a photo-a-day challenge with FatMumSlim May #1

Greetings all,
Welcome to the first 10 days of the photo-a-day challenge with FatMumSlim for May.

1. peace - i have a huge bunch of hearts in all shapes, sizes, materials & reasons hanging by the door in our lounge (living area) which bring me so much peace.   

2. skyline - in preparation of fully grown chickens, i had to create a fence to hold back a German Shepherd: this is my skyline, i loathe it, our back pergola THAT CLOSE to the neighbour's back door, i'd much prefer wide open spaces where i can't see the neighbours!!

3. something i wore today - gum boots, galoshes, wellingtons, whatever you call them. they're a Winter essential & great in the snow.

4. fun - as my husband missed Easter, his only request was to come home from war to a Lindt bunny, so we Lindt bunnied alright!!

5. bird - a cherished gift from a beautiful person.

6. you - this kettle is SO me . . . it's Alessi (i love designer brands, Italian = even better), it's shaped like Mickey Mouse (i love Disneyland), i tune out while the kettle boils (i day dream) & trying new things (like drinking tea) + i bought it when i was 20 (knowing it would be an investment piece).  The butterfly was a gift from my favourite Army wife Melissa.

7. someone who inspires you - my 3rd girl . . . she struggles with her papa away at war; i have to work harder at parenting this child than any other; her whole world is rainbows, unicorns & sitting on toadstools.  When she's humming away drawing, i know i'm doing a good job of being her mummy . . . other times, she inspires to try harder.  Let's just say, she's the family barometer.

8. a smell you adore - fresh bread, enough said.

9. something you do everyday - for the past 15 years i have been responsible for feeding someone everyday, from animals to children, there is something terribly rewarding & nurturing about it.  Oh & meet our new Silver Spangled Hamburg hens. 

10. a favourite word - kind of love every word on this sign, "hand-stirred", isn't that just dreamy, old fashioned, soul-food-sounding??

Don't forget my new mid-month-link-party AEIOU, details here, would love you to join in!!

Starts 15th May & embraces fabulousness in your life, love Posie

things i'm loving . . . 'the stocking fillers of my week'

Greetings all,

'twas a week filled with pockets of joy, the stocking fillers of my life, so for PaisleyJade's Things I'm Loving this week, it's lots of things!!
My little fella has been doing the old 'can i just fall asleep in your room' routine, why yes almost 8 year old, while i'm still your hero, you can spend as much time with me as you wish (his Peter Alexander eye mask is new, he said girlie would be Ok) . . . 

 our school did a fundraiser with mangoes, gosh they smell great . . .

 goodness this is cute, my son has a collection of felt acorns & wanted to put them in a basket, we found a mini trolley - note the tiny baby felt acorns (navy & brown) in the child seat!! 

 We have our fair share of sulphur crested cockatoos in Canberra (they changed the spelling to sulfur when i was at Uni, but i'm still confused!!)

 Oh how lovely is this clip on glass mushroom, perfect for my toadstool loving 3rd girl.

 Treated myself to a new white ceramic love heart (large one) for about $3 . . .

 moment of weakness at the supermarket, these two DVDs for $30, after what seemed like 40 days & nights of rain . . . not a Jim Carrey fan but this was a really sweet family movie - penguins, what's not to love??  Ice Age 400 or something, who cares, it was practically free & it's a bit Christmassy.

 Oh how neat are these pears - i have a vision for how my house will look when i'm 50 & it will include pears.  Lots of them.  Never too early to start a collection . . .

 blame Brenda from Red Stitch Designs & her delicious linen pears, of which i have many!!

Are you gliding into the Christmas spirit??  I just love this time of year as school wraps up, it's Summer, we're swimming, the shopping + i love wrapping & sending off gifts to those i love, ahhh . . . can you tell i'm well ahead of schedule & can laugh at the chaos??  Love Posie

things i'm loving 'snow day' & i'm grateful for 'love'

Greetings all,

Oh finally, it's school holidays for Canberra!!  To celebrate the last day of term, my 3 primary schoolers were invited to dress for Snow Day & dress for snow they did!!

Check out the beautiful weather, it was still -1C when we dropped them at school (yes WE, my husband flew in 30 hours early, yesterday afternoon).  He was thrilled to leave warm & sunny Brisbane to arrive just in time for a -6C Canberra night.

 Very Scooby Doo outside in the thick fog.

 I had my leather gloves on & enjoyed the car heating.

 A nice surprise waiting at the post office - my on line orders from my head-cold-shopping - just in time for my husband to see.  As our fabulous post office lady said "you can't exactly hide 3 giant floor cushions & smuggle them into the house like shoes".  I say fabulous as she is equally as excited about my orders of fabric, twine & vintage wax paper stripey straws as i am!!  Ooppss, i ordered 450 straws, my head cold did last a few days, i was delirious & they have been a huge hit with the children.

 Oh why thank you Donna Hay, these DIY brownie & macaron mixes will do nicely as i perch myself on your indulgent floor cushions (FYI cushions reduced from $140 to $69.95 + $9 shipping each now - i've been told we're NOT visiting her General Store when we visit our parents in Sydney) & every order comes with a box of pencils.  I left a little note saying 'if you have any spare pencils, i have 4 big Donna Hay fans who would make good use of them' & da dah, 4 boxes of free pencils were beautifully wrapped up in blue tissue paper with the order.  What a treat!!

 Mmmm . . . for more Things I'm Loving, go visit the lovely Paisley Jade today.
Now to double up this post with I'm Grateful For with Maxabella Loves, as i have one busy weekend (looking at farms, yippee) . . .

 As i mentioned, yay, my husband is home - 2 whole weeks of fun & games with the school holidays.  To celebrate i treated myself to this beautifully embroidered heart by Plushka (hi Katia, gorgeous to see you here in windy, blustery, blizzardy Canberra this week) which will sit nicely with my heart collection (red one by Plushka, linen one by Red Stitch Designs, hi Brenda!!)

 Handsome soldier sent me flowers mid week, i've been pretty run down, exhausted & desperate for some time off the school run & homework judging, what a lovely surprise!!  Oh the joy of sharing the parenting, if only for a couple of weeks. 

What do two lovebirds do after 2 months apart - that's right, turn out the pantry, pull out the fridge & clean behind it + sort out all the bits & pieces which found their way to the top of the fridge.  We were heading to our favourite restaurant Poacher's Pantry for lunch, after a spot of shopping in the city, but handsome soldier felt a bit heady & unwell (no doubt frozen) so we picked up a movie (RED) & enjoyed crusty BBQ chicken & salad rolls, mmmm.  That my friends is how you keep 15 years of marriage alive.  Next we're changing lightglobes!!
Finally back on regular internet speed, yay, blogs here i come.  Love Posie
Thanks for the super encouraging comments on my talk to the high school girls about a career in design . . . they were a mix of nervous & shy, keen & so totally not interested.  I was teamed up with 2 former students who were studying Industrial Design & Engineering, we all had very different angles to discuss from 'the panel'.  They were impressed by different things - famous clients, glossy magazines, published books - each group of girls was completely different.  I did give away surprise prizes to the girls asking the best questions & handed around copies of Handmade Living for them to flick through, something tangible & the teachers loved that too!! 

i'm grateful for 'bloggie friends IN REAL LIFE'

Greetings all,
Wow, what a trip to Queensland i had.  To meet your bloggie friends for real & for true is just a blast.  First up was Thea from Thea&Sami blog screen printing in Capalaba, i love her, we had so much fun & boy is she a great teacher.

 We had a delicious lunch by the water too, oh yum, thank Thea.  Had to drag myself away, then drove back to my family in the rain & pitch black, dreaming of my boot load of remnants. 

 I took brownies & a bunch of organic goodies from Canberra.

Then off Bulimba, a lovely high end part of Brisbane on the river, to meet lovely Simone from Beach Vintage blog, at her delicious Just Plain Gorgeous store.  I had the image of Simone with her long blonde hair from her blog in my mind & found her in a stunning blue floral dress behind the counter. 

 I couldn't get all the things i didn't buy the first time out of my mind, so we went returned.

 Yes, this was my oilcloth emergency on Easter Sunday!!  Thanks Simone, gorgeous to meet you & i love your store, first place i'm going next time i'm in Brisbane.

Ah, Kylie from Mealy&i blog, a dear Army wife i've been friends with for many years, we caught up in March in Sydney at Sew It Together & again last week on ANZAC Day in South Bank Brisbane.  I forgot to take new photos of us, Kylie always looks fabulous.

True to form & just after Kylie's husband asked which child is the accident prone one . . . we glanced over to find the child in question getting medical assistance from the Life Guard.  She'd taken a chunk out of her knee.  Kylie did a great post about ANZAC day, her soldier & meeting up with us here.

 On my way back to Canberra, i took the New England Highway home & had tee'd up to meet Brenda from Hoo Are You Lookin' At blog as i'm a huge fan & collector of her gorgeous products from Red Stitch Designs.

 We met in a park in Tamworth, ha, sounds like some cyber date meeting in a public place, just in case.  We hit it off immediately & our children just ran off & played together.  So easy, ah, Brenda, i adore you.

 So glad i'm not the only one with children who have to play in water at any opportunity.  Look at the beautiful blue bird i was given, oh Brenda, you are too adorable!!

 Now the only way i could drag myself away from Brenda . . . i was off to Plain English in Scone.  I went there 6 years ago.  I did the Sydney to Brisbane round trip to spend 3 days with my husband while he had a long weekend on course, with 4 children under 6 . . . i found this divine store.  I should mention my children travel really well & long trips driving solo doesn't bother me.  I took the Pacific Highway up & allowed 5 driving days for this 3000km trip.

 OMG, a car space right out the front, how lucky!!??

 As the girls put their shoes on, my son ran ahead & delivered the bad news "Mum, the door is locked" followed up with "Mum, the sign says it's closed on Wednesdays" & the cruel blow "Mum, the shop couldn't be MORE closed". 

 So maybe next time & i'm dragging Tina Rubie from Rubies' Place blog to meet me there, as we couldn't catch up this trip but we're both totally in love with this particular country decor store.

On the final leg, from Sydney to Canberra, i caught up with my best bloggie friend Corrie from Retro Mummy.  We chatted twins, life with 4 children, schools, fabric, blogs, design, houses & living down in this part of the world (she's a Canberra girl living in Sydney wanting to move to Bowral, which is kind of in between).  Small little fact - our fathers were in the Navy together, so Corrie & i have probably known each other for more than 30 years, reunited by blogs!! 

Look at Miss Elodie, now 6 months, she's going to be tall like her Retro Daddy.
So i'm very grateful this week to be able to meet all these amazing bloggers in real life.  My handmade world of design & motherhood allows me to meet many bloggers at markets & Shop Handmade, i'm super lucky (see the list on the right side bar) & my Queensland holiday was very relaxing, only made better by meeting my favourite bloggers who are now new friends.  Love Posie

test driving Lego Creator for Christmas

Greetings all,

I have dedicated my adult life to handmade affairs & raising well rounded children.  I was raised on handmade too + a happy childhood filled with Lego (it was my first love over Barbie/ My Little Pony/ Care Bear/ Strawberry Shortcake) & i love re-living this with my 4 children who are all Lego mad too!!  The friendly people at One Green Bean sent some Lego Creator to test drive, ahhh, the building blocks of handmade from Danish plastic fantastic. My son leapt at the chance to make the snowman . . .

 . . . check out that focus & attention & tan . . .

 i know, can you believe it, a man reading instructions!!

. . . um, he made the broom, couldn't resist step 13 first . . .

 he loves his new bed, it's a great play platform

 . . . he had to fend of 3 nosey big sisters . . .

 excuse the goofy face, this really was the best of 6 shots!! 

Da dah, now pride & place with our handmade Christmas decorations including an untouched GingerBreadHouse # 2 . . . sits my son's proud Lego Creator snowman.  I wonder if the Lego will breed as quickly as those Allana C giraffes did??  I'm a sucker for Lego, of course it will.  Great activity for a gloomy weather day, he's already broken the snowman down, built the him back up again & added extra 'Christmas lights' to the snowman's hat.  Love creative children.
Now back to my post market coma, ok, so we've been clothes shopping today . . .  but oh my aching thighs from bobbing up & down all day to get change behind my stall yesterday, i used over 150 paper carry bags, so that was a lot of lunges & thigh blasting!!  Love Posie