Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Well Kids, the lights are up. the gifts are under the tree and Bing is crooning softly in the background. It's been a very long year and I think its time to put my feet up with a magazine and a glass of something bubbly. 

I just want to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for popping by and indulging me this little bit of the universe. A wise man once said to a friend of mine, upon commenting on the size of his ute ,

"It's a big country baby".

and with that I leave you until the new year!

toodle pip!

my creative space

I've been avoiding putting up Christmas decorations for weeks because frankly, I am not the most vigilant of mothers and Freddy is a most adventurous lad with a penchant for placing perfectly round, chokey sized things in his mouth and other orifices. Ada was getting a bit fed up with me and kept making her own decorations to cheer the place up a bit, so yesterday while she was at Crèche I set about making some Christmas bling that the youngest lion fruit couldn't asphyxiate himself on.

BEHOLD a flat Christmas tree wall hanging with appliqué, problem solved!.

I used cookie cutters as my templates for the decorations and just cut the Christmas tree shapes by hand out of some artist canvas. I sewed the tree bits to the big flat bit, frayed the edges of the tree and ran some bias tape down the sides of the whole thing. on went the appliqués, a couple more seems at the top and bottom to run a couple of dowels through and BAM, Flat Christmassy goodness of the non chokey variety!

dog days

I have a stray dog in my backyard, an excitable little brindle thing with short legs and a head shaped like a pumpkin. I shouldn't have a dog in my backyard, my yard should be dog free. Norman is at the vet's becoming a eunuch and, while I was quite looking forward to not having to pick up dog poo for a day, things never pan out quite the way you plan do they? This dog was making himself quite at home until about an hour ago when he started vigorously dry humping my leg; now he's outside looking at me rather forlornly through the back windows. I took a picture but dogs with heads shaped like pumpkins do not make for particularly attractive subjects.  Thankfully 'pumpkin head' has a tag with his owners phone number on it, now I just have to brave the vigorous dry humping to get close enough to call. At least Norman won't be in the mood for dry humping when he gets home.

flea market finds

The Flea Market Faeries have been most generous with me this week, with lot's of goodies popping up for mere pennies. Two vintage tablecloths (including the one on the table), two ace plastic and cane baskets (I heart these BIG TIME). A roll of groovy floral wallpaper ('groovy' omg kill me now, that word belongs in a museum not in blogland), a teeny tiny, Delft teacup and a 70's Fisher Price Activity centre (didn't everybody have one of these?). The thing that most impressed me with this weeks goodies is that the grand total only came to $19 (hello, bargain!) and, I found a $20 in one of my old handbags (see I told you the Flea Faeries were on my side) completely guilt free flea hunting.

for more thrifty shenanigans pop over to the mistress of vintage, Sophie from Her Library Adventures.

I heart my Print Gocco!

I've spent some 'free' time the last week experimenting with my Gocco, printing and designing some Christmas cards and just playing around. I'm relatively happy with the end result but for future reference I will definitely choose a better quality card stock. I found the results where a bit hit and miss when printing onto the smooth almost glossy card stock, but a matt and more absorbent paper achieved a much better result. 

I'm not to sure where the inspiration for a fat little sumo/babushka girl in snow gear and with dear horns came from, but she's a bit 'seasonal' without being over the top (whatever that means?) and I like her non the less.

I'm off to make Christmas decorations next, what are you making for Christmas this year?

animation friday.....

I'm feelin' a bit 'sunny side up' today so I thought my friday gif shenanigans should reflect that. There's nothing like the bright yellow face of an egg and a pot of tea to cheer you up in the morning.

For more animated goodness or to join in the fun pop over to visit My Poppet for an easy peasy tutorial.

Happy Mikasa!

I love vintage Mikasa a very lot. I also love receiving gifts and getting things in the mail so today when this lovely sugar bowl and creamer arrived I was a little bit tickled. Zigsma from Ope Shope Hope has been trying to win me over with gifts as part of her bid for the 2018 soccer world cup and if this the sort of stuff us delegates can expect to be showered with then she gets my vote...ehem

Thank You very much Zigsma! 

I'm now really keen to try and replace my whole dinner set with this range, its called 'Saffron' on account of the saffron yellow glaze one can assume. Keep your eye's peeled people, EYES PEELED! 

on another bent, the venerable Carmel from Make Mine Mid Century has nominated me for a Cherry on top award YAY! (she thinks I'm clever).

The award requires me to list 3 things I like...only three things, this could be difficult. Then forward the award on to four other worthy blogs in need of some sweet cherry recognition.

so here goes, three things I like.

1. Sonny and the Sunsets, this song in particular. This album will be my soundtrack to summer, because everyone needs one of those.

2. Home made lemon cordial. With plentiful lemons and thirsts to be quenched, I will be making loads of this sunny elixir this summer. 

image via here

3. This skirt for Christmas. Pockets, pleats and buttons, LOVE IT.

image via here

I'm tagging 

Sophie from Shine Little Light because there's always so much going on in that head of hers.

Zigsma from Ope Shope Hope because we have the same birthday and she gives me stuff (thanks peeps)

Woolfe from Woolfenbell because she was one of the first to read my blog and everyone knows Belgians are kind of crazy.

and last but not least

Stella from The Golden Adventures of a very dark horse because I love her blog and her shop Frank and Dean and because she illustrated my blog header.

nighty night peeps

x