Birthday gifts

I have a group of girlfriends who I love to hang out with and we have known each other since high school. We try and get together every few weeks for afternoon tea and while we chat and laugh our kids have a great time playing together.

I am really blessed to have these friends who have been there for me over the years and I love that I have known their kids since they were babies. I love how we have little traditions that have evolved over time, like getting together at Christmas time and going out for lunch or coffee & cake to 'our' Tea House.

I like to give the children a birthday present each year and I am really trying to come up with something that doesn't cost a lot and is personal and useful.

A year ago (or there abouts) I found a website called http://www.wordle.net/ and I had a great time playing around with it. It is lots of fun and easy to use. You can enter in a list of words and the program randomly arranges them into a work of art. You can customise the colours and the text as well as the direction of the words and lots more! I highly recommend heading over to have a play. I bought some canvas sheets and printed my finished artwork directly onto the canvas then framed it. I created some great personalised art for our lounge room wall this way, for our bedroom and office as well, it was fun!

When a few of the kids birthdays came up I had an idea to create a personalised notebook for them, this is what I started with.

I designed a wordle for each child using their names and a list of words relating to them. Once I was happy with the design I printed it out onto paper and covered the notebooks. I added some embellishments and then covered the book with clear contact to provide some protection.

Personalised gifts that were fun to make!

I am linking up to My House of Giggles Tuesday Talent Show. Head on over and say Hi to Tracey as well as check out some of the amazing talented people who have linked up.

Have a great Tuesday! xx

Photography

Happy Monday, I hope you all had a lovely weekend! I had a busy weekend but a good one. I spent some time with Nicholas and his friends on Friday. We walked the dog, ran around in the park and played board games. In the afternoon I took Nicholas out for coffee and cake in order for us to have some mother/son time then we went shopping for new school supplies.

Saturday was a busy day for me with a full day course/training so I was inside all day, however the training was beneficial and the day was productive.

Sunday was lovely, after church we went to our FOOD Affair and wandered around the 40 odd stalls of local produce and wines. Sampled lots of yummy things and relaxed in the shade, on the picnic rug, finishing my glass of wine and reading the free Country Style magazine that they were handing out! Perfect afternoon!

I also spent some time playing with WH's camera. You see, he is the photographer in our house and he is very talented where as I just point and shoot and I don't know what any of the fancy buttons and dials do!

I received a bunch of flowers from work on Thursday and promptly dismantled the bunch and arranged them in my garage sale bottles/vases. Do you leave your bunch of flowers as they come or do you take them apart and arrange them as you like? I do both. WH usually buys me a bouquet of Oriental Lilies and the florist always arranges them beautifully so I put them straight into a big vase and enjoy them as they are! Once they start to die and I have less and less of them I transfer the remaining blooms into smaller vases/containers so that I can get as much mileage out of them as possible. I really love fresh flowers.

If I get a bunch of mixed flowers I will usually take the bouquet apart and rearrange them in smaller groups.

I was inspired to practice my photography skills after reading Kat's post over at Low Tide High Style. Kat is giving away an autographed copy of Scott Kelby's book - The Digital Photography Book. I am so impressed with Kat's photos and I would love to improve my skills so here's hoping I win. If you are interested head over and check it out. The giveaway closes tonight. You can click on the link here to visit.

In the mean time I will keep practicing and asking WH for his tips! Have a great week! xx

We have a winner!

Sorry for the late post tonight but it has been a long day ...............

.......any way, I am very excited to announce the winner of my Celebration Giveaway. I used a random number generator and it came up with number 30.

Congratulations Kerry!

Kerry's blog is A Tranquil Townhouse and if you haven't been to visit Kerry yet I recommend that you do. Kerry has a wonderful writing style that me smile if not a giggle as I read, ok, sometimes I laugh out loud and then everyone at work wonders what on earth is so funny about the financials I am analysing ; )

I will be sending Kerry a set of six cards featuring original photos from the Southern Highlands.

Thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway and to all of the encouraging comments you have left. It is really lovely to know what you think. xx

Carcoar NSW

Last night I managed to spend some time adding some more original photo cards to our Etsy Shop. The photos for this collection were taken in Carcoar NSW.

Carcoar is a historic village set in a dell by the oak-lined banks of the Belabula River With steep hills surrounding it. Carcoar is a village of untouched 19Th century charm, that feels like a traditional English village.

The Mid Western highway bypass overlooks the village but many people are drawn in to the delightful village which is the third oldest town west of the Blue Mountains. The first daylight bank hold-up in Australia was at the Commercial Bank in 1863.

The town has been classified by the National Trust due to the number of intact 19Th-century buildings which have only been preserved and restored - there has been no reconstruction or replication.

There are some fine Georgian buildings along the main street, St Paul's Anglican Church built in 1848 and designed by Edmund Blacket, the century old court house, the 1849 convict built stables of Stoke House is believed to be the oldest building in the village, and many more. (the above information on Carcoar is from here)

A few years ago I spent some much needed time out at the Shalom House of Prayer in Carcoar. It was before I met my husband Nick (ok, maybe it was more than a few years ago now) and I was a single mum and I needed some time, just me and God to renew and refresh. I loved it and I will always remember it. There was no TV, no mobile phone coverage and no crowds.

I hope you enjoy these new photos, thank you for stopping by and thank you for all of the support and encouragement for our Etsy Shop. I really do appreciate the feedback and love reading your comments.

Don't forget my giveaway closes tonight so if you would like a chance to win a set of gift cards click here for more details. Hope your Tuesday is going well! xx

I am linking up to Tuesday Talent Show at My House of Giggles

Monday Catchup

I am back home and back at work : ( It is so hard to get back to reality after spending time away relaxing but one good thing is I can catch up with all of my favourite bloggers and enjoy some really beautiful images and reading some very inspiring posts!

I have also found these wonderful giveaways from some really generous and lovely people!

Home and Harmony The beautiful Rie at Home and Harmony is having her first giveaway and the lucky winner will get to choose between two styles of glassware. To find out more about Rie's giveaway at Home and Harmony click here Low Tide High Style

Lovely Kat from Low Tide High Style is hosting a giveaway and up for grabs are these gorgeous sterling silver and blue pottery shard earrings. Tara designs and makes her own jewellery and you can visit her site Scarborough Shells by clicking here

To find out more about Kat's giveaway visit her at Low Tide High Style here.

My House of Giggles

The adorable Tracey from My House of Giggles is having a fabulous giveaway and offering her lucky readers the opportunity to win Atlanta Bartlett's 'At home with White'.

For more details on how to win this lovely book visit Tracey at My House of Giggles here.

I had a great time in Melbourne but unfortunately I did not take many photos as we forgot to take the camera most of the time. I will check what photos I have and see if they are worth sharing. In the mean time don't forget to enter my celebration giveaway here!

Hope you are all having a wonderful Monday! xx

Celebrating with a Giveaway

Just a quick 'Hello' from Melbourne. I am having a wonderful time. My WH is attending training and I am having some 'me' time throughout the days and we are both enjoying having some 'us' time in the evenings. It is great! I am relaxing, indulging and shopping!

I have just finished uploading our first lot of gift cards to our Etsy shop. We planned to get our Etsy shop started months ago but with Nick starting his own business, our studies and just life have kept us a bit busier than we expected. But with my few quiet days here I thought I would finally make a start and to celebrate I thought I would have another giveaway.

I am offering one set of six gift cards (just like the set I included in my last giveaway that the lovely Tina won) to one wonderful reader!

These are the six images that are on each of the gift cards. I will let the winner choose whether they would like one of each image, six of the same or any combination of the six different choices.

How to enter:

1. Leave a comment on this post
2. Become a follower and leave another comment letting me know that you are a follower
3. Blog about my giveaway or list it in your sidebar and leave me a comment letting me know that you have done so for another chance!

That is three chances to win this set of six cards featuring original photos. The competition closes Tuesday 13th April 2010 AEST. I will announce the winner on Wednesday the 14th April 2010.

To see more about these cards you can visit our Etsy store here.

Good luck in this competition and I would really love to hear what you think of the cards.

I am looking forward to catching up with everyone when I get back home. I wish you all a wonderful weekend! xx

100 posts & give away winner

It is finally here, my 100th post! I am not sure if anyone noticed that I even posted twice one day last week in a bid to get to 100 posts in time for the announcement of the winner of my first giveaway.

The winner will receive some wall stickers similar to the ones I used here......

some paper like the paper I used to cover these books

and a set of six gift cards with envelopes, each card has a different image from the Southern Highlands NSW, Australia.

I had my W.H help me with randomly drawing the winner from all of the comments and my followers. Congratulations to the lovely Tina from Rubies Place. Tina is a beautiful blogger who always leaves lovely comments and definitely brightens my day! If you haven't had the opportunity to meet Tina please go over and visit her here.

A really BIG thank you to everyone for entering and all of your lovely comments! I am really enjoying meeting you all and developing some really great friendships!

I am off to Melbourne for the rest of the week with my WH. Hopefully I will be able to find some great inspiration to share while I am away! xx

Happy Easter

I would like you wish you all a Happy Easter. We will be celebrating tomorrow with family and friends. Whatever way you spend the day tomorrow I pray that you have a lovely time.

From the movie Passion of the Christ

Just a reminder that my very first giveaway finishes tomorrow night, Sunday 4th April 2010, 8pm AEST. You can find the details here. I will announce the winner on Monday! Thank you again for stopping by and encouraging me with all of your lovely comments and visits! xx

Twice Lovely Giveaway

The wonderful ladies at Twice Lovely are having their very first giveaway to celebrate 100 followers. One lucky, lucky winner will receive a custom 8 x 10 water color painting made from the photograph of your choice! Can you believe it?!? Cara has just opened an Etsy Shop, called Aqua Babe Paintings, where she takes custom orders to transform your favorite photographs into original works of water-colored art! Here’s an example of what she does (these are her cherubish girly girls): Go on over and check out this great blog.

Autumn

As I was driving to work today I noticed that the trees are changing colour and I was reminded of how beautiful Autumn can be and what a wonderful creator we have, to have given us so much beauty in the world to enjoy!

I found some of my favourite Autumn photos.

This one was taken in April 2005 when Nicholas was only 5. That seems like such a long time ago. We had taken his bike (it used to fit in the back of the car) and drove to our soccer field where we have a path running alongside. The path was a great place for Nicholas to practice riding his bike without training wheels.

These next few photos were taken in our City's park in the centre of town. It is a beautiful park all year round. In summer the big trees provide lots of shade and it is always nice and cool in the park. In Autumn the park provides lots of fun for the young kids who love to play in the leaves!

We had these photos taken last year just before Mothers day to use as gifts for our mothers and Grandmothers.

This last photo is taken at the same time but we are in my favourite city block. I just love this block on this street because of the trees and the street's width. It is so close to the CBD and has lovely houses.

I hope you all enjoyed our colours of Autumn. What is your favourite season? I enjoy all of them for different reasons but I do not really like the cold so I find winter seems to drag on the longest!