Love at first sight!

At long last we have found a property! Today it officially became ours. It was love at first sight and ticked all the boxes. I just had to share it with you. And it is only 30 minutes drive from where we live now so I can still keep my job.

The house sits on 2 acres of lawn and gardens. It has lots of gorgeous trees and plenty of room for more daffodils, roses and fruit trees! It is surrounded by market gardens, garden centres, rose nurseries and there is a fabulous cafe five minutes down the road. And I thought I'd mention that there are two quilting stores in town! It is five minutes drive from a lovely river, 20kms from the beach and about one and a half hours drive north of Wellington.

The house feels like it reflects our personalities much more than the home we have sold. And the grounds are park-like. There is lots of history to the property too. In the early 1940's it used to be part of a RNZAF (Royal NZ Air Force) air field!

It has a spa pool which I think will be lovely to soak in during the winter months. I've never had a spa pool before and I have no idea how to look after it! However, the most exciting thing is that is has a self-contained flat which will make the perfect studio space for Mr M & M and I.
Can you tell I'm excited?

Carole x

A New Year has begun and where have I been?

You might well be asking this!

Martha Mine, Waihi, North Island

We have been on, what seems like, a never-ending search for the ideal property.  When we decided to sell our home we expected it to take forever to sell and that we'd be able to find another property without problem. Not the case.

Martha Mine, Waihi, North Island

We had a checklist of things we'd both like in a property, and knew that we'd have to make concessions, but we thought the perfect property was out there somewhere.
We started looking at Coromandel and worked our way down the coast, looking at properties around Waihi, Katikai, Opotiki and Whakatane.

Harbour at Whakatane, North Island

 If you are ever in Whakatane do stop at Wally's on the Wharf, they have the best fish and chips I have ever tried!
We made trip after trip away searching. Nothing.
So now we have resorted to Plan B, and we are searching locally, with 4 weeks until we have to move out. Every waking hour is spent searching the internet and visiting homes.
I'll keep you posted on our progress.

Carole x

Don't you hate it when....

... your very most favorite needle starts to get so bent from use that you have to toss it out?
Does anyone else use their needles until they look like this? (or is it just me?)

Oh well, all in the pursuit of happiness! lol

Carole x

Merry Christmas everyone!

The pohutukawa tree (Metrosideros excelsa) New Zealand's official Christmas tree

Merry Christmas to my lovely friends and visitors! Although it's not actually Christmas day here in New Zealand, it's the day after, abut in many places around the world it is Christmas! I hope your day is as lovely and relaxing as mine.

Neve and Nana

We had a lovely day celebrated with family, extended family, great food and our six month old grandchild. We consider we are truly spoilt. Yesterday was 29 degrees Celsius with a high humidity factor thrown in caused by the remnants of the cyclone which damaged Samoa and Fiji. I was thankful that we had cold meats and cold salads, followed by cold desserts, and a lovely slushy punch!

Neve and Grandad

 Now that Christmas is over, we are off on a house hunting expedition! Yes, the fabulous news is, that we sold our property! It was on the market for one whole week, it sold almost too quickly, I wasn't quite adjusted to the idea of moving yet.

So we will be moving in February, but as yet we can't find anywhere to buy that we like. I think we've been spoilt in that department too. We've searched all over the North Island and perhaps we have way too many boxes that need ticking? The search continues - I'll keep you posted!

I am going to miss my strawberry garden

With the holiday season here, please don't take risks if you're driving on the road, and I hope you get to enjoy time with your family and friends.

Thank you so much for all your comments and emails over the last year, I love hearing from you, you give me encouragement and motivation in my creative journey.

See you back here soon!

Carole x

Moving on...

We have decided to sell our lovely lifestyle property and move. Although we haven't decided where to as yet. Hopefully we'll be able to find somewhere with a paddock for my little twins but I'm going to miss my daffodils!
However, as you'd expect there's been a little madness -especially when the agent rings and says she would like to bring a client through the house! Eeeek! Just look at the state of my kitchen!

Of course I was right in the middle of making lemon honey and apricot jam, I'd made a beef and vege pie and a lemon meringue pie for pudding and I hadn't done the dishes!
I'm going to have to lift my game! lol

Carole x

Al fresco in the vegetable garden

Lettuce, peas and radish are ready right now in my vege garden. 

 And it's time to start picking strawberries again!

With a little help from a friend :)

Thanks Wednesday!
Do you have a helper in the garden?

Carole x

Anyone?

Carole x

nesting problems solved

Oh oh, problems in the hen house!
I've run out of bedding for the nest boxes. The lady who owns them, (I'm baby-sitting) says they don't like straw, she had the nest boxes filled with wood shavings!

They are very fussy hens, I've grown loads of silverbeet in my vege garden especially for Dianna Ross and The Supremes to eat, but oh no, they don't like silverbeet. I hunted through the strawberry patch and removed all the fat juicy snails for them to eat, not on your nelly!!

So I decided that I'd scrunch up some newspaper and put that in their nest boxes and see what happened. They were very curious at first, but they slowly got used to it. But then I found an old birds nest and I put that in too.

Wouldn't you know it! They love it!

Now I've just to find 3 more birds nests!

Have a great week,
Carole

thought you might like an update

Here she is! Five months old, sitting on her mum's knee. Is she cute or what?!

Carole

Two bloggers meet

Last Monday I took a day off work and caught the train to Wellington. The reason being was that my friend Doreen, (from Australia) was arriving in town. You may know Doreen from her blog. She and her husband were on the cruise liner Sea Princess which was in port for one day.

We had Wellington to ourselves 2 days before the world premiere of The Hobbit and the City was buzzing with Hobbit fever.

Poor Doreen, we walked all round Wellington, visiting Minerva and bead shops and craft stores. And then we visited the Hobbit Artisan Market where we enjoyed a lovely raspberry gelato!

It was a fun day and I don't think I've talked so much! It also felt like I was meeting an old friend, and not someone I've never met before.
She'll be home again soon, so pop over and visit, she'll probably have some photos to post too!

Thanks for a lovely day Doreen!

Back soon,
Carole

disestablishment and doilies

Recently our unit at work was told it would be disestablished. Don't you just love that word?

Although I won't lose my job, our unit will be split up and our GM will become redundant. There are some pretty upset people in our team right now. Some of the guys in my unit decided we should go out to the local riffle range and shoot some rounds.

I've never fired a gun before, thought I might have to check this out.

I had a few emails asking about my skirt I embellished recently. It seems a few of you want to see it.
Well as it happens I was wearing it on the afternoon that we went to the shooting range.

I thought the contrast between feminine and masculine was interesting. I bet I was the first person to wear doilies to a shooting range!
I loved shooting the pistol, but after a few shots my arms got tired and the gun became rather heavy to hold steady. My very favorite was the 12 guage shotgun!

Wow!
This outing was an excellent way to work off some stress, I definitely recommend it!

Back soon,
Carole

today was a ribbon day

just a little embellishing today

Carole

don't look....!!

I'm just having one tiny Vanilla Crisp with my cup of tea - don't tell anyone!

Here's the recipe which came from the Quarter Acre Cafe in Levin:
125gm butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups flour
1 cup cornflour
1 tsp baking powder
raspberry or strawberry jam
 Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease two baking trays. Cream butter and sugar until white, then add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Sift in the flour, baking powder and cornflour and mix gently. 
Put generous teaspoons of the mixture onto the trays and bake for 8 to 10 mins or until golden brown.
Cool on a rack and when completely cold sandwich pairs together with jam and icing.

To make icing put 125gms icing sugar, 100 gms butter and 1 tspn vanilla essence into a bowl and beat until light and fluffy.

To finish dust with icing sugar.

Back soon,
Carole

A new born yoyo

I've had a number of emails about the cuteness of the yoyo's that I use to embellish with and I'm also asked how I make them.
Hope also emailed to say she is having a little trouble with her yoyo making and asked if I could help her, so here is how I make mine.
I use the Clover yoyo maker, these come in all manner of sizes, but I'm using the tiny one (due to the cuteness factor). If you want, you can make them by hand, but for a few dollars this makes them quick, easy and uniform.

I put my piece of fabric in between the two discs, as per instructions.

Then I trim round the discs so that I don't have too much fabric bunched up when I'm 'pulling' the yoyo.

Time for stitching. The above pic shows the top side of the yoyo, start stitching from underneath, and continue round the plastic discs until you get back to the start.

This is the underneath of the yoyo. I've stitched right round and am now back at the beginning.

Unclip the plastic discs and slip the fabric off.

Now, here comes the bit where you witness a baby yoyo being born! Slowly pull the cotton and as you tighten the yoyo gathers.

Until it looks ... sort of ... well ... almost like a small bag. Now, a word of warning at this point: if you are a sensitive soul, please turn away now, we're going to be practicing a wee bit of tough love.

I'm a bit ruthless at this point and I squeeze the living daylight out of the wee thing.

And then I have to just slip a couple of stitches to hold it in place.... cut the thread.

And there you have it, a new born 3/4 of an inch yoyo. Isn't it just gorgeous!

There you go Hope, I'm sure this will help. If you haven't made yoyo's before, I hope this inspires you to have a go at making them.

Back soon,
Carole

embellishing myself

a couple of weeks ago i bought a skirt at an op shop. it seemed fine although the previous owner had left a scorch mark on the pocket and some detail stitching had come undone. but it did look nice on. i decided i should buy it seeing it was only $4.99.

so i decided to embellish it, and of course you'd expect nothing less that some vintage fabric or doilies and perhaps a yoyo or too. i doubt you'd ever know there was a mark on the pocket.

now to address the detail stitching. some torn fabric, some vintage trim and a few yoyo's. this is soooo me!

i love embellishments, you can use them on anything, anywhere.

back soon
carole

picking roses

Wow, a whole month has gone since I was here last. I really need to get my act together.

I have been busy trying to loose some weight. As you will know, it takes dedication and commitment and above all time. I've been walking twice a week and attending exercise classes twice a week. I'm told the endorphins I get from doing all this exercise will carry me through and help me feel great and give me more energy. I'm wondering if it's possible to overdose on exercise? All I want to do is eat chocolate and sleep!! It's going to be a long road......

We have also decided to sell the Madness and Mess home and that has meant spring cleaning from top to toe. Of course I've had to fit this in between sleeping and eating chocolate so it's cutting into my creative time. 

However, I did slip unnoticed into my sewing room this morning and you might get to see what I've been up to....

Back soon,
Carole