Ooooooh - it's piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiink!!

Today I got home from work and Willie said "Close your eyes and hold out your hand". Hmmmm...not usually words to foster trust when it comes to him - he has a strange sense of humour so I'm quite careful when he says stuff like that.

So, anyway, I did (hold out my hand, close my eyes and take a GIANT leap of faith). Something went into my hand, and it felt safe enough (ie: not worms or anything, then - you can never be too careful about these things), so I opened my eyes.

"Oooooh!!" I managed, grinning like a 5 year old. "It's piiiiiiiiiiink!". And so it was. My wedding anniversary pressie from my beloved:

A new Ipod Nano-Chromatic in lovely bright pink! Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I lurve it! (I've only been harping on about getting one for ages, as he usually gets all the flash gadgets in our house). Just look at how slim it is (and it's so currrrrrvy!). And when you shake it, it shuffles the songs automatically, and and and, when you turn the screen sideways, the viewer changes to sideways mode too (probably has a much cooler name than "sideways mode", but...whatever! It's cool!).

I'm so excited (how sad is that?!). Spent the rest of the afternoon loading my music onto it :D

I even have my own speaker unit for it (very swish) so I'm now wired for sound in my studio - at long last!

Darling, if you're reading this: I LURVE YOU!!!!!! (And...thanks :D).

The Cupcake Bakery

I've spent the past 24 hours making cupcakes : ) Nope, not baking them in the traditional sense, but making them from wool and acrylic felt. Fun! They make great pincushions (I use one myself) and Georgia loves playing tea parties with them too. They just look so purdy :)

If you want to see my latest lot, check out *The Cupcake Bakery* on my website.

Scrumbilitious!

Chillin' out in Raglan

This weekend, we took my mother in law up to Hamilton to meet up with the Taumaranui cousins for a couple of weeks. We thought that, since we were going that way anyway, we'd make a weekend of it. So we dropped her off in the city and headed out to Raglan to chill out with the surfer dudes...

It was a fun weekend! Weather was aaaaaaaaaaaaawesome maaaaan.... : )

Cupcake Fetish

I recently made a felt cupcake pincushion:


It's so cute! I think I'll make another few and put them on the glass cake stand in my studio (decoration only!). Wonder if they'll make me constantly hungry? Who knows. Probably...!

I might even make another few and put them up on the website for sale. Anything to do with cupcakes is just toooooo cuuuuuute!!

Betz White's new book, "Sewing Green"

OMG, I can hardly wait! I just checked out Betz White's blog (one of my faves) and her new book "Sewing Green" is coming out in about 8 weeks time! I feel like a kid waiting for Santa Claus LOL!

CLICK HERE to get a sneak peak of some of the 25 projects in the book. Even better, you can pre-order it from www.amazon.com - yippee!

I feel doubly spoilt, as my mother-in-law (with abit of input from me!) got me Betz's first book, "Warm Fuzzies" for Christmas, and I'm still pouring over it.

The countdown is on.............!!

Anniversary delights! Oooh, I can't wait!

Willie and I will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary in a couple of weeks - neither of us can really believe it's been that long (although we've been together for 11 1/2 years already). We don't usually celebrate our wedding anniversaries per se - just a swapping of soppy cards and a "wow, another year already?" kinda thing :) But as this year is the big "10", we've decided to push the boat out and we've been toying with ideas of where to go/what to do.

A friend has offered to take the kids for the weekend, so that's fantastic (thanks so much!). Mum and Dad will be down at the Wellington Sevens (rugby, for the uninitiated), so they can't babysit for us.

Once that was sorted, we turned our minds to the old "what shall we do then?" question. Anyway, the other night, while Willie was sleeping, I hit upon the idea of booking us into the Chateau, in Tongariro National Park. I'd been to the Chateau once - as an 8 year old! - but never since. Willie had never been - perfect! We'd wanted to do something new, that neither of us had done before.

So, I have booked and paid for our 2 night romantic getaway, and neither of us can wait! Honestly, it's rather ridiculous how excited we are! But then again, that's kinda nice - 11 1/2 years down the track, and we can still look forward to a weekend in each other's company :)

Here's the Chateau - wee bit of eye candy. It's situated at the foot of Mt Ruapehu (in the middle of the North Island of New Zealand):

Now, we are down to counting the sleeps!

Simple Summer Pleasures

This is Cammie (aged 4) and Georgia (aged 8) with their new paddling pool, taken tonight at about 8pm. They got fed up waiting for the thing to fill up and went to bed :)

More summer fun to be had tomorrow (gosh it's hot here at the moment!).

Notice how Cammie is torturing his sister with the hose? That's pretty typical around here. Don't worry though, Georgia holds her own fairly easily :) Also note the gleeful look on the wee beggar's face...!

Crafty Chick

Yup, I've been doing some craftin' recently - and not jewellery-making either! For a change...! I've been making other crafty things, including more handbags (one new one has just been added, the other 2 are coming as soon as I find the time to photograph them!). Here's the new bag, called "Boho Babe":

The other things I've been making are gifty things - decorative dishes, magnetic pegs for the fridge and hearts for hanging on the wall. Here's the heart and my favourite dish, called "Parisian Dish":

Also, I've made the big decision to discount my shipping costs - ie: all shipping is FREE now! I'm sending stuff within NZ via Courierpost (handbags go via NZ Post, tracked), and everything goes outside of NZ via Airmail. I think it's the right thing to do...I'm gonna trial it for abit and see how it goes.

I am sooooooooooo loving my new sewing machine! Hence all the new handbags LOL! Will post a pic when I get time to take one :)

~A