The joy of completion !

Thursday 27th September 2011

Hi there everyone,

When I pause and think about what I've been up to the past few weeks, well, they've been busy..... but busy with what? A whole lot of.... stuff I guess.

My parents are overseas in America at the moment. I got an email yesterday saying they were headed for Zion National Park in Utah. I got on Pinterest to have a look. One word. Stunning.

(picutres from Pinterest)

They are on a tour and seem to have befriended everyone and invited them to come to Australia to visit. LOL... this doesn't surprise me at all! Also, in a few days its their wedding anniversary - 33 years. What an achievement, I'm so proud of them :)

I haven't been doing much sewing. I've become rather hooked on Pinterest, so the creative juices are flowing and the ideas are tumbling around in my head. However, I have also realised that I'm probably not going to have handmade Christmas presents done for my tribe of neices and nephews like I thought I would. Siiiigh. Christmas seems to creep up on me every year! What are your plans for Christmas? I know its a while away yet, but for us its a bit of a juggling and balancing act, especially because Hubby often works Christmas day. Our family does gifts for kids, and both sides of the family are doing a secret santa this year. How do things work at your family Christmas gatherings? I'd be interested to know......

I did however, manage to sew some bunting for a gift. It was my first time sewing with bias binding and I was more concerned about what the binding was doing than watching how straight my sewing was. My friend who is a fantastic sewer said to me "did you iron the binding in half?" Doh! Wish I'd thought of that... perhaps my sewing would have been a bit straighter. When I began sewing someone said to me about the one metre rule: As long as it looks good from a metre away. This rule applies to the bunting.

And finally, I have been busting to share this with you. I picked this doll house up for a mere $5 at The Recycle Mart. It was grotty and sad looking but had good bones  - isn't that the case for a lot of thrifted items?

Over about 2 months I cleaned off all the dirt and grime, unpeeled off all the contact from the floors, painstakingly stripped and sanded it down, then spray painted it and recruited Dad to fit the flooring (which really means giving him some red and white spotted scrapbooking paper and some scissors and let him make it all fit. He did a great job btw!)


Here is the finished product (although I do still need to spray paint under the eaves LOL). All of the furnishings are from The Recycle Mart also (except the doily which I mooched off Mum), and the dolls I picked up 4 of them for $12 from the Eumundi Markets. For that price I thought I couldn't have dressed/decorated/created my own dolls. I didn't want to paint the doll house super girly colours as I knew the boys would mostly be playing with it for now.

The boys and Grandad named these two Joe and Jemima. The other two are just Mummy and Daddy doll.

Speaking of the boys, we spent all of the last week or so fighting against the most stubborn conjunctivitis ever. Thankfully, it is the first time we have had it in our house. I bid it good riddance, goodbye and don't ever come again. Please.

Hope your week is going fantastically!
Dansie