High tea

Last weekend I attended a high tea with the lovely Kelli and the charming Bek. It was held by one of the churches in Mildura to raise money for a women's hospital in Africa.

It was a great event full of ladies in dresses drinking tea and eating cakes. I thought you might like to see some of the photos.

 

Kelli and me, ready to go.

A nice cup of pink tea.

Kelli enjoying her tea with a super cute bow.

It was a lovely afternoon and a great turn out.

 We were lady-like for most of the afternoon but we couldn't help ourselves when we saw the photo booth. Great fun!

Thanks for reading x

A really cute and super simple DIY.

This week Sophie and I did a bit of craft experimentation, most of which didn't turn out as we had hoped - one of the fun parts of trying to think of new craft ideas. Fortunately we had a small pile of of cute things that we had thrifted and were able to pull a last minute triumph!

And here it is! 

It is as simple as it looks.

A thrifted cardie and some doilys.

a little bit of hand sewing and you're done!

For full instructions head over to her library adventures

Thanks for reading x

synchronised travel adventure

I saw this first on my friend Rebecca's blog goo and titch and thought it was a lovely idea! Basically you go on a walk with your camera and follow the instructions below. Rebecca and I live in the same town but had very different walks.

1. Starting point.

 2. Walk 50-100 paces and turn 180 degrees. I brought my lovely husband along for the walk.

 3. Continue until you see something blue. I was hoping for some thing more exciting than a blue car but we were just getting started so I took it.

 4. Make a left turn and walk 50-70 paces. We spotted this cool tree in real life the orange fruit looks a bit like eyes, yuck.

6. Walk in any direction until you find something that is or resembles the number 7 or 11. You are going to have to squint to see it but It was getting late and we were getting desperate.

 7. Take the first left and continue walking until you find somewhere to sit. Cool old farm equipment on some ones lawn.

 

 8. Choose any direction and walk for 25 or 50 paces. We chose the direction that took us past this pretty garden. It smelt amazing.

9. Continue walking until you see an unusual shape, colour or texture. Turn 180 degrees. These roses were beautiful!

 10. Keep walking in any direction until you see an archway or an unusual architectural feature.

 11. Head for home, but keep looking for something that catches your eye.

Unfortunately it was too dark to take any photos on our way home, but we saw lots of nice old house on streets we had never been down before.

Thanks for reading. x

A sea worthy DIY.

This week Sophie and I got in touch with our inner sailor, and whipped up a cool nautical cuff.

 

 We took these items, put them into a captains hat jiggled them around and this came out!

Ok so there might have been some platting, gluing and sewing, you can find the full instructions Here on Sophie's blog.

 

It is a quick and simple DIY and we love the results.you should give it a try!

Thanks for reading.

The start of the 2012 Gran Prix, good excuse for a weekend in Melbourne!

This weekend Dave and I were in Melbourne for the Grand Prix. It was great to be in a big city, catch up with some of the family and too watch noisy cars drive very fast in a circle!

I was cheering for Jenson Button and he won which was awesome I was also cheering for Lewis Hamilton who came second and Paul Di Resta came in 11th so even he got point all in all it was a great weekend.

Thinking about what to pack

A few hours later and I was good to go.

At Melbourne airport

An awesome gate not far from out hotel

Big city op shop, the displays were brilliant

and coffee

Race day Breakfast

Hanging out with some uber fans.

Dave and I ready for action, such a great view.

 WHat did you get up to over the weekend?

The quickest DIY ever

Sophie and I were up to our usual crafting antics this week but we needed to do some thing quick and simple because we didn't have much time. So  turning a zip into a head band was a stroke of genius on Sophie's behalf.

we took these things.....

..and made them into..

...a versatile head band.

To see the full tutorial go to her library adventures.

Thanks for reading x

how many is too many?

 While Clearing out my wardrobe the other day I suddenly realised that I have a lot of brogues. I am not to sure when the obsession began but I can barely walk past a pair in a shop with out trying them on. I decided that as I like them so much they should get a bit more attention.

See nearly enough for a pair a day.

I have manly ones

girly flowery ones

these brown ones are my faves!

Now I just need a navy pair and I will be set.
What is your favorite type of shoe?  x

The sun is back!

Last week was a grey and rainy one which was a nice change the first day, but not so enjoyable on the 4th.

The bad weather and worse light meant that I didn't take any photographs this week, eek. Fortunately, Sophie and I got together for another DIY and her photos are awesome!

We turned this...

...into this.

They are little clipboards for hanging pretty things.

Check out how we did it at "Her library adventures"

When its cold and rainy I spend my time lost in blog world, this week I have been looking mostly at 

fine and sunny

trendland
pinterest
a pair-andaspare. 

What do you do when the weather sucks?

DIY is more fun with company!

This week saw the start of a very exciting DIY collaboration between the lovely Sophie and myself.

Sophie and I have been hanging out at fine & sunny crafting our little hearts out. and now we have decided to combine our powers to make some awesome creative weekend DIY projects.

This week we turned this collection of stuff into a super cute skirt. 

All you need to turn a pillow case in to a skirt is:
A vintage pillow case.
Half a meter of elastic.
Some pins.
Scissors.
A hem measure (optional) .
Tape measure.
Sewing machine.
And the instructions listed on herlibraryadventures

Cutting and ironing

A little sewing

20 minuets later we were done.

I think the final result is pretty cute. what do you think?

next week we are going to give a face lift to some furniture.

You may notice a massive improvement in the photo quality in this post! that is thanks to Sophie and her mad camera skills! 

Thanks for reading x

Up and In.

I popped in to my local op shop for a few minuets today and found this dress. I like the fabric but it was on the large side. Fortunately it is a simple shape so I was able to make it fit in no time. Here is how.

The dress was a little bit roomy

First thing to do is work out how much smaller the garment needs to be. I did this by putting the dress on inside out and pinning where I wanted the new seam to be.  I then cut off excess and sewed the new seam.

I also wanted to make the dress a little shorter. I did this buy altering the the dropped waist which can be seen in the photo below. The waist was originally down past my bottom which is a little too dropped. I cut it up to my hips and sewed the skirt back on. This not only moved waist to a more flattering place, it also meant I didn't have to re do the hem. yay.

Turn it inside out to measure how much you need to cut off

The finished size

 I wanted to make the dropped waist a bit more obvious, a 1 inch flap sewn and ironed in to place did the trick.

added detail

Thanks for reading x

I seem to have the sewing bug, again

This is the 3rd dress I have made in two days. I love to sew, but every now and again I lose interest. I have been feeling pretty uninspired for the last few months. I have made a few pair of shorts and covered lots of cushions but I have not made much clothing.

This weekend that seems to have changed, there are lots of things I am itching to make. Like this 1968 simplicity dress. 

So I got to work,

 The pattern is a wee bit big for me so I had to make it smaller. There are all sorts of clever guides for this, just ask Google. As this is a simple pattern I made a 1 inch pleat down the middle of each pattern piece, making sure I didn't change the neck or darts.

Pinned

 

 

and cut.

 It was at this point I realised that the instructions were not in the envelope, eek.

One of the joys of getting patterns from the op-shop. I had to make it up from here but it turned out fine. Phew.

 Thanks for reading x