Home from Camp

I am home, rested and clean and I have to say it was fun. The cabins that we were staying in were indeed tin sheds with concrete slab floors and were packed full with 12 bunkbeds in each 'room', so 24 girls and leaders all together. Want to see what that looks like? Here you are.

The beds were quite comfy and after a spray of Mortein just to be sure there were no fleas I was happy to plonk my stuff down and look around a bit. We had arrived at Appin at about 7.30pm and we were eventually all organised and settled and headed to the 'hall' to have the evening entertainment of skits, then supper, information and then finally bed. After others shouting for the lights to finally be put out I decided to try to sleep with earphones in with music playing to drown out the chatter. At 2am it was quiet, 6.30am start aaahhh and another lovely sunny day greated us once the shock of about 4 hours sleep had departed these old bones.

Saturday was full of camp certification stuff so learning how to light and put out fires, cooking on the fires, first aid, finding your way by the stars, learning about nature in your area. Here are some of the girls on their way and 'learning'.

After a quick lunch the girls were put into teams and were to do 'Challenge Valley'. Challenge valley was an adventure obstacle course and it was hardcore. I thought some of them would do it but I never thought ALL of them would make it through, doing all the obstacles, and having fun whilst doing it. I was cheering them on from the sidelines, I was not going to crawl through leach infested water. Here are a few pictures.

These girls that I have the blessing to spend time with and teach them are incredible, strong, spiritual young women. They are fun and funny and I had so much fun hanging out with them for the weekend. We spent Saturday afternoon playing funny games like 'I have never' and when I get a bit competative they think it is so hilarious. A standards evening and then a camp fire and obligatory sing a long finished up the night. It was really cold Sat night so sleep was hard to come by even though I was tired.

I had sent the girls out to play a joke on Brent, one of the male leaders that were there with us, they were going to toilet paper his tent but got scared when other people heard them coming and told them to go back to bed so they thought it would be funny to cover mine and Gell's car in toilet paper instead!

Sunday - another gorgeous day, started ridiculously early at 5.45am with a testimony meeting, then breakfast and then church. Showers over flowed, toilets clogged up and so come Sunday lunchtime I was ready to leave and head home to my clean, hot shower and warm comfortable bed, but what a fun weekend. I'm not saying it was perfect, because it wasn't, but the fun and pleasure it was to spend time with the girls and Gell and Becky (the other leaders from Baulkham Hills) outweighed any deficiencies. I laughed so much and I love to laugh. Funny, fun weekend. 

Off to Camp

Today, well this evening I am off to Young Womens Camp. I am really not looking forward to it, well spending time with the girls I am, but the actual accommodation and the organisation of the event have turned me off a bit I must admit. I am trying to convince myself that all will be fine and we will have a great weekend, so fingers crossed for the weather, fingers crossed that the whole place is not a mud pit and fingers crossed that the beds are even just slightly ok oh and don't forget the weather. Sun please come out to play.

Naturally I will let you know how we go next week with some pictures of the shananigans thrown in. Have a great weekend.

So Thankful

This week poor little Sophie has been under the weather. She has had a head cold for what feels like months and she seems to be just about over it and then it comes back and we are back to square one with the runny eyes, runny nose, temperature and lots of snot. On Tuesday morning as I was trying to get us ready for swimming lessons (that she loves) she told me her ear hurt twice within about 10 mins. That was a red flag to me as she is never that specific, so off to the medical centre we went and in the meantime she went downhill really fast to the point where I had to carry her (she weighs 20kg @ 3! ) and she just laid on me.

I am so thankful that I live in a country where I can take my child to a medical centre to see a doctor when she is ill and not have to worry about whether I can afford to take her or not. I had to wait for a while but really is half an hour really such a big deal? I am sure that there are so many parents in this world of ours that would give so much to just have to wait for half an hour to see a doctor for free.

A very nice, very friendly doctor looked in Sophie's ear, told me it was cherry red and she did indeed have an ear infection. He gave me a prescription for antibiotics and I knew from previous experince with Amoxycillan with Olivia that it really really works and works fast.

I am thankful that I live in a world where incredible, inquisitive, brilliant people such as Alexander Fleming back in the 1920's discovered a substance that killed other germs, penicillin. How thankful I am that I can just spend $17 on a little bottle of medicine and within 2 days a very sad, poorly little girl is back to her normal rambunctious self and desperate to go to pre-school.

I know that so many people in this incredible world that we live in don't have these opportunities and benefits, and this week, I am so thankful for so many things that I know I take for granted so often, but I wanted to say out loud today, "I am so grateful for the freedoms and advantages that this land down under offers my family and I."

I'm back baby!

Yeeeeee Haaaaaaa  I am back!

My sewing mojo has been found again from whence it was lost and I am really happy. I went to my usual Friday craft night last night and with a big smile on my face sat down to lots of laughs, lots of chat and lots and lots of sewing.

Headbands done. A blue spotty with bow, blue spotty with pop of red and black stripey with bow.
Baby boy tag ball done - well I didn't stuff it or sew it all up on Friday night that happened on Saturday, but I am loving it.

What do you think?

Saturday was a good day that included time together as a family, some houses looked at, a car looked at AND an offer put on it AND accepted (well all going well with getting the pre-approved finance organised). Then lovely Thai food for dinner all finished off with The Adjustment Bureau.

Have you seen this film? It is such an interesting premise to me, and I am such a huge Matt Damon fan. I'm not going to tell you what happens in case you want to see it. I enjoyed it but from reading some reviews this film really seems to have polarised the reviewers.

It feels so good to have the desire to sew back again. Tag squares, girly balls, wraps, an Edward and Elouise elephant and another snow mum pillow are all on the cards over the next month or so. Sssshhh promise not to tell, I'm going to try to sell them and see how they go. If they sell well an etsy shop may be on the horizon next year. I'm a little scared incase they don't sell and it is a huge flop so I don't want to build it up too much until I see how they are going. Fingers crossed for me.

Monday is here with lots and lots to do around the house as well as popping out to take little miss Sophie to swimming lessons. Must run.

You can also find me linking here today.

Where has my Mojo gone?

If you have been popping in here and all you have been seeing is a big fat nothing new, I am really sorry. I seem to have lost my Mojo. It has well and truely gone and I am trying to get life back in order so that perhaps I can find it again. I really hope that that works.

Things have been happening and have been on my mind so I need to write them down, then perhaps I can move forward a bit.

Todd has been gone on a trip, his annual company conference in Phoenix, Arizona and so before he went the house was busy with washing, ironing and packing and lists as he is a real list man. He did most of the washing and ironing himself whilst I had a day out at a conference for the day. I attended a conference for women called Time Out For Women.

It was an incredible day. For those of you reading this that are not of my faith I will explain quickly what it was about - this was a conference attended only by women with speakers who share our faith and whilst keeping it very real spoke to us all and encouraged us all to live a life which is filled with faith, hope, optimism and a love for Jesus Christ. We were encouraged to resolve to change 1 thing in our lives that is stopping us from BECOMING. Becoming what? well what ever we want, a stronger woman physically, spiritually, mentally, a better mother, a better wife. I know that there are a lot of things that I have neglected and don't do and rather than feel guilty about all the things that I am not doing I felt empowered to change 1 thing that will make a change to me mentally or spiritually or physically and once done that then do one more thing. I'm not going to jinx myself with laying all that bare here yet but 2 things are being worked on, 1 for the girls and 1 for me. So far so good. I'm feeling good about the direction that we are moving in, perhaps good habits are starting to be made again.

Initially I was very unsure as to what the conference would entail, I mean I know that there was going to be people speaking to us but only 4 and they were going to talk all day, and I had heard rumours and I thought hmmm not sure about this. Infact my friend and I had a plan B and a plan C for the day if plan A - actually attending the conference wasn't what we wanted it to be. The B and C plans did include visiting the new Costco and Ikea which are just down the road. However I am pleased to announce that these were not even thought about once the day began and we had the best day. I was uplifted, I laughed, I felt a part of something new, I felt rejuvenated and bolstered in my resolve to live the way we do and I had time out with friends. Fantastic. I really really enjoyed it. Apparently there is talk of them coming to Melbourne next year and Katie and I have already said that we would book our tickets and go down for the weekend.

If you ever get a chance to go GO. It was $40 very well spent for me and a fun day out.

Todd is home tonight after being away for 9 days so normality will resume once again until Saturday when he leaves again this time just up to Brisbane but for 10 days. Perhaps I can get some sewing in in the next couple of days.

In conjunction with this awesome conference where I had resolved to change one thing that has become a burden to me for a really long time, I had a bit of a blast from my past contact me on facebook wanting to be my friend. I was stunned. It has been 16 years since I saw or heard from this person, I was really keen to find out what he had been doing with his life and so I accepted his friend request. Not surprisingly I have been a bit nostalgic about years gone by this week and some old music got pulled out which made me smile but also in a good way it has made me think about where I am now. Not literally but am I living fully? am I happy with me? how is older Samantha different to younger Samantha and does some young Samantha need to be found or lost? do I need to reassess and put into action some things that perhaps may make me feel better about me? We can so easily get stuck in a rut can't we and always other people seem to come first before us. 

Well I have been in a very deep rut for a really long time and it is time for change. I started the change by cutting my hair and changing the colour slightly. Just this small change has made me feel so much better this week or so. I really like the cut and colour, I feel better and so better choices have been made, I have been to the gym, eaten healthier and I feel good.

Long may it continue and may it help me to find my sewing mojo again.

Alterations and finalisations

Friday night craft session rolled around again and I had to do some mending/alterations. Olivia's Bedtime Story pyjama bottoms that I blogged about here were just a bit too tight I decided, and even though she insisted that they were ok I decided to alter them slightly. No one wants tight pyjama bottoms, they are supposed to be comfy right? So even though I didn't have enough material in the same pattern to make her some more, I thought that I may be able to alter them and make them just a bit wider in the bottom. 

My thought process was, 'how can I add to the bottom to make them bigger just around there?', so I took the waistband off, split the back seam open and decided to put a u shaped panel in the back from the crotch to enlarge them there. Then I added the same width of material to the waistband and joined it all back together again and attached the waistband back together again. I put longer elastic in the waistband too so its not so tight to pull up. Does that make sense? I hope so, well here is a picture of the back so you can see.

After all that, success.

Added back panel

I am rather chuffed with myself with figuring out the how to, and then when I had a picture in my mind of how I wanted it to be, I managed the execution without a pattern or other people giving me a 'how to' guide. 

I finally appliqued around the flower and now they really are complete and will last her the rest of this winter and I am sure into next as well. 

Then I also finally finished something else. I just sewed a very quick easy little hem onto Olivia's Lazy Days skirt that I started weeks ago and mentioned here because the ribbon I had to finish it with didn't go, so I just put the whole thing to one side. I decided to ditch the ribbon hem as per the pattern and just hem it. Now my big girl is able to wear her skirt and new headband looking very grownup. 

Aaah young love

As I was browsing through my photos on my phone I came across some funny videos that the girls had recorded whilst hanging out with their friends Thomas and Charlotte as we parents were chatting in the other room. 

There was lots of screaming, shouting, laughing and blowing raspberrys at the person with the camera (no young Spielbergs' here) and lots and lots of laughing. So after I had watched a few of those I came across a picture that had been saved but drawn from Doodle Buddy. It just made me smile, so sweet and so innocent. 

I smiled and asked Olivia (I knew it was her) if she had written this and she coyly smiled and said "yes".  I asked her if she did love Thomas and without hesitation said "yes". I think it is wonderful that she has friends both boys and girls that she just loves to be with, and is such good friends with she happily acknowledges that she loves them. 

I sent this picture to Thomas' mum and she showed the picture to him and his responce was, "that's good coz I love her too". Fantastic.

I just need to teach her how to spell Thomas now.

Little pop and new bands

It is school holidays here which still means pre-school for Sophie and the girls still have swimming lessons. Some people don't like the continuation but I do as it means that the girls still have stuff to do but without the hassle of homework to be fitted in and they can play around the activities. 

So whilst Sophie was at pre-school and Olivia was entertained watching Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (I love that I have taught my daughter to love musicals) I finished the doll's dress for Lilia's birthday. It took me about an hour, with interruptions, so not long at all, and I think it looks great and the present is complete, some pyjamas, a big popover dress and one for her doll. Lovely I think. I hope the birthday girl thinks so too. 

 

Big and Little

Baby modelling it

Once we picked up Sophie off to the post office we went to get it all on its way and done for another year. 

Last Friday evening at my usual craft evening I started to make Olivia a headband from a ribbon that I bought at the craft show and previously mentioned here. I decided to finish the headband as all it needed was some hot glue to finish some ends off with some ribbon. So here it is the finished specimen.

I totally love it and it is exactly the picture that I had in my mind and will only change two things next time around like white elastic instead of black, and would sew the bow to the ribbon not glue it, but I still think it looks really good and it didn't cost the $13 that I have been spending on headbands. I am glad that Olivia thinks it looks good too.

Sorry about the shadow behind Liv's head, but here she is with it on. It is reasonably tight on her head to keep it on and keep her hair back but not being too tight as she wouldn't wear it. I will hem her skirt this evening and then she can wear them both to church on Sunday. It is such a shame that I can not find her some cream coloured knit tights for this Winter in her size. 

More headbands really soon, as they are quick, and for someone who likes results fast they are awesome to do.

p.s. You can find me linking here and here.

Craft Show inspiration and some Sewing Action

I can't believe that it has been a week since my last post so you have 2 entries in one day, how about that, but it's ok I am not going to beat myself up about it.

I thought I would show a few of my treasures that I found at the craft show last week. I had such a fun day and with a few dollars to spend, ok maybe a few more than a few, got these goodies that I am so excited to create with. Fabric pieces from Kelani Fabrics , Prints Charming colour pack, Owl softie pattern from Saffron Craig and ribbons from Craft Queen and some patterns that you can see below.

Fabric pieces, Prints Charming pack, Owl softie pattern and ribbons

Patterns

Its been a week or so since I did some sewing and I need to sew the final thing for Lilia's birthday presents and so then I can post them this week in time for her birthday. Along with the oliver + s popover sundress free pattern there is also a free pattern of a popover dress for a little girls doll. You can find it here. Lilia got a new doll when her little brother Noah was born a few months ago so I thought it would be cool if she had a matching dress. As I had used all the prints charming fabric on Lilia's I will just use some pink spotty cotton that I had in my stash from Spotlight.

Now I have a bit of a quandry. What do I do next? I have so many ideas and an ever growing pile of fabric in my cupboard but what to do?

At the craft show I got some lovely ribbons from Craft Queen, as I am fed up with paying $13 for headbands for Olivia so I think I will do those next. I have seen a tutorial on the very fabulous Flossie Teacakes site on how to make shirred headbands and that has inspired me. I love how she folds the material into the casing to add the shirred fabric. It looks really finished and you can find the tutorial here. I am, however, not wanting to do the shirring, I just want to use the folding as inspiration. I now have a blue spotty ribbon, black stripes and brown stripes, that I have already started, and this gorgeous flower ribbon to transform into headbands too. Lots to do.

Ribbons

Finds from our Winter escape to Leura

In some of the blogs that I read the authors often go thrift shopping or op shopping as it is called here in Australia and they find lovely things for ridiculous prices of $1 and $2 or such like. I admit that I have never been one for op shopping and actually have not been for about 15 years.  I am not writing this to brag or anything, I am just not into it and can't seem to see past the yuk and the where has that been feeling to see it's potential. Any who I wanted to share the lovely things that caught my eye whilst in Leura last weekend and have sparked new life to things that I already have but I do have to admit that they did not cost $1 or $2 sadly.

Moontree is a shop that I have been in before and with the girls spend most of the time saying "don't touch, that's glass, don't blow out the candle it is supposed to be on" etc. and don't really get a huge amount of time to just look I am always looking at what others are doing. Yet this weekend this caught my eye, with the idea for a gift for someone else but then Todd said would you like one too? 

How on earth could I say no to that question? So this beautiful candle lantern came home with us. You put a tealight in it and the light glows through the pattern on the outside. It is handmade and made entirely of wax with the pattern covering over the top.

Well, this lantern has inspired a 'change' in our lounge. Not a huge one as who can afford to just go out and get all new stuff but even just moving photo frames around from their 'usual' spots makes a change and updating some of the photos in the frames. There have been 2 new editions to my extended family, gorgeous Noah and handsome Isaac and I have some lovely pictures sitting in my emails but not printed out and popped into frames yet so that is my challenge for this weekend to sort out/update the photos in frames

Also some cushions in the lounge are in real need of being 'made new' again and I have decided to make the covers myself so now I am spending my evenings trawling through pages and pages of fabrics online and trying to find one that would match the new change in colour accents. This collection is my favourite so far. It is the Aviary 2 collection in granite by Joel Dewberry. I like the blooms in the top left, scrollwork top right and as the backing the middle right. What do you think?
 

I'm still deciding not sure yet. I do have to say that our sofas are a dark chocolate brown and the chair is a green. Do you think the granite is too much with these colours? Not sure, perhaps I will keep looking.

Another shop in Leura I totally love is called The Cats Meow. Such a fun name and is full of homewares like large comfy sofas, dining tables and chairs, soft faux fur throws, beautiful lamps that I can envisage in my home one day and all sorts of ornaments. It is a treasure trove and again there are a few comments like "get your feet off there and sit still and don't touch that" have to said when in there with a 3 yr old but it is still so lovely. To add to the fabulousness (is that a word? I don't think so but you get my gist right?) the faux fur throw that I have looked at and coveted for a year now was on sale, and it seemed destined to come home with me for my bed. So I had to oblige.

Sophie was rolling on my bed the other day and said, "oooh mummy this is soooo soft and lovely". It is backed with a soft fleece too that you can see in the bottom right hand corner, it is so fantastic to curl up under it whilst reading a book. Trust me.

Finally a silver tree shape caught my eye, like an African tree that has been swept to the side a bit on the open plains. It was called the Tree of Life and I thought it was lovely and wanted to put it on my sideboard (buffet as it is called here in Aus) again something a bit different to the normal things that I like. I got given the wrong one and so have to drive back to Leura to exchange it. These things happen, but I was disappointed. I can't wait to have it all sorted and looking great.