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Diamond Painting Addict

One of the crafts I have been enjoying is Diamond Painting. If you haven’t seen this before it is like a cross between paint by numbers and cross stitch, except with beads instead of paint or thread. I find it so relaxing, carefully placing each bead or drill.

The first diamond painting I did was a little black cat, after finishing that I was hooked! I bought my kits from HobbySew, KaiserCraft, Lincraft and Toymate. I will admit to having a stash of paintings to complete! You gotta do something in the great quarantine of 2020!

Cat Diamond Painting
flowers

Next I completed a painting of pink peonies.

Black Cat Painting

Being a cat lady and one who loves black cats, the black cat painting from Diamond Dotz had to be mine! I love it.

Next was a beautiful poppy, this is one of the kits from Toymate.

And then back to the cat lady theme with a gorgeous Leopard. The detail on this one is amazing. This was a Diamond Art Collection painting from Toymate.

The cottage was from Lincraft, I wasn’t as happy with this one as I was with the others, if it had been bigger the details would have been clearer.

I seemed to be on a cottage theme so next was this cottage from Toymate (Diamond Art Collection).

Of course I will go for any cat themed painting, especially if it has black cats, like this one!

The vase of flowers was awful, the colour shading was all wrong and the detail lacking. I’m not sure how I stuck it out and finished it! I bought this at Roni’s.

The painting of the two cats is by the same company as the vase of flowers, but seems to be better quality. I’m currently working on this one and loving the colours. I’m not sure what the company is called – no name on the packaging.

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A Long Time Between Posts

It’s been over two years since I posted here. Wowza, that’s a long time between posts! So much has happened since then. The saddest time was early 2019 when my dear Dad passed away. He was an amazing Father and I miss him more than words can say.

Dad and I on the day of my wedding

The loss of Dad hit me very hard and it has taken many therapy visits and a lot of time to get me in a better place. The support of family and friends helped a lot, not feeling alone was very important. There were a lot of tears, some anger at the unfairness, regret and feeling lost. It’s a long road back.

As mentioned, the support of family and friends has been a tremendous help, I also found some comfort in crafts, binge watching shows on Netflix and writing things down in a journal. Having the space to feel it all, every aspect of grief, and the time to deal with each aspect was very important.

Now is a time to reconnect and get back into things I enjoyed doing – this weblog being one of them.

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Pink Christmas

Pink Christmas Patridge

I recently entered Brother Australia’s Pink Christmas competition. To enter, you were required to make one or more of the pink Christmas patterns created especially for Brother by some of Australia’s top craft bloggers. I made the bird decoration by Christine Mitchell. This was a huge learning curve for me as I had not sewn something so small and curvy on the sewing machine before. As part of your entry you needed to add your own touch with something pink. I added a pink-ribbon tail and pink sequin eyes as well as a little head feather to make the birds partridges. I made most of the birds with a pale pink fabric and one with hot pink – I guess he’s the male as he has the showy colours, as you can see below! I used some vintage buttons on the wings and the birds now decorate our Christmas tree!

Hot Pink Partridge

If you’d like to have a go at making the Christmas bird decorations or one of the other pink-themed projects, visit Brother’s project page to find lots of free patterns.

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Making Whoopies

Whoopie Pies

Now that I have more free time while on holidays, I’ve been doing some extra cooking and baking. Last weekend I made Whoopie Pies for the first time. Verdict? Yumm! I used my lovely little whoopie Pie/Macaron tray from Christmas. I filled each hollow a little too much I think as my pies were kinda mushroom shaped, but that made a nice well for extra filling! And they were so very yummy!

Last night I used the leftover stock from the previous nights chicken, corn and zucchini casserole. I added some roasted butternut pumpkin and a generous amount of spinach, blending the stock and spinach before adding the pumpkin. The stock was creamy from added sour cream but after sitting in the fridge overnight it became even creamier. Some of the creaminess was also from the collagen that came out of the chicken bones – very thick and toothsome, as Nigella Lawson might say. Such a yummy soup! Will make again.

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Pull up a chair and have some cake!

Mother's Day Cake

I hope all the Mothers out there had a lovely Mother’s Day; whether you be Mum to a human or a furbaby! We took advantage of the gorgeous sunshine and had a barbecue in the garden.

Steak (perfectly marinated by my Dad), sausages and salads. For dessert, I made a chocolate cake filled with Chiver’s English strawberry jam and freshly whipped cream! The icing was vanilla butter-cream. I was wonderfully assisted in making the cake by my darling Husbitect. My beautiful Mum had a lovely day filled with sunshine, gifts and yummy food. Not to mention much love! What did you do for Mother’s Day if you celebrated it, if not, how did you spend your Sunday?

Posting my photo of the cake I made, I started thinking about the history of cake. Where did cake first come from? What traditions are there surrounding the partaking of cake? Apparently, the word ‘cake’ traces back to the 13th century. The word ‘cake’ comes from the Norse word ‘kaka’. Food Timeline has these, and many more facts, about cake and other foods.

I wish I could find a course locally, that would enable me to become a food historian. I find food an endlessly fascinating topic. What do people eat and why? How has food influenced the course of history? What customs do the many cultures around the world have with food?

I also love it when authors detail what their fictitious characters eat. One of my favourite authors in that regard is Joanne Harris. Especially her food-titled novels, ‘Chocolat‘, ‘Five Quarters of the Orange‘ and ‘Blackberry Wine‘.

There are many non-fiction books that are on my must-read list too. These include ‘Salt: A World History‘ and ‘Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World” both by Mark Kurlansky. Humm, after visiting Mr. Kurlansky’s website, I now have many, many more books on my want/must-read list!

Do you like reading about food? Do you, like me and many others, read Nigella Lawson’s beautifully descriptive cook books as if they were novels?

My other dream career is one deep within the world of antiques. But that is a story for another time!

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Miniature and Mini-Books. Part 1.

I love books. Books on all kinds of things; cooking, crafts, fiction, picture books and so many more. I collect a few different types, one I have already mentioned is Retro Craft and Cooking books. Another, is mini-books or miniature books. Most of these books, according to those in know, are less than 3 inches tall. I have a couple in that size range and some that are about 3.8 inches tall. I’m going to feature those books, plus share some interesting links in a series of posts.

The first is titled Gardens. It is 3.8 inches tall and was published in 1995. The reason why it is one of my favourite mini-books is due to the gorgeous pop-ups and the tiny envelope with gift card which allows you to sign the book if you give it as a gift. I found my copy at a second-hand book sale and it is one of my favourites. You can see images of this mini-book below.


I found some lovely links about miniature and mini-books, and will share them throughout this series. The first batch are below. Enjoy!

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What's Hot + What's Not Wednesday

I finally felt like getting back into writing in my blog again. I’ve had one, with a few spaces and in a few different places, since 2000. This week I played with the look and was ready to blog. But what to write about? All was saved when I came across Loobylu’s What’s Hot + What’s Not Wednesday by way of the fabulous Pip from Meet Me At Mike’s. Ah, perfect way to get back into things!

sparkle

What’s Hot.

Seeing my Mum and Dad on the weekend and spending some quality time with them, along with my husband (who they love as a son, aww bless!). I really miss my Mum and Dad and really enjoy visiting with them and sharing some lovely long chats, laughs and some good food. I will also get to see Max, my gorgeous black Kitty who my parent’s very kindly look after for me (we can’t have pets here, sadly) and have some quality Maxie snuggling time; and also my parent’s cat Pearl, who is anyone’s friend as long as you pat her. A lot.

Having lots of fun things on and around my desk. Above you can see two of those things; my Hula doll that I found at a local op shop and could not resist as she is retro and reminds me of the game Fallout 3, and my be-sequined vodka bottle, sadly empty. I cannot resist the sparklies.

Enjoying my holiday time away from Tafe. I’m currently studying to be a library technician and as much as I enjoy the course (especially cataloguing, much to my classmates disbelief) I am loving the time off and not having to think about assignments. Well, at least not until tomorrow.

The fact that it is getting close to christmas which means I can go nuts with decorations + crafting +baking. I’m already itching to get out the christmas tree. We have two – one green plastic tree, standard height and one small white tree which I love as it looks very retro. I have been collecting vintage christmas baubles and love looking at them. I like ones like this. Photos of my collection to come soon.

Having good things to watch on tv. This includes Costa’s Garden Odyssey, River Cottage Spring and  Torchwood Season 2.

What’s Not Hot.

The fact that it is back to Tafe next week – boo! I like the course itself, just not keen on the social politics and cliques within the student groups, not to mention having to travel on city rail trains.

I have not done any crafting yet. This is bad. I envisioned myself being so utterly crafty and creative on my holidays. I really need to get over the perfectionist aspect of my personality so I just start projects and enjoy the process, rather than getting stuck on the idea that I might ruin materials or do something wrong. Issues, I haz them.

There is a pile of laundry that I need to sort, fold and put away. I would enjoy that task if we had more wardrobe/drawer space. We have a lack of it, mainly, because I cannot control myself in op shop clothing sections. And can’t throw things away as “it might be useful one day!”. Hmmm.

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We’re getting Married!!

We Are Engaged!!

On the 1st of September, my beloved asked me to marry him and I said yes! He is the man I completely love and adore, the one I want to spend the rest of my life with; my answer could only have been yes! He chose sunset at Sublime Point road in Leura to propose and it was so beautiful, romantic and a moment I will always treasure. I’ll never forget the way I felt when he asked me to be his wife; it was the most magical, breathtaking moment of my life.

The first photo was taken on the balcony of our room on Hamilton Island a few weeks ago. The second is my beautiful engagement ring (and our hands entwined) and the third was taken not long after my wonderful Fiancé proposed. Another couple had walked down to the lookout and offered to take our photo together which was lovely timing.

Squeeee! x 5 trillion zillion and into infinity. I’m engaged to the most wonderful, handsome, intelligent, amazing and talented man in the universe and I absolutely love and adore him!! :cupid: :heartbeat:

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We're all going on a Autumn (Summer) Holiday

I forgot to mention where we are going on the interstate flight – Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays!

I’ve managed to calm down about flying for the first time and that is largely due to my wonderful man who has patiently listened to all my worrying and answered my silly questions. And gently told me off when I read web sites that I really shouldn’t when about to go on my first plane flight. :blush:

I’m getting all excited and bouncy now and looking forward to my first flight on a plane not to mention the first time I’ve been to another state! And kinda overseas in a way, as himself suggested. I’ve never had a ‘proper’ cocktail before either, so I am rather looking forward to those as well!

Ah, walks on the beach hand in hand with my beloved. I can’t wait! :wub: