Pinterest Picks

We have had a bout of illness through this house that has been going on for at least three months now and all of us have suffered from multiple different things at varying times so I have been at home quite a bit in the last few weeks and Pinterest has really been feeling my presence lately especially those few days that I was on bed rest.

There is so  much inspiration on that site I have no idea how I am going to do all these wonderful things but here is my pick of the week and four things I am certainly going to do.

Shoes.  I love shoes, like I can't tell you how much my love for shoes and bags run, the trouble is I can find nothing that I like anymore and the ones that I do love are way, way, way out of my price range so after seeing this beautiful pair of shoes I have decided that I am going to try my hand at customizing a pair of cheap shoes into a one of a kind pair of me shoes.  

Neapolitan mousse cake.   Wow, I have no doubt that this would taste amazing but I just love the was that it looks.  We have a very good friend come around for dinner every Tuesday night so sometime in the not so distance future I can see this being made.

Photo Letters.  Again WOW, I am going to do this for the front entrance of our home it is a sad boring and bare area of the house that needs something to cheer it up, I think this project which not only looks great but seems to be on the cheap side of things is perfect.  

Fantasy Direction Sign.  Oh my, I would have loved something like this when I was a child.  I( was an avid reader and this would have been like the greatest thing ever).  We have access to as much and many pallets as we want from my husbands work and we actually have one out the back as we speak.   With the help of my Cricut I can see our sign having places like the Enchanted wood, Hogwarts, Never Land and Far Far Away.

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).

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.

Pinterest picks of the week....

1. Chocolate Ice Cube Strawberries

2. Glue Art

3. Tardis Tea Pot

4. Pallet Garden

1. Frozen Choc Strawberries.  How simple just put some strawberries in an ice cube tray and add melted  chocolate and freeze, bliss and I am so doing that this festive season.

2. Glue.  This is using Elmers glue but you could just use PVA glue.  Just trace over the image on a canvas with the glue and dry, that simple, I would paint over it but such a cool idea.

3. Tardis tea pot.  Seriously why don't I have this and where can I get one?  I am a huge Dr Who fan and I NEED this stat.

4. Pallet garden.  We have access to as many pallets as we want and Jase has made stuff from pallets in the past but not a garden, it is something we have talked about doing but seeing how simple and beautiful this is just makes me want to make my own now.

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.

Pinterest picks of the week....

 I am a totally food driven person, I love to look at it, I love to read about it, I love to cook it and I most certainly LOVE to eat it....

1. Dole Pineapple Whip

2. Red Velvet Cheesecake

3. Broccoli Cheddar Soup

4. Coconut Banana Cream Pie

1. Dole Pineapple Whip.  We don't have them here in Australia, we do have Dole pineapple but I have never seen this delicious cold treat and I used to live 5 minutes drive from the Big Pineapple.  Anyways it has been scary hot here this spring so I foresee many of these in my future.

2. Red Velvet Cheesecake, its a cheesecake with a red velvet cake on top and coated in icing, what is there not to love...

3. Broccoli Cheddar soup.  Creamy cheese soups are not really that popular in Australia but I love cheese anything and Broccoli just happens to be in my top three veg so I think this is a must try.

4. Coconut Banana Cream Pie.  Dear lordy again what is there not to love?

1. Bird Art

2. Peg Advent Calender

3. Doilie Bowl

4. Record Dessert Stand

1.  Painting from Anthropologie, we don't have them here and I certainly would not be paying the asking price but I am certainly going to make my own version after we move.

2. Peg Advent Calender.  I have some wood, I have an abundance of wooden pegs, I believe that I have found what I am making next.

3. Lace Doily Bowl.  So easy, can't wait to make one

4. Record cake stand.  Seriously how cool is that, next theme party I am so making this.