Tikiboo competition

You have to check out the Friday giveaway on Tikiboo Kids - GORGEOUS!!! Milly will look too cute in one of their 'a' t-shirts.

http://tikiboo.wordpress.com/

xx

Hair

Friday Night in FUNTOWN!

Who knew that my life would come to getting maximum excitement from simple achievements on a Friday night. No, I didn't manage to suck down over 5 beer bongs within 10 minutes, I also didn't manage to squeeze into a size 8 leather mini nor did I get a call from the radio station to tell me that I had won a $10,000 shopping spree. No, it is apparent that I am a lot more easily pleased these days because on Friday, my maximum excitement came purely from my reupholstered and repainted chairs. See pics attached. I hope you too get maximum excitement also...

Queer Eye for the Straight Drawers

Well Ref,

Another reno bites the dust! The drawers are finished and now that it is finished, I am truly assured that it wasn't furniture blasphemy. It looks amazing! I love it. And I think it will stay here instead of the hallway- actually John's placement. Maybe I can get him in to Home Decorating..?

xsj

Our New Foot Rest. I mean Coffee Table!

à finished product- just the one so far, is our coffee table. Since it's launch into our lounge room, it has been used as A. a place to rest our feet and B. A new chewing toy for Spencer. Not quite what I planned, but hope you like.

xxx

My Open Door Policy on Great Doors

I would like to proclaim right here and now that I have a very open door policy when it comes to this fine door. I saw it on decor8 and can't get it out of my head. As a fairly uncreative drawer though, I need to figure out the fine art of stencilling- do you know how? She has used clear contact but it looks frosted- do you think they have some 'other' type of contact in that crazy U.S of A place?

The Next, Next Project..

While I have my paint stained hands busy for a while, I am already dreaming about my next project- the boudoir. I will need to take some ‘before’ photos, but it is pretty much the same as when you saw it last.

My grand idea is to do a feature wall behind the bed. I was going to get wallpaper fantastic but have decided to go paint instead- a nice darkish blue- like the one in the below image. I am going with blue, green, white and silver.

We have 3 pieces of pine, which we are going to glue together to make a bed head, cover it in the stuff you put in quilts, then wrap it in a nice silvery, blue and green fabric.

I am also going to put my tall boy and little boys on ebay, and try to find a nice low set of draws in white (let’s face it, it will prob be a vinnie’s store find in red that will need to be stripped back, sanded, undercoated (twice!) then painted twice, sometimes 3 times.

If it doesn’t work- I can wallpaper it..

The Master and Apprentice. And trusty stead..well Spencer

Hi Ref!

I am in L.O.V.E. LOVE with the fabric you posted. The top one particularly but I can’t wait to look at the rest of the website but waiting till I have ample drool time.


I hope you had a great weekend! Ours was once again busy, busy; renovating anything we can get our paint covered, stapled gunned, thrifty little hands on. This weekend we focused on inside furnishings- who knew there was so much work involved. The way I used to do it was


Step 1. Buy a piece of furniture with promise
Step 2. Paint it my favorite color at the time
Step 3. Put painted furniture in its spot before waiting for it to dry properly.


Well, Ref, apparently I was doing it wrong. According to John, there is a LOT more work involved in furniture restoration than I originally thought (and wished). Apparently it needs to be stripped back, sanded, undercoated (twice!) then painted twice, sometimes 3 times. With all this ‘new’ stuff that needs to be done, it takes longer than originally anticipated so I can’t show you finished product, only works in progress. Oh and Spencer, because I couldn’t resist.


With the dining chairs, I am going to re upholster the cushions and was thinking of splashing out on 2 x 1 metres of fabric that I love and was thinking the website you showed me might be a good start or maybe a little Amy Butler number.. Crazy, I know. We also started on the shack’s makeover into Moroccan inspired outdoor area extravaganza. We have only cut the windows at this stage, but it’s a start!


^ Getting started Saturday Morning.. Spencer overseeing the worksite. See the little path I have built down the side too! We knocked the bbq down last week and used the bricks for the path- there is another one behind the carport too). I have also left room behind the tree to put in another vege garden and used some barrells I 'found' to make compost bins.


^ Finding crafty ways to dry the paint. I think the frames and table legs look quite creative!


^ My $15 ebay table find. We picked it up on Saturday morning in Kev's mini moke. Was quite funny driving down the GC highway, wind in our hair, Spencer on my lap, table hanging off the back. Note: Beer. No wine.


^ The windows have been cut! Now the air can come on through to dry our masterpieces. We are going to put a window at the back too.


^ The windows from the outside, the growing vege garden and Johns bum.


^ The captain inspecting my paint work- after a couple of beers it is amazing how many spots you miss!


^ The set of drawers that were our $5 garage sale find and the dining chairs that are eagerly waiting some Amy Butler love.


^ The master crafstman.

^ Oohhhhhh, oogie woogie mcgoogie. Testing out my new photo taking tips on the cutest dog alive..

A Material Girl

I need these materials for all the cushions I would make... if I had a sewing machine.

For the lounge

For Milly's room.

www.duckcloth.com.au

xxx

Alo' Vera!!

Overdue, I know, but I have been sooo busy with the magazine!!! While M naps, I have managed to put together a list of potential advertisers and started emailing them with the media kit. I have had some interest. It hasn't gone wild yet, it has to be said, but things are brewing, Ref, I can feel it!



What we have had is the following:
- Offers of gorgeous free gifts for competitions
- An offer from the founder of Skout to write for us. She also agreed to be interviewed
- Placement as a 'Featured Member' on Skout (incredibly exciting - great exposure!)
- Applause at the preschool directors' meeting when Mum told them about the magazine... APPLAUSE REF!!! They were really excited about it.

Media kits will be posted out to CH businesses next week. Watch this space! Hey, does Tourism GC want to buy some cheap advertising? Coffs people are always going to the Goldie!

So although we haven't technically made any money yet... and there is plenty of areas where it could all go horribly wrong... we are building something great. Even if we don't make a profit on this edition (and I have no idea at this stage if we will), it doesn't matter. We will make mistakes, but we will persevere! I am so confident about this... well, it scares me a little!

In other news, the t-shirts, surprisingly, are not selling themselves, but sitting on a dining chair waiting for their labels to be sewn in. Selfish! Looks like I will need to do some work there this weekend. But they are all printed and looking fab!

I also wanted to share with you some pics from MY garden. We may live in a unit, but we are surrounded by a beautiful garden, with flowers constantly popping up. My favourite thing at the moment is when I get these incredible floral wafts through the window into our bedroom. It is divine!!! A mix of frangipani and morning glory. There is also a new aloe vera flower (bottom right) - I think it is magnificent.


Spencer is superb! Thanks for the pics and the video. I particularly like your Beevis and Butthead sniggering in the background. V funny! He is so beautiful, Ref, and he is obviously making you very happy.

Love you like a ponytail loves frangipanis.
xxx

Spencer Update

Ok, I promised I would post some more pics, and here they are. The most adorable pooch in the world...

Plus a Spencer Tracey Chasey...

Spencer Charlie Mailer

Oh, Ref. I have fallen in L.O.V.E, LOVE! We got a dog yesterday, Spencer (his name was Charlie) and I am absolutely in love with him. He is the cutest dog in the world. These pics were taken by his previous owner, Kellie, of him when he was a baby. He is 6 months old now, so bigger and NO bow, but still as adorable as ever. I will post updated pics when I get a chance. For now though, I am busy getting off the couch so that he is 100% comfy, researching gourmet meatloaf recipes, teaching myself to knit organic little jumpers for him to wear etc. Ok, not quite, but considering all of the above.

Will post updated pics or a video so yuo can see better.

Also, besides getting a dog, we did have a very productive weekend, it is just that I haven't been motivated to do anything else besides talk goo goo to the dog.

Hope you love him too, love you lot's. Can't wait to hear about your weekend AND how your amazing empire is coming along!!

♥sj

Say 'Cheese' and Patchwork 101

Ok, in light of our wishes to take a better photo, I have read through a few websites and found one, which I think gives a good general overview on taking a good digital pic for each situation. You can check it out at http://www.imphotorepair.com/digitalcameratips.html

Also, I am aware of your penchant for collecting eye catching pieces of material- here is a link for you on how to make a patchwork quilt! I know you have lot's of time to do this with a baby, a husband, a magazine, a clothing line, 2 blogs, a dark chocolate addiction that you share with me and a house to run. Goodness, luckily we can save time in talking by blogging, otherwise you would have NO time! Anyway, here are the links...

Love you!

http://www.amybutlerdesign.com/products/free_patterns.php

http://www.amybutlerdesign.com/pdfs/AugustFields_Duvet.pdf

I HEART G.S 4EVA (garage sales)

Books $5



assorted gift bags- $1 per pack of 20



chest of drawers $5 (!!).

drawer handle

mirror- $10 (!)

Well, I made no effort to hide my enthusiasm for my new found passion in my last post. While it has been something that I have discussed with John and said I would prefer we didn't publicise, I wasted no time in telling you about my new favourite pastime- Garage Sales.

I took a couple of pictures of our garage sale finds from the weekend and listed the prices for your 'oh em gee'íng' purposes. I just çan't hide these from you. There are also some things I didn't photograph. eg. We bought 4 pieces of pine, which we are going to make a headboard from. We are just going to wrap it with dowl (?), whatever the quilt insides are made of, then cover it with material. I will take pics once we do it. The pine was $10.

I'm off to bed.. love you heaps! xxsj

Chair Repair and Showroom Delight!

*upholstered chair is on left- a light silvery green..


Ok, I know you were a fan of the 'same chair look', but I just couldn't get the orange chair and 'mixmatched chair look' out of my head. And so, it is with great joy and happiness, that I would like to announce orange chair, white chair and leather chair to our humble family. We are very proud parents and will love them, not discriminating them for their colour or their age. Not that they are that old. We actually found them during our weekend garage sale'ing jaunt. We are in need of a table so went into this 2nd hand shop to see if we could find what we were looking for. They didn't, but I saw this orange chair and immediately fell in love. It is exactly what I have been looking for! It turns out that the guy gets the chairs from the display showrooms so they are new but he only gets one of each chair- perfect for us! John said when he was looking for chairs for the restaurant, they cost around $250 but we got the 3 of ours for $20 each! The orange one, a white plastic one and a leather designer one that had cracks in the leather, which we actually loved but the guy saw as reason to discount. I have just realised that the picture I have included is terrible and doesn't do much justice, but it will give you an idea.


I have also included a pic of our upholstery work on one of our old chairs! I don't know if you can see it properly, but those old chairs had yellowing leather seats that we had from the Airlie property. So, we did a little upholstering work and they have come up GREAT! I love them! It was really simple too, all you need is a staple gun and some material.


Love you lot's ♥sj

Garden Update!

Watering soil and the finished product!


The side garden- not sure what I am doing here yet but the garden behind the carport is where the pumpkins will go eventually.



Johnny cakes watering the plants.

My inspiration for the new 'love shack'!

Hi Ref!

Well, I thought you would like an update on our vege garden- it is finally finished and we have planted the seeds! Hooray! Fresh veges in abundance, come to me! We have planted pumpkins, brocoli, rocket, lettuce, coriander, chives, beans, tomatoes, beetroot and carrots. We have also figured out some other areas that we can put more vege seeds and are thinking of doing a big pumpkin garden behind the carport- can never have too much pumpkin in winter!

While pottering around in the backyard, we have also come up with more plans! We have moved all of the tools from the magna into the laundry so that we can take the car to the wreckers. We are then going to turn the carport into an outside dining area, reminiscent of the shack in airlie! Well, shack in airlie, cross the piture shown above. I will, of course, keep you 'posted'.

So all in all, our weekend was productive. Not only did we make lot's of progress on the backyard, but we also tested the waters of garage sales. What sweet waters they are. I didn't, stupidly, take photos of our absolutely fabulous buys but will be sure to tomorrow. Needless to say, every weekend, John and I will be hitting the garage sales. He loves it too! I certainly suggest you look into this too. Sooo good and rewarding!

Love you lots ♥sj