Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Easter Gifts

Well I finally started working on our Easter gifts last night. I am purposefully trying to reduce the amount of chocolate that we get and give as I am one of five girls and WH is one of four children and we all get together at some stage over the Holidays and exchange gifts. This generally results in enough chocolate to last us through to Christmas (or close enough). The last couple of years I have tried to make my gifts smaller but more meaningful by making a part of the gift. This year I found a great template posted by Maddie at Li'l Magoolie, if you haven't ever visited I highly recommend it. Maddie has a really fun blog with great ideas. Anyway her gift to us was a down loadable template for these great baskets and I decided to take advantage of her generosity and use her template (with slight modifications) and get started on our Easter gifts for this year.
My supplies:
Scrapbook paper
Ribbon
Chocolate for the gifts and a little for me!
(it was a long day yesterday and I couldn't keep going last night without some help)
Scissors, tags, texta, ruler This is what the paper looks like after cutting the template out.
I managed to save some chocolate for gifting to others
Fold up the sides to create a square pyramid
Tie with a ribbon and add a gift tag. Voila! Easter gifts sorted
(OK I am less than half done but I will finish the rest tonight! Gifts, not chocolate!)
Hopefully the recipients will like them! I can vouch for the chocolate eggs, they're good!

Cocoa Chu Chu giveaway

I have discovered a lovely blog called Sweet as Candy. The gorgeous Frederica is having this lovely giveaway.... The creator of this gorgeous necklace is Fai from the online shop Cocoa Chu Chu. If you would like a chance to win this beautiful piece pop on over and visit Frederica at Sweet as Candy here. If you love this creation as much as I do go and check out Fai's shop here.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Easter decorating

As I have been visiting everyone's lovely blogs I have been so inspired by the fantastic decorating that is going on in preparation for Easter. I have definitely noticed that decorating for the holidays is not as big here in Australia for any celebrations other than Christmas!
As a child we decorated hard boiled eggs then it was part of Sunday morning breakfast to eat our decorated eggs. We would use food colouring and wax to create patterns.
When Nicholas was a toddler he hated getting messy hands so he used a paint brush to paint the food colouring onto his eggs and then together we would create gifts for our family including personalised baskets or bags to hold an assortment of chocolate goodies!
We haven't decorated our eggs yet this year but I found some great inspiration at the Better Homes and Gardens website. These are a few of my favourites.

How do you decorate for Easter? Do you have any special family traditions?

All images via BHG.com.au

Monday, March 29, 2010

Pretty Paper

I thought I would share with you all what I used my pretty paper for... the pretty paper I bought from this lovely shop in the Southern Highlands, One day last week I had to get new tyres (all 4) on my car so while I was waiting for them (in my lunch break) I went and looked for some interesting books that didn't have particularly nice covers but would make for an interesting coffee table/browse book. I found these at our local Salvation Army Store, which happens to be a block away from the tyre place. I used my pretty paper and my hot glue gun to cover the books,
they turned out like this.
For your chance to win some of this pretty paper stop here
xx

My 1st Giveaway

Happy Monday!
I hope you all had a lovely weekend! We had nice one and managed to get a few things done! We spent Saturday morning digging (actually I think it was more afternoon by the time we got started). We have all agreed that digging is the worst renovation job. See the eight metres long path we dug out. We dug 50mm off the top in order to lay pavers and along the right side we dug the trench for the drain! It took us (all three of us) many hours and it really doesn't look like we did much!
However when we went to the rubbish tip and got weighed the truck came in at 3.4 tonnes.
I also managed to do some baking on Sunday, that was much more pleasant, especially eating the finished product.
Now what you have all been waiting for ; ) ............
I am so excited to have my very first giveaway in order to celebrate my 100th post (that I actually haven't posted yet!).
I hope you like what I have to offer.
The lucky winner will receive some wall decals.....
Similar to the ones I have used here.....
and 2 really lovely sheets of paper,
that measure approx 76cm x 53cm
that I bought from this lovely store in the Southern Highlands
See, here I am choosing the paper
I will also include a pack of six (blank inside) cards with envelopes featuring original photos from the Southern Highlands. I am sorry I don't have a photo of them but they are fabulous!
How to enter:
  1. Leave a comment on this post
  2. Become a follower for another chance to win (no need to comment I will enter all followers into the draw)
  3. Blog about this giveaway on your blog or list it in your sidebar with a link back to my blog and then leave me a comment letting me know you have done this for a third chance to win!
Good luck in my very 1st giveaway. I will draw the winner a week from today.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Jack of all trades.... master of.....

I was very fortunate to receive an award from the very talented and lovely Janette at My Sweet Prints, Janette has a gorgeous blog where she shares all of her latest creations including the very popular bus rolls. If you haven't had the pleasure of meeting Janette yet please go on over and say 'Hi'. The rules of the Master of Karate and Friendship Award are: 1. List 6 things you are a master in. (hmmmm, this could be tough!) 2. Pass it on to 6 bloggers you think are masters at friendship and make blogging awesome. Well here goes, Number 1 I am a master of finding sales. I research, research and research prior to making major and even most minor purchases! Once I buy something I can't help myself I keep checking to make sure it isn't on sale anywhere else for a better price!
Number 2
I am a master of cooking one pot dinners! I dislike washing up pots and pans, I figure I will make it easy on myself and just throw it all in together. Fortunately my WH loves to create the gourmet meals and fortunately for him, I love to eat them!
Number 3
I am a master at fitting in one last thing before I end up sprinting out the door! It is not always a good thing! I am finding that I arrive wherever I am meant to be later and later and I am sure that most of the stuff I find the urge to do before I leave the house could actually wait until I get back home!
Number 4
I am a master at enjoying my bath. I don't get to have one often (I do shower every day), but when I do, I enjoy it thoroughly. It involves a book or magazine, a glass of wine or two, bubbles and maybe some music. My bath lasts generally an hour or more, by the time I am finished I am fully relaxed and de-stressed, renewed and ready for bed!!!!!
Number 6 I am a master at buying pretty things and displaying them but rarely wearing them.... they make me very happy when I admire their prettiness though.
I would like to pass this award on to the following blogs who I enjoy visiting and who make great blogging friends. Russett Street Reno
A time to create One little house Please do not feel obliged to participate in the award rules but please accept the award as a compliment and know that I really enjoy your blog and your friendship! If you haven't visited any of the blogs I have listed please do and make sure you say 'Hi'.
Thank you everyone for stopping by and leaving such wonderful comments. I really appreciate it and I love reading them all. I still get really excited any time someone leaves a comment or mentions my blog!
Remember to stop by on Monday for my very 1st giveaway!! xx

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Lounge Room Wall

You may remember the wall in my lounge room above the big (hard to make look pretty) TV. It started out looking like this.....
Real estate listing photo

Then it looked like this for a while

Then I spent some birthday money and bought some decals from Leen the Graphics Queen and the wall looked like this....

I felt that it wasn't quite balanced and I added some more decals that I had left from another project.

But after seeing all of the great stuff around on everyone else's blogs, combined with the fact that the decals I added in the picture above didn't seem to like sticking to the wall, I found these cute bird cage decals and thought I would try them.
What do you think?
They were very tricky to get on the wall straight but my WH helped me.
I like them.
On another note I realised that when I looked at the number of posts I was up to it included all of the drafts that never got published (back in the day when I didn't realise that you could retrieve your posts after they disappeared when you were halfway through them... aarghh.... very frustrating!)
Anyway, my 100th post is not just around the corner ( about 10 posts away) but never mind.......,
I have decided to have a giveaway and so I will have a giveaway.
Check back on Monday for all of the details!