I did it!  I finished the second advent calendar the night before I went to Perth.  We had to go to Perth at the end of last week and it was the last time we will be going there this year so I had to get all my Christmas presents organised by this date.  I am really happy with how the second advent calendar worked out - I had a steep learning curve after the first one!!
I hung the calendars on the backs of each bedroom door and sent the kids in to see them.  All was very quiet from Adrian's room so I snuck a look behind the door and he already had a chocolate out of the calendar and was ready to eat it!  Yes, he takes after his Aunty and can sniff out chocolate in a 5km radius :)
So, after explaining to him that he had to wait until December until he could "use" the calendar, he then asked "How long until December is here Aunty Nic?"  I told him that it was only just over a week away and the pained look on his little face nearly broke my heart.  Was it cruel of me to hang up the advent calendar so early???  I could feel the "Aunty of the Year" award slipping out of my grip.....
The next day, Mum told me that she had sent Adrian to get dressed for school and after 15 minutes, he was still not back in the lounge so she looked behind the bedroom door and there he was, checking out where all the numbers were....  He told Mum that the only one he couldn't find was number 3 but I am sure he will have found it by the time the 3rd of December comes around (especially as that pocket has chocolate in it).
We also had a lovely family dinner on Thursday night to celebrate Kenya's 8th birthday.
So all in all, things went really well in Perth and now my sister only has 7 more mornings of Adrian asking her "Is it December yet??
Love Nic x

In my quest to become "Aunty of the Year", I decided to hand make an advent calendar each for my Niece and Nephew.  I haven't really sewn anything since home economics in high school but I thought "What the hell!, how hard can it be?".  I got a rush of crafting inspiration at 8pm one night and decided to grab out my sewing machine and start the advent calendar.  Now I am one of these people who love sewing but only if sewing consists of running two pieces of fabric through a sewing machine.  I hate the whole laying out of a pattern (not that I used one, I just winged it), making sure the fabric runs the right way, pinning the material, cutting the fabric etc. etc. It is just like when you paint a house, the actual painting is great to do but I can't stand all the prep work that has to be done first!! So I set out on making the calendar.... Well, by 11 o'clock that night after 3 hours of trying to cut little squares of fabric into the same size, I was seriously thought I was going to have make this a joint advent calendar for both the kids or maybe even a half finished advent calendar for both of them to share!!  I went to bed very exhausted and thinking that my dream of becoming a great seamstress was impossible and I didn't touch it again till the end of the week.  Thankfully, after some great encouragement from my Mum and a few of my lovely friends, I decided to soldier on with my creation so here is the first one finally finished!!!  The second one is already started and hopefully I will have it ready for Christmas this year.....
Love Nic x

I have so many unfinished/unstarted projects on the go that I have decided not to start any unplanned ones until further notice.  I have now completed my Kaisercraft Scrapping Organiser.  This is the first piece of "furniture" that I have done and there were a few mistakes and a very steep learning curve but overall, I am really happy with how it turned out.
Love Nic x

 

 

 

Thankfully, my scrapbooking mojo is coming back (albeit very slowly) and it is just in time too as I am off to Country Papercraft for another retreat with all the girls next weekend which should be great!
I have also made a "To Do List" for all my incomplete projects so I can try and get some of them done before starting any new projects.Those that know me well will know how very long this list is!
I have been creating a few cards lately so thought I would share them.
Love Nic x

Birthday card for my Sister

Birthday card for my Mum

Birthday card for my Husband

I have lost my scrapbooking mojo lately (probably due to my extremely messy scraproom) but I have picked up the crochet bug now.   I have made two mandala rugs, one for my niece Kenya and one for my nephew Adrian.  Kenya's was easy to pick the colours for as she loves anything pink or purple.  Hers was the first one I did and once I had completed this one relatively successfully, I thought that I should make one for Adrian as well (as you can't play favourites).  I asked Adrian what colours he wanted and he said blue, gold and red.  I sent through the colour chart to my sister so he could choose which blues, reds and golds he wanted to have so I could make sure I didn't pick the wrong colours.  Well, after I had done this, Adrian decided that he wanted a rug that had blue, gold, orange, green, brown, red etc. etc.  so in the end, my sister sent me back an email letting me know that I should choose the colours for him as clearly he had no idea about colour etiquette!!
I decided to go back to his original colours and make one in blue, red and yellow.  I am really happy how they both turned out.  
On the scrapbooking side of things, I have finally completed my "Merry Christmas" project that I started on ages ago so I am really happy with that too.
Here are the pics!! 
Love Nic xx

Adrian's rug...

Kenya's rug...

"Merry Christmas" project...

Last weekend Kristy, Jenny and I went to Country Papercraft again for a scrapbooking retreat.  I absolutely LOVE this place as it is on a farm and we are made to feel so welcome there by Marg and Vickie.  I always have a fantastic time on these retreats and love catching up with all the Perth girls.  I actually got quite a bit done on the weekend which was very unusual for me as I normally spend most of the time talking :)  I am still finishing off a couple of the projects but thought I would post the ones I have completed so far.
The first ones are a couple of canvases that I made for my laundry.  I wanted a couple of pictures to put in there but wanted to try making something myself.  I looked up pinterest and found a couple of good sayings that were "laundry related" and went from there.
I am really happy with how they turned out.
The second project is a birthday board.  Many thanks to Robin for marrying "Mr Robin" as he creates the wood projects for us to decorate and also a big thanks to Amie for supplying the letters for me.
Love Nic x