and so that was Christmas...

I hope everyone had a good one and Santa was good to you....

I worked Boxing Day but its been so lovely have time off since.

Thought id better show a pic of Lucy's darling Christmas tree with some special ornaments making their way onto it, all red and white this year...we went minimal and au natural this year.....i love it especially when the sunlights streaming thru the window and the aircons on so all the decorations are twinkling and moving about.

it has developed a bit of lean lol


I dropped off the blog radar well before the big day as i was busy making more pockets. I wont bore you with them all but will show you some of the pretty details....









i love the big flower on this one , ill share how i did this later , i want to do some more experimenting.

I sent off a heap of parcels two weeks before Christmas but they were delayed with the snow and are just filtering through now. Sorry peeps....hope they wont be much longer.

On Monday i made some atc's for the first time in ages, it was lovely to sit down and play catch up, only about 5 to go now for Inkurable Stampers lol
Spooky


Music

They aren't quite as dark in real life...

This one i made so i could practice painting faces, this is very new to me but i do love painting these little whimsies...takes me forever i might add and so much harder to do at atc size.
Mythical Creatures



And the only new years resolution i am making is to catch up my challenges that i started this year. Other than that, i hope you all have a Happy New Years.

Here's to your good health and happiness and stay safe on the roads.........

Febs dress ups ...

Well i just scraped in with mine, mind you its taken me all week to do!

When i first started it, it was going to be all pale but it looked really wishy washy with the twinklings and had me totally stumped. So i attacked it with red, pink and white paint and it just fell together... you can read how i made it here.

Aren't these little dresses fun? I am so enjoying visiting people blogs and seeing the variety of dresses. I changed the shape on this one and i still think it looks a bit Disney princessy [i was aiming for more Scarlett O'Hara!!] However, if anyone wants the pattern, email me and ill send it to you.







My OWOH giveaways left last Saturday and Marion in Germany has already received hers...1 down to two to go...

I also made this Gothic arch card for inkurable stampers , theme was lace. My entire background was lace scraps gelled onto a glimmermist background. i am really enjoying this technique, you get such wonderful texture and mopped up some of the glimmermist excess with lace too which took very well.



All is good here, just seems to be cycle of work and weekends! I am trying to do a little
making each day though, which i need. It makes the nearly full time work tolerable.
So enthusiastic aren't I ?
Still in two weeks im off for a weekend with a patchwork group . I was told NOT to take my rotary cutter, i think it might be a cause of embarassment to the serious patchworkers!!

Happy Australia Day

Happy Australia Day Everyone...hope you are all having a lovely time with your family and friends....[i tried to upload this earlier today but blogger was having a few hiccups with uploading photos, however the thought was there]

Hubby and i took a little jaunt to Maldon and Daylesford yesterday to pick up our dog who had been away on a little sex fest! he didn't look that happy to see us, i don't think he wanted to come home!
Anyway we stopped at Maldon, a very pretty little heritage town with lots of curio and junk shops, yummy bakeries and a great little patchwork shop.
This the view down the front street.

Its a bit touristy on weekend but through the week it was fairly quiet. A few years we went on the steam train for a Fathers Day lunch. That was so much fun....and hubby got picked to go and have a drive with the train driver!

Then we went to Daylesford, the home of mineral water and spas......wow, was that place alive with all the summer tourists...I was looking for a craft/patchwork shop but it was full of eateries, spas and pretentious little gift shops.

Then we went to the Convent Gallery, the gardens are absolutely magnificent and i took some pictures of this tree, aren't the patterns in the bark amazing?





The buildings have been renovated and it houses a restaurant, convention, wedding centre, art gallery supporting local artists and gift shop. I took some pictures of the beautiful leadlight windows in the chapel





and from the veranda overlooking Daylesford.



I could never live here, look how thick that forest is [beautiful i know] but it totally surrounds the town, you would have no hope in a bushfire.





On the way home we stopped here at the
Chocolate Mill made from straw bales. It was so cool inside. One of my dreams is to have a straw bale home but I'd have to divorce hubby first ;)

All in all a lovely end to the day......


ATC

I made this for the Inkurable Stampers Gothic Arch Challenge. The theme was Butterflies and you had to use at least one stamp. I have real lack of commercial stamps but alphas i do collect!
The background is oil pastels smudged around the over stamped with gesso on bubble wrap.
The red stripes are from the cardboard that covers your chocolates in the box. A bit of muslin and a little store bought ribbon butterfly and it was done...I'm trying to push myself a bit this year and the best way to do that is to actually sign up to challenges!!


Charlie and Ted
I wanted to say thank you for all your lovely comments too regarding Charlie and Ted. You make me smile!
She's settling in well thanks to the wonderful kindness of her host families and will be off to school tomorrow.
She set up a blog if you would like to see her first photos and maybe leave comment...

It looks funny to see snow on the beach and id forgotten how soft the light is in Europe....

I sent her over with some pavlova eggs so guess what she's making for Australia Day?!