Happy Mother's Day to me

I know I am probably the only mother in the world who buys herself a Mother's Day present but I came across some beautiful chrysanthemums and roses in recent days that I simply couldn't resist especially as the chrysanthemums had been reduced from $15-$18 to $5. I was going to wait until after Mother's Day and check for any reductions at one of our few remaining locally owned plant nurseries which I will still do but I saw these plants at BigW just begging to be rescued so I obliged. Honestly there is nothing wrong with them and they just need a little TLC and eventually some sunshine and they will provide some colour in our late Autumn garden where nothing much is flowering at the moment.

How to wrap a gift card for the menfolk.

I saw a really intriguing tutorial this week which gave me an idea about how to wrap up a gift card for a man. They are often hard to buy for at Christmas and appreciate a gift card as then they can please themselves about what to buy as we may not know what they actually need. The tutorial was Jackie's from Happy Hooligans who did a blog post on How to Wrap a Small Gift in a Pull-Tab Can. So I headed off to the kitchen to see if I could find some cans with pull tops or whatever they are called which I usually break anyway and have to end up using the can opener. ;-)

The sun is shining again...and all is well.

We have had a number of dismal foggy days and I missed the sunshine terribly. We really are a nation of people who love the outdoors and find it difficult to have to stay indoors for any length of time so it was just so wonderful to see the sun shining once again today. I don't know how our Northern Hemisphere friends survive those long freezing winters. I take my hat off to them.

Another great workshop!

Well our Simple Living Toowoomba Homemade Health and Beauty Products Workshop was really interesting this morning and I am sure that everyone who attended learned a lot.

What is 'vintage'?

Yesterday I received a belated Mother's Day present from my girl which was quite a surprise as I had completely forgotten about the fact that Mother's Day was last Sunday. Obviously I forget things quickly :-) 

Bella Magazine

A lot of good things come out of Toowoomba on the Darling Downs of South-East Queensland and one of those good things has been the publication of Bella Magazine for girls from 13 to 19 which was launched in 2009. The latest good thing though is that the magazine is now available as an E-Mag! What a great Christmas present for the young girls in your life!

Last minute Christmas gifts to sew

One of my favourite craft blogs that I follow belongs to a young mum, Ashley, who has the inspiring blog Make it & Love it. I was reading about her last minute Christmas gifts today and came across her Girl and Boy Fabric Dolls tutorial which has been on my 'To Do' list for some time. I asked Ashley if I could post a photo from her blog here and she kindly said that was okay. I thought that there might be some other Nannas out there who might like to make one of these for a special little girl or boy in their life.

How to make a quick and easy potholder!

Last year the Down to Earth forum had a potholder swap between members and, even though I had never made a potholder before, I signed up! Easy peasy!!! I mean how hard could it be to sew a potholder?  Well...unfortunately I am straight-line challenged as I have mentioned before and had great difficulty finishing off the potholder with bias binding to make the end result look neat and tidy. I must have spent a small fortune making and discarding questionable looking potholders and, in desperation, scoured the internet for a quick and easy pattern. After much exhaustive searching I came across a YouTube video with easy instructions for a potholder which was just what I was looking for and which could even be made by a beginner. I had a few practice runs though.

What are you grateful for?

 When reading a few blogs last weekend, I noticed a beautiful pendant made by young Katie from House of Humble. On it is written 'gratitude turns what we have into enough'. The accompanying thought-provoking post made me ponder on the many things I have in my life that I am grateful for.