Ag May ...

Here are my handmade efforts for Christmas this year...  I'm pretty chuffed with the outcome and, with the whole clan in attendance this year, their appreciation made all the late nights so worth it!!!  Love you guys!! Home made star by Little Miss M.  Santa came to visit and forgot to wipe his shoes at the front door! Technically a "Bon Voyage" present - pillow bags with pillows.  I'm so happy with the outcome as it was my own design.  The inspiration, though, came from here .   For the little girls Two of the Three Little Maids   (thanks to Jodie Carlton of Vintage Ric Rac for sharing her awesome designs and sewing know how) Crocheted ballerinas  (I left the finishing of these until last and I'm so glad I did - these little ones killed my hands!!) (Thanks to Mia Zamora for sharing this wonderful design)  With this type of reaction, of course it's worth the effort!!! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

I was really against Advent Calendars before.  I just didn't understand how they fit in the spirit of Christmas.    And then, one day a thoughtful friend (thanks P!) sent me this link which made me rethink the spirit of the Advent calendar and inspired me to make not one, not two but three Advent Activity calendars  (one for Little Miss M and one each for her two cousins)!!    Unfortunately, I didn't get this lightbulb inspiration until the 2nd of December, which was the same day that my Baby Mac was not feeling too great.   So, from none to three, in the space of one late evening, here are my super quick, super simple, Advent Calendars. Want to know how to make them?  Then read on! You'll need - brown crafting or wrapping paper.  I got mine from Woolworths. - ribbon tied into bows - some Christmas stamps or stickers (something to decorate about 5 or 6 brown packets) - a pen/texta to write the numbers (or you can stamp them if

Caramel Popcorn - devil's food, I'm sure.  I am addicted to this stuff.  Once in a while, I buy that awful stuff from the supermarket and binge on it.  Sadly (or thankfully  - I don't know!!), I seem to be the only one in the family to love this stuff.  I thought I would try to make some at home.  So...   I made a batch on Tuesday night - one jar full plus 4 and a 1/2  brown bags full.  I gave away one bag to a neighbour.  I gave the 1/2 bag to my husband for work.  And I "shared" (as in I think I ate the lion's share of it) one bag with some friends who came over on Wednesday.   I was surfing Pinterest last night.  And on Thursday morning, I wake up and this is what I'm left with... Before the photo shoot... After the photo shoot (I took about 3 photos!!)... And that's it - no more after this jar is emptied!! On another note, I had a go at creating "art".  Art, as in something to hang and display.  What do y

Food amazes me.  Eating food amazes me.  I mean, who would have thought to pick the apple from the apple tree and bite into it?  Who would have picked out the basil plant and discovered its gloriously delicious leaves?  And who thought to pick wheat and ground it up to make flour? And then, add to that, who would have thought of putting simple ingredients together, say like flour, butter, sugar and eggs, to create cake?  Cake - nothing like flour, nothing like butter, nothing like sugar, nothing like egg - something new created with totally different properties from the ingredients that make it up.  Food alchemy!! Sure, we now have pound cake, cup cakes, sponge cakes, Angel Food Cake, Devil Food Cake, cakes galore, but how ingenious was that first cake?  That first cake upon which formed the basis of our cake baking... how truly genius and amazing was the creation of that first cake? Yep - food amazed me.  And it continues to amaze me. Simple ingredients such as Marie

Sometimes I find that it easy to get caught up in the chaos of life and forget to stop, breathe, and appreciate what I have.  So, I've borrowed this concept for today to show snippets of my day and the beauty in my life.  Enjoy!!                       A special thanks to A Bit of Sunshine for sharing this project.  I can relate to how this project came about; and it spoke to me in a way that nothing else and no-one else has been able to.

Apparently, short people are predisposed to sleeping poorly.  It is a well known fact that tall people sleep longer (ba-da-bing). Poor joke aside (provided by my Dear Husband and had me cracking up.  And then, after a minute of chuckling, had me asking if that was supposed to be a pun or a real fact, which, in turn had him cracking up at my gullibility).  As I was saying poor joke aside, I do sleep poorly.  Not quite an insomniac, just a bad sleeper. And how do I remedy this, especially in the middle of the night?  I turn on my brightly lit iTouch while in bed and activate a puzzle app.  Yeah - thinking puzzles are the best way to get back to sleep.  Even better are the puzzles that time you, so that you keep trying to get a better and better time.  Nothing like those competitive juices to relax you and get you back to sleep. Like this one - it's called latkin, but it's actually a game called KenKen.  It's like Sudoku, but it incorporates arithmetic.  Just the