Swapping Loveliness

  
I've been making new bloggy friends lately.  One of them is Christie at Describe Happy.  We decided to do a little swap, 'a pincushion and a surprise' and my package arrived yesterday.  It was a Big and Lovely surprise!!

 Look at my beautiful mushroom pincushion!! It even stands up all by itself! I said to Christie that I can't quilt for the life of me (she is a great quilter) so now I'm lucky enough to have some pretty quilted things.

 And a matching fabric basket - OHH! It's so cute and in just the perfect colours for me.  Now to decide what to put in it??

And if that's not enough, look at these three fabulous fat quarters she sent me, and a stunning packet of cards, I really love the patterns on all of them!

I feel so spoilt, nothing better than receiving wonderful goodies in the mail!! My package to Christie hasn't been sent off yet, lets blame an annoyingly inconvenient hospital stay, but any day now! I'm off to do some more of it now!  Thankfully she is completely relaxed and super friendly and said seeing as we didn't ever set a deadline, it doesn't matter when it arrives because it won't be late.  I like her way of thinking! (But I'm still going to get cracking)

Thank you so much Christie!

Thread painting

  
I'm sticking with the embroidery obsession at the moment because I want to share a very talented blogger with you.  I visited Monika's blog, My Sweet Prairie, after she visited mine.  And as I scrolled through her posts, my jaw gradually dropped as I saw photos of her amazing work.  She takes photos and turns them into art work using threads.  A-May-Zing. 

Bloom in progress, flowers still to be added.

So much work goes into these little pieces!

Wolf Willow and Prairie Lilies #2 

This piece speaks to me.  I kept wanting to add more photos of it in closer detail and half completed.  I just love it.  The old wooden fence post, the small scattering of lilies. Perfect!

My Sweet Prairie (canola field) in progress

 Look at all those french knots. Just look at them all!

Canola fields are beautiful, it's interesting to see they look the same in Canada as they do here in Western Australia.

Flax at Jackfish Lake

I have never seen flax growing before but this certainly paints a beautiful picture of it! This one was made for Monika's Mum, who lives at that lake.

Isn't it amazing?  I am in love with Monika's work so much that I have already commissioned a piece, using a photo I took down south in Denmark on holiday with MR at the beginning of last year.  My first piece of commissioned art work! I had a bit of a squee at that, how grown up. 

It will be started sometime in April. I'm really looking forward to seeing it start to take shape on her blog!

 

1 + 8 = 1

 Take one very messy bathroom cupboard

 Add 8 ikea zip open storage boxes

And you get one, nice tidy organised cupboard.

Yay!

 

Preparations

  
For starters, I didn't cave! Woo! I really did think that I would but I pushed past the yawns and droopy head.  This time - can't make any promises on my staying power next time!

I mentioned in my last post my list of things to do.  We're having a very late housewarming party the weekend after next, just shy of a year of being in the house, so there's lots to be done to get things organised and looking pretty and more home like.  The poor house has had a double whammy in neglection, organisational wise, firstly because I suck at organising and secondly, because I've been ill.  But no more!  (well, for now) I am determined to get things looking wonderful for the party.  Determined.  MR did lots of outdoorsy stuff last time he was home like mow the lawns, dig out a dead bush and plant some roses in its place, lift the heavy Christmas tree box and put it out in the garage and the time before that he tidied his shed so well, it was tidier than the house (woops) and blower vac-ed the paved areas.  Unfortunately that has left me with all the inside light weight stuff.  And I am just not good at organising.

So I started with some fun stuff.  On the weekend I went to Ikea for storage items and some frames for my art works.  I've got all my prints framed now, just have two more of the blue box frames to fill and then I can work on the display!  I also have really wanted some bedroom art for a while but I want something good and nothing has caught my eye that was not $1,330,482 (or so it seems to my pitiful budget).  I was doing a bit of shopping on kelani fabrics with a voucher I had and saw this gorgeous Haga fabric and thought how nice it would look on my wall.  So I got a fat quarter.  I wanted a white frame but the options were a white frame for $39.95 or this black one for $7.95.  Easy decision. This one doesn't have glass, it has plastic, which is fine because I just wrapped the fabric over the plastic and held it in place with the back of the frame.  No gluing or anything needed so that when we get some proper art, I can take the fabric out and use it.

Now I've got to get cracking on the rest of the list.  It keeps getting longer as I think of more things to add to it, and this list is just for getting the house organised, not getting the party organised!

- tidy off kitchen ledge
- reorganise bathroom cupboards (not really necessary for the party but they were annoying me!)
- finish tidying craft room (still a mammoth job, even with all the bits I've done over the past months)
- put up frame cluster
- reorganise bookshelves
- hunt gumtree for a nice bed frame for our spare mattress
- do massive amounts of weeding
- sort through the rest of my teaching boxes and stack them neatly in the garage
- do the filing

It doesn't sound like much, but that craft room will take a lot of work.  I hate finding homes for things, I never know where to put it and just end up making little piles of stuff scattered all over the floor and everything looks messier than before. 

Thank goodness I have a Meow to help me.  She has a strange obsession with getting into open drawers and digging through them to see what's underneath and behind.
  

Temptation

How good are you at resisting temptation?  In whatever form it takes?  Are you strong?  Do you cave in quickly?  Do you pretend to be strong but then when no one is watching, cave in after all?

I'm not asking this with chocolate in mind, oh no.  Nor shopping (which is way more addictive for me than chocolate).  No, today I'm asking this because it is 1.30pm and all I can think about is how I would really like to crawl back into bed for a nap.  I've been up for a total of 4 hours people, 4 measly hours.

I had a dreadful sleep last night, kept waking up, nightmares, the works.  I totally blame it on going to bed by my new prescribed bedtime of 11pm, first night of success - yay! - but if it means feeling like this the next day then pfft, I'm going back to bedtimes the wrong side of midnight.  My head is so fuzzy it doesn't even feel like I've woken up yet.

I have a nice long list of things to do; some fun, some not so much so I have plenty to keep me busy.  I know that if I have a nap I definitely will not make my 11pm bedtime tonight.  And I suspect that if I make it without the nap, it's going to get to 10pm and all of a sudden I will finally feel awake.  It's a lose lose situation.  I'm going to attempt the no-nap situation.  But it's gonna be hard folks.

For the record, I'm the quick cave in-erer.

Love

It's not everyday that your cat leaves you a love note in her biscuit bowl! 

 

Stitcheries

I've recently been having an urge to embroider.  I learnt as a child but I haven't done it since but I really just want to embroider stuff.  Plus, it is a much easier craft to take into hospital.  Hopefully I won't have to use it for that anytime soon though. I know I should start with something small, but I have been pouring over some very lovely patterns on etsy and pinterest and oh they are so tempting! 

here

here

 here

 here

and how could I go past an embroidered cuckoo clock!! 

I think this one might need to wait til my skill level catches up!

 here

I think I might have to start very simple though and see how I go from there.  

If only embroidery was the only new thing I wanted to try out.  I also really want to do some more ceramics/clay work and also some mosaics.  I have plenty of time to do it all but no funds for supplies!!*

What new craft do you want to try?

* and seeing as it is currently 11.33pm I have again failed to get my $5 IBLO deal.  Bugger.   

 

Starting Better Habits

 

awesome nest bed found here

  
Today, after reading Wendy's post, I have decided that it is time for me to start having better sleeping habits.  I have been thinking about it for a while now actually.  Probably for most of my adult life if I'm honest.  I am a shocking night owl.  Every night I say, I should go to bed early tonight.  And every night I somehow manage to fiddle faddle around until well past 1am.  It's been worse since I've been in hospital because I'm not working so it doesn't really matter if I go to bed at 2am and get up at 11am.  Unless I have an appointment.  Or unless poor MR is home and he has to put up with me waffling on for hours in bed when all he wants to do is sleep.  MR would be Incredibly Pleased if I was to turn into a (slightly) earlier sleeper.
I did think of a nice sounding incentive scheme to get me In-Bed-Lights-Out before 11 last night, at 2am as I was brushing my teeth to go to bed.  Seeing as I have No Money, maybe MR can pay me $5 for each night I get IBLO before 11.  This money would have to be spent on me or craft stuff or housey stuff.*  I posed it to him this evening when he called and well, I guess he's quite eager for me to go to sleep earlier and not keep him up because he thought that that might just be ok.

Of course, I'm not going to make it tonight because as I'm typing this the clock just ticked over to 10.58 and I'm in the middle of watching an episode of CSI.  Small steps.  Maybe I'll just aim for 12 tonight.  That's better than 2 anyhow!

And like just like Wendy, I am better at it if I am accountable. So over on my side bar I'll be keeping track of my lights out time for the month.

Do you need to start a better habit?  Want to join in to?  It doesn't have to be the same as mine.    Just leave a comment below and I'll pop round to encourage you!





* MR would quite happily give me money to do/buy stuff if I asked and he has done in the past already, but this way I would feel like I had somehow earned it... albeit in a star-chart-weilding-child-like-way.

All sorts of good stuff

Life has restarted!  I have more energy and am doing okay with my 40% reduction in lung capacity.  The medications are hopefully working and I am doing what I can to help them.

Yesterday morning I had a lovely massage and in the evening I went to my first yoga session.  It was a gentle hatha and meditation session so not too much and I managed all the poses in between puffing (although not as flexibly as others) so I was happy.  The meditation session at the end was good too, my therapist has me doing self guided ones at home but it is nice to do it with a real person as well.  I'm hopeful that a bit of gentle exercise will help my lungs recover.

Not only that but Thursday I went for a 2km walk! There was a tremendous amount of huffing and puffing for the slow pace I was taking and thank goodness I went by myself because there would not have been enough oxygen for chatting but I felt good afterwards.  Back on track, fingers crossed!  Now I just need to keep it up.

And finally in my good stuff news, I went to the Roxette concert with my sister on Wednesday night!  Wheeee, it was awesome. Very. Very. Awesome.  I got to dress up in a pretty top, jeans and heels and we went out for dinner first and I had a delicious grilled barramundi on a bed of kipler potatoes and cacciatore with broccolini.  Mmm mm.  We had good seats at the concert and it was a small enough venue that there was no need for big tv screens or anything.  All the songs came back and I had great fun singing along to all my old favourites.  Yay!

one grainy iphone photo

It's so nice to get back into doing normal type things and not feel absolutely shattered afterwards.  I'm hoping it continues!


A Year of Good Things (hopefully back on track!)

60/366 ::For normalness feelings::
I went out for dinner and to Roxette, had an awesome time Wooo!

61/366 ::For fitness::
I went for a 2km walk.

62/366 ::For relaxation:: 
A full body massage, so nice and relaxing, followed by a yoga and meditation session. 
 

A revert to form

  
My supposed craft blog, which of late has been more of a woeful life and health news blog, is showing signs of craftiness!  Excitement of all excitement, there is Another Finished Object.  My goodness, who wouldathunkit?  That makes four finished things so far this year.  Not bad!

I am terribly rusty on the old sewing machine these days and lining is something that I just find really difficult to get my head around.  How to attach it and how it will all turn back into the right way with no edges showing just does my head in.  I do not possess the spatial awareness required to picture it all working.  So I followed this helpful tutorial in how to make a little zippered bag/pencil case/what-have-you.  It was quite simple to follow and I think a bit different to how it is normally done? Either way, it was easier (for me) to understand than some of the other tutorials I looked at. 

It seems a bit silly to be so proud of my very simple little babuska pencil case but I am.  Wonky stitching, unaligned corners and all!

Clearly I missed a bit lining my seams up there in the corner.  Oh well, it stands up, that's the main thing!  This is for a pencil case swap I joined up on Swap-Bot.  I decided seeing as I can't afford shopping I will get my buzz from getting fun little surprise parcels in the mail from somewhere in the world.  Parcels in the mail are very exciting!

I'm trying to decide on fabrics to make myself one now.


 
more creativity.