2nd Last day of Work!!

Woo Hoo!! Only today and tomorrow left at work and then I have 2 1/2 weeks off!!! Yaaayyy!!!!
All my christmas shopping is done, only have to do the groceries, am planning on going Christmas Eve, early in the morning, the supermarket opens at 7am. Craig laughed at me when I told him what my plans are, I told him not to laugh he was coming with me LOL

Over the christmas break I plan on doing some sewing for myself. I am going to attempt Bonnies Mystery quilt! But I also plan on doing some boring things like cleaing the timber venetians and the windows, 2 things I don't get time to do through the year.

Enjoy your lead up to Christmas!!!

Secret Santa

Well i can finally show a pic of the gift I made for my Secret swap partner as she recieved my parcel and couldn't resist opening it LOL

http://giraffedreams.blogspot.com/

On Saturday I made a bag for my friend Laurel's 50th birthday. Laurel & I met when our kids were in infants school (about 15 years ago) and we have worked together for the last 4 1/2 years.

Happy birthday Laurel!!

Giveaway

Pop over and visit midohioknitter for a fantastic giveaway of the Allspice Tapestry Charm set by Moda.

gee I love visiting everyone's blogs LOL

UPDATE: Guess what I won a charm pack!!! woo hoo!!!

Oh, I almost forgot, todays is our 21st wedding anniversary!!

Pincushion

Here is a pic of a pincushion that I made for Kate of that raggedy one for a swap in our Yahoo group. Kate was very patient with me as I was very late with this swap. So I hope she likes it.

Ribs & Rumps

Last night we went out for dinner to celebrate Hubbys birthday from Saturday and also to farewell my aunt & uncle who have been visiting from the UK.

We went to this new, very trendy restaurant in Campbelltown called Ribs & Rumps. The food was delicious!! The boys love it here and like going there with their friends.

The gang:

Me and my aunty Beryl:

The men in my family:

Back - Hubby Craig, eldest son Nathan

Front - Youngest son Tim, Uncle Bruce, dad John

Tim, my 18 year old son:

My mum and her sister, talking as usual LOL!! -

This is the dessert Craig & I shared, a chocolate souffle with a white chocolate centre. Soo not on the diet, but divine!!!!

PAY IT FORWARD

Ok, I have joined up to Pay It Forward on Tracey's blog. What a great idea!

This is how it goes :

it's the Pay It Forward exchange, based on the concept of the movie "Pay It Forward", where acts of kindness are done without expecting anything in return, just passing it on, hoping that the recipients will do the same and pay it forward, like a never ending chain of kindness...

How to proceed ?I will make and send a handmade gift for the first 3 friends who post a comment to this post, requesting to join this exchange, and promising to pay it forward to 3 other persons, etc....

I don't know what my 3 gifts will be, and I can't make them in the next few weeks, but I can promise I will send them within the next 365 days. ( I have extended this from the 6 months in Tracey's blog!)

What YOU have to do in return then, is pay it forward by making the same announcement and promise on YOUR blog.

Airing of the Quilts - Braidwood

Last Saturday my darling husband drove me over 2 hours to a little country town called Braidwood for the annual Airing of the Quilts. It was spectacular to see all the gorgeous quilts hanging from the buildings.

Here is a link to my web album of all the pics but below are a few of my favourites.



http://picasaweb.google.com/craiganita/Braidwood241107

This next one was hanging on the front of a fire engine at the fire station. Each block was made by a member of the fire department. It was fantastic!

Robertson

A couple of weeks ago we took my mum & aunty & uncle for a drive to Robertson in the Southern Highlands for a lunch of famous Robertson Pies. These are the fruit pies. We all had a meat pie as well LOL. But I shared a fruit pie with my mum.

The cloud was really low that day and Robertson is quite high so it made for some interesting pics

The Antique & collectibles shop in the old Cheese factory. Was some great things in here.

We left Robertson and drove down the mountain to the coast and went to Shellharbour and had fish & chips by the water. Very healthy eating day!!!

What I have been working on

Ok here is what I have been working on.

The cushion was for a swap in one of my Yahoo groups and the stitchery is part of my Secret Santa swap, hence the cover up of the recipients name LOL

Putting myself out there..... LOL

OK fellow bloggers - is anyone out there going to the Girls Day at Nundle on 8th May 2008???
I would really love to go but can't get anyone to come with me. So I was thinking that maybe if any one out there in blogland was going then at least I could say I knew someone, well sort of LOL LOL
So leave me a comment & introduce yourself if you are going and you may get a little surprise in the mail from me!!

On the crafty side of things, I have actually been doing some sewing!!! Finally !!!
Unfortunatley I can't show you the pics yet as some are for presents (and Secret Santa Swaps!) but will post them soon.

Visiting rellies...

My aunty & uncle are visiting here in Australia from the UK and we have seen them a few times so far. I took my mum & aunty to Berrima for the day and had a lovely day browsing the shops and Berrima Patchwork.

Here are some pics of Sunday lunch with them a couple of weeks ago, terrible pics again, they were taken on my phone and it was quite glary.

From left: Son Nathan, Uncle Bruce, Son Tim, Hubby, Mum & Aunty Beryl

From left: Hubby Craig, Mum Doreen, Aunty Beryl & Dad John

And lastly, I love this photo of my mum and her sister!!!

Finally some crafting!!!

I can now post the pic of the doll I made for Khristina of Sew Prim Friends.

Her name is Millie and her Barn Star by Cottonpicken Prims. I was quite happy with the way she turned out and the main thing is that Khristina likes her!!!

Here are also a couple of projects I have been working on, sorry about the pics they are shocking, but at least you can see that i have been doing some sewing!!

The first one is of a little redwork stitchery of a set of stacking boxes

And this one is a quilt top I bought for $10 on Ebay, it just needed to have batting and backing and be quilted. Well i can't hand quilt and my machine won't do it so a friend taught me how to "tie" a quilt. I think it is more of a table topper than a quilt.

My Workplace

Ok, in our C-R-A-F-T last week, some of the girls were posting pics as they went about their daily life.

Well I kept forgetting to take pics but here are some of where I work. Not very exciting I know but hey I spend a lot of time there LOL
I work in a medical practice and this is the front counter - my desk. The colour is not very good in the photo, the wall in the background is a plum/purply colour.

The waiting room

My desk:

1st October

Well today is a public holiday here in NSW. It is for Labour Day so we all have a day off work - go figure LOL

It is unseasonably warm so Craig and I & hopped in the trusty Xtrail
and headed off with our picnic lunch to Thirroul beach, near Wollongong, about 45 minutes from home.

Had our healthy lunch and this was the viewWe then walked around to the beach

Across the road from the carpark there was this gorgeous old home, the pic does not do it justice. We then drove further up the coast road to a headland that had a hotel on it and these were the veiws, unfortunately I can't remember the name!

From here we headed north up Lawrence Hargreaves Drive to the Sea Cliff Drive which is a bridge that is built out over the water. The original road used to hug the cliffs and wind and wind but there was a lot of trouble with rockfalls and land slides so the road was closed for a couple of years and they built this road out over the rock platforms and the water. Quite an engineering feat!

On the way home we saw a broken down car and the man was in a wheelchair so we turned around to see if he needed any help. He had already called for help and it was on its way. When we were turning around we saw a sign to a Conservation Area so being the intrepid explorers that we are we turned in to have a look. There was a couple of short walks from the car park and one said Kellys Falls so we couldn' resist that one!

Was a short walk down to the rock platform of the waterfall, small but had water flowing, and a track that meandered along the gorge to get more views and to another flowing stream.

Hmm not a very good pic but these were all taken on my phone camera. If you can see the top of the waterfall, we walked across the top of it to get to this point.

Friendly lizard -

Sorry, this last pic is blurry but you get the idea, a lovely flowing stream that eventually goes over rock edge LOL Was lovely and cool fresh water.

Well that was our adventure for today, back to reality tomorrow!!

22nd September

On Saturday 22nd September we went for lunch at Peppercorn Cottage, a little cafe about 30 mins from here in a semi-rural area. On the way back we noticed a sign to the Nepean River Lookout so off we drive, lovely dirt road to this look out. A short walk from the car park down to this huge rock.

around to the left there are some steps which go up to the top of the rock.

This is the view from the top

Just gorgeous, and a place we never knew existed on ly 30 mins from home!!