Decluttering

Awesome : Decluttering - Ebay selling & preparing for a garage sale

Sorting through and cleaning out our belongings has been long overdue. Since we pulled nearly everything out of storage we've been getting a bit more ruthless in what to keep, what fits in the new house and what things we really could continue to live without.

So far, Roh has listed a few of his collectible Transformers on ebay, which ends tonight, and I have uploaded a huge amount of books - chick lit novels, interior decorating books & a couple of craft books - all under Roh's username, just to keep things simple.

Here are a few items up for grabs :


Roh's username is the.reactor and you can find him here, if anything sounds of interest to you.

Yay for decluttering!

New Projects

Awesome : Being inspired to try new patterns, and play with colourful wool


I'm not far off finishing my knitted throw blanket, and have found my next project in the above pictured pattern book.

Using the top two-tone denim blue wool, I am hoping to make our april arrival a little 'wee willie winkie' beanie - so cute!

The other wool is for some crochet projects and possibly a baby blanket (the grey wool). If only this hot weather would go away, I could get stuck into some knitting/crochet. I seriously lose motivation to play with wool in the heat.

Stay cool xx

Colour Makes Me Happy

Awesome : Magenta & White Dahlias.....just beautiful


And I just LOVE how these look against my kitchen's red walls.

Fresh flowers are such an effective way to cheer up a day, and freshen up the home. Even bargain supermarket flowers can do the trick (that's what these are, and were only $5.99!).

Why not spoil yourself with some bright flower goodness? Go on, you deserve it ;-)

Crafty Inspirational Links

Awesome : Inspiring & Free Craft Patterns from Fabulous, Generous and Creative Crafters

The wide world web is just full of so many free patterns and tutorials for all sorts of crafts, so it's easy, when looking for inspiration, to find some. I have many things on my 'one day to-do list', including these links....

A Knitted Hot Water Bottle Cover - would be so cosy for winter snuggling on the couch. It's even classed as 'an easy knitter' so there is hope that I could do it :-P

A Funky Toadstool House Pin Cushion - Cute, cute, cute!

Fold Twist Fabric Flowers - would be great to make into hair clips, or for using on clothes/bags/cushions or scrapbook layouts.

Three Little Pouches - Purl Bee is a fantastic site for knitters & crochet people as it regular uploads free patterns and has quite a catalogue available now. How adorable are these pouches! I think I might have to try one soon :-)

Super Easy Knitted Baby Blanket - I love how Purl Bee call this one 'super easy' - very appealing to the new knitter! I'm thinking of doing this one up for bub, but I would have to get a move on, as bub is due in mid April, and I haven't even bought the wool yet :-P

Would love to hear if anyone out there has any other fabulous free patterns or tutorials that they have created or have created from, or have on a wish list to create, or a favourite crafty blog.

Keep on crafting :-)

Roh's Bruschetta

Awesome : Fresh, simple, flavoursome summer foods....made by my hubby :-P


Roh's Bruschetta is so, so yummy! Here's the quick low-down on what he does :

He dices up :
1 spanish red onion
4 tomatoes
A few fresh sprigs of basil

He mixes this with :
Balsamic Vinegar
A dash of Olive Oil

He places this on top of :
Either a halved baguette, toasted with a brush of olive oil and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese
OR
Cooked garlic bread slices

A fantastic dish for a light, refreshing summer dinner. Even the kids love it!

Happy Snail Mail

Awesome : Receiving a funky card from a kindred spirit


It's always such a lovely surprise to hear from one of my oldest friends, and wouldn't you just love to own a pair of these shoes - I know I would! She knows me so well..xx

The Joy of Giving

Awesome : Watching Jude & Alannah's faces light up while opening up presents..


As we don't celebrate Xmas, Roh and I try and surprise the kids with special gifts throughout the year, especially around our wedding anniversary (which is next week). The kids know our anniversary as our 'Family Day', as that is the day we started out as a family of two, but that has now grown to 4, nearly 5 :-)

I love watching them open up their presents, not knowing what to expect, and then seeing their little faces light up in excitement and delight. Alannah just loving all the little pieces that come within her new Barbie Glamour Jet (seriously, what's not to love about miniature soda cans, utensils, coffee jug, tea cups plus so much more...so cute!), while Jude trys to help Roh build his Pirate Lego Fort, as well as the Pirate Lego Ship (not pictured), but really just wanting to play with his new peg-leg pirate lego man. And I actually think that Roh has just as much fun as Jude :-)

Photo Fun

Awesome : Playing with new photos on Photoshop Elements 8


For our anniversary this year, we've given gifts a little earlier due to super bargains, and the holiday fun to be had with our pressies. As I got a new camera from Dad, my darling hubby has bought me the latest Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 program, along with the Premiere Elements 8 program which allows for video editing, as well as a memory card reader. (He got the new DJ Hero game for the Xbox 360, and is having lots of fun with that too!)

Of course, with new things, learning must take place. So I'll be studying up on my Canon 400D, as well as learning lots of little tricks through Photoshop. Be warned..the following posts may contain odd looking images while I play :-P

A New Year, A New Challenge

2010 is here, and with it, I have decided to challenge myself.

A friend did a post entitled 'Has blogging died?' and this got me thinking. I admit to being a naughty blog reader, in as far as not clicking through to leave a comment, due to the ease of Bloglines, but I aim to improve that in the coming weeks and months. And I also admit to missing the comments that use to come with regular blog updates. And as far as I'm concerned, facebook doesn't cut it over a blog - not for me anyhow :-P

Something about a post made on The Craft Blog hit the spot for me. The blogger is keeping a journal entitled "365 days of Awesome" to document her year. I LOVE this idea - not only does documenting the everyday appeal to me but so does the word 'awesome', as my 4 yo uses this word all the time, and it cracks me up.

So this is my self-imposed challenge : My 365 Days of Everyday Awesome.

2010 looks to be a year of variety for me - we are still renovating though nearing the end, bub #3 is due mid April, I've just gotten a new camera so will be learning & playing with that, I am still loving art & crafting - scrapping, knitting, crochet, sewing and I hope to add onto that with acrylic painting on canvas, I am trying to make the most of my new kitchen with cooking and trying out new recipes and of course there are friends & family to spend time with.
I hope to post daily, as much as possible, and with images, as much as I can. A visit to a pc shop tomorrow should help me with the latter :-P

So to start off - today's everyday awesomeness...
Cooking side-by-side with my hubby in our new kitchen - DH attempting Sticky Date Pudding for the very first time, and me attempting Nigella Lawson's Banana Bread (found in this book) for the first time too. We've decided that we have to try out a new recipe everytime we have people over for dinner - tonight the test subjects, um, I mean guests..lol...are Roh's parents.

Hope everyone is enjoying Day 1 of 2010!

My New Toy

My super generous Dad gave me his 400D Canon Digital SLR on the weekend (he'd upgraded) and I am so excited. I've taken quite a few photos but need to re-install my Photoshop onto my pc to play around and resize before sharing. I also realise that I really, really, REALLY need to read the manual to get a better idea of what this baby can do. Tips are appreciated too :-P

Hope everyone is keeping safe x

Alannah's New 'Do

A couple of weeks ago, Alannah said she wanted her hair cut shorter. So we gave her a couple of weeks to think about it, and yet she still wanted shorter hair. So Dan and I booked both the girls into the hairdresser's for their cuts - thinking it would be fun for them to see each other get their hair done.

Here's Lana's before shot :



And afterwards...

I think it looks really sweet and cute. She loved it at the hairdressers, but just a moment ago, had a little freak out about the length, but she told the hairdresser how short she wanted it. I'm sure once we buy her some super adorable hair clips, she'll be fine :-)

This is the shortest she has ever had her hair cut, since being a bubby, so a completely new look for my nearly Year 1 girl. She looks beautiful.

Jude's Room - Pre-Carpet

Carpet was just installed over an hour ago, but it's pretty gloomy here, weather-wise, so will take a photo of the new flooring when the sun comes out again, maybe tomorrow.

Denim Blue Walls - Jude's room

Last week we started painting the walls of Jude's room - I finally found a blue that I was happy with (am very fussy..couldn't be too babyish, or too purple/blue, or too dark..lol). I wanted a mid denim blue, so really a blue with a tinge of grey in it and the lovely lady at the paint shop mixed up a colour just for me, so I have no colour name to give you unfortunately - it's just a formula on the paint tin :-P but at least it's original!

Here's a shot of each of the kids having a go of the roller painting, before I shuffled them out of the room to play, while I got stuck into it. I'll be doing second coat today.

Then just got to do the windows and skirting, ready for the carpet, which is being installed tomorrow - yay!

We hope by the weekend we will move both the kids into Jude's room, while we empty out Alannah's new room and get working on that.

Fun, fun!

(Quick note - all recent photos on the blog have been taken on my mobile phone, due to major computer issues and lack of access to our camera's software - apologies for low quality of images and lack of editing!)

Shiny New Floors

While we were away in Merimbula (a couple of weeks ago now) our lovely spotted gum floorboards were sanded and polished...and we just LOVE the resulting look. In this pic, you can also see our mushroom grey wall in the living area too...it's all starting to come together now.

Coming Soon...

Just a few quick facts :

Baby Boy Ingram

Due : 18 April 2010

Currently 20.5 weeks pregnant

No names decided on yet

Kids very excited, as are Roh & I. Lana a little disappointed he's not a baby sister, but is coming around to the idea.

xx

Brief Update

Just a quick update :

Laptop hard-drive has died, so have had no home pc for about 4 weeks. This last week I've been able to use my work laptop, which has been awesome. So apologies for the long absence.

Merimbula was a nice break. Roh caught fish, played golf and we all swam, beached and just hung out. Poor Aunty Reeze even sat through all 3 High School Musical movies!

House is moving along. Have been doing a lot of painting, the floorboards have been polished, the oven is in and the kids rooms will hopefully be painted and carpeted before Xmas. Have a few photos to share when I can.

Will be back soon

x

Old Bathroom Be Gone!

One of the biggest projects on our to-do list this weekend, was to completely gut the exisitng bathroom/laundry. With Roh's Dads help, they managed to get it completely gutted within the day, all ready for the electrician to put in the new wires and box on Monday.

Here's a peek at what went on...

More updates coming very soon!

Lego Love

Jude's latest thing is building spaceships, and giving them to me and Roh. Here are a couple of his creations...my ship is the one with the flowers :-P

Two Wheelin'

Lana finally got her confidence up last week, to ask her Daddy to take off her training wheels. It only took a few goes with Daddy helping before she was off on her own.

Creative Crochet

I am quite new at this whole crochet thing, but I feel I've got the granny square sorted now, which is great. And maybe it's time for me to challenge myself a bit. Recently I've been coming across some absolutely wonderful crochet designs and patterns that I can't wait to try. Some very cute, some super creative and some just plain fantastic.

Time to share :

First up, my darling friend Cass bought me this seriously funky book, which I love...my only problem being - what pattern should I try first?? :-P

Star Wars - Heroes of the Rebellion - how awesome :-P

Mushroom Cuties...

Robots, Rockets and UFO's - very cool

Melvin the Snail - adorable :-)

Fishbones - How odd and so cute.

I came across this darling Miss Strawberry on Mel Goodsell's blog, made by Salihan Crafts and just had to get the pattern. I'm picturing it in hot pink, with an aqua flower, and pea green leaves - perfect for a certain little girl's new bedroom. I really want to give this one a try when we are in Merimbula, in a couple of weeks. Plus I'll have on hand, my super talented sis-n-law Reeze to help, if I get stuck :-P

Babette blankets - love them! Images taken from here, here and here.

Happy Sunday!

House Update

Ok, so I'm going to be a bit cheeky and put the updates on the photos today. Here they are :