first day of shopping after surgery, retail therapy

Greetings all,

Thanks for the awesome feedback on the last post, including a Member of Parliament, sorry to bump big Ben off the top of my blog for gratuitous retail shopping showing off, but it was my first day out alone in the city for ages. 

I covered the basics of stationery & accessories at Kikki-K & TYPO.  Mollie Makes arrived in the mail, along with bills - i'm paying for my anaesthetist's yacht too it seems.  Did i mention i had cortisone injection for my tennis elbow while under the general anaesthetic, not brave enough to do it awake.

 Seed feeds my inner child with their playful style, i do share with my actual children but the plaid scarf & flower bottle is pour moi.

I picked up some gifts for friends & birthday parties, then walked into Laura Ashley, on a whim i might find the birdie dress i adored in Brisbane in January.  Not only did i find the dress, it had a 60% off tag too.  I so want to go back for the butterfly version.  

 

It's a blank canvas dress - can't you see this mixed up a million ways, with cardigans, tights, dressed up or down, teamed with cream or colour??!!  Best of all, my shopping was light enough to carry all by myself.

 

 We actually have some exciting events mid year when my husband comes home, adult parties, like weddings & 40th birthdays.  Totally warrants some new frocks.  I do need a bed side table lamp, not sure how i can introduce that into frock-necessary shopping??
Argh, on super slow internet as handsome soldier hogged the monthly usage to update all his Apple software & today i discovered a glitch in my ability to drive - i can't do a reverse hill start, as i still need 2 hands to operate the hand brake.  That was fun in the school car park, with a numb left thumb in a 2 tonne car.  Today my hands have yellow bruising, with tiny bandaids on my wrists, such a smooth recovery.  Have gorgeous weekends everyone, love Posie

i'm grateful for . . . 'feeling the love'

Greetings all,
With Valentine's Day coming up, i thought i'd do a pretty picture post.  I'm often told my blog oozes love, well right back at you, from your comments - i feel it & kind of need it.  Coming up on 5 months since i last saw/ held/ hugged/ kissed my husband . . . needless to say we don't bother celebrating anniversaries, ANY day we spend together is special.

 This week's Kidspot Grateful is about smiling at strangers, well i smile, chat & laugh with strangers ALL the time, i was raised with the old "if you don't have a smile, you can have one of mine" smiles-are-free-attitude.  With my teenager, sometimes that smile comes with a poke, tickle or joke (& a crowbar) why they frown so much, i have no idea.   

 So you know what puts a smile on my face??  Coming home from holidays to 2 Mollie Makes magazines & i'll share them with smiley friends & we'll suggest Mollie to strangers in craft shops who'll smile too!!

 Oh sweet embroidery, i can't wait to regain my skills!!

 Crochet love heart bunting, say no more!!

 My sweet boy received a Valentine from his adorable preschool girlfriend & is returning the favour (5 years & counting).

 Made for a great school holiday activity.  All the children made up cards & letters for their Daddy too.  I love the image of soldiers receiving heart stamped, pink & scented mail in war zones.

So my friends, this is our last weekend before school resumes on Tuesday & first weekend home since Christmas, so it's a blur of pressing uniforms & piecing sports uniform emsembles together, mowing lawns & weeding.  Needless to say my hands & elbows (ouch) are on ice each afternoon.  Forgive me if i'm a bit quiet for a few days, remembering how to be a school mum.  Love Posie
PS the Laura Ashley scarf in the top image was an i-love-me gift, under $20 on sale, such a beautiful shade of watermelon red!!

loving all things French & Festivalish

Greetings all,

A month ago (excuse the tardiness) we were in Brisbane & went to their French Festival (tipped off by Thea from Thea&Sami screen printer extraordinaire).  It was fantastic . . . c'est magnifique!!

Brisbane suffered rather chilly Winter school holidays so this is not how their glorious warm & sunny skyline normally looks, even in Winter, alas, check out the French flags & HUGE crowds. 

 While in the queue for crepes, i sent the children around with the camera to take some snaps, so this is their view of the stilt walkers, called the Baguettes or something quaint.

 My darling patient husband queued up for 90 minutes to provide our family with delicious crepes.  I took the children to play at South Bank, it was spitting rain but by GOD we were having crepes!!  Look at these banana deliciousness.  Note to self: get rich quick scheme, make crepes & charge a fortune for them at a French festival!!

 Ok so some quiche & pies were purchased too.  Lucky our children are into sharing, by way of passing around a quiche or pie & each taking a bite - i referred to it as 'a tasting plate'.

 Using this Frenchy inspiration to make good use of my Frenchy stationery.

 Playing around with new tags & loving the red, white & blue!!

 This is a bit orange, sorry for quick snaps at night on the kitchen counter!!

Love a good international festival, many macarons were consumed & it was great fun.  Shall mark it for the calendar next year, with my complimentary military holiday home husband's bachelor pad in Brisbane.  Love Posie

a stop. start. up. down. weekend with a huge surprise

Greetings all,

Wow, you bloggie folk are the best ever, i can't thank you enough for all the comments over the past week as i've been exhausted, ill & flat - all things which fly in the face of who i am & what i'm about (energy, health & happiness).  

My darling husband could sense how dreadful i was feeling & took leave to come home for the weekend - you can imagine the exciting surprise on Friday afternoon when he flew in & turned up on the doorstep.  Yay!!  A whole 48 hours with my handsome soldier.  I never ask for pity - we chose this life - the Army & more recently, to live in 1300km apart, so my husband could concentrate on his career (wars/ courses/ training/ exercises/ promotions) & our eldest transition to high school smoothly (our 9th school) . . . everyone is flourishing personally, but it is a long road & a lot of work to raise children physically on your own & spend this much time away from your favourite person in the whole wide world!!  It was meant to be 2 years, then 3, now it's looking like 4 or 4.5 years, eekk!!  We can do it!! 

 Exciting image of our kitchen sink . . . but it offers up clues of our weekend - a delicious made-from-scratch tandoori chicken BBQ dinner with rice; flowers for a client; remnants of baking; freshly squeezed orange juice . . . capping off a busy weekend. 

My donations to the school bake sale . . .  

 my muffins look whipped rather than mixed, but i can barely grasp a wooden spoon with my hands (carpal tunnel) is really playing up so the KitchenAid did the work for me.  

 The latest stationery purchases (delivered on Friday) - now to think up what to do . . .

 completely love these handmade stamps - i want to use them on fabric or tape . . .

 & i need to make a new range of gift cards/ tags, these sticky rings from Japan will help with inspiration . . .

 for my next Handmade market i want to put together stationery packs & work on the packaging/ display - i think these stumpy pegs are perfect for the job!!

 I'm being very restrictive with the sharing of the vintage stripey straws while i work out what i want to do with them, but they just make drinking so much fun for the children, so i let them have a couple on the weekend.  

 I should start a series called "images you don't want to find on your camera" . . . always taken by the children . . . this is an outdoor puppy who is only allowed inside at night, after the children are asleep, to patrol the halls & keeps us safe, um, can't you tell . . .

look at that Winter coat around his bottom, SO much fluff, he leaves a trail.
So it was a very stop. start. up. down. weekend with parties, events & cuddles.  I'm so thankful my husband was here to courier the children around while i flaked in the passenger seat of my life, if only for the weekend.  He has great timing that boy!!  Love Posie

pretty stationery . . . fluff that makes me happy

Greetings all,

Wow, thanks for the support to my last post with the in-your-face-blog-haters happy comments, you ladies rock.  I've got plenty of self confidence when a negative/ mindless/ mean comment or email comes my way to think "your loss, you clearly don't get what i'm about" & click delete . . . but i know some of the sweeter softer bloggers out there, it hurts them.  So a big yay for us friendly folk & positive commenting!!

Today i thought i'd blog about some mindless fluff - uber pretty stationery which found it's way in to my letter box last month . . . sorry, July, where did you go??  Enjoy the show . . .

 paper doll post it notes, stop it, too gorgeous; ninja post-it-style book marks; & i spied the babushka sticky notes, say no more, Cute Tape knows my weakness . . .

 these fell into a shopping bag at TYPO - airmail style stamps & scribble stack note pad!! 

 I'm thinking my tombstone will read "she never knew how to resist washi tape".  It's likely i'll die under an avalanche of pretty Japanese rolls of coloured masking tape, there are worse ways to go.  Those words will be under "she who dies with the most fabric wins" with my  world champion fabric hoarder ranking.  All of these new goodies are now in my collection (above) to add to their pretty cousins (below).

I'm easy to please, i love my stationery & i'm very excited to be planning a parent study (as opposed to study room for the 4 children) in the homestead design, where i can open up a lady like letter writing area.  I like the idea that it's not in my studio, as beautiful stationery can get lost among all my sewing materials. 

Happy weeks everyone, that's an order, love Posie  

a very Australian bush walk

Greetings all,
After an exciting morning of stationery shopping for high school supplies, yawn, actually not too bad as our eldest is in the laptop programme, i took a couple of our girls on a bush walk over the road. 

 We've done this walk before & know what to expect . . .

 a big walking adventure . . .

 & tonnes of kangaroos!!

 I took the little digital camera as i'm excellent at tripping over . . .

 so no fantastic telescopic shots on the fancy Nikon SLR today!!

 I think these shots show just how close we got . . .

 to all the kangaroos we saw!!

 I kept one eye on the kangaroo poo . . .

 & one eye out for snakes . . .

 while the girls spotted kangaroos for me!!

 Just across the road from this massive reserve is our home.

 We just climb through the inviting hole in the gate past all the warning signs of wild dogs (have never seen a dingo in Canberra) & rabbit poison.

 Then on the way home a little chat to the ducks.

Who said all exercising has to be on a treadmill or pounding the pavement??  We would have covered a good 5km up & down the mountains in the late afternoon heat on a bush walk, plus it was far more interesting!!  Free school holiday entertainment, right at your back door, love Posie
EDIT: LAST CHANCE for the IKEA lifestyle book giveaway, drawn tomorrow night!!  Good luck, 10 books to giveaway, fantastic odds!!

for the love of stationery

Greetings all,
Like most, i'm a big fan of stationery & packaging.  With Christmas markets looming, i have a few tricks up my sleeve for subtle customer reminders for seasonal gift buying - like laminating the sheets of gorgeous Christmas wrap from Kikki-K (double sided, love that) & hanging them from my market stall (so they can spin & show of both festive sides).  Aces!!
I couldn't resist the goodies from Typo too, those stacking boxes (set of 5) are not $25 for extra large, $20 for large, $15 for medium & so on, i got the LOT for $14.95!!  I'm going back for more today as they are fabulous for holding stock & this particular print has an international flavour with Eiffle Towers & Statues of Liberty in small reptitive print!!

Shock horror gasp, i spent Sunday tidying up my studio & there is a floor afterall.  I treated myself to a new sticky tape dispenser, note pads, clutch purse (totally unrelated to my studio) & to start my Christmas cards.  I have a market on Thursday, little 3 hour event at Canberra Airport (Brindabella Park to be precise) so i'm madly trying to make stock in the evenings after a fun day at Shop Handmade with Rachel.  It's hard to resist my husband so i'm doing hand sewing next to him (lounge craft) rather than being in my studio (& watching reruns of OffSpring, why Nina, WHY??)  I'm pretty torn, husband vs OffSpring & all.
Have a lovely week, i'm still only able to upload one image at a time, so expect single-imagey posts for a while.  Love Posie
PS thanks for your thoughtful comments to my last post - i think it's fascinating this whole teen thing.