Molly's Maison

I just love having creative friends

You get gorgeous parcels in the mail

and it feels just like it's your birthday :-)

I finally ordered some of Sarah's gorgeous stationary from her etsy store

and it arrived today

and she sent me extras :-)

I feel so special and I just love it

Unfortunately I have this little problem with stationary....

I love it so much I find it very hard to bring myself to use it.

Sarah's business card is so pretty too. 

I may have to use it as a book mark it is that nice!

and the stickers

I am not sure that I will be able to use them they are gorgeous

the magnet though I can use that on my fridge and look at it every day!

Thank you Sarah, you're the best!

You can visit Sarah's blog: Molly's Maison or

her Etsy store: Molly's Maison

Both are definitely worth popping over to have a look :-)

xx

Time

Oh dear

Time has gotten away from me today 

I thought sharing these fantastic wall clocks 

that I listed in my store yesterday was quite appropriate

Each one measures 34cm

and they are only $19.95 each

Hope your Wednesday was lovely

xx

Guest bloggers welcome!

Yesterday I mentioned that I would like to start a regular post for guest bloggers. To start with I will be asking everyone the same 10 questions so that we can all get to know you each other a little better :-)

Thank you to the wonderful ladies who have responded already and offered to be involved. That's great and I am so excited. 

You don't need to have your own business and it doesn't matter whether you have been blogging for years or you have only started, I would love to hear from you and have you participate.

If you are interested send me an email to nellie@mccarthydesigns.com.au

Thank you to everyone who had a look at my Event Styling section on my website. I really appreciate your feedback and your comments gave me a lot to think about.

Last night I spent many hours researching Wordpress and different options for hosting my blog and my store both on my own domain and at this stage I have decided to leave it all as it. I have added some pages to my blog and some new ones to the store that feature some photos of my work. I will be adding more as I go but having only just started my own business I am not sure that I will be able to find many of different events :-(

I am not thrilled with the options I have on my store to display photos but I will keep working on it. It is probably a case of the user not the website :-)

xx

PS. I have a giveaway running on my Face book page, for more details visit here 

Before and After - Dining Room Hutch

How was your weekend? Mine was lovely. I got to have lots of cuddles with my new niece Eden, She is so sweet 

Today I spent the morning getting the Event Styling Section of my website up and running and would love it if you could have a look and let me know what you think? 

Please?

http://www.mccarthydesigns.com.au/collections/event-styling-services

Lately I have spent a lot of time planning and thinking of what I want for the future, for my business, my blog and me personally and I have decided on a few directions I want to take. As I go I will be sharing them with you and I would love to hear what you think as I do :-)

Firstly I thought I would start a regular guest posting series, a get to know you and what you do post. I want to start doing these on a fortnightly basis but you never know if I get a lot of interest, I may run them weekly ;-)

So please if you are interested in participating and promoting your blog send me an email to

nellie@mccarthydesigns.com.au

I would love to feature all of my friends, old and new so please don't be shy. I promise I won't ask you hard questions and it will be fun :-)

The photos, above feature my dining hutch after I painted it white, I have a thing for white just in case you didn't realise

Now the before.........

What do you think? Original (timber) or after (white)? 

I love the after myself but what do you think?

Have a great week and please let me know if you would like to guest post for me on my blog, I'd love to hear from you. 

xx

I couldn't finish without sharing a photo of my beautiful niece Eden, so sweet.

French Provincial Linen

This gorgeous provincial linen range is now available in my store

All of the products are 50% Linen and 50% cotton

In store I have reversible bowls, table runners, tea towels, laundry bags and peg bags

Each item is available in red, stone and black

I also have these lovely onion bags and potato bags both are lined with cotton blackout to prevent sprouting and spoilage.

The range starts from $7.95 

you can view it all in my online store

www.mccarthydesigns.com.au

and postage is only $9.95 Australia wide

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend, we are hoping to spend a lot of the weekend visiting new babies, including my new niece :-)

What are you plans?

xx

Welcome to the World Eden

Today's post is a very special one

Last night my niece was born

"Welcome to this world Eden

May you be blessed throughout your life and know the Lord's abundant love for you always

May you be a blessing to all who you meet in your life

and may you bring love and joy to those around you

I am looking forward to meeting you Eden

and I can't wait to give you lots of cuddles 

Love your Aunty Nellie xx"

None of these cuties are Eden but they are so gorgeous and I couldn't resist sharing them.

My friend Kiah is the owner of Stephens Photography, you can visit her blog here

or her face book page here

She has lots of lovely photos for you to admire, pop over and have a look I am sure they will make you smile.

xx

Baking with books or Google?

Over the last few years I have attempted to bake regularly, mainly so that we could save some money on treats and also because you can control what ingredients you use when you make it yourself.

I am by no means a great cook but I try and I do tend to keep my recipes simple, mainly ones that use standard ingredients that are kept in the pantry or fridge. I usually make muffins, slices and biscuits. I pick recipes with oats, fruit, honey etc that are healthier and good to take to school or work for a mid morning snack, afternoon tea or to have with a cuppa after lunch.

Most of the recipes I use have been recommended by people and if they email them to me I keep then in a folder in Outlook and then just use my laptop to read the recipe while I bake. 

I do own lots of recipe books, I love the look of them and I know this may sound strange but I have been know to buy a book because I like the way it feels.

Funny thing is that I rarely use them. If I want to try something new or make something I need a recipe for grab the laptop, google it and away I go.

What about you, do you use a book, your laptop/PC, google or just make it up as you go?

I confess most of our daily meals are a make up as I go, depending on what I have in the fridge, freezer and pantry :-)

Nick likes to cook but he prefers the fancy stuff, so I leave it to him when we have guests or special occasions.

I took theses photos not long after I finished up working at the Bank (before I had my lovely new Kitchen Aid Mixer) but I wanted to show off my cute Babushka Dolls. I love them so much I leave them out on display :-)

Thank you to my lovely friend Naomi who gave them to me as a farewell gift when I left the Bank. They are fabulous and I use them all the time. They also double as emergency toys when little kids come to visit.

Have a great day

xx

PS. If you have any simple but tasty recipes that fit my requirements please send them through or leave a link in your comments. That would be great :-)

My house, my favourite corner

I shared these photos on FB yesterday and thought I would share them here too because it really is my favourite corner in the house at the moment.

The bus roll canvas is a room divider/screen that we can pull out and use to block the entry into the living room when we have guests staying. One of the lounges is a sofa bed so this helps to convert the living room into another spare bedroom and gives our guests some privacy. 

When we first moved into this house we thought that we would build a wall and block this entry to the living room off permanently (there is a doorway on the other side of the room also from the kitchen that we use most often) but after living here for a while we changed our mind. It is nice to have it open, it allows more light through the house, creates a sense of space and helps the heating/cooling to flow through.  

The canvas screen is leaning against my bookshelf, the bookshelf is part of my home office, my really small home office nook that I created in the corner of our living room

You can just see in the above photo the carpet join for the living room and the edge of my bookshelf. Between the bookshelf and the kitchen wall we still have an opening of 880mm plenty of room to walk through but perfect to block off with the canvas room divider when needed. 

Our reverse cycle air conditioner is on the wall just above the mirror, the bookshelf height is perfect as it still allows the air to flow into the lounge room.

Most of the items I have on display are available to purchase through my online store. I try to display things that I sell throughout the house so people who visit can see them and I get to enjoy them until they are sold :-)

I am not sure if I will sell the tray with the glass dome though. I only ordered two of them and I love them so much, they are great quality and they will be so handy in summer when we entertain outside a lot. Maybe I need to get some more in.

I added the new lacquered 'Love' sign to my store yesterday. The colour is just perfect for my neutral display, just enough red to add some interest.

The 'Love' artwork is ready to hang or you can display it standing just like I have

Anna mentioned yesterday that  bit of green would be perfect, I think she is right. I am going to add a bit of greenery to my display by placing a little vase of greenery to the Fleur de Lys trainer. Just need to venture outside to get it. The frost this morning was so big I decided to wait for a while and let everything defrost.

Do you have a favourite spot in your house? 

Does yours change often? 

Mine does, sometimes all it takes is to move one thing and I can love it so much it becomes a new favourite, sometimes it can be the addition of new flowers or sometimes I move everything around and then move it all back again :-)

xx