(not) Junque in my Trunk

Junque is not a term that really applies to the incredible goodness that arrived yesterday!!!! I can't possibly tell you how amazing this treasure chest of beauty from lovely Dara is.... She is BEYOND talented. I don't know if I have ever seen anything created for me so beautiful in my whole life!!! I took lots of LARGE pictures so make sure you click no them because there is so much detail here it's a feast for the eyes!!! This was for Heather's Junque in my trunk swap, and boy was I spoiled!!!

Yes that is thick amazing crepe paper all round the inside and out!!!! This was made to look like Marie Antoinette's jewellery box. She sure succeeded, I bet the real Marie would be green with envy!

Ummmmm see what I mean???~!~~

Check out the amazing box Dara made for these treasures!!!! Oh my!!!!

I saw this box and thought, wow is there something in here too???

Oh this bottle, it is the prettiest thing. The stopper is so big and heavy, it's divine!!! And check out the bling!!!

Necklaces to die for!!!

Rhinestone cuff links too???!!! WOW!!! Earrings, brooches, buckle, so much beauty....

lovely hankies and some vintage ric-rac.... lucky girl here!!!

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!!!

Leroy got a whole lotta stuff too!!!!!!! He was so excited!!! Check out the video clip of him with his goodies, he has taken that bag of fun to my parents' house today, like Amex, he won't leave home without it! Half way through the video he forgot who he was thanking and had to ask, so cute! Made me laugh!

And there's me in the cool basketball team hat that I wore already for a walk yesterday, Go Indiana Pacers, lol!

Dara I just love everything, thank you so much for spoiling me rotten!!! You are such a sweetheart to know and I hope we can meet when I get to the States later this year!!!

PS. for those interested, the other team Sydney did not have the points taken from them. They were fined $25,000 by the AFL. Not a lot of money for a wealthy club. No deterrent for teams not to cheat in future. I've got a little sport blog too so if you want to read about it, you can click here.

It's cooling down but Matchbox 20 were HOT!

I'm still on a Matchbox Twenty high! A few friends and I saw them in concert on Thursday night and LOVED every minute of it!!! They are incredible on stage, I've now seen them three times over the years and they just get better! They ROCKED!!!! Rob Thomas is such a hottie!!! I just looooooooooooooove his American accent. LOL do I sound like a teenager? I'm so sad that I left the camera at home thinking we weren't allowed to take photos but every single person was so it's a fuzzy phone photo for you... oh well...

And here they are if you click the little triangle, for a whole 19 seconds you can hear poor quality sound again from my phone....

It's been getting quite cold here in Melbourne. Same thing happened last year - we had hot weather and the heat went right into April then suddenly one day, a hail storm and cold and wind and that is it, Winter weather is here. That's my Mister below when I dropped him off at work one day, check out the big mama truck he drives. Poor thing he says it is freezing out at the sand mine in the middle of the night, and we aren't even in Winter yet. I can't imagine how you girls in the Northern Hemisphere do the cold winters, you'd probably wear bikinis in our Winter!

Some Autumn colour for you - it's well and truly here....

Way down the other end of my street there are lots of beautiful deciduous trees. Someone in their crazy mind thought it would be nice if my end of the street got yucky trees. Even though I live in Australia, I don't like Australian native plants - is that so bad of me? Give me deciduous colour and beautiful foliage any day.... oh English country garden....

As much as I don't like cold weather, Autumn and Winter means FOOTBALL SEASON!!! That's one thing that keeps me in one of Australia's colder states and not moving up to Queensland - the footy. My North Melbourne boys played a draw yesterday. So disappointing, you don't feel like you've lost but you don't feel like you won! Bizarre.... It's not like soccer where they draw all the time, it's very hard to draw in our game. Check out a bit of Melbourne, the masses leaving the game, walking on the road and a tram coming up. You can click on the pics to enlarge.

***UPDATE***THEY CHEATED!!!! It's just been announced that Sydney had AN EXTRA PLAYER on the field!!! Who was directly involved and had a hand in getting their last point! SO let's wait and see what the soft ALF do about this injustice... we WON and didn't get the points for it! I am so annoyed!!! LOL

I've been a busy bee, painting and painting and I'll come catch up with everyone very soon! I've been lurking in the background reading your blogs and I actually have a lot of them open ready to click on pictures and enjoy them thoroughly.

Have a wonderful week!

Lest We Forget

Today is ANZAC day, the day we remember the Australian & New Zealand Army Corps landing in Gallipoli in WW1.

Over 8,000 Australian and 2,700 New Zealand soldiers' lives were lost and today we honour their memory.

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them"

(A memorial shrine at a park near my home, with floral tributes on the steps)

Lest We Forget

Innocence

My little guy is growing up. He loves to play with friends, - he's as equally happy playing in the sandpit with excavators and tippers, as he is chasing and playing hide & seek with the girls. I love the innocence of it all.... I don't want it to end.

I don't want him to grow up so quickly. Before I know it, he'll be starting school. That's about 10 months away. It's the last 10 months I have before the whole world can both teach him and sadden him. I dread the day when he doesn't want me to comfort him or put on a band-aid after kissing a scrape better....

I want the world to be kind to my boy, so happy and innocent and beautiful.

Already I see at kinder some parents teaching kids to exclude - not inviting them all to parties by inviting maybe 3/4 of them... What sort of message is that teaching them at this age? I hope it doesn't sadden his sweet spirit, I hope the kids don't notice that their friends are missing.

When the day comes that he tells me he doesn't want to play with his little girlfriends with their wands in their cubby houses, I'll know he's getting older and the world is creeping in. Until then I will savour every minute we have. So I've been up late working, daytime is his time. We do fun stuff like playing, going to the zoo, feeding the ducks, going out for lunch - just because we can and because this time next year, he won't be home with me every day to do these things.

If you click on the little play triangle, you can hear my little cutie tell you all about the flash circles thing he gave to a little girl on the weekend at her party. Excuse my voice in there, I just thought he was so cute here!

I pray and hope every day that the world will be kind to my son and not diminish his bright fun spirit. I'll be doing my best to nurture it.

Shop Update

Shameless plug time - Just a quick one to let you know the shop is now updated. Thanks for the sweet comments here and on flickr about my vintage sheet music prints! I've decided to stock them and have been busy creating them the past three days. I have lots of sheet music prints in there now, these are only a few of the designs on offer...

along with some new colours and the option of purchasing a chain with the bird nest handmade charms. You can find them here...

And the white glittered doves (as well as a few pink) are now restocked! You can find them here. My dove has been published in the current issue of Somerset Life magazine, how exciting!

Have a great weekend!

Beautiful mail

I'm so far behind on my blog posting - I've been receiving gorgeous mail for the last month!!! I'd love to share this gorgeousness with you - take a seat and enjoy the beautiful creativity of bloggers and friends....

Gorgeous Heather sent me this beauty and some lovely goodies back at Easter time (see told you I was behind!) - I loved her wreaths she made for a swap and she made me one too!!! How divine is this.... she is the queen of millinery!

Lovely Lori and I did a little swap - I wanted one of her collages and she wanted some cupcakes! Her collage is now taking pride of place on what I call my Lori Wall. Three collages by her (and one birdy creation from sweet Jenn & Jacqui).

Isn't this just the loveliest collage? She takes so much care in her work, it's absolutely flawless!!!

A huge package from sweet Holly with a whole lot of goodies - I went shopping at her Flea Market Friday one week, she had such great prices how could I not buy? I know I know, I'm supposed to be saving up and I now am, no more buys for me!!! But when it's vintage sometimes you just have to get it when you see it otherwise you kick yourself later on!

And she gave me this beautiful nest she made, what a gorgeous creation and such a sweet gift!

What a gorgeous surprise awaited me from Miss Scrappy Jessi herself! She made me some gorgeous tags and sent me some goodies, what a sweetie! Notice on the left her tag is made using one of my printed papers, she's so clever and fun!

My friend Karla sent a sweet little decorated nut cup! Isn't this the cutest little thing?!

And another friend, who does not have a blog, Amelia, sent me these beautiful hand crafted goodies, for Easter and 'just because'. I am blown away by her kindness and her scrapping prowess! What beautiful goodness!!! A fully decorated tin that now holds some of my cupcake flowers, divine lavender hanging sachet and a birthday book!

The detail on each page is incredible!!!

Now this package is outgoing mail - my swap gift for my partner Dara in Heather's Junque in my Trunque swap. It's hard to tell with the cream background but it is wrapped in vintage tulle that has little embroidered applique flowers attached to it - one of my prettiest vintage fabrics that hopefully Dara can use as well as what's inside.... I didn't photograph the contents so I wouldn't be tempted to give Dara a sneak peek!

Oh and I'll finish by sharing my newest creations - I played around the other day making these, I had a vision in my head and they turned out just like I wanted them to! Don't you love when that happens? So I have a whole lot of different gowns and prints ready to work on and I'll be listing them in my shop one day soon! Keep you posted...

Bye for now,

PS. I've had all sorts of email drama, to the tune of 4,220 spam emails in one night, all to do with having an email address with my website - totally confusing and complicated - anyhow, my point is, my email addy I had a link to on my sidebar and the one you might have emailed me on in the past is now not letting ANY emails through, especially not spam. So if you've emailed me in the last 24 hours and I haven't replied please send your email through again, but please use the contact page on my website and it will get through to me that way.