Sneak peek

My weekend project for the girls rooms is finished, but I have a sick child at home today, so no time to take pretty photos and post it. But let's just say - I love it!

Coffee table transformation

I posted about my poor coffee table here. It had certainly taken a beating, so I knew that one day I'd have to do something to it. Well, finally that day (or days actually!) arrived and I had a little spare time to do it. I sanded the top right back to the wood, taking off the dark stain finish, and painted the base white. I used some polyurethane on the top so hopefully it will be a little harder wearing this time around.

I think it looks great, although I possibly would have changed the drawer handles, but for the fact that my husband had glued them on super tight at some stage as they'd kept coming off. So it was just as easy to leave them on and paint them white.

The paint colour is Dulux Fair Bianca and I like the slightly creamy look. Of course, I used gloss, so that it would be nice and easy to wipe off after those inevitable spills!

Now I have a new machine...

there's no stopping me!



There's something new on my entry table - the scrap of linen there. If you look really closely, there's a lovely white scalloped stitch on the hem, courtesy of my new machine:

Ta da!




If you haven't checked out the online auctions at Grays, you really should. It's amazing the wonderful bargains you can pick up. I'm so happy with this machine and am amazed I put up with my super basic machine for so long.

My first real project was a simple cushion. I'm in love with linen at the moment, and all the French style homewares. So I combined them here. Of course, I had to use one of my machines new stitches, one that does a thicker than usual straight stitch, and because I did a simple envelope opening, I was also able to use one of the prettier stitches on the hem there too!

Off to make some more!

Some Highland Fun!

We were busy on the weekend with the girls both competing in a highland dancing competition. Here they are in their kilts:

A not-completely-unrelated-to-sewing post, as I made the litle white blouse in the first photo an dd a bit of adjusting of Lizzie's kilt - hard to find one to fit someone so small!

The Brisbane River

The Brisbane River is one of the best features of this city. With the weather a bit too cool for our usual boating destinations (I couldn't see myself snorkelling with the water temps as they are at the moment!), we headed up river recently instead, to get a view of Brisbane from the water.

Here's some of my favourite city addresses:

The new Gateway bridge beside the old one.

Part of the huge wharf section of the river:

And of course, the girls' favourite home on the river: the pink one!

Winter Skies

School holiday entertainment

Th girls are doing a fabulous job of keeping themselves occupied over the school holidays. Louisa received some of the Enchanted Doll's House theatre books, and the she has being playing 'theatre producer' very well, distributing tickets, collecting tickets and the performance, dimmig the house lights, directing the 'actors' and even gathering audience feedback by writing questionaires for the audience! Lots of fun.

They've also enjoyed modelling the masks from this book.

The toy sale catalogues have been useful for collage (messy hair is allowed on the holidays):

And I've enjoyed the slower pace, without picks up and drops offs and meetings and coffee catch ups, and dancing practice and more dancing practice, etc.

Hope you're enjoying your holidays, if you have them at the moment.