Thursday, June 30, 2011

Stripey Goodness

How utterly cute! The Daisy Box Girls
Pin It

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

MOMA Toast


Pin It

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Artwork Gifts




I have quite a number of pregnant friends, all of whom I am most excited for, as we are becoming mummies are the same time. And because it means that I have more people to buy baby things for :D

I am currently eyeing off these prints from Galerie Anais. I just need a certain friend to let me know if she is expecting a baby girl or boy.
Pin It

Monday, June 27, 2011

Cards

I have a thing for cards, figuring that a single card can say so much. Thus I have quite a large collection of various occasion cards in our wrapping paper box. I am loving these ones from Winfred Studios currently and have even managed to purchase a few.




Pin It

Friday, June 24, 2011

I had a moment recently...

Where I threw the worlds most massive tantrum known to man. Seriously, there were screams, bodies being flung on the floor, and tears. Oh so many tears. And it took me about 3 hours to gain any sort of composure back.

It all started a few years back where an electrical storm fried my mothers computer hard-drive. It was dead, and nothing could be retrieved. She even went to the extreme of paying someone to get it back, but it was long gone. 6 years of photos, documents and internet links gone. Just like that. The photos were the most devastating one, as my mum has sewn many quilts and photographed them all. And now she has nothing but her memories of them.

So, me being the awesome daughter that I am (I am her favourite child - possibly because I am ONLY child), I lectured her about how she was a stupid idiot for having not backed all this up onto disks, and how in addition to having disks, she really should have an external hard-drive that she backs things up onto as well. Just to be double sure. What can I say, I love getting on my technological high horse about things, especially when it comes to my mum.

Anyway, fast forward to a month or so back, and I was needing to write a resume for my current position. I haven't always been religious in doing backups of our laptops, but I do try to do them at least once a month onto an external hard-drive. I have it set up so that it backs up the files on our computer, and all the photos are stored on another external drive (I have three now). If anything was to happen to either of our laptops least I could do a system restore and have all my programs and settings on my machine reasonably quickly.

Back to the resume. So I went to my little black drive, and it made a noise. Not a good noise either. So I unplugged it, and tried again. And it made an even worse noise. Cue tears.

Three hours later, I was throwing myself on the floor screaming - my hard-drive have failed. And just to add a little bit more insult to the injury, I have never quite got around to burning the files to disk.

ANYWAY, the point of this story is that everyone should have at least their most essential documents backed up online on a service like Dropbox. Dropbox is a free service, and allows you to store up to 2GB of data online. Best of all, it works on Windows, Mac and the penguin one.
Pin It

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Noticeboards


I spotted this cute little noticeboard a little while back and saved it to my favourites as an easy task I could one day do something similar with.

So with that in mind, I kept my eye open for a bit of sheet metal that was magnetic and the right size. After several months I gave up and it got lost in my favourites folder.

Until now. I am thinking a nice noticeboard above the changetable might be a cute idea for the baby, where I can display photos, cards and eventually artwork? I have some spare material that matches our cot fabrics, so it would tie in nicely.

What do you think?
Pin It

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Cheesecake favours


I saw these cute little cheesecake favours over at Project Nursery a little while back and tucked it away in my memory bank. Now I just need an excuse to make them for someone.
Pin It

Monday, June 20, 2011

A Clever DIY Art Project


I recently was linked to Hill Country Homebody's blog, and stumbled across this clever bit of DIY artwork that was cleverly created with some precut wood from a hardware store, a dremel tool and some wood stain.

I love the simplicity of it, and how you could really do it with any design you wanted. Hmmm, I have been looking for an excuse to use the husbands Dremel tool for a little while, maybe I would give it a go for our lounge room.

Pin It

Friday, June 17, 2011

More Nursery Artwork


(excuse the wonky photos, I was trying to get as little glare as possible)

I was browsing etsy for orange prints, and came across the orange balloon print by Trafalgars Square. I quickly fell in love and purchased a series of four.

I originally planned to mount them in a row down the wall, but it would have been much too tall for the area, so it became a 2 by 2 arrangement that involved being home alone one Sunday afternoon, a level, a ladder and a lot of cursing when I stuffed up measurements. Pregnancy seems to have killed my brain lately. Luckily I was using a pencil that was easy to erase, and decided to use 3M hooks rather than putting holes in the wall.

Not entirely sure if the husband has noticed them or not - he hasn't commented as of yet!
Pin It

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Loving this

I am loving this set of 6 Crate & Barrel prints. I was also super excited to discover that they ship to Australia. Until I discovered that they ship to Australia on EVERY THING BUT THESE PRINTS!!!

How rude. May have to go back to my mail forwarding company.
Pin It

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

April Cooks (don't die of shock now!)

In the last few months I have lost my desire to cook anything. Coming home of a night I am always hopeful that the husband will have cooked a meal that is just being served as I come in the door.

Each night I am biterly disappointed. Which means we often eat pretty plain boring meals that go along the lines of meat and veggies or pasta. Baked beans on toast is also a staple meal in our house these days too.

So, my little ears pricked up when I was watching Everyday Gourmet and there was a recipe for a healthy Creamy Chicken and Pumpkin Pasta. It really is healthy, even the people at Weight Watchers say so! It seemed easy enough, so I thought I would give it a go, and bring in an extra guinea pig named StepDad.

Ingredients:
300g of Butternut Pumpkin cut into cubes (I used more, as I like pumpkin)
250g of Cherry Tomatoes
160g of Penne pasta (I used more, as I wasn't sure how hungry the husband would be - turns out I needn't have bothered, as there was heaps left over)
250g of chicken breast, thinly sliced
1 Spanish Onion, diced
1 clove of Garlic (I use the stuff in a tube, and just gave it a good squirt)
1 tablespoon of Cornflour
1 tin of Evaporated Lite Milk
Parmasen to serve
(the actual recipe also called for pitted olives, but I am not a fan, so I omitted them, and some oil, but I don't really use it when cooking as our cookware is non-stick and I find it gives me an upset tummy).

Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees (fan forced)

Chop up the pumpkin and toss into a oven proof dish, and pop into the oven

Measure out the pasta (a very foreign concept to me, I normally just tip it into the water) and put it on to cook

Halve all the cherry tomatos and cast aside for now

Dice the onion - don't do as I did and also dice your finger, it hurts!

 Slice the chicken. I used tenderloins, so I just cut them into smaller strips. Brown off on the stovetop

The pumpkin should be starting to nicely roast (it has been around 20 minutes by now). Throw in the cherry tomatoes for 10 minutes or so, shaking the dish somewhere in the middle.

Put the cornflour and a little bit of the Evaporative Milk into a jug and stir to make a smooth liquid.

Add the rest of the milk and give it another stir just to make double sure it is mixed together properly.

Add the onion and garlic to the chicken. The recipe said to remove the chicken, but that seemed like hard work, so I didn't bother. Don't think it made much difference personally.

Once the onion has started to go transparent, add the Evaporative Milk. Allow the milk to come to the boil and start to thicken

Quickly drain your pasta, as that milk thickens quickly!

Add the pasta to the creamy chicken goodness.

Finally, add the pumpkin and tomatoes to the chicken and toss together gently.

And put into a bowl to serve with a little parmesan on top

My guinea pigs were most happy with it, they both licked their bowls clean, so I take that as a good sign. Next time I wouldn't bother with the cornflour as it made the sauce a bit too thick for my liking, and I would replace cherry tomatoes with sundried tomatoes. But all in all it was a cheap (under $10 to feed 4 people), easy meal, that will be made again in this kitchen.
Pin It

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Burping up the Goods

Everyone I speak to of late tells me to buy terry nappies to use as burp cloths, and whilst I have followed their advice, they aren't the most attractive things ever.

I am thinking of making some of my own burp cloths with some of the large stash of fabric I have brought recently, taking inspiration from these pretties

I will let you know how I go making my own cloths, it could be interesting!
Pin It

Monday, June 13, 2011

Spot the Difference

Something changed on my blog in the last few days, can you see what it was?

I will give you a hint, it is up the top of the page.














Thats right, I finally gave birth to a beautiful little girl, Eliza. After 36 hours of labour, in which I was sent home from hospital to have a nap and wait a little longer, she entered the world without a care in the world weighing 8lb5oz and measuring 52cm (20.4") long.

I never knew I could love such a little bundle so much. The husband and I are totally smitten with her, and can't imagine life without her now, sleepless nights and all.

One day, when I can put more than two coherent sentences together I will tell you about how she made her entrance into our lives and hearts, but for now, try and forgive me if posting goes missing, it will be because I am trying to work out this parenting gig and get some sleep.

Pin It

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Finally, I made a cushion cover

I never did get around to using the Patty Young Dandelion fabric to make a cushion cover to cover my Ikea Alve Storage Bench. 

Never mind, I found something better: Apple fabric!


For my first attempt at making a cushion cover, it isn't bad, but it isn't perfect either. Lets not look too closely at it!
Pin It

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Pamper Day

I was meant to finish work at 34 weeks, however due to a severe lack of forward planning, I extended the date until I was 37 weeks. Lets just say that my replacement at work is going to be on a very steep learning curve in the next few months.

At Easter (when I was meant to finish work) I felt fine, I had plenty of energy. A week later I was stressed and exhausted. Which is how I came to make an appointment for a relaxing day in my last week of work: a hair cut and colour, and several hours at a day spa.

I have to say, it got me through the three weeks of work, especially on those days where I had customers yelling at me over their mistakes. In those moments, I just remembered my upcoming relaxing day and managed to push on.

Finally the day arrived, and although I didn't get the sleep in I so wanted (thanks mum, your stupid email problem was so worth getting up early for), I excitedly made my way to my hairdressers. My current hair dresser is a girl I went to school with, and I have to say she has has never steered me wrong in the last 12 years (well, except when she moved overseas, that was bad for my hair), and I trust her to do her thing without a lot of my input. Which was a good thing, as I may have nodded off at one point.

Two and a half hours later I walked out with new hair, and into my favourite restaurant for my favourite lunch: thin crust pizza with hot salami with sun-dried tomatoes, red capsicum slivers, baby spinach and shaved parmesan. Yum yum yum!

I was trying a new day spa, and found their one flaw - parking. Granted I knew this before hand, as they are on a busy street, but I wasn't smart enough to arrive in plenty of time to find a decent non-metered car park. Luckily it was a short waddle to their building from where I parked. I was nervous because I was now running late, and I hate being late.

As soon as I was in the door I felt calm and welcome, and not at all bad for running 5 minutes late. My therapist talked me through my massage, facial and pedicure and left me to fill out the paperwork and select my desired polish colour.

I don't remember much about my massage, other than I had a table with a cut out for my tummy which was weird to lay down on. Basically as soon as I layed down and my eye closed I was out like a light. The next thing I remember is being gently shaken awake by the therapist as I needed to roll over for my facial - where I promptly fell back asleep and had to be awoken at the end! I wish I woke up every day feeling so relaxed with pretty skin!

You will happy to know I did manage to stay awake long enough to have my pedicure where my tootsies were painted a very deep and beautiful shade of blue.

And then I left, walking on a cloud of air and feeling the best I have felt in weeks. It even made the following two days of work pleasant and manageable, even with the high level of stress I was under. And just to prove how well my work friends know me, as a leaving gift, they gave me a voucher for the very same day spa! I do love my workplace!!!


Pin It