blog love

Big thanks to Chrisy of artdecadence for mentioning my LOVE cushion on her blog. Check out her etsy shop - it looks like she's closed up shop for a little while but check back soon!

The top left is my LOVE cushion cover in my etsy shop.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This morning when I was having breakfast with my husband I suddenly realized that today is Thanksgiving - it's not like I didn't know it was coming but it feels like it snuck up on me! It's my first Thanksgiving in Australia and we're going to fore go the traditional roast turkey and mashed potatoes and we're going to have friends over for a non-traditional feast. On the menu is: bbq roasted turkey sandwiches on Ciabatta, with rocket lettuce, cream cheese, and cranberry sauce. On the side is potato salad and for dessert orange and polenta cookies, lemon sorbet, and (I'm going to attempt to make) pumpkin cupcakes. Costco just opened here in Australia and we went down to check it out last week but I was sad when they didn't have pumpkin pie mix and cranberries! They did however accommodate for all the Americans living here and they had huge frozen turkeys (that's rare here).

I made some little fabric pumpkins to adorn the festive table. I got the how-to here. You can see other pumpkin ideas here and here.

Christmas wish list revised

I try and make Christmas shopping as easy as possible, so I've made a list of things that I would like and give it to my husband. You may remember me posting my wish list as far back as August and now I'm making my final draft before I hand it over to Cam.

Here's what's on my Christmas wish list.

The Proud One - print from Amy Blackwell $16.00USD. Or this one for $9.00USD

get the book $45AUD from Hardie Grant Books, or through Amazon.com for $40USD

Owl in the Attic - print by My Folk Lover. $18.00USD

Honorable mention for Revision Design - Australia

The lovely Melanie of Paper Mango mentioned one of my hair fascinators on her blog in an article she calls Sustainability (number 4 is me and my Bloomers hair fascinator!!). The other items featured are very cool and I encourage you to check out her etsy shop and her blog.

Thanks Melanie!

To see my Bloomers hair fascinator and the other etsy products in my shop, click here

Spotty for dotties!

It doesn't matter how hard I try I still go nuts over polka dots. And there's nothing better than a balance of red and white with hints of light blue and light green for Christmas decor. I love natural colors as well, like brown, white, and oatmeal. These are the colors that I've chosen for this year...

this is a clipping from Bo Bedre Danish magazine from December 2007

I picked up some spools, once used for industrial thread, at a remnant shop.
I put some Christmas ribbon on it for easy wrapping.

The blue with white polka dot ribbon is from our wedding 3 years ago.
I have heaps of it and I'm still using it for gift wrap. Love it!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

... YOU KNOW WHAT! The holidays are fast approaching and I'm trying as hard as I can to get caught up already. Today I'm going out to order 30 pillow inserts in preparation of the Christmas markets that I will be selling at in December. I'm creating some new inventory including Christmas decorations. I've made some toadstool ornaments, which I love ♥, and I might have to make some extra for my own tree - and they can be hung around the house all year round.

I have to confess, the Christmas tree is already up! I don't like decorations that look too "Christmassy" so the toadstool ornaments are a relief to the traditional decor.

here's a sketch that I did. I put it on the tags for the mushroom ornaments

new Knit Wit clutch with Love Heart

Over the weekend some girlfriends and I got together and made oodles of pouches for a group little kids in India that one of our friends has connections with. We were decorating, stitching, and sewing the whole day and made some really cute little things.


On other note, I made my own little clutch today - something that I had been planning to finish for a long time. I hand knitted the sides and used remnant upholstery fabric for the liner. I used upcycled leather for the heart applique and the handle. It's in my etsy shop now!

Afternoon Tea

My afternoon tea was extra special today with cut roses from the backyard, Russian porcelain, Early Grey tea, and Hungarian lace doilies.

Doodles

I haven't drawn for a long time. Sure, I draw up little ideas and patterns all the time, but I haven't sat down and drawn anything that I wanted to display for a while... so I'm a bit rusty. But alas I've doodled some little creations and I'm colouring them in with my free graphic design program and I'm trying to figure out what to do with them next. I'm thinking greeting cards, badges, and possibly prints. The following illustration is a draft :o)

original illustration by Sonja Barrett - Revision Design