Sumo wrestling and lawn bowling :)

You know you've had a busy weekend when all you want to do on Monday is sit about on the lounge and recover :) We seem to have had a run on birthday parties lately, and our weekend was filled with lots of fun celebrations!

Saturday night saw the family facing off in a sumo wrestling match...

...how funny are these sumo suits? Watching my husband jump around doing somersaults had us all in fits of laughter, and I think Riley may have been the overall winner, judging by this photo, anyway :) Thanks Jo, for such a wonderful idea to celebrate your 40th! We had a ball!

Sunday saw us up bright and early to drop Lydia to an ice-skating birthday party, and then we all ventured onto the next one...

...a leisurely afternoon of lawn bowling to celebrate Andy's 40th :) It was a perfect afternoon for it...

...the kids had a wonderful time, catching up with friends, sipping on "fire-engines" and eating icy poles, while the adults BBQ-ed and drank champagne...such a hard life!

I wonder if all that exercise made up for the slices of birthday cake we ate? Hmmmm...probably not.

Have a great Monday

TTFN xxx

Farmers Wife Friday -The Spring Edition

Today definitely has the feel of Spring about it...the sun is shining, the birds are singing, my husband is out mowing the lawn, and my nose has an itch that just won't go away! Yep, Spring is definitely in the air.

A couple more Farmers Wife blocks to show you today. First up is number 15 Buzzards Roost...

...a rather strange name for a block, but it came up rather fresh and pretty, don't you think?

Number 16 is called Calico Puzzle, and I'd ask that you not look too closely at where the points meet on this one :)

I unpicked, and then unpicked some more, and got to the point where it sorta wasn't fun anymore...so I stopped and called it good. The stripes were a bit of a risky choice, but I think they look ok? Ah well, the blocks can't all be my favourites, can they!

Have an awesome weekend...ours is filled with sport and birthday parties, so I might not be around too much. I'll be out enjoying the early Spring sunshine (with my antihistamines close at hand).

TTFN xxx

Fourteen

The day that he has been waiting for has finally arrived, complete with the gift that he has been wishing and hoping and praying for...

I couldn't be more proud of my boy...although I'm sure he didn't feel quite the same way when I was stalking him with my camera at the bus stop this morning in my dressing gown and slippers LOL. Soooo worth it for this shot, though!

Happy birthday my precious boy xxx

TTFN xxx

One chubby little polkadot house :)

I'm playing catch-up with Sweetwater Label Crew projects at the moment...they seem to pile up pretty quickly just lately (which is probably because the months are flying by so very fast!)

I remember my friend Tracey squealing with delight when this pattern was released...which is sort of funny when you consider that is exactly how I felt when trying to follow the pattern...

...except mine was more like a scream of anguish! For something so cute and chubby, the pattern was difficult to work out...ridiculously difficult, actually :)

Perhaps I just wasn't in the zone? Anyhoo, we will forgive this little house for causing so much grief...but only because it has such cute red polkadots :)

How cute does it look in it's new home on my desk?

Speaking of new homes, my Tis the Season quilt is trying very hard to make it into the "finished quilt basket"...

...I got busy and pinned, ordered some more fabric online for the binding (I always seem to forget to order enough to bind!) and started the quilting, only to run out of thread! Off to the quilt shop for some more...before my motivation deserts me LOL


TTFN xxx

Mum's Kitchen

Just a quick catchup on my A Family Gathering quilt progress today...

This block is called Mum's Kitchen, and on the official "3 Of Us Stitching Schedule" is meant to be stitched in September LOL. However, the block for this month needs some alterations...Linda, Tracey and I all agree that it doesn't really match with the overall feel of the quilt, but I still haven't decided what I'm going to put there instead. Sounds like one for the too-hard basket for now!

Thanks so much for visiting, and have a fantastic Sunday afternoon :)

TTFN xxx

Farmers Wife Friday- The Late Edition

Some days are just destined to be late days. You're late getting out of bed....late getting to where you need to be....late picking up kids....late late late.

You can stress about it...OR you can shrug your shoulders, plant that smile on your face, make your apologies, and just accept that today is going to be a late day :) like I'm doing today.

Sort of fitting, then, on this very late day that I'm having, that my Farmers Wife blocks for this week are also a bit late :) I spent my day yesterday having a very relaxing day making cards at A Cardmakers Tea Party at Tomorrows Memories with Tracey. If you'd like a peek at what we made, pop over to her blog :)

So, getting back to Farmers Wife, we have Block 14 Butterfly at the Crossroads...

....I'm finding that the blocks with one Rose Parade fabric and solid white are my favourites :)

And Block 13 Buckwheat...

... how appropriate that this one was number 13, as it almost did my head in! Just couldn't seem to get the pattern sorted in my mind? I'm really glad I'm not making an entire quilt based on this block, that's for sure :)

Hope you're having a great weekend so far. I'm very relieved to be home, and not expected to be anywhere for the rest of the day...no more lateness for me!

TTFN xxx

Wishful thinking :)

See this quilt label? Notice the completion date? Now that's what you call wishful thinking :)

The blocks on my Tis the Season quilt are all done...YAY! I've stitched the quilt label, which is sort of unheard of for me...to be so organised, and ahead of schedule, even!

The borders are on...

...and I'm all set to pin and quilt. Now...to find the motivation to do that :)

Wooohoooooo...I can feel a finish coming on!

TTFN xxx

Just because...

There's an old saying that goes something like when you're on a good thing, stick with it. I have to ask myself sometimes when this little polkadot obsession of mine is going to end, but as the saying goes, I'll just stick with it for now :) After all, it has made me pull out my scrapping stuff again, so it's all good, right? LOL

A funny thing I've noticed...when I'm not scrapbooking, I don't take the time to think about the little things that make up my life, the little things that make me happy....things like fresh roses on my kitchen table. Each week I buy some just for me, just because they make me happy. My favourites are white, followed closely by yellow.

This week I bought red, just because they were so stunning. My cheeky husband was away at the time, and asked me if I had attacked them with white correction fluid, to make them polkadotty LOL...he knows me so well :)

I've mixed up the patterned paper a bit here...some Echo Park, October Afternoon and a little Prima. I inked the doily with my Sepia inkpad, before attaching the alphas and adding some Kindyglitz sparkle to match the Prima chipboard.

It's so windy and rainy here in Perth today...I'm off to snuggle under a blanket and do a bit of stitching :)

TTFN xxx

Bumps in the Road

Had I known that all it would take was some polkadot paper to get my paper mojo flowing, I would have bought some ages ago :) Of course, it didn't hurt that I have a big stack of beautiful photos all calling out to be scrapped (thank you Sharon )and a favourite colour palette from The Color Room to play along with, either :)

So...here it is...a scrapbook page!

I wrote the journaling a couple of months back, so it was easy to bring a few simple elements together and get it down on a page. If you click on the photo, you should be able to read the words ;)

Simple, with the focus on the words and the photos. Yep...that's the way I do it!

And can I just say...it felt good to be doing it again LOL

I've used bits and pieces mainly from Echo Park...Dots and Stripes, and Little Boy Collections, with some ribbon, brads and Basic Grey alphas as well.

Thanks for looking, and Happy Saturday!

TTFN xxx

Farmers Wife Friday- The Tangled Edition

I have one of my little chickies off school today...poor little girl woke up crying and complaining of headaches, so we thought it best that she spend the day resting on the lounge. It wasn't long before she requested a movie...

(photo source)
...have you seen Tangled? It is her absolute favourite right now, watched over and over again. I have to admit, I've watched it more than once myself :) We love the story, the animation is wonderful, and there are a couple of very clever one-liners that make me laugh every single time :) A fantastic family movie.

While she was watching, I snuck out my Farmers Wife fabrics and made a couple of little blocks...I don't think she even noticed!

The theme this week seemed to be "broken". First up is Broken Dishes...

...otherwise known as Block 11, and Broken Sugar Bowl, which is Block number 12.

My pile is growing bigger...

...AND I have less than 100 blocks to go :) LOL

Have a wonderful weekend!

TTFN xxx

A new career?

(image source)via pinterest

Does this mean that I should be a professional chocolate taster? Hmmmm....I could do that!LOL

TTFN xxx

Seeing spots!

It's been a long time since I felt the urge to scrapbook.

If you had told me this time last year that I would go for months and months without creating a page, I would have shaken my head in disbelief.

Just lately, though, I have felt some stories spinning around in my head that I would love to document, and on the weekend I even pulled out some papers...just to get the feel of it again (slowly slowly LOL).

Something was missing, though...

...my paper stash has a disturbing absence of polkadots! And these days, I can't seem to make anything without polkadots! You can imagine my joy when an online search revealed whole collections of them...WOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

And now that my postie has made his delivery, I really have no excuses left...do I?

TTFN xxx

Farmers Wife Friday-The Sunday Edition ;)

So they're a little bit addictive, these 6 inch squares of fabric :) I'd heard that around blogland, and knew if I wasn't careful I'd get sucked in too....I'm fairly easily sucked in as a general rule LOL

After an extended morning of running around doing the usual Saturday stuff...trampoline training, haircuts, fruit market shopping, netball, birthday parties...I felt like I needed a little "me time". And playing around with little pieces of fabric is a great way to spend the time, don't you think?

This is what I ended up with...

...possibly my favourite block so far? It's called Box, and I love love love that yellow floral fabric :)

Number 10 is called Bowtie, for obvious reasons...

...any block that has that red polkadot fabric always makes me smile.

There you go...addiction confirmed :)

TTFN xxx

He caught me...

...as he does every year :)

I've been celebrating my husbands birthday with him for 19 years now, but somehow the "older woman" jokes just never get stale...according to him, anyway :)So it's always a good thing when August rolls around, and he catches up to me in age.

Such a momentous event as turning 40 deserved a hand-made card...

...if only due to guilt, because both of my girls made him a card, and were wondering why I hadn't done the same. Someone should really explain to these kids about missing mojo LOL

So Happy 40th Birthday to you, my honey...can't wait to celebrate with you when you fly home to me!

TTFN xxx

Farmers Wife Friday-The Happy Days Edition

Did you ever watch Happy Days as a kid? It was one of my favourite shows...each weekday afternoon at 5:00pm I'd snuggle into a lounge chair, ready for my dose of 1950's idealised family life...so far removed from my actual life :)

photo source
I always pictured myself as Joanie...the little sister who was never grown up enough to do anything that Richie and his friends got up to...and if you ask my own sister, I was probably just as annoying LOL

So...why all the Happy Days memories, you may ask? Well, when I hit "play" on my CD player this morning in preparation for my morning Farmers Wife stitching, the CD started skipping...then the second disc started skipping, and then the third. In desperation, I hit the play button on the cassette deck, and what should start playing? The Everly Brothers. Nothing says "Happy Days" like the Everly Brothers...do you remember them? Bye Bye Love. Love Is Strange. Walk Right Back. Crying In The Rain. Classics, every single one of them :)

So it was with this soundtrack that I constructed my Farmers Wife blocks this week...

Birds In The Air...hmmm...lots of itty bitty pieces in this one. Just as well I was chilled out and happily immersed in my thoughts of Potsie, Ralph Malph and the Fonz!

Bouquet...totally the wrong colours in this photo, and all the tweaking in Photoshop just wouldn't make it better :) Try to imagine the stripes in bright pink, and the aqua as a nice fresh shade...as opposed to the muted colours you see on your screen :)

Now, what I really want to know now is...what song screams Happy Days
to you? Or better yet...what's your favourite Everly Brothers song?
Humour me :)

TTFN xxx

Hot off the ironing board!

Thought I'd better get busy this afternoon and finish off last months A Family Gathering blocks...these are hot off the ironing board!

But first, a progress shot....

...this little quilt of mine is certainly growing in size, and I have to admit, growing on me a little bit more too :)

This block is called Pool Party, and what's not to love about a pool party? Especially when you have red polkadot bikinis :)

This one's called Fishing...quite a sensible name for such a block, don't you think?

Loving the metallic silver fishing reel, and his oh-so-cute reindeer t-shirt.

Now I'd better get myself in the correct month, and start stitching before it disappears on me again!

TTFN xxx