Guest Blogger - Peaches & Maple

Happy Tuesday & welcome to another getting to know you session in my guest blogger series.

If you missed my news about guest bloggers you can read about it here

If you'd like to participate please drop me a note to

nellie@mccarthydesigns.com.au

I promise it's not hard and getting to know more about each other is fun :-)

Today's special guest is the lovely Cas who blogs at 

Peaches & Maple

I love Cas' style and always enjoy my visits to her blog, if you are a sticky beak like me then you will love the  tour of her house. 

Go over and have a look.

Why did you start to blog and how long have you been blogging?

I started blogging just over a year ago as a way to record the renovating and decorating process of our first home, but since then blogging has become so much more to  me.

What do you mainly blog about?

I mostly blog about renovating our home and decorating it in country-coastal style, which essentially means painting everything white and throwing seashells around ;) But occasionally I'll blog about  family life, recipes and blogging itself.

What does a normal day look like for you?

Well, generally I open my eyes in the morning, work through the fleeting moment of existential dread, kiss my husband goodbye, drag my kidlets out of bed, pack school lunches, herd the kidlets into their uniforms, yell at them to make their beds or I won't give them breakfast, feed all the pets we have somehow accumulated, put the washing on, unstack/restack the dishwasher, hang the washing out, fly out the door, tell the kidlets to tuck and roll at the school gate, stop at the supermarket to restock on items that I swear I'd bought only yesterday with the grocery shop, grab a coffee, put the house back together, bash out a few blog posts, paint some stuff white, organise dinner, pick kidlets up from school, ferry them around to their various extra-curricula activities, come home, help kidlets with homework, fold washing, cook dinner, kiss my husband hello, kiss my kidlets goodnight, go to bed with a book, fall asleep within five minutes still holding said book. Nope my day doesn't have any full stops either, just a lot of commas.

Most used small appliance in your kitchen?

That would be the kettle! Oh and the electric beaters come a close second because we bake a lot of cupcakes :)

Do you buy things for your house because they look pretty or because they are functional and serve a purpose?

I mostly buy things for the house for their aesthetic value, but if I have to buy something functional then it has to look pretty too.

What is your dream job?

The one where you get to sit and look at decorating books all day and eat lots of cake without getting fat. I don't think it's been invented yet.

Do you have a major goal this year and what is it?

I basically just want to get as much as humanly possible done on our house. We are currently finishing off the ensuite and laundry and I would like to get the bathroom, toilet and kitchen done too. We shall see!

Where do you get your inspiration from?

I used to love reading decorating magazines and had a massive pile of them at one stage, but I have found that a lot of them are being overrun with advertisements these days. I still have a collection of my favourites though, that I will refer back to frequently. I also have a couple of interior design books sitting on my coffee table that I leaf through quite a lot. But I would have to say that blogs are by far my biggest source of inspiration...real girls like you and me just doing our own thing and making our homes attractive and comfortable with what we have.  The supportive, sharing aspect is what I love the most about blogging in the DIY and decorating niche.

Are you a homebody or a traveller?

My husband and I are very much homebodies whose idea of a good time is a movie and a block of chocolate. Occasionally, we do get itchy feet though and then we'll plan a holiday.

How do you relax?

I love to read. A lot. Especially at this time of year, my husband, our kidlets and I will just mooch out by the fire and read for hours. 

Thanks Cas, I loved reading your answers and it was great to get to know you a bit better. 

Please pop over and say hi to Cas and while you're there have a look around she really does have a lovely home and a few tutorials for you to browse through too.

xx

Winter Weekend

Our weekend was very wintry, it rained and the wind howled and it was a pretty good weekend to stay inside.

I did venture out a few times

Our trivia night on Saturday was fantastic, our result wasn't so great (3rd last) but we had a ball!

I meant to take photos as it was a 70's dress up theme but I forgot :-(

I visited a new cafe for coffee with a friend and wondered why I haven't been there before. 

It isn't new to town just to me.

They sold some lovely things too, it's always good to check 

out the competition. 

My things are lovelier ;-)

I hopped  on the scales for the first time in months and I have decided that despite the weather the dog needs to be taken for a daily walk even 20 minutes would be most beneficial, for him of course.

So I rugged up against the cold and off I went. 

The worst thing about walking/exercising in winter is half way through you are wishing that you weren't wearing quite so many layers.

Oh well the dog appreciates it and perhaps I might get some benefit from it too.

How do you go with exercise in winter?

xx

Wise Words of the Week

Favourite Pin of the week

HGTV via The Wool Acorn Blogspot

Best place to be when you're not well & it's raining outside

xx

Visitors of the feathered kind

I was pleasantly surprised to see these gorgeous visitors in our yard the other morning.

Nick was sceptical that my bird feeder would work but I now have proof!

Aren't they pretty?

I was feeding the chooks one day and decided to put a handful of scratch mix into the feeder as I kept forgetting to buy seed.

Looks like they are happy with it.

What are you plans for the weekend?

We have a fairly quiet one, a school Trivia night tomorrow and church on Sunday. 

That's it at this stage.

I am quite happy about it as I have managed to catch a cold and I am not feeling so great.

I'll be resting and taking it easy I think.

Hope you have a great weekend.

xx

Home, Love, Ruffles and more

I have had some really pretty new things added to my store over the last few days 

and I thought I would share some of them with you because they are so pretty

I must confess that I love working from home and I love my husband who supports me while I do it

Not just financially but in every way.

He is my rock

and thank you for all of your lovely comments and your support and encouragement

It is so wonderful having a network of friends who give you the confidence to live your dream.

PS. If you missed yesterdays post and you would like a chance to win your own personalised planner click here for all of the details.

Personal Planner Giveaway

 I am really excited about this giveaway as I really love stationary and I like to be organised :-)

The lovely folks from Personal Planner Australia contacted me to see if I would be interested in trying their products so after a quick sticky beak at their website of course I said yes.

I had a great time ordering my planner, you can choose from lots of different styles and colours

You can choose what month you want your planner to start and what year

You can choose what layout you want your planner in

You can choose what you want on the bottom of the pages, a 'To Do List' or an 'Idea of the Week' just to mention a few.

Then you can choose what you want at the back of your planner, do you want a yearly planner, what year would you like it for, do you want ruled pages, blank pages, there are so many options.

If you are super organised you can add all of your important dates throughout the year and your Personal Planner will have them in there when it arrives and best of all your information is saved for next time you order!

Are you as excited as I am?

Would you like one for yourself?

If you would like a chance to win your own Personal Planner this is what you need to do:

1. Head over to Personal Planners Web Page and hit the big blue 'Like us on Face Book' button.


2. Head over to my Facebook Page and hit 'Like' 
I'm sure you have all done that already though :-)


3. Come back here and leave me a comment letting me know it's all done!

How's that? Too easy! 

You don't need to follow my blog, you can leave anonymous comments as long as I can contact you if you win and  the giveaway is open to anyone anywhere!

Personal Planner are happy to ship internationally :-)

So what are you waiting for go ahead and enter!

Giveaway closes Monday 25th June 2012

9am AEST.

I'll announce the winner later that day.

xx

A White Corner of My House

I think the best thing about having your own gift & homewares store is that you get to display gorgeous things throughout your home all the time!

It is so lovely to be able to change the decor when ever I like, or whenever something new arrives :-)

Right now, I love this corner, I love the white and

I love the lanterns, especially the big one.

It's makes a great feature piece

I don't even have candles in the lanterns and I love them :-)

The clock is just lovely

so pretty & French

Oh, and look what I received in the mail

more about this tomorrow along with a giveaway

that quite possibly has something to do with today's parcel...

but that's enough for now

Pop back tomorrow for more news.

xx

PS. We did finish the paving yesterday, YAY!! Only 987 more things left to do around the house.

Long weekend and a winner

We have a long weekend here in NSW for the Queen's Birthday so we are taking advantage of the extra day and we have been playing with concrete.

If you have been around for a while you will remember that just over two years ago we ripped up our back deck that used to look like this

Bit by bit we cleared and levelled other areas in our backyard and used the extra dirt and old pavers, etc to fill in the void below the old deck.

We worked and worked with lots of dirt and rubbish everywhere for weeks

We spent some time researching paving options and in the end decided to make our own using this plastic paving template and concrete. 

It was a much cheaper option and the result was just what we wanted.... rustic. 

We decided early on to go with a rustic and aged style that way any mistakes could be passed off as part of 'the look'

Finally it was all done, you can read more about it here. 

Over the the last two years some of the pavers sunk. We knew this would happen as the dirt underneath compacted further and we knew that the paving would need to be redone.

Fortunately not all of the paving has to be replaced just the area under the pergola where the deck used to be. 

So that is what we have been up to and what we are doing today. It isn't pleasant because it is so cold out there and really, I have no enthusiasm for this project considering we've already done it once before :-(

But it will be nice when it's finished.

Before I head out to brave the weather a big 'thanks'  for all of your lovely comments on my art work. 

It was a bit of fun and very easy to do. 

Tamarah from Shabby Vintage Junk is the lucky recipient of the set. 

Thanks Tamarah for your lovely encouragement I hope you enjoy the art.

I hope you all enjoy your Monday and I do hope you are doing something more pleasant than I am.

xx

Wise Words of the Week

sorry, source unknown