The party goods

So a few weeks ago I celebrated my 30th birthday and as always it was a hugely DIY affair.  It was actually really hard to pick what I was going to do especially with the influence that pinterest now has in the home crafters life, so many choices.....
Dress up or not, casual or dressy, daytime or night, family orientated or a adult only?

Basically I had no idea what I was doing until about three weeks prior and a purchase of a few meters of fabric.

The invites, please excuse the dodgy iPhone photo but this was all I took before I posted them off.  Howe awesome is glitter paper, I have only ever used the DCWV glitter stack paper and it is more of a varnish with silver flecks through it, this however is glittery awesomeness.

The Table runner.  I managed to find the perfect tassels and was able to run this up in less than an hour, I love it so much that it has become the runner on the dining table.

The bunting, I had two separate buntings for the night, this short one that was perfect for the cake table or just my beat up old dresser that I am hoarding and a ten meter one that went around the perimeter of where the party was. 

The garland.  I am so shocked at how easy it is to make these, it probably helps a whole lot that I have a Cricut, seriously the whole thing took maybe two hours maybe three and it was huge, again I loved it so much that I kept some and am using it on my shelves.  And then there was the left overs.

Yep, waste no want not.  I have been hoarding my mums old coffee jars for months now and all the wonderful pinterest ideas I had found were just not turning out the way that I wanted them to.  In a mad flash  of inspiration I thought of the garland off cuts, the jars were filled with flameless candles and scattered around the fence lines no one could see that they were off cuts wrapped around the jars and the looked so pretty twinkling away all night.

The cake.  I had no idea what I was going to do and the plan I had went out the window as soon as I put icing into the piping bag.  it was not what I envisioned at all but I do love it.

The cake table, I wish the white background was bigger but it was all I had on the night and I thought it was way bigger than what it was despite that I really loved the way it all turned out and came together, another day of organising would have been great but in the end it was pretty and girly and bright and fun. 

Comings and goings of an inconsistent blogger

So I am fairly terrible at this blogging thing, I will most certainly not be winning any awards for the most consistent blogger of the year, but in any case a small tidbit into whats been going on in this slack bloggers life.

The school holidays were a bit of a let down in here in sunny Queensland as I can tell you that it was anything but sunny, just lots and lots of rain.  I planned a trip to stay at my parents house with the kids and visit all our friends and have picnics and fun in the parks but sadly it was lots of inside play, movies and multiple trips to Underwater World (thank goodness for yearly passes).

I have quite a few firm favourites at UnderWater World the otters being one and the "Nemo" tank being the other, I love seeing the kids take in the amazing beauty of all these different underwater beauties.

A hard day of movies, UnderWater World and grocery shopping will tucker a poor little boy out, he slept like this the whole way around the store.

Teela celebrated turning five this year and as we were a few days out from her birthday my mum decided that we needed to have a pop up party of sorts for Teela at the Grandparents place before we headed home to Brisbane.

On her actual birthday with just the four of us.

Invitations.  With my 30th creeping up it was time to get creative and make some invites to what will be the celebration of my thirtieth year, eeepp.

 Sun, finally sun!!  Taking full advantage of a beautiful sunny winters day playing outside and exploring the long forgotten yard.

My latest op shop find.  Not what I went in there for but I could not leave this spinning rack behind, currently it is filled with my inks, embossing powders, glitter and wood mounted stamps but who knows what I will end up doing with this, I think it would also suit cosmetics, bracelets even fruit.

Birthday gifts, the best kind there is...I pick and he pays :D

Another set of birthday gifts, thanks Mum.  I already had these Napoleon Perdis Set cosmetics on a layby after a really decent special but I never got around to paying them off, the annual birthday money that mum gifts me every year paid for a new cosmetics haul, droool...

Peg bags, I have wanted some peg bags for ages.  The plastic ones you buy from the grocery store are flimsy, fall apart often and in the hot Queensland sun disintegrate in next to no time.  The pretty pink peg tin I bought a few months ago was pretty but 100% impractical, the kids kept stealing it, it made a horrible noise and it was far too small so one day in the midst of boredom and the feeling of needing to tackle something I have never done before I made a peg bag, and then another as the first was just not big enough, turns out I have a LOT of pegs.  They are not perfect they have faults but they are 100% what I wanted and I made them and I actually sewed them (that happens very infrequently, I am no seamstress).

Easter....

Just a quick post on the Easter parcels that I made for Teela's teachers.
I ran out of time this year to make a big deal of Easter so I decided to make a small treat bag of Easter M&M's and home made Oreo truffle chocolates to hand out to the teachers.

I make Chocolates a bit but its usually for Birthdays and Hens nights so I had to find some more "appropriate" chocolate moulds.  Being Easter time I had a few to choose from and I am pretty sure the two silicone moulds I found came in at under $5 at the cheapy store, the bunny mould I already owned.

 Tags made with the Cricut Doodle Charm cartridge, easy and a free option for the treat bags.

I always have a stash of cellophane bags but I snagged these treat bags at Aldi of all places for 99c and they have little bunnies on them, perfect.  I bought a roll of bunny ribbon for $2 and tied the top of the bags, done.

I love the ease of using treat/cellophane bags and the fact that they are so cheap and have become so ready available.  Ribbon is another thing that can be found pretty much anywhere and really cheap and as a little easy and cheap token of appreciation they do the job wonderfully.

Week in review

This was the last week of Miss T being at kindy before the school holidays and from the sounds of it they had an awesome last two days.  I am going to miss the reprieve that I get when I send her off but I am looking forward to a few days holiday back home to visit all my friends and have a few long over due drinks, ohh and lots of chocolate

One of the parents made all the kids at the kindy marshmallow bunnies and  the kids got to decorate them with food dye.  How awesome is that, hearing things like this make me very happy that we have sent Miss T to a community kindy.

I have been on a chocolate making fix the last few days for the teachers presents, cute white chocolate bunny lollipops and Oreo truffle filled Easter shaped chocolates

Rib Roast. 
I have a confession to make on this one...
This my first beef roast ever.  Yes ever.  My mum has always been the roast person and it was not until I moved in with J that I learned how to cook a roast chicken and then we were vegetarian for a while so obviously no beef roast for us.  I will say that I was rather chuffed with myself and how it all turned out, it was nice but I am no meat eater and would rather have a nice big plate of roast veggies, J however J thought it was amazing and can't wait for the next one.

24 hours my friends, my whole Saturday was spent with this book, from cover to cover.

Long story, my mother in law bought me The Lost Symbol for Christmas a few years ago and I was always under the impression that The Dan Brown books had some kind of order that you had to read them in, the book has sat for years untouched.

Last week I took my friend into a thrift store that I frequent and I happened upon the DaVinci Code in almost new condition for $5, so I thought why not?

It was good, I really enjoyed it and I am loving the fact that I have been reading more books in the last four months than I have in the last four years, why did I stop reading?  I used to live with my nose in a book, my first love in life was books and when I say first love I mean my first passion and reason for living was books.  Books they are pretty awesome :D

Discovering bands especially well established and older ones that leave me wondering how they escaped my notice.  Bent a British band that falls under the electronica/lounge/down tempo/chill out category that I have so fallen in love with over the last few years.  I am no longer a happy hardcore raver kid who likes my doof doof music loud and full of bass, instead I like my electronic music a little more relaxed these days.  I have always been a fan of music that is a little left of the norm and happily these guys fill that spot rather nicely.  I have spent a whole day with them today and I can't wait to get my hands on an album or two.

Week in review

Cup of tea in my favourite mug with home made bagels and cream cheese, just a wee bit more than awesome.

 Strawberry and lime cider, very sweet but a nice treat occasionally.

Parents lunch afternoon at the C&K kindy, we got a show and miss T showed me all around her room

Mini sour cherry cheesecakes, I made a huge one for everyone at J's work and made a few small ones for us at home, best one I have made possibly ever.

 I pulled out the long neglected husky and made head way with the mending pile and UFO's

 One of the many UFO's I finished, matching bath mat to the trimmed towels I made miss T last year, ohh and a pedicure something that never happens but I had a voucher that was about to expire so a much needed pampering was had.

 Some photo boothing with little miss T

And plenty, plenty, way too plenty of this.  Three is a much more demanding and meltdown inducing number then two ever was, sigh......

Pinterest picks of the week....

1.Gobsmackingly Gorgeous Kitchen

Wow, wow, wow, I am in love...

 2.DIY Mouse Mat

Seriosuly how easy is that?  I am making one ASAP

3. Greatest Colour Combo EVER.....

No, Seriously I must and will have this exact room one day, untill then I am destined to stare at my electric blue wall, thanks colour inept landlord

4. As Close As It Gets....

My back deck and as close to the pink, black, white and damask beauty that is above, still at least I have it somewhere at home.

The Pinterest inspired peg advent calander....

So last week on my Pinterest picks of the week I posted this little gem

This week I decided to start making my own version.  I already had two planks of wood in the garage and a huge pack of wooden pegs that have been floating around for years doing nothing so it was time to make some advent calenders.

 I am so happy with the finished products.  The best part of these is that I only had to purchase a few small and cheap things to get them made.  The whole project was time consuming there is no denying and it took a few days to get all the components done but what a finished project.

The wooden planks were spray painted white using an aerosol can of undercoat white, I am not into gloss finishes and unfortunately all hardware and auto stores near me only seem to sell gloss so undercoat it was.

I had painted the pegs using acrylic paint from the cheapy store, they are a mixture of Chromacryl, Jo Sonja and Kaisercraft.

The paper on the front of the pegs is a mixture of new and old scrapbook paper, I only purchased four sheets coming well in at under $10 and attached using double sided scrapbooking tape.

The string was some kind of crochet stuff (I don't crochet and have no idea what the actual name is) bought from the cheapy store for $1.  I dyed the string buy rolling it onto spare pegs and dipping it in a mixture of regular food dye and water in a coffee mug for 24 hours, I did not rinse just squeezed the excess and left it in the sun to dry for a day, I love the imperfect colour effect that it has, almost like tie dye string.

The pegs were attached to the board using a hot glue gun ( the hot hot type, not the cool one), you could possibly use some kind of heavy duty glue but the gunis something I already own.
I did number all the little parcels using my cricut and some glue, next time I will be using a xyron adhesive runner to make the cut out numbers like stickers or I might just buy pre made number stickers, in actual fact the wrapping of the little parcels, the tying of the string and cutting and adhering the numbers was the most time consuming aspect of this project.

I attached the calenders to the wall using these Command velcro strips, we are about to move so don't want more stuff on the wall and these will only be up for 24 days of the year.  Why bother drilling holes and attaching hooks to the back of the calenders when two of the largest sized strips holds the whole thing up mess and fuss free.

At the end of the day I am more than 100% happy with the finished project, it took a lot of time but it was something that I could do in little bits a little at a time over a few days.  The kids LOVE them and the best thing is I can change the paper for a new look if  I want, I can reuse the calender every year from now on in and I have just created a Christmas memory for my kids and that is the most important thing to me.

Wrapping paper

I love wrapping presents and I love all the little bits and pieces that you can buy to make presents look beautiful, ribbons, doilies, bows and tags and the shinier the better.  As a rule I always have a box of supplies that I keep on hand for present wrapping and an assortment of wrapping paper for all occasions but sometimes you just don't have that perfect wrapping paper or as in today's case you run out and I have no intentions of taking my two rambunctious children anywhere near a shop today so what do you do?

DIY wrapping paper, that's what.

(Stamps: Fiskers- Kids Birthday, Fiskers Ink by Steph- Skin And Bones)

(Ink: Versa Color- Cardinal, Fiskers- High Density Blue)

Kinda cool huh, I will be honest this totally works better with smaller presents or if you have bigger stamps but seeing as this paper is for a 6 year old pirate loving boy I hardly doubt he will be looking at anything more than the fact that he has a present and it has skulls on it.

I always have a roll of brown paper and white/cream kids painting paper on hand just for this reason and you know what it really is the simplest of tasks and tasks under 5 minutes to make your very own personalised wrapping paper.

 I decided to do up an example of just how easy it really is, all I used for this paper was one set of stamps, a couple of different ink colours, an acrylic block and paper it really is that easy.

It does not matter what order you stamp in or how straight you stamp, with a random pattern like this you can get as messy as you like.  I also like to tape the corners down on the surface that I am making the paper on, when paper has been stored in a roll it tends to curl up and it just means that I can use both hands rather than using one hand to keep the paper flat where I stamp. 

There you go all you need is a small piece of ribbon which I usually pick up from Spotlight for 70c for 3 metres, curling ribbon or raffia and a bow, I buy my bows at Christmas time in big bags, they only have a few colours in the mix but a bag will last all year and they are usually under $4 and come is so many different sizes.

Lately....

                                      

• The Easter decoration aftermath.  I do not really get into the spirit of holidays (8 years of retail in malls will do that) but I decided to go all holiday mode for the kids this year.  Should not have bothered, ten minutes hanging out the washing and that is what's greeting me inside.

• 
•  It has been hair clip central here for the last few weeks.  I am done for a while but the hard parts start now, choosing a name to operate under and selling some.

•   Enjoying the last of the warm sunny days, sadly I think that this day was the last that we will enjoy untill next spring :(

•   Helping my amazing friend out with her kids clothing stall, I love being around so many beautiful things that she has hand crafted on her own

•  Mixed berry cheesecake.  I used to make these bad boys for a living in so many diferent flavours, I used to make lots and lots of them every week, it has been two years and this is only the second one I have made.  It bought back all the good feelings that I get when I cook/bake and it tasted pretty amazing as well.

• J considers himself the baker in this house and weekends we are usually indugling in some home made bakery treats, usually bread but sometimes he will make something indulgent like this brioche that was not really anything like brioche but still tasted too good to be healthy.

• Scrubbing walls, yep scrubbing the walls of the house, not the greatest activity that comes to mind but something that must be done.  Two years of little grubby kid hands is starting to bother me, super spring clean here I come.