For the blogging addicts..

Check out this T-shirt!!

Tell me if you would be game enough to wear it! LOL

And you can get them from here if you really want one!!

Presents!!

I recieved some beautiful presents from swappers for christmas, gee there is some talented people out there around the world!

My SSCS partner was Tonja from Norway and she sent me a gorgeous cushion cover with a stitchery on it. I tell you, I have never seen such neat stitching! There was also some Tilda goodies, a needlecase and another stitchery as well. All beautiful Tonja - thank you so much!

I sent this bag with some other aussie goodies to May Britt in Norway. Pop over to her blog for a pic of everything, and see some of the wonderful things she makes.

For my final present in our Yahoo group Advent swap I recieved this fantastic bag from Jenny in NZ. It is very quirky with all these ladies on it with great quilty names! Thanks heaps Jenny.

Christmas with the Caldwells

I am a bit late posting about Christmas but better late then never LOL

It was quite a humid day here in Sydney but not too hot to have a baked Turkey lunch!

We had a lovely sleep in to about 8.30am then opened some presents when we dragged the boys out of bed! We all got some lovely pressies, I got lots of DVD's from the boys and Craig bought me a handbag and a new quilting ruler.

We had a bacon & egg brunch, then had to drop Craig at work at 12.30pm. The boys and I then headed over to my parents place for lunch and the afternoon. Only the 5 of us this year so pretty quiet, except for when we were playing board games LOL

Now I like the game Boggle. Craig wouldn't buy me the game (as he hates it) so I bought myself one this year. I think from now on though I will be playing Boggle on my own LOL. I also bought a new game called Pictureka - we had a lot of fun playing that one too.

We left in time to pick Craig up from work at 8.30pm, picked up Maccas (nothing else open) on the way home for the boys as they were hungry yet again LOL

All in all a lovely christmas day!

My mum bought me a Layer Cake and Charm pack in this beautiful fabric. I have never seen this range before but it is very pretty with pinks, olive greens, browns & creams.

Last post for the day, I promise

But I just had to share these with you.

One day at while web surfing (at work, as you do) I came across this site called Maryanne's dolls and things. She has the most fantastic Australiana dolls I have seen! When I say dolls I mean Koalas and such. So unique and even a bit prim looking LOL

Of course I had to sample them for you LOL

I finally finished the quilt for my friend Laurel. I gave it to her on monday, our last day of work for a couple of weeks. I am so glad she liked it, it wasn't perfect but pretty good I think for a first quilt LOL

Advent goodies

A few posts ago I mentioned the Advent swap from the Yahoo group where we get to open 1 little present a day for December with a main present on the 25th.

Here are pics of the last 2 weeks worth of gifts. I am being very good and not opening the main one until tomorrow!!

One of the presents was this cute bunch of flowers made from fabric:

Catching up..

Well here it is, Christmas Eve in Oz, a lovely cool day after a hot humid day yesterday. Christmas day is forecasted to be about 27degrees - so just perfect!

Yesterday I had Christmas with my family as my brother and family and aunty & family were all in Sydney at one time.

We had a great day catching up, and meeting some extended members of the family for the first time.

The Palombos:

Lochie opening his present:Lochie trying out his new skates, thanks to Aunty Anita's choice of skates for a present we had an upturned table, a grazed elbow and lots of embarrassment to Lochie while he tried to figure them out!!Shenee's present:Most of the gang:Tim catching a few ZZZ's:

Nathan:Mum & Aunty Monica catching up on all the latest:Graham (my brother), Michelle, Shenee & Lachlan:

A visit with a bloggy friend!

Today I got to spend the day with this lovely lady! She was visiting Sydney so we organised to meet up for a few hours. And what do crafty bloggy ladies do when they get together...shop of course!!

We went here ( they had a market day ) so some great buys were to be had. Here is my haul from there, some remnants, a half price stocking kit, half price hand printed linen and some lovely red fabric. I find it hard to get nice reds so snapped up a little bit of this one.

Then we went a couple of streets away to this place. Heaps of fabric here but total opposite in terms of types of fabrics than 2 Young St. Fortunately, i don't have a favourite style and am happy with anything!! LOL. They had heaps of great fabrics marked down to $10 metre so I stocked up on some great reproduction fabrics (hard to find here) for some birthday swaps.

We then drove to Balmain to find this great Patisseries where we ate this...

mine is the smallest of course LOL

Then we had a browse around Balmain markets where we got some great bracelets for only $10, and the black one was only $5!

I had a great time and it was lovely to meet up with Donna again who I met at Nundle in May. We are all looking forward to catching up again at Nundle in March next year. Will be here before we know it!

A beautiful wedding...

A couple of weeks ago we went to a wedding of a couple in our church. It was a lovely wedding and the families are Philipino so there was a few different thing than we are used to. For the church ceremony the bridal party and a lot of the family wore cream embroidered shirts and outfits. I take it this is a traditional thing they do. Then for the reception they all change into "normal" wedding outfits LOL. Even the bride did! The reception was a cocktail type reception in a beautiful function centre down at The Rocks on Sydney Harbour. It was a very windy day so I wasn't able to get many pics outside the church.

Here are some pics and then you can click on the link below to my Picassa album if you want to see more pics.

http://picasaweb.google.com/craiganita/MichaelJoSWedding221108#

Some Goodies to share!

My Secret Santa swap arrived this week all the way from Norway. It is such a temptation not to open it!

In the Yahoo group I am in we have an Advent swap where we send our partner 24 small pressies and 1 main present and they get to open one each day leading up to christmas. It is a lot of fun and this year I have swapped with Jenny from New Zealand. Here is a pic of the first 6 presents. I love them all - thanks Jenny!

While we were away I came across these gorgeous egg cups. I have eggs a lot for breakfast and often have 2 boiled eggs but only have 1 egg cup. I couldn't resist these - aren't they cute!! They are by Maxwell & Williams and the best thing was they were only $1.95 each!

I also bought this beautiful recycled glass candle dish that was made in Spain. You can't see the colours that great here but it is a beautiful green.

Before I went away i bought these fabrics from ebay and they were waiting for me when I came back. I love this range of fabric, I already have a Jelly roll in one colourway. There are 2 colourways, one is darker and one is lighter. From this designer, Camille Roskelly and her mother, I also bought direct 2 of her latest patterns. If you get a chance pop over to Camille's blog, she is just gorgeous and her 2 little boys are adorable!

Now I just have to upload the photos of the wedding we went to a couple of weeks ago, and then I am all caught up!! Well caught up with blogging at least LOL

I am going to do some more quilting on my friend's quilt today, but it is too hot already, will have to wait until I turn the air conditioner on.

Bye for now!!

Another Bag

Before we went away I managed to get this bag finished for a christmas present.

Merimbula NSW

We had a lovely break down the South Coast of NSW to Merimbula. What a lovely place! We stayed in a really nice unit across from the beach. I have never seen water so clean & clear as they have down there. Unfortunately the water temperature was still a bit too cold to swim, even for me! I did manage a few swims in the pool at the complex. We did quite a bit of bike riding and walking which was good as we ate out every night!

We also saw lots of kangaroos on our travels - at the beach, in the park and on people's lawns. Very exciting for a city girl! It must have just been birthing season too as there were lots with joeys in their pouches.

Keaninny Bay - at Tathra, NSW:

We took 2 days to come home and did lots of sight seeing. We stopped at heaps of place we had never been before. Our favourite would be Kioloa beach.

Stopped at Central Tilba, a quaint National Trust listed village, with some lovely shops and a fantastic cheese factory.

We stopped at Jervis Bay on the way back and went to Hyams beach - check out the white sand!

If you want to see more pics then click on this link to the Picasa album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/craiganita/MerimbulaHolidayNov2008#