Paying up

If you blow the dust off my archive you will see back in January I posted about "Pay it Forward" a lovely blog event where people send each other handmade gifts.

The deadline? 365 days - One Year!

So here I am, 11 months later, finally paying it forward. I would like to apologise to my 3 participants, Peace, Toronto Yardsaler and Thrifty Ba for taking sooo long on this. My only excuse is that I'm a very disorganised, last minute human being. But let's see the glass as half-full and think, "Wow! I did it a whole month before the deadline"!!! ;-)

My little gifts are all wrapped up and will be winging their way very shortly to Queensland - Australia, Toronto - Canada and Utah - USA.

Thank you for your patience, I hope you like my little efforts :-)

The C-Word

OK, with only ten days to go till Christmas I think I can safely FREAK OUT!!!! I LOVE Christmas more than any other time of the year. I grew up with magical Christmases, both my parents made them wonderful for us and I hope my kids will have the same happy memories of ours. I have baked a Christmas cake (my first ever attempt), mince-pies, Christmas shortbread and a squillion cupcakes for various school and preschool functions (See? My Kitchenaid mixer was a sound investment :-)

Pressies are hidden on top of the wardrobe, lots of surprises for my boys (including hubbie). And to top it off, yesterday I finally found a bagful of vintage decorations with lots of fab retro mercury glass ornaments, something that's been on my wishlist for ages now...

Aren't they beautiful? So bright and colourful! The whole bag cost $3 and there are lots more than pictured, these are my favourites though. These won't go on our tree, we are making our own memories with ornaments bought on holidays, made by the boys, given as gifts and of course bought annually in the Myer sale! But I'd love to do something lovely with them and may steal Sonja from Dime Store Thrift's idea of making a Christmas wreath out of them. She makes fab wreaths using vintage ornaments and a hot-glue gun. I doubt I'll get it done before this Christmas so will just display them in a glass jar for now (out of the boys' reach of course).

Yelp!

Have you ever gone into an Op Shop/Thrift Store or to a market and found exactly what you were looking for? I don't mean when you're hoping to find a few plates and get them, or a couple of toys and manage to pick some up. I mean when you find EXACTY what you were looking for? A very definite item, straight off your wishlist?

Well today it happened for me! A couple of months ago when aimlessly searching on eBay for a retro teapot I came across a listing for a Finel Arabia teapot in blue, made in Finland. It was love at first sight. The listing was at a "Buy it Now" price of $95 which I decided would be pretty hard to justify to my lovely husband so I have been hunting online ever since and have seen them in online vintage stores such as this gorgeous shop as well as eBay listings such as this. But I REALLY wanted to find my own. I knew the likeliness of finding such a specific item, a certain make in a particular pattern was highly unlikely but it went onto my mental wishlist anyway.

Then today, with a few minutes to spare before playgroup, we popped into my tiny, local Vinnie's to have a quick look. I didn't see anything of interest and was about to leave when I looked up and there on the top shelf, tucked in behind a couple of vases I saw a familiar blue spout peeping out. (Sharp intake of breath). Moving the vases aside, there it was in all its glory. (Jaw drops to floor). I take it down off the shelf and see it's in great condition (yes!!!) and then I find myself laughing at the unlikeliness of finding just what I was looking for in our own suburb.

Look at that beautiful blue enamel, retro shape and fab pattern? How could I not fall in love with it? And the best bit? It cost $7!!! So so happy :-)

Army

My eldest son made his Christmas wish official on Saturday by telling Santa in person that he would love a box full of Lego with wheels, windows and bricks. His wish will very definitely be granted but what he doesn't know is that there will be Star Wars Lego AND an army of Star Wars minifigs!!!

I can't wait to see his little face!

Aren't minifigs just so cute? I love surprises!!!

Expedit-ion

After searching fruitlessly for months for a really nice old pigeon hole unit to use for display and storage in our hallway, I finally gave up and decided to buy the next best thing - an Ikea expedit. I'm not usually into very square modern furniture but what I love about the expedit are the little cubes, each one acting as its own little display/storage space. I wasn't sure whether to go for the white or dark brown but luckily that dilemma was solved when I went to Vinnie's one day and picked one up in dark brown for $70! These retail at $219 in Ikea and it was in perfect condition so as I said to my hubbie "I haven't spent $70, I've saved $149" ;-)

It's now sitting pretty in our hallway allowing me to store a lot of books and display a few little things that had been stuffed away in cupboards...

Dark brown is definitely the right choice for this hall. With cream carpets and walls a white expedit would just have been too much paleness!

Yes, I admit it. I am addicted to cookbooks. There are more in the kitchen. High Australian book prices had curbed this habit for a while but the discovery of Book Depository caused me to fall off the wagon ;-)

Home Decor books are another weakness of mine.

More display space on top of the expedit.

The 3 Ngai Sing painting I posted on previously, a cute fan I picked up at a market for $2 and a beautiful turned wooden bowl I bought on eBay direct from the woodworker. Note the scratch courtesy of my eldest son, it always amazes me how furniture, toys, books etc can last for years and make it to an op shop in perfect condition only to be wrecked/scratched/scribbled on within minutes of entering my home, hmph!

$1 lamp with Target shade, wedding photo, little wooden family purchased on Etsy and cute helicopter bought from a vintage store.

Each little cube makes its own lovely little display space.

Baskets are great for stashing hats, sandals and other random stuff that accumulates in the hallway.

By my side

I used to be an avid reader before I had kids. I would easily go through two to three novels a week and spent a lot of time in bookshops. But since my little rascals arrived I simply don't have a minute to read during the day and by night time my brain is so fuzzled I can barely concentrate on reading more than a couple of pages at a time. So my bedside "pile" has now shifted from novels to a pile of home decor books, cookbooks and magazines. At the moment I have a few on the go and thought I'd share...

I have had the Nest Home Design Handbook on my Book Depository wish list for ages now, so when my parents asked what I would like for my birthday I promptly sent them the link. It's a great book with so many lovely images and tips, I love it! Thanks Mum and Dad :-)

My Dad knows I'm a big kid at heart and LOVE surprises so when Kirsty's Homemade Home arrived in the post I shrieked!!! I loved the series and had no idea there was an accompanying book so I was thrilled. It's a great read covering the story of how she decorated her family holiday home with homemade crafts and dumpster finds. Lots of great ideas and craft tips, I love it!! Thanks Dadser!

My wonderful big sis sent me this fab book, again it had been on my wishlist and I love it. Beautiful images and ideas on how to make your vintage finds work in your modern home. (Speaking of fab sisters, did you spot the gorgeous set of Le Creuset stoneware mini-cocottes in my Kitchenaid post, my little sis sent me those :-)

I find reading cookbooks (and travel brochures) incredibly relaxing, poring over the ingredients and getting ideas, this book is by Australian uber-chef Peter Gilmore, I go to sleep dreaming of being a culinary genius who could delight guests with his masterful creations, sigh...

I subscribe to both Real Living and House & Garden magazines. I love them in equal parts, Real Living because of the fab photography and the style of homes I love, and House and Garden again with beautiful photography and narrative that really takes the reader on the journey the homeowners took to turn their house from bricks and mortar into a home.

So now that my wee fellas are in bed (although not asleep just yet, I hear chuckling) I'm off to read :-)

Stampede

Ask...

... and you shall receive.

My middle son is big into animals at the moment, and has been since he was a tiny baby. All creatures great and small get the same loving treatment from my gorgeous little man, hugs for kangaroos and koalas at wildlife parks, gentle patting of dogs and cats whilst out for walks and soft poking of insects (have to control this urge a bit with so many dangerous nasties in Australia). My little S has special needs and isn't speaking yet, but playing with animals is a great way to get him to vocalise and we have started building up a lovely collection of high quality Schleich animals.

They are expensive to buy new but worth it as they are of a lovely quality and don't break or keep falling over like cheaper toy animals which can be quite frustrating for a little man. We have been slowly building our collection, picking up new creatures on our visits to our nearest toy shop.

A little while back I did a post about horsey-related items I had found, and mentioned I was hopeful of one day coming across a bagful of Schleich animals at an op shop or market. Well, my wish was granted BIG TIME on a couple of recent op shop visits!

Firstly, I visited my favourite Vinnie's a few suburbs away and found 4 bags of animals marked at $3 per bag. Squishing the animals up against the plastic I could see there were at least a couple of Schleichs in each bag, but when I got them home, I checked, and 29 out of the 40 or so animals were Schleich, Bingo! Then a couple of weeks later on a visit to my local Vinnie's I found another bag of animals marked at $3 - and voila! 14 more Schleich animals! I am thrilled to have picked up a total of 43 Schleich animals for a mere $15! The animals range from little meercats right up to big elephants and are probably worth a couple of hundred dollars in total new.

I am super-excited with these finds as we now have nearly a whole zoo of animals for my little man to play with.

May I introduce you to our little habitat...

After years of hibernation they were re-released into the wild...

Unlikely friendships were formed...

"The back pain is a killer isn't it"?

"My neck IS longer than your trunk, now can you just drop it"?

Reminiscing about cooler climes.

"I'm the good-looking one".

Numbers had been dwindling at this mothers' group for a while...

Family ties.

"Just working on our posture".

Realising they were outnumbered by cats 5 to 1, the dogs made a hasty exit.