Weekend Away!

Hello there all my bloggy buddies and Happy Hump Day to you! ;0) This week seems to be flying past at the speed of sound ... I guess that's what happens when you sneak one of the week days onto the end of the weekend ... not that I'm complaining, you understand! :0)

My Beloved Geek Boy and I decided to take advantage of two things this past weekend ...

1) Extra day in the long weekend, so a chance to do something special
2) Mum and Dad were house-sitting in the Glasshouse Mountains

So, it was bag-packing time and we headed off on a short road trip. Saturday was travel day and the arvo was spent with all four of us sprawled around the lounge room reading books/iPads and chatting, but Sunday dawned warm and sunny, so was the perfect day for a bit of exploration.

On a previous visit to the area, we'd tried to visit a privately created botanic garden, but rain had prevented us from really enjoying much of  a look around, so we headed off for a repeat visit. Boy! Had these gardeners been BUSY!!! The site had more than doubled in area, as well as adding a petting zoo and large walk-through aviary ... well worth a visit.

So off we headed to admire the gardens. The gardens are on quite a steep slope, but have been gently terraced to create many lovely garden 'rooms' which are all linked with a variety of water features ... ponds, big splashy waterfalls, trickling streams, small tinkly waterfalls ... water was the link, along with the various stepping stones and bridges that enabled us to progress ...

Here's Dad, Mum and GB all looking very impressed that I wanted a photo of them! Tee! Hee! Hee! Being on such a sloping piece of land, the views all the way through the gardens were truly spectacular, with the iconic Glasshouse Mountain peaks front and centre ...

If I had a view like this out my back window I'd never get ANYTHING done - I'd be too busy gazing out the window! Tee! Hee! Hee!

Now, after a couple of hours of wandering up and down this VERY steep garden (it was more noticeable on the way back UP ... funnily enough!!) we were all starting to get a wee bit peckish, so we took ourselves off to find a nice cafe/coffee shop. Being a long weekend, most food places we passed were chock-a-block and overflowing, so we headed to a nice little garden coffee/gift shop GB and I had discovered at Maleny on a previous visit. It was pretty busy too, but we found a nice table in the garden and were lucky enough to be entertained while we waited ...

We were serenaded by the music of harps, mandolin and guitar ... BEAUTIFUL!! The harps had such a magical tone to them ... I quite expected faeries to start dancing around the garden ... instead we just had Dad singing along to a few Irish folk tunes he recognised! Not quite as ethereal! Tee! Hee! Hee!

It was a lovely quick break away before heading home for GB to start his new job this week ... and today I was off to the dentist AGAIN to progress my root canal - BLECH!! Hope you had something more fun than a dental visit on your agenda. Oh ... OPAMers ... end of month is sneaking up, so don't forget to update your sidebar list of finishes and email me or my GORGEOUS Partner-In-Crime Sweet Peg. Right ... off to carefully sip on a cup of chicken noodle soup while I wait for my poor numb face to have feelin returned ... trying hard not to dribble everywhere! :0) Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!
KRIS

Makeover Reveal!!

Hello all my lovely blogging buddies out there in blogland! How are we all this mid-week of autumn/spring? Things here at the home of Tag Around Teddies are a bit unsettled just at the moment as my Beloved Geek Boy finishes up his job this week to start a new work adventure next week, so I have to say I haven't been stitching ... BUT ... I do have a finish to show you.

Do you remember I shared a photo of a bargain I picked up from Gumtree for my sewing room ...

... a practical-but-not-very-pretty hutch the exact size to fit in the space at the end of my sewing table. And then I applied ...

... a lovely, chalky, shabby-chic-y finish of Canterbury Blue EZ2 Paint in Aged White and protective clear wax. Then I fussed a bit, fiddled a bit, floofed a bit (that's a VERY technical term, you understand!!) and the result is ...

,,, a sweetly shabby display and storage space for my sewing room! I am SOOOOO chuffed at how this piece has come up and as I said last time, pretty impressed with the Canterbury Blue EZ2 Paint chalk infused paint. Actually ... don't tell GB, but ... there are HEAPS more yummy colours in Juliana's range of paints that I'm dying to try out! Tee! Hee! Hee!

So with this makeover, my sewing room is starting to look a bit more like "ME", but there's still some more fussing, fiddling and floofing to be done before it ticks all my boxes ... stay tuned! :0)

And now I'm off to have a cup of peppermint tea and shuffle through Pinterest for a while to get some more ideas ... SHHHHH! ... Don't tell GB! He starts getting nervous whenever I tell him ... "I've been thinking ...!!" Tee! Hee! Hee! Hope you're all having a wonderful week so far and that you're doing a bit more sewing than my curtain panels in the hutch above! :0) OPAM gals ... are you keeping your sidebar lists up to date with your finishes?? Avoid the end-of-month-snuck-up-on-me panic and add your finishes as you, well ... FINISH ... them. :0) Have a blast, people ... and remember to hug your special people. :0) Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!
KRIS

A Feeling Of Deja Vu!!

Happy Friday to all of my peeps out there in blogland! :0) This is my first 'day off' Friday that I've managed to spend entirely at home for quite some weeks, autumn cool temps have started to show up and it's good weather for snuggling in under blankies ... so you'd think I'd be snuggled up in front of a fave movie stitching, right?!?! WRONG!! Instead I'm experiencing a strange kind of deja vu from two years ago. Let me explain ...

You see, the Meares' Madhouse is about to undergo a pretty big change ... my Beloved Geek Boy finishes up at his current job next week after six and a half years. He will still be working in the AV/IT industry (Audio Visual/Information Technology for those not in the know! :0) ) but with a bigger Brisbane-based firm. While this will mean he'll join the commuter crowd driving up and down our 'hill' for a few months, it will eventually mean he'll be working mostly from home on system design, programing and tender preparation. Don't worry ... I live with him and only understand about 5% of what he does! Tee! Hee! Hee!

With GB working from home more, he's decided that he needs to reclaim the section of the large office desk that we currently share ... I'm being evicted from the office! How WUDE!! :0) Which has in turn led to a re-think and re-shuffle of my sewing room in order to fit in a computer work station for when I'm editing my pattern templates. And I have to say, it's been fun searching for bargains on Gumtree as well as looking at existing furniture in a new light to accomplish the outcome I need and am happy with. I try to find a nice balance between pretty and practical.

I now have a lovely vintage school desk for my computer station ... which I am yet to take a nice photo of - oops! :0) But in re-thinking the use of my sewing room and the functions it needs to serve, I'll also be adding ...

... A bookcase to hold my collection of "Homespun" magazines, some other fave books and some of my collection of pretties. :0) We bought two of these bookcases just after we were married 24 years ago, gave it away when we moved a couple of years ago, and have had it returned recently when my sort-of-sister Tiffy moved. Obviously a good investment! :0)

This is one of my Gumtree finds. This will house my overlocker, pattern design business files, in trays etc in the bottom section ... and display more of my extensive collection of pretties on the shelves! :0) It fits PERFECTLY into the space between the end of my sewing desk and the lovely original coloured glass door into the sleepout. Oops! Do you see my fireman's calendar sneaking into the pic there?! Gotta have eye candy in the sewing room, right?! Tee! Hee! Hee! Actually, it's last year's as I somehow missed buying one for 2016 ... still ... even if the dates are wrong, the firies are still pretty HOT! :0)

Now, these two pieces of furniture may be PRACTICAL, but they didn't really fit in with my Shabby French Provincial Country Cottage Chic style of decorating. (Do you like that decorating style definition? It's the best way I can think of to describe my rather eclectic, slightly eccentric style! Tee! Hee! Hee!) They needed a little facelift. So we've applied ...

... some Canterbury Blue EZ2 Paint and clear wax. I discovered Juliana from Canterbury Blue on Facebook and have been dying to test out her "paint with chalk added to it" ... copyright means she's not allowed to call it "chalk paint". Juliana is based in Brisbane and her paint is very reasonably priced, so I was keen to try it out. I was very excited to find that our local timber recycling business is now a stockist, so off we went to get our supplies. Can I say, it was SOOOOOOOOO nice to work with!! :0) We did learn a few things that we'll keep in mind for next time (yes ... I will be EZ2 Paint-ing more furniture pieces in the future!!) but I LOVE the results ... which I'll share with you after a few finishing touches are added to both pieces!  I know ... I'm such a tease! Tee! Hee! Hee! Juliana has a large range of colours in her EZ2 Paint range, as well as some fab fun and funky colours in her 'normal' paint range ... I'm dying to try out her signature Canderbury Blue colour ... and her Jazna Green ... and the Old Duck ... and Teal Surprise ... and Zombie Red ... and ... well ... you get the picture! Tee! Hee! Hee! By the way ... This isn't a paid/sponsored product sprook ... I just wanted to share a great Queensland/Aussie product with you. :0)

So by now, you're probably wondering where the heck the deja vu from the post title comes into things. Well ... rearranging the sewing room has brought me to the conclusion that, even though I got rid of a LOT of stuff when we moved two years ago, there's still a LOT of stuff in the sewing room that I don't need/use. So in a strange deja vu echo of this time of year two years ago, I'm sorting through cupboards, fabric stash, craft supplies and ...

... old craft and decorating magazines ... and I'm trying to be RUTHLESS in my re-organise, re-home or re-ject mission. Maybe I need to get my champion chucker-outer Mum to come and help me. Then again ... maybe not, as I'd like to have SOMETHING left in the sewing room at the end of this process!! Tee! Hee! Hee!

So ... no stitching or sewing happening here just at the moment ... though I DID start playing with some sketches for a new stitchery design yesterday! :0) I'm hoping that a quiet weekend at home will see me get through sorting MOST of my sewing room stuff so I can share some pics with you next time. In the meantime, I hope you all have some fun/productive stuff planned for your weekend wherever you may be. And remember to take a little bit of time out just for YOU ... because you're WORTH IT! :0) Now I'm off to make myself a cuppa and keep sorting through magazines ... it's not REALLY a hardship to sort pretty magazines but I can still say I'm working on de-cluttering! Tee! Hee! Hee! Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!
KRIS

Happy Friday ... Sort Of!!

Hello to all you lovelies out there in blogland! Just popping in for a quick visit (I promise it will be quick, Chookyblue!!) to wish you all a happy Friday. The "Sort Of" part is for me cos I have another dentist appointment this afternoon - EEK!! Really over uncooperative teeth at the moment. SIGH!!

Still ... some good stuff happening too. Yesterday was a show holiday for Toowoomba and although where I work, we take the show holiday from Crow's Nest, cos it's a Friday and we USED to be in that Council shire until the horrible amalgamation took place (GRRRR!! Don't get me started!!) and works out better all round ... my Beloved Geek Boy had yesterday off. So ... when I finished work, we went adventuring on a couple of mini road trips to pick up a couple of Gumtree buys for my sewing room ... some reorganisation and painting happening in there ... SOON, I hope ... so will share more later. I know ... what a tease I am! :0) We scored a couple of bargains and the road tripping part was fun ... especially since it turned out that the pick-up point for one of my finds was a lovely lady in a little country town nearby who has turned her shed into a mini antiques/collectibles/bric-a-brac shop that is open by appointment ... I will SO be going back here and taking my Bestest-Buddy-Since-We-Were-Nine Lynette when she visits next! :0)

I also took a quick pic of my finishes for March ... some more little needle keeps ...

Five more of these little cuties finished, bringing my tally to 7 ... only 13 to go! :0) They'll be popped into my gifties box. I love how all the different fabric and button combinations are looking.

And speaking of gifties ... sort of! :0) ... Sweet Peg has drawn the OPAM winner for March, so if you haven't caught up with the news yet, pop over to visit her to see if YOU were the lucky winner. Funnily enough ... when Sweet Peg did her random draw, MY name came up! So she re-drew it ... and HER name came up! Tee! Hee! Hee! Obviously the random generator thinks we're both winners! Tee! Hee! Hee!

Right ... it's off to tackle a couple of jobs before I pull up my big girl panties and head off to the dentist ... hopefully getting that out of the way today will make for a more relaxed ... and tooth-pain-free!! ... weekend with some gardening and sewing thrown in ... and taking a photo of the quilt I've been teasing you with that I sewed the binding down on. Hmmm ... not sure that's the goodest English usage, but you get what I mean! :0) Have a fab weekend! Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!
KRIS

Internet Issues & OPAM!

FINALLY!!!! I'm getting to catch up with you, my blogging buddies. I really had intended to be back here to catch up with you before this, but ... life interferes. SIGH! First there was Easter ... which saw much gardening and tidying up outside following our nasty hail storm on my birthday ... still some more to do there. THEN ... there was a much-dreaded visit to the dentist - EEP! And THEN ... Telstra decided to play silly buggers with our internet. SHEESH! It's still not completely sorted after three days of on again, off again internet service, but my Beloved Geek Boy has worked out a way around the difficulties before these two geeks committed some atrocities against said internet provider! :0) It's just a lot slower, so too frustrating to do much.

So ... what have I been up to ... apart from the above. Well ... I managed to finish a few of these ...

... which I don't have an updated photo of. And I was also working on this ...

... a bit of binding on my "Lynda's Garden Critters" quilt. I've now finished this one, but only last night at our Friday Night Sit N Sew, so it's my first finish for April.

And speaking of finishes ... OPAMers ... March has rolled into April, so if you haven't yet emailed your finishes tally to me or to Sweet Peg and updated your sidebar list ... make like the Easter Bunny and GET HOPPING! :0) It might take a little longer to do the blog hop ... if Telstra doesn't get it's act together soon ... GRRRR!! But hopefully it will happen in the next few days.

And now ... I'm off to grumble about internet providers some more before I curl up with a cup of tea and a book  ... yep ... Saturday night at the Meares' Madhouse is just party, party, party! Tee! Hee! Hee! I promise to be back as soon as internet stuff is sorted PROPERLY. Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!
KRIS