Friday, March 30, 2012

Rows of Pretty Flowers

There is nothing better than a perfect Autumn day filled with quiet cups of tea and stitching...with a sneaky Easter egg on the side every now and then!

Rather than flit between projects, I decided to focus on crossing something off the to-do list today...and Some Kind of Wonderful was top of that list.


The words on the pattern said "gardening all day". Gardening is something that I never ever do...that's my husbands' passion! Rows of pretty flowers are the end result of his labours, and bring me lots of joy, so I went with that!

Patchwork blocks were added to the "Home" stitchery...
...and border sashings were also completed.

March blocks completed...and only just in time!

Thanks for visiting, and have a great weekend,
TTFN xx

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Project Life 2012 - Week Eleven

Another week of Project Life down...but if you look closely, you'll see that I am actually a week ahead of myself ;)

I collected some packaging from new bedlinen to decorate one of the larger cards...
...I cut the "bed" straight from the cardboard (it's so cute, huh?) and also added the brand label. Pip Studio is one of my favourites...what's not to love about red, pink and aqua? They make everything from linen to handbags to tableware...divine!

All my photos were printed at home this week, because I simply ran out of time to edit, crop AND print!


Little moments are so much easier to capture with my iphone...it's usually not far from my side, and the photo quality is awesome. Instagram is my new best friend :)

My favourite part of Project Life this week (which I didn't notice until I had finished the spread)?


The fact that I have my old sofa in a couple of photos taken early in the week, and my new red sofa which replaced it in the bottom photo. Love that.

I also noticed, while typing up the title for this blog post, that I have called this week "Week 12" on my date card, when it's actually only Week 11...oops! I'll have to change that...Week 12 is still under construction :)

Have a great day, and thanks for visiting!

TTFN xxx

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Home.

Home... from a lovely holiday, exploring parts of Western Australia that have been on my to-visit list for a very long time :)

Home...to piles of washing, piles of mess, and piles and piles of great holiday photos :)

Home...a completed block from my Some Kind of Wonderful quilt, which represents a very small part of my mostly incomplete to-do list for the month of March!

Home...and back into the real world!

TTFN xxx

Saturday, March 17, 2012

The Great Fish Rescue and the New Red Sofa

Last night, after weeks of neglect, I did a big cleanup in my craft room. It took a long time...and lots of chocolate :)

As I was making piles of paper, and piles of photos, and piles of other stuff, it occurred to me that the situation I have going on here can't continue. You see, even though scrapbooking is not a regular thing in my house any more (not like it used to be, anyway), I continue to buy scrapbooking stuff....and unless I start using some of it, I am going to have to STOP. Stop buying pretty paper. Stop buying yummy embellishments. Stop buying stamps. Stop buying ribbon. Heaven forbid!

With that ominous thought in my mind, I grabbed some photos and made a layout!


The Great Fish Rescue was a story that had to be told. There's an insert going in to my Project Life album about it, but I also wanted a seperate page.


My kids have started calling me The Crazy Fish Lady, because I do SO love my fish!


In other news, we have spent most of the day (in between haircuts and birthday parties and phone calls and such) moving things around in our house. We took delivery of some new pieces of furniture, and the girls could not wait to test this little beauty out...


I was a bit sad to say goodbye to our old sofa...we have had it since before we were married (and that was 17 years last week!) ...but oh my, how I love our new red sofa! Squuuueeeeeaaaalllll! I can see many hours of stitching ahead of me, sitting in that very sofa. Love :)

TTFN xxx

Friday, March 16, 2012

Project Life 2012 - Week Ten

If you're thinking to yourself right now that Project Life is about all I've been creating lately...well, you would be right :)

On the one hand, I'm patting myself on the back for at least keeping up with something, and on the other hand I am looking at my sidebar to-do list, shaking my head, and wondering where on Earth the month of March is disappearing to!

Nevertheless, here we are, documenting Week 10...

... a week in which I struggled to take photos of anything except Lydia's birthday, wrote nothing at all down, and agonized WAY TOO MUCH over paper selection. HA!


No wonder it took so long to put these pages together!

Taking screen shots on my iphone was perhaps my lifesaver this week...thank goodness for iphones! I've rummaged through my sticker stash for some of these oldies (but goodies), and am thinking that I really should do that more often...there are definitely some useable items in there ;)

Thank goodness it's Friday! Hope your weekend is awesome :)

TTFN xxx

P.S. I linked up here this week :)

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Project Life 2012 - Week Nine

You could be forgiven for thinking I had fallen off the face of the earth this week...it's been a busy one! Thank goodness the weekend has brought a bit of crafting time...I was starting to get withdrawals :)

Catching up with Project Life a little...
Week 9 was mostly about my trip to Melbourne, and is quite photo-heavy for me. I have a couple of seperate layouts planned to include in this week, but haven't created them just yet :)

A little closer...
...and yes, they ARE polkadot shoes. Oh my...it was love at first sight! I would have paid any amount for them, but half price? SOLD!

A classic photo I took on the banks of the Yarra River...
...polkadot seagulls. What more can I say?

The second half has a blank page, which will include some personal journaling.

I've used Echo Park's For The Record paper collection for this week, and it was perfect for what I needed...the colours, the text, the stickers....it was meant to be.

Have a great weekend, and thanks for popping in :)

TTFN xxx

Monday, March 5, 2012

A few more favourites :)

Finally finished my February blocks for my Some Kind of Wonderful stitch-a-long quilt...I'm blaming the short month for being behind :)

Ice cream...
...which is something I could always resist, until I discovered Cookies and Cream :)

Hot chocolate...

...anything with the word "chocolate" in it has to be good, right?

And a good book to read...
...but honestly, I don't really get the time to do much reading these days. There's always too much stitching to do!

So, along with the border strips, I am now up-to-speed on this project...but I'm sure the month of March will be over before I know it, so had better get cracking!

Thanks so much for visiting

TTFN xxx


Sunday, March 4, 2012

Project Life 2012 - Week Eight

Are you overloaded with Project Life yet? (sorry!)

I jumped right in and completed Week 8 while I had all my supplies out and photos freshly printed...no procrastinating at all! Now that Week 9 is officially over I should probably keep that momentum going :)


No Project Life kit used in the making of these pages...but lots of girly goodies, mainly from Kaisercraft's Miss Nelly and Crate Paper's Emma's Shoppe Collection...soooo pretty!

The double page opened out...

...and the single page shots. I've been wanting to add a grocery docket and a Facebook conversation snapshot for a while :) I only felt a little bit crazy taking photos of my shopping trolley LOL!

Lots of little details recorded in these pages...love that.

I plan to add a couple of larger layouts in the middle of this spread in seperate page protectors, because I have LOTS more photos from my trip to Melbourne that I'd like to include. The flexibility of Project Life is one of the things I love the most!

That's all from me for now...have a great Sunday! (long weekend here in Perth...how fantastic is that?!?)

TTFN xxx

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Project Life 2012 - Week Seven

Playing catch-up with my Project Life at the moment...it's a bit scary when I get behind, I have to say :) I had visions of it getting away from me, of getting so far behind that I'd give up on it totally, of not having enough to fill a two-page spread (you may remember I've been slacking off with the photos a bit lately...oops!).

I DO over-think these things sometimes :)

So here is Week 7...

I challenged myself to use only the paper from the Project Life kit for this week, because let's face it...if I don't start using it, I am going to end up with another stack of stuff in my cupboard at the end of the year. And we don't want that ;)

I made up for the lack of photos by printing a few bits from the net, like the Packed to the Rafters picture and the netball club logo.

I also cheated a bit, and used a shot of the car dashboard that I had taken during Week 8. It fitted my story for this week!

All photos for this week were printed on my home printer because I didn't have time to get organised. It's not ideal (more expensive, lots more procrastinating when deciding sizes etc) but works in an emergency :) I've managed to print Week 8's today while out grocery shopping, so I'm hoping to get onto that this weekend.

How is your Project Life coming along? Leave me a comment so I can pop over to check it out...pretty please?

TTFN xxx

Friday, March 2, 2012

Farmers Wife Friday- The No Brainer Edition

Farmers Wife Friday almost didn't happen today. In fact, I had talked myself out of it very early in the week, knowing that my Friday was going to start at 4am, be filled with a very busy work day, and probably end with a nanna nap on the lounge chair in the afternoon :)

I was having a little private pity-party this morning, thinking about how absent crafting has been from my week, when I came to the conclusion that it really doesn't have to be that hard! A bit of cutting over breakfast, a seam or two between packing lunches, a nice easy block or two, and Farmers Wife Friday is back on track!

So I went searching for the easiest block I could find, and settled on number 92, Streak of Lightning...

...no seam matching involved, and I chose the fabric by following my own rules :) White as the background, and a patterned fabric that I haven't used by itself before. Easy peasy.

So I went with another, number 84 Spool...


...same colour rules, but a bit of seam matching which I did less-than-perfectly. Oh well...there's plenty of time for unpicking after I have that nanna nap!

TTFN xxx