When I woke up this morning my head was full of wonderful inspiring crafty things to do today - somehow I ended up getting roped into setting up sylvanian village! which by the by took about 3 hours all up!!!!  Not that I was complaining (I do love a day in a miniature town)  But when it was 2pm I realised I'd better feed the boys whom I'd neglected all morning.

Finger Knitting

Okay, last weekend when we visited the Andrews in the fabulous Blue Mountains - I attempted to teach my 11 yr old niece how to crochet. But alas I am a shocking teacher!! I think she was getting it - but I kept insisting she look up tutorials on utube - and I kind of make mine up as I go most of the time. So anywho - I had my wool with me. Hayleys jeans kept falling down and she was walking funny around Katoomba to try and keep them from falling around her ankles (poor dear - we forgot her belt) so I grabbed a few strands of wool and showed my niece how to finger knit - thinking it'd be a quicker thing to learn, so I whipped up a wool belt for Hayley.  I know the story is dragging on a bit now but I am getting to it - you know how one thing leads to another and so on......

So when we got home I started to finally use up some of my huge stash of wool to create a funky scarf, 2 balls of wool and about 30 mins later - wallah.....

I haven't done finger knitting since I was a kid - I remember mum showing me.  So glad that it came to mind and I am loving it like crazy and thinking I might make a few more.  

I don't have a mannequin to take flash piccys of my creations - but lucky there's always eager kiddlings around.

"Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit, either."
~Elizabeth Zimmerman

So so so so very excited with my findings from the weekend!!! We made the journey to The Blue Mountains to visit with family there and what do you think I found all along the way?? Craft shops, antique shops, vineyards, cute little villages, shops, cafes and awe inspiring sights everywhere. We had the most fantastic time and can't wait to go again and check out some of the spots we didn't pass through.

 So these two suitcases finish off my stack that I've been collecting for years, though I'm always determined not to pay a lot for them - I had to give in to the cute little one on top, I've never even seen one this small and just had to have it, the other one was a third of the price but completes my set off nicely! Though the 2 big suitcases on the bottom are exactly the same - I'm going to gift one to my sister in-law.

And below I finally got my old iron and the pot warmer. The binoculars and dressmaking hemmer are from second hand shops, both gotten at bargains and worthy of mention!! And the crochet tablecloth you can see also a find from the weekend only $15 for a huge completed tablecloth - has a few marks on it which I'll attempt to remove - also been after one of these for ages. I must have patience after all - it has certainly paid off in the end.

I haven't posted in a while, camera needs batteries, keep forgetting to buy them! I'll get there..... but anyways a few old piccy's

This fantastic hutch we found in an antique store - before...

 After...

Organising some of my larger bits of fabrics

Some of my crates

I was in the middle of making some more bunting for the shop, which I had been putting off doing for like 3 weeks - I kept telling myself I had more interesting things to work on than bunting - so hubby on night shift I commit myself to triangles, and lo and behold not 5 mins into sewing - machine says 'kerthunk, kerthunk, kerthunk...... i tried for ages to fix said problem - so off to the sewing machine hospital it is.  Feeling a bit lost without my right arm, I finally got to work on some felties?? not sure if term is correct or softies??
Oh by the by I just pinched some batteries for my camera out of the kids game thingys - shhhhh   :D

just some practising

oops lil froggy snuck in, last project made on machine, new prototype

A journal cover with the same lil birdie design, it's from some scrapbooking supplies I have from DCVW

he's soooo cute

Okay so enough pics for today - I think it makes up for so long no postie!!

Feeling a bit naughty - have been neglecting my garden, but with the drizzly cold weather last week it was so hard to make myself get out there! I'm still climatizing. But the garden has loved the rain and is thriving. We didn't go for too much variety as we only got here in October.

  Eggplants galore - I had actually bought 2 Lebanese purple eggplant seedlings, but one turned out to be a white eggplant, am looking for a chutney recipe or someway to use up the glut of them if anyone has any on hand!?!

 My beautiful tomatoes - so yum.

The corn did super well - it wasn't as sweet as I'd thought it would be, but dad told me to use some potash on them when they started to flower - and I just never got around to applying it. But next year I will make sure that I do. I even bought it - I have good intentions - honestly.......   :) but it was so yum to have homegrown corn, picked, husked and cooked straight away - not to mention a raw cob to chew on while I was picking!!

 

  Plenty of cherry tomatoes that popped up everywhere once we started watering and feeding the garden bed. Found a fantastic way to use them up to - I made a spag sauce with them but roasted them in the oven with herbs and balsamic vinegar, olive oil etc - very nice, I made spag and meatballs, even Hayley said it was good (which means a lot coming from the bird eater herself!!!)

The cherry tomatoes run wild and take over this whole garden bed - I'm not going to argue with them.

 And so proud of my olives, never even seen them on a tree before, there's only a few but I cherish them soooo much, will have to do a bit of research on olive growing and hopefully next time I'll get enough to actually do something with them.

I bought some citrus trees and have potted them up, I hope they go okay.

Morpeth

Yesterday, we ended up in Morpeth. Only for a couple of hours but it was worth it. The last time I was there I fell in love with the doors. And I was determined the next time I went, I'd get some pics of them. So dragging the hubby and the kiddlings around in the hot summer day - I got to see the doors of Morpeth.

oops maybe theres a few too many but I didn't even get to take pics of them all as lots of the shops were open, maybe 1 day I'll get the rest. I just fell in love with the character of each door - they are all soooo lovely. Call me crazy!!  :D

Now I don't proclaim to be an 'Artist' or a 'Painter' by any means, but I do love to paint! I have a niece and a nephew turning 2 very soon and wanted to make some homemade gifts for them. Because at xmas time I had none of my handmade goodies left - they were all sold or sitting in the shop, much to my disgust, I had to by somebody else's handmade goodies for my family. So I'm determined this year to succeed,  that's my own little challenge for the year.

But today I ventured through the rain and cold to my friends house and hour from here, to craft, tea and coffee, lunch, gossip, and catch up in general now the kids are back in school and had a lovely day - thanks Megan  xoxo

Here are some of my fav paintings, they are folksy inspired from an American craft book I've had for years.

Have a nice weekend!

Nate is completely obsessed with the color orange! and its quite difficult to find him orange, age appropriate toys. So I set about to make him some small orange type critters.

He loves them, he calls them his orange guys! He got a small box and they hoon around the house in their 'car'.