New life

I recently made a couple of cushions for an old friend from high school. She was so sweet, about 12 months ago she found me on Facebook & had a look at my Sean the Prawn creations & decided to gift me a whole heap of beautifully embroidered doilies that once belonged to her mother in law. She was hoping I'd give them a new life & that is exactly what I did. I love doilies & have quite a collection now. I treasure their beauty & uniqueness, not to mention the thought of just how much love & dedication went into all those pretty stitches. So yep, it means a lot to me to give these treasures a new life, a new chance to be admired. Thanks lovely Jo for the doilies & I hope you had a great birthday.

Feeling breezy

Today is a great day, issue two of online Breeze Magazine has been launched. Sean-the-prawn cushions are on the front cover & throughout the mag, as is a feature of one of David Boyle Architect's (my hubby) sensitive renovations. This issue is all about The Bouddi Peninsula an area in which I am lucky enough to live, & about a few of it's people & their businesses. Many of the photos in this edition were contributed by two amazingly talented women Lisa Haymes & Brigid Arnott, whom I'm fortunate to call my friends.
Such beautiful work ladies especially Lisa's photos of the Bouddi bush.
I'm also loving the awesome Elkhorn's Instagram Adventure, I might have to do that walk soon myself.
The more I look at the the images in this mag the more I realize that this is my heartland/ my dreaming.
For a visual feast check out this mag, www.breezemag.com.au

Another one just like the other one...sorta

I'm loving these psychedelic beach cover ups in terry towelling & pompoms. Makes me want to dance around to the Monkees & dream of being a kid in one of those great 1970's TV shows like Sigmund the Seamonster, HR Puffnstuff, Banana Splits, Brady Bunch & the list goes on
or should I say "& The Beat Goes On" Sonny & Cher style.
Guess you could say I'm inspired.
Are you feeling inspired in what you do?
Photo was taken at night with a flash please excuse the grainyness.

Terry & Pompoms

I have been wanting to make these beach cover ups for quite some time now. Carrying around the vision in my head for a good 18 months or more. When the Pompoms arrived by express post today I no longer had any excuses. This one is a prototype with other colours & prints yet to come.
6pm tonight I bundled the family into the car & we drove a couple of minutes to the National Park for a swim in the pristine ocean. A great way to wind up a hot & sticky, busy day.

Tomatoes & beach bags

I've been loving the tomatoes growing in our garden. I have to pick them when they have the slightest blush of orange to them & ripen them in the fruit bowl in my kitchen so that the fruit fly don't get to them. Although not vine ripened they are still so sweet to eat.
I had a custom order placed for a beach bag similar to a tiny little bag I had made earlier last year featuring Red Riding Hood print & gorgeous tomatoey red flowers screen printed by Prints Charming.
I'm so happy with the result, it was hard to part with it.

feeling festive

Today is the last day of school for the year for my children, they embark on their annual 6 week Summer Holidays. As much as I'm pleased to have a break from the morning routine of getting them ready for school & prepping school lunches I must admit I'm starting to wonder how I'm going to fill the days so we make the most of our time together.

Last Saturday afternoon we drove two hours to Sydney city for the birthday party of a 9 year old friend of ours. It was great to catch up with the parents who are good long time friends. We arrived in the city a couple of hours early so we could take in the Christmas decorations & buzz of this time of year.

The photo above is of my two children enjoying the animated puppets & Christmas stories in the windows of one of the major department stores. Iremember being taken to see these same windows when I was a child.
This is my daughter spellbound with the new Christmas train that my mother/her grandmother dropped around in a surprise visit just the other night.
Yesterday I whipped up this sweet little Forest dress. Its size 3-4yrs & is so light & summery made from a nice soft cotton lawn with a delicate sketchy forest print. I hope it makes some little girl's Christmas a special one.
In Australia at Christmas Time it is custom to pick the native red Christmas Bush & place it around the home. As a child my mother used to take me along with her cruising the suburbs with a step ladder in the back of the car searching out Christmas Bush. The High School where she used to work was one of our best sources, we would try to pick a time when nobody was around, scale the tree & proudly venture home with our prized bounty of red foliage.

Wishing you all the happiest & most peaceful of Christmases yet.

Treasure your loved ones & get a little silly with it.

xxoo

visitor to my garden

This is my cloudy day sundress for a little girl 2-3years old. Love the Cloud Nine fabric such a great contemporary print & a beautiful weight to work with.

I love these tiny Liberty style florals, a really lovely Japanese cotton voile from Spotlight of all places, would you believe. I couldn't resist trying my hand at this dress style, I found the design in the Sweet Dress Book from Japan only the patterns were in adult sizes so I winged it, just cutting out the pieces by eye, & what do you, it worked. It has given me the confidence to try going a bit free form once again with the scissors in the near future. Love, love, love the delicate vintage lace trim that I have used along the hemlines.

Look at this beautiful little fella sun baking in my garden yesterday just outside my laundry door.

I just love the gorgeous colours & patterns on the skins of these Blue Tongue Lizards.This one looked very healthy & nicely plump around the middle, must be enjoying eating all the snails slugs about after the higher tan average rainfall we have had this Spring.

My husband informs me that this same lizard scraped it's way into his office this afternoon giving himself & the other two architects a fright as it crawled under their desks. Yikes, although quiet harmless they look so prehistoric.

Yum, just to make to you hungry, a picture of a very simple chocolate cake I knocked up for sweets one night last week from the Frankie magazine publication Afternoon Tea.

Yum diddly yum.

I call this skirt Daisy due to the sweet guipure lace daisy that once belonged to my Grandmother stitched onto the hem border. The majority of the skirt is cut from a Saffron Craig print consisting of diagonal stripes & snowy little trees. The result is unintentionally quite Christmasy.

HoHoHo not long to go!

Love this sweet little daisy.