Bling Your Birdhouse

Oops I'm pretty late! Well at least it is still the 27th in some parts of the world!

Karla and Beth are hosting a Bling Your Birdhouse party today/yesterday. You'll find loads of birdhouses to visit if you go to their blogs. Here's my little birdy house arriving at the party now. Decidedly 'un' blingy, I thought it would be unique to paint one, and since I had "paint roses on a bird house" on my to do list for my shop, it was perfect timing!!

Lots of hand painted roses all around on each side and trailing up the roof too.

I like her, hope you do too!!! (She is in my shop now)

Well there are only 24 hours to go for my cousin's wedding. This time tomorrow we'll be standing in church freezing our tooshies off (her maid of honour and I have strapless knee length dresses and the forecast is "Windy and Showers" tomorrow. GREAT!

My nails are just done, don't you love getting your nails done? I can't think of the last time I had them done, maybe it was my own wedding nearly 10 years ago, lol! Now the trick is not to scratch these and play with wire or beads tonight.... of course, that's exactly what I want to do, to make a beaded wire heart charm for the bride.... might have to re-think that one.

Have a lovely weekend and I will visit everyone's birdhouses and blogs next week, after the wedding and hubby's birthday and when I feel like I can breathe again! I've got lovely goodies to share with you that came in the mail from sweeties like Jessi, Heather, Holly and more.

Oh and if you can, please say a little prayer for no rain and wind while we are outside tomorrow!!! I'll be sure to share lots of photos!

Belated Easter Wishes

We got back home today from 4 days at the beach, which we do almost every year at Easter. This year with Easter being so early the weather was pretty good and we got a few beach visits in!

My cousin is getting married this weekend, I'm in the bridal party - it's all so exciting - can't believe it is happening in 4 days! So I made a sand wedding cake with seaweed bride and groom on top, and photographed it about 100 times to get the 'perfect' shot. I'm going to make their wedding card with this photo on it. Bit strange but that's me I guess!

I did try to get a bit of sun on my tan line straps (we're wearing strapless dresses) but yesterday was so warm and as soon as we got to the beach these nice big grey clouds came by to rain on my parade, literally!

Something fun I wanted to show you, you wouldn't believe it if you didn't see it. Like a scene from Bee Movie! At the Farmers Market there's a honey stall, shown above. Right in front of the creamed honey, a bee decided to come and sit there. And sit there, and not move. It was so surreal!!! Seriously, the people didn't bring him along, he just flew over and decided that's where he wanted to be in the whole market.

Easter was a beautiful warm day. We had an egg hunt - the Easter Bunny had to put the eggs out late so the dogs wouldn't get them, and in branches and such. Leroy had a blast, he was so excited!

And it wasn't all play for me while away. I got a whole lot of work done!!! Some for the shop and some for orders. I'll share more pics once the cupcakes are sparkled and the signs have ribbons. See, I really wasn't kidding when I said I got lots done!!!Even some new colours for the little egg nest pendants!!!
Oh and today my order of chains arrived, I'm also going to offer them with chains or just as pendants.

How exciting, I've managed to read a few blogs on my return to find several people I know are in the new edition of Somerset Life Magazine! You can add me to that list too! My first magazine shot, my glittered dove is on a whole page, yay!!! This photo is courtesy of my friend Laurie who has her advance copy of the mag (wow her 4 page spread on her birdies is fantastic and she is going to be one busy woman!!!), hope my copy arrives soon (hope I am getting one!!!)

Well that's it for me for now - got some blogging to catch up on, housework to do, cooking and putting away stuff - and a wedding to prepare for - manicure, pedicure, primping and preening, rehearsal and all that fun stuff, lol. Poor Greg has taken a back-seat - it's his 30th birthday this Sunday and it's been totally overshadowed by everything else - so we're doing a few get-togethers so he doesn't miss out!!!

Have a great week and I'll come by and visit you soon,

....Drumroll please....

Thanks for entering my blog's first birthday giveaway! I've drawn a winner! You'll find out in a moment... Thought I'd share a few more pics, some are orders, some are for the shop! I'm busily working away to get all my orders packed by tomorrow night as we are going away for a few days over Easter. The house is a total mess, but I'm on the home stretch now!!

My lovely friend in Stepford-Wife-Country (and by that I mean specifically Connecticut!), Karla, sent me this divine egg!!! She was selling some on Etsy and and I was kicking myself I didn't get one! But she so kindly made another one up for me! She ordered my cupcakes and I ordered her egg - gotta love this!!!
She has beaded the inside would you believe?!!! I've never seen anything quite like it!
She even covered the outside completely with flowers!!! Karla I love it!!! Head on over to Karla's blog - she's having a giveaway to celebrate her first blog birthday too!

AND she gave me this beautiful candle in a tin - well if I were ever asked if I could choose a perfect candle for me with my initial on it, this would be it! A green N with curly leafy design and the actual candle itself, one of my favourites, Spicy Cinnamon!!! I am in love with warm cinnamon smells, and this one is fantastic!!

What's this you see!!! No, Peeps didn't suddenly become available at Australian supermarkets. I opened the door to a surprise package today!!! I was squealing "PEEPS!!! They're PEEPS!" and Leroy thought I was nuts. The talented and wonderful Jamie at Simply Me Art sent me a sweet package of these peeps as well as some yummy candies in metal eggs! Leroy has claimed those eggs already, and the peeps - I won't let him near them - I'm going to set them up all cute on display. Thank you Jamie, I love them!!! And for a laugh, check out what Heather Bluhm had on her blog featuring Peeps last week - click HERE

A little snapshot of some of the goodies I've been working on. Heaps more cupcakes not photographed, I'll probably have to wait until next week to get them in my store.

Ok ok I've left you in suspense long enough....

In case you can't see it, (not sure how big it will enlarge to), the winning number between 1 - 106 was, would you believe it 105! Made it incredibly easy for me to count and find that comment!!! So that means BETHANY has won the journal and bird nest pendant! Congratulations Bethany and thank you everybody for the fun year, here's to many more!

I'll try to get one more post in before I go away for Easter - but if I don't get a chance, have a lovely time with your families and stay safe!

Hopping along

This past week has been a real blur for me! Lots of creating and friends having babies on the same day - one hour apart in the same hospital! It made visiting very easy for me!!! Cute little cherubs (but no, I'm not at all clucky again!).

I've been working on orders and goodies for my little shop, one minute it was March 10th and suddenly it's St Patrick's Day? So much for a post with green stuff, oops!

While I was taking some photos near my little green cupboard, Leroy joined me and had a bit of fun creating himself. He made a beautiful glitter picture too that I also forgot to photograph, oops again!

This one is in transit now on its way to the US (ooh, it's green!)
This one is a bit different to my usual colour palette, it was fun to use bright colours to mix it up a bit.

This and the next Welcome are getting ready to jet up to our neighbours in Asia!
A young girl gets to have a permanent tea party, how fun would that be!

Live, Love, Laugh. Pretty simple philosophy! This one is going in the shop

My cupcake bases arrived! (Someone at USPS and Australia Post need to look up EXPRESS in the dictionary.... "guaranteed delivery by March 6th" - does not mean March 12th....). I got a box full of goodness and some new roses for my cupcakes! They're white and I figured they'd be cute if I hand painted some of them pink. It's fiddly and time consuming (because this little black duck must paint underneath each petal and in each crevice!) but I love how they look!!

Lots of my aqua cupcakes and pink ones too, all coming to the shop!!! Last year when I made the aqua ones (I just LOVE this colour!) they didn't make it to the website, they sold beforehand. Finally I'm replenishing the stock!

Now for some more painting, journal creating and bird nest pendant making. Thanks for all the orders for the pendants! They've sold out about 5 times now, I haven't replenished the stock yet as I need to catch up on the orders I have, but they will be in stock again soon if you are after one.

**Please note**

My shop will be closed over Easter, from Thursday 20th and re-opening Tuesday 25th. I'm having some time away from the computer, catching up on orders and hopefully creating some new goodies for you!

***DON'T FORGET!!!*** One more day to enter the giveaway in the post below this one! Please comment on that post only to enter, makes it easier for me to draw a winning number!!!

Thanks and see you again tomorrow when I'll announce a winner!!!

Until then, Happy St Patrick's Day! Hope you don't drink too much green beer (yuk!)

One year already....so it is giveaway time again!

A year ago on March 12th this blog was born. I had no idea what I was going to write in it!

My friend Holly encouraged me to start one up, she said it was fun and a great way to communicate and meet with a whole lot of creative people. I didn't know what a blog was. She described it as a magazine with all the ads cut out of it!

So that's what I have wanted my blog to be, as much as it can be, sprinkled with my every day life. It's my happy place. Blogging is always sure to bring me joy - it's where I come if I ever feel a little down, it's what I do first thing in the morning with a coffee while Leroy's breakfast is cooling - I take a look at some blogs, check my emails and go out for the day. I never had an inkling it would ever be such a warm and wonderful part of my life.

So for that I say thank you to you, for visiting, warming my heart and for giving me stories of joy, sadness, love, friendship and incredibly inspiring creativity!!!

My sweet friend Heather is also celebrating her first blog birthday - I agree wholeheartedly 110% completely utterly with her thoughts on blogging and what it is to her and what it has become. I don't want to repeat her words, you can read them HERE for yourself, because she says it better than I ever could!

To thank you for making this part of my world so much fun, here's the giveaway part! One random-number-generated-person will receive this handmade one- of-a-kind Marie Antoinette inspired journal that I created....... (yes I will ship worldwide!)

PLUS one of the egg & nest pendants I've been making recently! (thanks for the orders lovely ladies! I've got my work cut out for me this weekend!!!)

Anyone can enter, from anywhere, just leave a comment on THIS POST to enter - and I'll draw a winner by Tuesday 18th March. Only a few days to enter - I would love to get it mailed to the winner before Easter.

Thanks for visiting and enjoy your weekend!!!!