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Monday 28 January 2013

Inspiration Cafe - Vanilla Shortbread Cookies with Peanut Butter and Chocolate Frosting...Oh my!

Today over at the Inspiration Cafe, we have a special treat for you!  Heather from The Beating Hearth is in the kitchen and she's baking up a batch of Shortbread Cookies with Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting!  Oh yummmm!
 Uh-huh....leave it to Heather to tempt us with these show-stopping beauties just in time for Valentines Day.  You can find this recipe over at the Inspiration Cafe, so stop in and enjoy!  

If you would like to guest post at the Inspiration Cafe, we'd love for you to let one of us know, or go HERE to our submissions page.
If you've never written a guest post before, that's OK, we're happy to teach you how with this easy step-by-step tutorial HERE.  It's easier than you might think and a great way to get exposure for you blog!

This Is Me - A Self Portrait

While Wearing Heels

Howdy All,

I am joining the ever wonderful Amy or While Wearing Heels in a year of self portraits, like most woman, of a certain age, I hate getting in front of the camera. I've stacked on the kg's with the last two babies and nothing frightens me more than public photos.

Here's the thing, my babies one day will want to see their mother, they don't care, that I have some weight to lose or that my skin is marked from growing their massively big baby heads inside me. I'm also not quite prepared to get straight in front of the camera.

So when Amy made the first task A Simple Moment and also pointed out that it could be any part of us, I got to thinking. So here is my most simple daily moment, making my morning cup of tea and waiting to see what the new day will bring.






Thanks for reading

Mel xo

Linking up here


While Wearing Heels

Saturday 26 January 2013

Happy Australia Day!!

Morning All,



I wake up on unseasonably cool day, very grateful to live in such a beautiful country. A country where we are free to be who we wish. With a government, who in spite of many of our jokes and complaints, actually looks after it's people. 

Something has been irritating me this week. When I was looking around for Australian funnies this week, I happened across a site (which shall remain nameless) by a woman who migrated here from another English speaking first world country. Her blog is just a bunch of complaints about living here with us and our ways.

For example, we don't sell our bread rolls sliced - Our bakers dropped a lot of the preservatives as they were known to have behavioural effects in children and bring on other health problems, so shock horror, they leave the rolls together to keep them fresh. Now that's 2 seconds per roll slice we are never going to get back - poor backward us!

Her other main complaint is the toilet. Here, generally speaking, the toilet has a room to itself usually located next to the bathroom, instead of being in the bathroom.

I mean seriously, if these things are something complaint worthy I think she would have to agree things aren't quite that bad.

As for me, I love this country and today I'm leaving you with a poem by Doroetha MacKellar another woman who loved this country and all its quirks!


I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!

The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze ...

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand
though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.


Happy Australia Day!

Mel xo

Friday 25 January 2013

Lace Collar Necklace






Morning All,

Another post about my favorite online craft store wholeport.com

When I saw this I just thought it was so pretty, I had to have it and even though I don't sew clothes (or not very well!) I began to panic about wonder what I was going to make it.

Elizabeth thought it would make a good beard, like that guy from Futurama, anyone know who she meant?

Abraham Lincoln - My apologies, feel free to laugh at any of our pollies, we all do!

Anyways, after some consideration it began to scream necklace and so that's what I did.

Supplies:

  • Lace Collar available here from Wholeport
  • Artificial Flower
  • Beads
  • Chain
  • Jump Rings
  • Those ribbon end clamp thingys (pure tech speak here)
  • Hot glue and the gun
  • Felt
  • Cabochon (optional)


First up I played around with the beads and flowers trying to find a pattern I liked, like so
and then hot glued the felt to the back of the collar.


Then I decided that the rhinestone was a little gaudy for my liking, so I pulled it off and added a cabochon (which I did buy from wholeport but it was over a year a go so I'm not sure if they still have them) I looked but couldn't see them.
Hot glued the beads into the middle of the rosettes.


Then I grabbed some extra felt and clamped the connector things on and hot glued them to the back


Added a jump ring to both sides and connected the chain and she was done!




I love the necklace and if your haven't checked out Wholeport do it, I promise you will not find better prices here in Australia and they are the cheapest I've found online. They even have a limited amount of freebies you can sign up for every Sunday. FUN!


Thanks for reading,

Mel xo

Be Delighted Every Day, Follow Mellywood's Mansion!
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Monday 21 January 2013

Shabby Chic Binder



Morning All,

So you might remember late last year I told you guys about my fave online craft store, Wholeport.com, and mentioned they had sent me a few things to try, well one of those items was this gorgeous pink rose heart appliqué Being the crappy sewer I am, I wasn't about to ruin it with my needlework and the kids are soon to be back at school, so I made this pretty little binder for Elizabeth.

Supplies:
Pink Rose Heart Applique available here $3.99 (bargain!)

Binder
Fabric
Trims, I also bought these from Wholeport but that was about 18 months a go and I'm not sure if they're still available and can't remember the names - (told you I was a long time customer pre blogging)
Spray glue
Hot glue/gun


Ignore the paint and modpodge I was working on something else at the same time

First up, cut the fabric to size then attach with the spray glue, don't go to tight or else it wont close. (learned the hard way!)


Then grab your trims and get a gluing


I added this to the spine of the binder, it's my favourite trim ever love it!


Then I added the gorgeous appliqué heart and outlined it with the lace trim


It still looked like it needed something else so I hot glued a little trim up the top and called her done.



DIY Delight or Disaster? How can anything this pink and pretty be a disaster? Elizabeth is going to have the prettiest binder in school, even if I do say so myself :)

So don't forget to check out Wholeport.com, awesome stuff at awesome prices, they cover just about all your craft needs and have the best customer service..seriously I have been in love with them for years!

I'm also not getting paid to say it, I did get the heart to sample, the other trims were purchased with my own $$$$

Thanks for reading,

Mel xo





Inspiration Cafe - 6 Simple and Sweet DIY Framed Valentine Decorations ~ Hearts and Keys

Hey everybody!  Today over at the Inspiration Cafe Mary from Sweet Little Bluebird is going to get you inspired to make some awesome and easy Valentine's Day projects!  Six of them to be exact!
 All of these are great projects!  So if you're in a Valentine's Day rut.....head on over to the Inspiration Cafe and pick any one of these and give it a try......Mary will show you how with directions for each one of these great projects! 
Inspiration Cafe - Valentines Projects

If you are interested in guest posting at the Cafe, please contact us or visit the GUEST POST page at the Cafe.  If you have never written a guest post before and aren't quite sure what to do....we wrote an article to take you through it step-by-step and you can find it by clicking HERE.  It's a great way to get exposure for your blog!

Coffee's on me!

Mel xo

  

Sunday 20 January 2013

Pretty Money Boxes



Howdy All,

I want to save some cash this year!

You see I finished working in April, but prior to that I've been on and off Maternity leave and continued to spend like I had 3 kids and 2 full time incomes instead of 5 kids and 1 income.

I am hopeless at sicking to plans, then my friend Leslie over at Violet Imperfection posted an idea that just jumped out at me. The 52 weeks saving plan and basically you save the amount for each week of the year example week 1 save $1 week 6 save $6 you can read more about it here, you may be shocked to see how much you end up with and I like the fact that it eases you into it.

So to make it a little more fun (if you can call saving fun, I personally prefer to spend) I thought I would pretty up some money boxes.

So I had these from an earlier project, and decided they were ugly and never put them in the babies room, besides what do they need cash for?



And I ripped of the vinyl and started over, or as I called it doing a Danni (The awesome Danni of Silo Hill farm often remakes her projects for seasonal items)

Supplies
Money boxes
Modpodge
White paint
Scrap book paper

So I grabbed the money boxes and modpodge them and then after that dried I painted them white (you could skip this but I didn't want the colours showing through)


Choose some scrap book paper (which I hoard because it's so pretty I don't want to use it, dumb I know)
Cut it to size


And glued it on, I could have modpodged it on properly but I always have bad luck when I try that for some reason.



Have to say even though this is so ridiculously simple, these pretty boxes make me happy to look at them. Hopefully I'll be even happier around this time next year when I attack them with a can opener and grab the cash - Boxing day sales anyone??? And because the early amounts are so slow, you could still give this a go. Either add the $6 and start next week at $4 or skip the first few weeks you'll still have plenty of cold hard cash!

If I find at some point that adding the extra $1 is becoming too tough I will know exactly what I can afford and make that my permanent savings amount - I actually think this one is going to stick.

DIY Delight or Disaster? Delight and so pretty


Do you have any cool any savings plans happening this year or any tricks you find useful?


Oh well, lets see how it goes.

Thanks for reading,


Mel xo


Linking at some or all of these great parties

Saturday 19 January 2013

Scrap Busting SaturdayTablet Clutch






Morning everyone,

I have been playing around with my massive fabric scrap pile and made a little clutch for Elizabeth to hold her tablet and accessories.

I just sewed some patches together and made it in the style of a place mat clutch, my sewing is so bad I'm not about to give a tutorial, especially when doing patchwork, I'm sure my mother, who is an amazing quilter, would have a fit if she saw what I called patchwork.

My neighbour has a friend who is a fabric sales person and drops off the samples at the end of the season she dropped off enough to fill my 2 foot by 4 foot box almost to the top with scraps, slightly smaller than a fat quarter.

So I'm trying to do a little scrap busting, actually it's kind of fun and if I ruin it it hasn't cost me anything. So if you have any scrap busting projects leave me a link. I'm really trying to get my stash under control so I'm going to try and post a scrap buster each Saturday.

Diy Delight or disaster, well, apart from the button coming off on the first snap it's okay nothing special I'm hoping it will help with the sewing because I'd love to be able to make some cool stuff :)

Thanks for reading


Mel xo




Linking at some or all of these great parties

Tuesday 15 January 2013

A Recap - Where We Are At!

Morning All,

The last recap is the painting of the boys room, this is where I stopped the home improvements to do Christmas stuff. The theme for the room was going to be Retro Gamer but after further discussion with the boys they requested that it have some modern touches so I'll see what I can do, however with the kids at home it's somewhat difficult to get stuff done in their room, so I am going to try and get a few small things done and concentrate on the larger things once the go back to school.


********************************************************************************* Morning All,

Yesterday I finally painted the boys room and wow what a difference!

So it started like this.





Then I painted and decided to try moving the furniture around and Now it looks like this:






I can't believe how much brighter it is! It made a huge difference to the light issues I have. The closet doors will need to be replaced with sliding doors with the bed in that position, but it has given me more space and better lighting.

When I woke up yesterday morning I believed I was an honest person, but as I painted the last coat on the last wall I realized that I had lied all day. It's funny how painting gives you time to reflect on things. Here are the lies I told yesterday:

1. At 7 am Julian got up for work, he said that the babies had been fed and the kids were giving them breakfast - I told him I was getting up, I stayed in bed for another 20 minutes.

2. As he left at 7:30 he said "you will tape up the room properly", I said "yes", but I didn't.

3. The boys asked if they would be able to decide on all my projects, I said yes, another lie

4. I lied to myself when I said I wouldn't eat the last two truffles for breakfast

5. I lied to Elizabeth when I said I didn't know where my hairbrush was, I hate sharing my brush and it forced her to find her own.

6. I lied to Jack when I said I wouldn't remove all his books - I need to find somewhere for them we bought him a kindle to help with the issue, but he still won't give up his paper versions. I will be putting them away in the garage.

However, it's true that you reap what you sow because I was viciously lied to!

1. I bought a "Point and Paint" supposedly will paint a room in an hour - Big Fat Lie, within 10 minutes I got the roller and brush out.

2. The worst one, 1 coat paint - HUGE lie, I had to paint two coats I was so annoyed. The only good thing about it was I got the paint for free so at least I hadn't paid for expensive lying paint.

Today, I'm exhausted but happy with the room and determined to never lie again - except about my online purchases because you know, everyone needs a vice!

Thanks for reading,

Mel xo

Inspiration Cafe - Simple Wire Wrapped Pendant

I love, love, love NorthShore Days jewelry!  I happen to own some of it myself.  So when Natalie does a tutorial, I am super excited!  Today is my lucky day over at the Inspiration Cafe, and yours too because Natalie is doing a great tutorial on these cute, simple wire wrapped pendants.
 You probably already have what you need to make them, so head on over to the Inspiration Cafe and get your easy to follow, step-by-step directions with great detailed pics to help you make your own in no time flat!
 If you are interested in guest posting or becoming a regular contributor to Inspiration Cafe, please let me or any of the girls at the Cafe know and we'll hook you right up!  We'll make it easy for you  It doesn't have to be a new post, just one you love!  You can also click HERE to go to our page to learn more about submitting a guest post.  It's a great way to get exposure for your blog.  We'd love to see what inspires you!

Sunday 13 January 2013

A Recap - Sesame Street Nursery

Morning All,

For all my new followers I'm recapping where I started from and what rooms have been completed so far
today is the 2nd and last completed room The Nusery

*********************************************************************************
Can I tell you how to get to Sesame Street?

I sure can!






 And to the tune of Sesame Street

Sunny days,

Kicking the Ax away







On my way to where the air is sweet



Come and Play, everything is A-Okay





Friendly Faces






That's where we'll meet



Can you tell me how to














How to get to Sesame Street.....







Hey All,

I hope you enjoyed wondering through Sesame Street. This is the first room I have ever truly put together and while there have been plenty of learning curves along with blood, sweat and tears, I am in love with this room. If you are new here and have enjoyed this post, feel free to follow along via GFC, Facebook or Google +. This room is my heart and love, yes it has truly been a labor of love for two little people who were unexpected and are the loves of my life.

DIY Delight or Disaster? DELIGHT!!!!!!! What do you think?

Having said that, I'm 36 and I have spent the last two months obsessed with Sesame Street so I am glad to put this baby to bed - figuratively speaking.

Now it's time to wrestle this one to bed - Literally!





Thanks for Reading,

Mel xo

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