A lucky week

This week I have been very lucky to receive some awards, the latest - 'The Versatile Blogger' award came from both Taming the Goblin and Crafty Moms Share. Lots of thanks to Ray and Carrie, who both have great inspiring blogs :-)

The Rules

• Thank the person that nominated you with a link back to them.
• Tell 7 things about yourself.
• Pass this award on to 15 newly discovered blogs and let them know that they've received an award!

Seven Things About Me

1) My brothers nicknamed me Watermelon as a kid because my head was so big and round!
2) After cuddles with my kids, I start my day with a lovely pot of chai tea with honey
3) I met my husband when we both worked on a milk run, delivering milk around our neighbourhood
4) I am a chocoholic (first step is admitting you have a problem right?)
5) When I was little I had a cat called Bickie and I used to joke that if you dropped her she would crumble  
6) I try to rewatch & reread Anne of Green Gables most years (much to my huband's delight *cough*)
7) If someone told me a year ago that I would love crafting I wouldn't have believed them

Now Fifteen Newly Discovered Blogs (in no particular order):

1. Anna Bradford
2. Adventures in Homemaking
3. Toys In The Dryer
4. Art for Little Hands
5. Barefoot Five
6. Science Sparks
7. The Mommies made me do it
8. Barefeet and a Free Spirit
9. Let Kids Create
10. No Spring Chicken
11. Misadventures in Craft
12. Living in the Land of Chocolate
13. Happy Go Lucky
14. One Artsy Mama

Warm wishes, Kelly

An Advent Calendar

This year we have a new family tradition - a homemade advent calendar. In past years we have done the store bought chocolate advent, and last year Master D was over it in about 4 days (and did I mention, it was chocolate?!).

For our new advent calendar I found some cute lil envelopes and stenciled on the numbers.

Next we drew pictures incorporating the numbers (or tried to anyway!). We were inspired to try this by some of the beautiful Waldorf alphabets we have seen.

Husband of mine drew some lovely pictures, but sort of forgot about the whole - Christmas themed thing??? Well they look lovely anyway!

In each envelope there is a slip of paper, mostly cut from Christmas cards from last year, with an activity.

We've included things like writing to Santa, Christmas crafts & baking, making our gingerbread house and many others.

To put it all together I strung up some wool in the shape of a Christmas tree and pegged the envelopes on.

We are so looking forward to our Christmas countdown!

Warm wishes, Kelly

An award!

Blogland is lovely, so much sharing and support! And in the spirit of sharing and support, the lovely Emily from Nap Time Creations has given me the Liebster Blog Award! Emily has a wonderful blog and hosts a great Tasty Tuesday Party where you can link up your baking :-)

The word 'liebster' actually comes from the German word for love, friend or dearest - very sweet!

The goal of the award is to spotlight up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers. The rules are:

1. copy and paste the award on your blog
2. thank the giver and link back to them
3. reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog
4. hope that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers

Now, choosing just 5 blogs was a challenge I must say, but here goes (in no particular order):

Crafty Moms Share

April's Homemaking

Taming the Goblin

Mein Spritz

Hinterland Mama

I love reading each of these blogs and they all share such wonderful and great ideas!

Warm wishes, Kelly

Flower peg people

Master D has made some flower peg people to give to Little Miss Q for Christmas.

We used some felt scraps to cut out shapes using flower and star cookie cutters for their clothes. Then I folded each shape in half and cut a little line in the middle, then folded them the other way to do the same. Master D then pushed the felt onto the pegs. I like his colour combinations :-)

Next he said they needed some eyes, so I helped him draw them on with a permanent marker. After that he asked to put some hair on them, so for two we drew it on, for one we made hair out of wool scraps and for the last one he asked to use more felt.

He has been 'trying them out' since and thinks Little Miss Q will love them - and so do I!

Thanks for reading, Kelly

A pixie and a Christmas fairy

Now I understand why everyone loves needle felting!! I gave it a go for the first time yesterday and I just love the results (obviously I need to work on my ability to do faces though...) And the process is very therapeutic too.

Here is my first attempt - a pixie :-)

I think he is adorable and Master D can't stop playing with him! He is sitting in front of one of my unfinished 'pixie' door creations because Master D said this is where he lives.



And for my second attempt I made a Christmas fairy following this tutorial.

I think she will look lovely on our Christmas tree. Before she takes her place there I might add some embellishments though.

So now I have another craft 'addiction' :-)

Warm wishes, Kelly

Painting glass

We love painting and are always on the lookout for new ways to do it! So when I came across a post about stained glass windows - I thought - we've got to try that. Mind you, we have gone a fair bit simpler and more 'freestyle' here :-)

We used the glass from some photo frames that I bought at a local $2 shop and some lovely acrylic paint mixed with pva glue (1:1). Master D loved the bright vibrant colours and swirling them around on the glass.

Master D's creation

Master D and Mummy piece

And I even got in on the action :-) Aren't they pretty!

Warm wishes, Kelly

A postcard for Hazel

Isn't it lovely to receive a letter or postcard in the mail :-) sure beats bills, and is sweeter than an email. My lucky lad, Master D is exchanging a postcard with Hazel who lives in the USA. Hazel's mom blogs at Crafty Moms Share.

Master D and I had a lovely outing to choose the postcard - one with some Australian animals and a picture of our capital city, Canberra. Then we chatted about what he would like to write (of course I'm doing the actual writing ;-)).

And today we went to the post office to send it - we hope Hazel likes it :-) And we're going to be excitedly checking our mail too!

Warm wishes, Kelly