I know that it's Springtime when .........................

I see these trees of mine out in full bloom.

Don't they look beautiful against the blue sky, although the photos don't do them justice and as the flowers die they fall off and cover the ground in a wonderful bright yellow carpet, I have about 7 of them all around the yard, if someone is looking for our house this time of year we just say it's the one with the yellow trees and they soon find it. LOL

Now I know that I have been missing for a while, I have been busy painting and redecorating also getting lots of quotes for some work that we are having done around here. Now that some of it has been finalised I am able to tell you all of the plans that we have.

First on the list is my Kitchen, I have probably mentioned it before but I have not had a working oven in about 7 years, my stove top smashed to pieces Christmas Eve 5 years ago and bench space well I just don't have much, so the kitchen is getting a major redo all new cupboards and appliances yeah I can't wait.

Next on the list is the BBQ area, we love cooking out here, well we have to since my kitchen doesn't work, out here we are put a roof over the top and hopefully there will be enough money left over to tile the floor and build a serving bench.

Right next to the BBQ area is where the pool will be going, can't wait for this one (yeah no more Kmart blowup pools for summer).

And then there is the ensuite this is getting a total redo too, although it doesn't look too bad the shower is leaking and the toilet well lets just not go there. I am hoping that there might be a little money saved over to do the main bathroom too, since we are doing the bathrooms ourselves (Paul's brother is a tiler and one of his best mates is a plumber) I'm looking forward to doing it ourselves (famous last words).

So that is our plans for the next couple of months, we are hoping to get it all finished before Christmas, I won't be too stressed if it is not but it would be nice. I will be showing you all lots of photos as we go.

I'm sorry for the long post but I have been so excited to tell you all about my plans but didn't want to jinx it. Next post I will show you all some of the other projects I have finished around the house, now I had better pop in and visit you all if you all still remember me. LOL

Cheers and Best Wishes,

Where Bloggers Create

Karen from My Desert Cottage is having a where bloggers create party today, I thought that I would join in on the fun.

My Craft room is what use to be our formal dinning room, we found that when we put on a large rumpus room out the back of the house a couple of years ago that we didn't use the formal lounge room anymore. So a couple of months ago I decided to convert the room into an area where I could do all my crafting. I built (yes I did) a L shaped wall (with the help of cheap labour ie my 14 year old son). The purpose of the wall is so that I could have all my bone china displayed in it's own little area. Now building the wall is the easy bit the hard bit is the plastering, not one of my favourite things to do, anyway here is some photos of the new craft room, although it is not quite finished yet, still a bit more painting and plastering yet to go but you get the idea.

Lots of glitter and bling in this craft room.

I like to have lots of pretty girly things around me when I am creating.

Jars of bits and pieces, I must get around to taking all of the labels off one day, but with all the jars that I have it is a big job.

Paints and ribbon storage

The spot above my desk, I am forever changing what I have on display.

Thank you for stopping by and having a look around my craft room I hope that you enjoyed it.

Cheers,

No I haven't fallen off the face of the earth -

I've just had a busy couple of months, I have been popping in every now and again to see what everyone has been up to, but it will be a couple more weeks before I have time to get fully back into blogging, then I should have some photos of what I have been up to around the house, I have been in a bit of a renovating mood and have given a couple of rooms around the house a bit of a freshen up. Between that and the boys touch football (they had a three day comp recently) and of course the end of financial year stuff, I have been keeping myself busy.

I am joining in on this party next week -

So until then, I hope that you all have a great week.

Cheers,

Sweet Tweet Swap

Just a quick post today. I was involved in this fun swap put together by the lovely Ele of A bit of Pink Heaven. You had to send something hamdmade and something sweet, with a bird/nest/spring theme. A had Rachel from the USA as my swap partner, and here are the lovely goodies that she sent to me.

A lovely bag with a knitted nest inside, with three knitted blue eggs which represent my three boys.

And here is what I sent to Rachel.

Thank you to Rachel for being my partner for this swap. If you would like to see more of Rachel's knitting creations go here.

If you would like to see what everyone else received there is a list of participants on Ele's blog, thank you Ele for hosting this great swap.

Cheers,

Did you know that I lived in a castle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well I do when it rains a lot, and that it certainly has 147.6mm in the last 24 hours. I knew that it had been raining pretty heavily last night, we have a colourbond roof so it gets a bit noisy when it rains heavily, but not in my wildest dreams did I imagine how much rain we have had.

Do you like my moat around the front and side of the house?

I went to take the boys to school, got a little way up the road and had to turn around, the roads were all flooded, one house that we passed had a ragging river in their back yard, I got the boys to try and take some photos while I was driving, but even those don't show how bad it is.

Those grey areas are normally front lawns now turned into rivers!!!

The boys think that it is great though, yesterday they had off because of the teacher strike and then today because of flooding, makes me wonder what is in store for us tomorrow.

On to my decorating everything is moving along slowly, still waiting on things to arrive in the post, I have some grouting to do today, I will show you some photos as soon as it is all finished.

UPDATE - Since writting this post Wednesday morning the rain did not stop all morning, don't know how much rain we ended up with but I was starting to get a bit worried, it was 5cm off of flooding our house, you stepped out our front door into a river. Thankfully the rain did stop and the waterlevel has dropped, I just hope there is no more rain. The following photos are taken of the side of the house.

Cheers,

Laundry update and Mothers Day Pressie.

Well the laundry is taking a little longer then expected, I have finished all the painting but I am having trouble finding the accessories that I want and I am waiting on a couple of things to arrive in the post. so I thought that I will show you all a couple of photos of the progress so far.

The room is so much lighter now for some reason and I actually enjoy going in there now.

Also I hope that everyone had a wonderful Mothers Day on Sunday, my boys made me scrambled eggs with English muffins and a cup of tea, then we all went to football to watch the youngest two play. This year for Mothers Day I wanted something different to the usual jewelry, not that I don't like what the boys pick out for me, they have the best taste! But I have a blank wall in my house that needed a little TLC it is not quite finished yet as once again I am having trouble finding exactly what I want, but this is this weeks project and also my Mothers Day pressie.

I hope that you all have a wonderful week,

Cheers,

Confessions of a listaholic

As a have mentioned before a couple of times I love to write lists, the only problem is that I don't always finish them, I always seem to get a bit sidetracked along the way. Now do you see this folder -



I know it is not too pretty at the moment, I have to spend some time on prettying it up like Rachael did with her journals. This book is the ultimate list, my renovating projects folder, the folder is divided up into rooms and in each section I have a list of jobs to either finish or start, as well as some pretty pictures that I have found while looking on the Internet for inspiration.






I made this folder a couple of months ago and although I have finished and crossed out a couple of projects there is still so much to do. I have decided that I will tackle the list by doing one project or room a week, so each Sunday night I will decide what project I am going to do for the next week and I will do a short post about it including a before photo, then when the project is finished I will post again and show you all the finished product, that way if I don't get the project finished in a week the whole of blogland will know about it. Nothing like a bit of shame to get one motivated.


So here is this weeks project - The Laundry



Man I can't believe that I am showing you all this mess.


During the Easter school holidays my boys helped me to paint 5 rooms, they wanted guitar hero for their wii and I wanted some painting done so a deal was made, they did all the roller work while I did all the cutting in. The laundry was one of those rooms, but we were not able to completely finish it as there was a very large fridge in here and I needed Paul to remove it so that I could finish the painting. So now with the fridge gone I have no excuse. I will show you a photo of the finished laundry as soon as I have finished. Until then...........


Cheers and Best Wishes,

Has Easter gone already..............

l have not put away my Easter decorations yet, the reason being that I had a bit of a shopping spree through ETSY, we don't get much in the way 0f Easter Decorations in shops around here only really cheep and corny things so when I saw some of the lovelies on ETSY I couldn't help myself. So here is some of what has arrived this week.

From Celestina Marie Designs, how cute are these, they are even better in person -

From Nancys Heart

I also had my Easter Egg Eggstravaganza Swap off swapbot arrive from The Netherlands

Till next time

Cheers and best wishes,

Lest we forget

Today is one of the most important days of the year to me, my father was in the Army for 25 years and so Anzac Day has always ment a lot to my family, I have wonderful memories of dawn services and the city march watching for my Dad in the parade. Dad will be 80 this year and is still going strong. To all the service men and women both now and in the past, in Australia and our mates in New Zealand my family thanks you from the bottom of our hearts.

Best wishes,