A White Christmas

I have had lovely time decorating the mantelpiece. I've gone with a "wintery woodland animal" theme. I made Lyndon, Molly and I personalised stockings - my first stocking! Molly keeps checking them and after I put something small in each one yesterday, she is finding it difficult to resist.

Well, the Christmas cooking is done (that's a whole other story with my Fruit Mince pies completely stuck in the baking tin - the second lot were better and taste great!).

If I don't post again before the 25th I wish you all a wonderful and safe Christmas!

Our big Christmas tree

After not having room for a tree for the past 7 Christmases (apartment living) we purchased a nice big one this year to make up for it.

It's huge! Four hundred lights and a bunch of new, old, borrowed and hand made decoarations later...here's our tree.

It fits in the room beautifully and I fear there will be a huge void when we have to take it down. I have really enjoyed decorating this year. Just a bit of Christmas cooking to do and I am all ready to relax and hang out with family on Christmas Day. Molly is itching to open presents, she keeps checking the tree for Molly pressies.

Is everyone else organised?

Dante's Rose

Well, it's not very Christmasy, but I thought I might blow my own trumpet just a little... :-)
My dress Dante's Rose came third place overall in Australia's Fashion Fantasia held in Hobart last weekend.
Made for the World of Wearable Art Awards (WOW) in New Zealand last year, it was inspired by the Dante quote, "The Rose, where in, the word Divine makes itself flesh" and is made from hand dyed silk, handcut sailcloth, boning, fishing line and synthetic rose petals.
I can't wait to get my studio done so I can start creating again.

My gingerbread house

My friend Leonie came over today and gave me a gingerbread house making lesson.
Here I am decorating (and making a huge sugary mess).
It was lots of fun. Thanks Leonie!

This is Leonie's house (below)....she went for the 'less is more' approach to decorating.

And here's mine...I went for the 'more is more' approach. It is certainly colourful and please note the little 'stained glass' window ( melted barley sugar). Ingenious!

Le Jardin de Miss Clara

My friend Leonie emailled me these pics this morning.

What gorgeous little birds. More piccys here.

Domenica More-Gordon

I recently discoved the work of artist Domenica More-Gordon. What gorgeous needle felted pooches. They can be found here.
Images from Simple+Pretty blog :)

Our weekend

We had a super industrious weekend.
I did quite a lot of work in the garden. I planted a bunch of hydrangea cuttings and mulched the whole yard with mushroom compost.

I dug out an area at the back to put in my miserable little tomato seedlings that are just not growing. This was an old area where a pile of grass clippings had been dumped and had composted down. Being a warm spot I thought it might give the tomatoes a chance. BUT, I discovered a heap of bricks under the soil so had to dig them out. Got a bit of exercise doing that job! Grow little tomatoes,grow! They're so small that you can't even see them in the piccy!

We sealed and sprayed 2 coats of gloss white on my shelves. Slowly getting there on this job. Next part is bringing them back inside, screwing them together and attaching the edging along all the exposed edges ( so it doesn't look like mdf).

For a bit of light relief I went to the Designed Made market for a little look and came home with a lovely ceramic vase by local artist Sara Wright. The inside is glazed with a pale green glossy colour which is lovely and subtle. I like!

Christmas wreath

Here is my super bright and colourful home made Christmas wreath, made from tonnes and tonnes of ribbon pinned onto a foam ring. I'll attach it to the front door this weekend.

It will be a busy weekend as we get back to working on my shelving. We hope to have it planed and painted and maybe joined together by the end of the weekend.

Have a good weekend!

Perfect peonies

These gorgeous peonies came from the local Farm Gate Market last Sunday (in the pouring rain no less). I have never seen the single variety before but am thinking I might have to add it to my garden wish-list.
The grower told me to pick out any buds on my current plants for a couple of years as it makes the plant stronger. How am I suppose to do that when the flowers are so stunning??

A nicer driveway

Over the past few weeks we have been tidying up the driveway. We've screened the side of the car port and planted up the side of the driveway. It was full of weeds and red gravel which we removed and planted armeria plants.
The next major job will be replacing the shed doors but in the meantime it all looks a lot smarter and it's nice to have more privacy and shelter.
Before...

During...

After!...