Interviewed by Nest Design Studio

Thank you so much to the very lovely Belinda of Nest Design Studio for interviewing me on her blog today! You can read the interview HERE.

And take a look around Bel's blog if you haven't already. She is one VERY talented interior designer and she offers a wonderful Online E decorating service... and if you've seen her son's nursery you would jump at it - seriously stunning!!!

Thank you again Belinda!

And have a lovely day everyone,

Blog Awards - 7 things about me

Thank you so much to Mirela of Melli's Designs for passing on the 'A Blog with Substance' Award.


And Kate of Another Donkey Design for passing on the 'Stylish Blogger Award'.

Thanks ladies that's sooooooo cool!!!!

For the Stylish Blogger Award rules you have to say 7 things about yourself so here goes (sorry they are pretty mundane and boring) ...

1. I started reading The Mighty Toddler by Robin Barker last night... to try and better understand this fun, crazy, demanding, hilarious, precocious stage that my bub is in at the moment.



2. My sewing machine is playing up at the moment :(
You know when it sort of chews up the fabric and makes bunches of thread as it sews like the bobbin is feeding too much thread or something - hmmmm..... I might have to get it serviced I think.

3. I didn't realise what it was... but we had a leach worming its way from under our front door down the entrance passage on Saturday! EK! I thought it was just a worm so I humanly flicked it outside but then yesterday my sister in law had one on her arm in her back garden and it started sucking her blood!!!!! If I'd known that in our house had been a leach I would have grabbed the salt - STAT!!!!

4. Glen's started growing chillies in our vegie garden and the other day he picked the first one and cut it and tried some from the stalk end and said quite disappointedly 'Oh it's just like a capsicum' then he cut a tiny slice off the other end from the tip and said to me 'here try' and I was like blaaahhh no thanks (I don't like chillies) then he said just try, it's just like a capsicum then I put it on the tip of my tongue and 'OOoooooooowwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeee'!!!!! Glen was like WHAT! and tried a piece from the end and it blew his mouth off too. He's very proud of his chillies now.
5. Don Spencer (aka. Danielle Spencer's Dad - Russell Crowe's Father in Law) sucked my thumb!
I was about 2 or 3yrs old or something and my Dad took me into work to watch Playschool in the studio and I used to suck my thumb when I was a little girl. So when Don Spencer came up to meet me he said something along the lines of that my thumb must be tasty if I'm sucking on it then asked if he could try and sucked my thumb! I remember being a bit shocked that a grown up sucked my thumb!

6. My sister is in Switzerland at the moment the lucky duck and it's -5 degrees - brrrrr!

7. I'm sorry, but I can't think of a 7th thing and my above are quite boring so I'll leave it at that :)

Have a great Monday everyone,

Things that I'm thinking about today

The things I'm thinking about today are:

1. That this room is soooooo cute, and I would love to sit here with each one of my bloggy friends and have tea and biscuits together and just chat. Isn't it adorable and fun?

Image via here

2. That I've really got to stop making myself instant coffee in the morning (oh yeah, that self inflicted coffee ban from a few weeks ago lasted all of about 2days) and so I should just get off my butt and crank up the espresso machine we have sitting in the corner of the kitchen. My cup of instant coffee tasted more like dish water/grass clippings today than it has before and I poured it down the drain it was that bad!

3. I am also excited that I got all the paint yesterday for painting the steps, garage and gates! Yay! See that Smoke Haze colour? It's a pretty close match to that one, which looks like the riversand colour I was after.


4. That I'm sooooo excited about a new print that I am having so much fun designing at the moment. Can't wait to show you when it's finished!

5. That this is an awesome verse Lamentations 3:22.

6. And lastly that I have the funniest little bubba that looks so cute when trying on my sunnies.


What are you thinking about today? I'd love to know!

Have a great Friday everyone,

Questions & Answers

This week, the super sweet Mirela of Melli’s Designs tagged me to play along with a fun little game where you give answers to the following questions. So here I go...

1. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
My favourite cities in the world are Edinburgh, Paris and anywhere in Switzerland but as they can all get a bit too chilly in winter I think I'd have to come back to Australia for summer and I would choose either Noosa or the Gerringong/Berry area. But you know, I'm such a happy Sydney girl I'd be just as fine staying where I am :)


2. What is your favourite band?
I don't really have a fav band but looking through my iTunes the ones I enjoy the most are, Jason Mraz, Kate Miller-Heidke, Michael Buble, Bic Runga, Duffy, No Doubt, Elton John and some ABBA thrown in for good measure :)

3. If you could be someone else for a day, who would it be?
I would like to be, not one person in particular, but someone who works with the AIDS orphaned babies at the Watoto Baby Village in Uganda. I love babies and Watoto is a charity that Glen and I love. Two of the little Watoto choir members stayed at our home for a night during their tour a few years ago. My heart cries for all the forgotten children, esp in Africa.

4. Concert or Broadway show?
Broadway show for sure!!!

5. Theme song for your life?
I don't know, that one's way too hard.

6. Would you choose a fancy dinner at a nice restaurant or a picnic in the park?
I'd choose fancy dinner at a nice restaurant, I love eating out and not having to cook or prepare food (feels like that's all I do sometimes) which is why I actually don't love picnics, also because I've got fair skin and I burn in 2seconds flat.


7. Favourite place to shop?
I love little boutiques, gift shops, antique shops and markets. Anywhere where you feel like you could stumble over a treasure!

8. Favourite movie?
I think my all time fav which I've seen more times than I dare to remember is 'The Sound of Music'. Oh don't get me started....... here I go...... 'the hills are alive, with the sound of music....'.

All images via here

I'd like to tag the following bloggers for this game. There’s no pressure whatsoever to join in but I’d love to read your answers to these questions too!

Jenny at The Five Year Project
Lisa at Ledamae
Ann at My Villa Life
Trish at A Dream House for Trish

Thanks for reading my Q&A, I hope you have a lovely day,

Confessions of a nerd

Ok, I have a little secret I'm going to share with you... I am a huge geek!

Do you know why? Well.... it's because I am a long time stamp collector. There, I've said it!

Hi, my name is Janette, and I am a Stamp Collector!

I started collecting stamps from a young age, I don't know maybe around 8 or 9 years old? (Mum would know)

And I've always loved these tiny little works of art - it was the young Graphic Designer in me I think.

Just knowing that these little pieces of paper had travelled across the world via planes and ships and delivered letters containing love, hope, memories, or just bills :) to so many unknown people was very exciting to me and still is.

I have hundreds of stamps from all over the world.
Australia, England, Indonesia, Ireland, US, Romania, Italy, Germany, Thailand, Greece, Spain, all around Africa, Japan, China, India, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Portugal, Netherlands, Israel etc.

American stamps

Every young girl's favourite theme - Horses

Rhodesian stamps from the 30's and 40's - look it's the Queen Mum!

So, I'm just wondering.... is anyone else out there a closet stamp collector like me???

And thank you everyone for your excitement and congratulations over our big milestone last night! I'm trying to upload video footage onto Photobucket to email to Will's Granny and Grandpa in South Africa so they can see how clever their little Grandson is :)

I hope you have a great day!

Take care,

My lucky day!

Yesterday seemed to be my lucky day as I woke up to find I had received my first ever blog award! I was very excited when the lovely Hillary at a gal and her dog told me that I was one of the blogs she was passing this funny 'Master of Karate and Friendship Award' onto to.

But THEN the super sweet Nellie of McCarthy Designs gave me a Sunshine Award too! Wow, I felt/feel so spoilt! So thank you so much lovely ladies (Hillary and Nellie) for thinking of me, you made my day. Stop by their blogs if you haven't already they are both so lovely and such fun bloggers too!

So... I thought that what I would do is pass on my 'Master of Karate and Friendship Award' today and then I'll pass on the Sunshine Award in the next few days... is that breaking the rules? I hope not!

And the rules of the Master of Karate and Friendship Award are:

1. List 6 things you are a master in.

2. Pass it on to 6 bloggers you think are masters

at friendship and make blogging awesome.

This was tough but here goes... the 6 things I am a master in:
1. I am now a master at Keeping Calm and Carrying On
...when my little William decides to take his food and crumble it on the floor from his highchair, or grab the whole bowl of baby food and throw it across the room leaving a splattering spray of goop who knows where! This used to really stress me out and I could literally feel my heart rate go up and stress levels soar but I've now trained myself to take a deep breath and just accept that after every meal the dust pan and broom and the floor wiping cloth are coming out! Whether I like it or not :)

2. I am a master of disguise
Well not in the spy sense (although that was always a childhood ambition) but as in costume making for dress up parties! I love being invited to dress up parties for the excuse to come up with a fancy dress outfit. Glen and I have many a photo of us in all sorts of costumes and I can't wait for the day when the little party invitations come home for Will and I get to unleash my creative costume making monster on him. Hehehee.


3. I am a master of doing my makeup in 2mins flat
I find putting on make up therapeutic (when I have the time). My parents would laugh as I sat on the lounge with my makeup bag and played around with all my makeup bits and pieces putting on a full face of makeup just before bed 'because it's fun'. NOW my makeup application is usually within 2mins flat - for tinted sunscreen foundation, a little stroke of eye pencil and my 'absolutely can't leave the house without' mascara (my eye lashes are mostly blonde so I have to have my mascara).

4. I am a master at getting myself too busy
I know we all do it don't we? I find it's about every second week I will have invited too many people over, rsvp'd to too many things, which means I have more cooking, cleaning, travelling, shopping to do than hours in the day; as well as fitting in time for work, blogging and all my normal chores. One day I'll find the balance... I hope.

5. I am a master at shopping for presents
Well I probably don't always get it right and there is always going to be a better present out there for someone but I think I do a pretty good and thoughtful job of birthday and Christmas shopping. I also tried to make a lot of my Christmas presents last year which was really fun but also falls into the last category of 'getting myself too busy' hehehee.

6. I am a master of cuddles
I just love give my three boys - Hubby, Bubby and Minky (the cat) big cuddles and snuggles.
Cuddles are the best!

Who wouldn't want to cuddle this little teddy bear???

So now I pass on this award to 6 great bloggers:

1. Mirela at Melli's Design's
2. Jane at My Pear Tree Home
3. Louise at Illume Design
4. Sarah B at Molly's Maison
5. Nicole at Bubby Makes Three
6. Nellie at McCarthy Designs

Take part if you would like - but no pressure too.

Have a lovely day everyone!!!

Seven

The very lovely Engracia from Lynwood Musings tagged me this afternoon to take part in a 'tell 7 things about yourself' post. It's perfect timing actually because the post I had prepared disappeared from blogger this afternoon, so here we go:

1. I love history
I really love history. I find books set in this day and age boring, I love period dramas, I have put together my family history going back around 7 generations, I came in the top 10% in NSW for Ancient History in my HSC, my sister has become a High School history teacher so it runs in the family, I can't get enough of Antiques Roadshow, when going through Europe together my husband would say 'Oh not another old church' I would say 'bring it on!'.

via me :)

2. I used to work as a designer in magazine advertising
You know all the advertorials, and the booklets that come on the back or inside of the mag. I used to work on real living magazine as their designer/art director but I've also worked on House & Garden, Belle, Burkes backyard, Gourmet traveller, worked on the launch of BBC Good Food in Australia, rolling stone, aust geographic, Gourmet wine, and small stints on Cleo, cosmo, cosmo bride, foxtel and qantas mags, grazia.
I really enjoyed it but if I had to go back I would want to work in editorial - I'm sick of advertising.

via here

3. I had a very fast labor with William
I was booked in for a c-section in the coming week at 38 weeks because he was breach but went into labour a week early. Woke at 4am will funny tummy feelings but went back to bed till 6.30am where I knew something 'wasn't right?!?' by the time we got into the hospital at 8.45am I was 8cm dilated and they had to rush to get the operating suite ready for a Caesar which happened at 10am (by this stage I felt like I wanted to push and was holding my belly afraid he would come out). My Obstetrician has warned me that I'll need to be very snappy in getting to the hospital for any subsequent births!!! :)

via me :)

4. I love diamonds
Ooooo yes, I completely believe that Diamonds are a girl's best friend.
I know it isn't the most ethical thing to crave what with the whole Blood Diamond black market thing, world resources etc, but I can't help it, really! If I won the Lottery I think the first thing I would do, would be go buy some more diamonds.

via here

5. I'm afraid of heights
Need I say more?

via here

6. Favourite Holiday Destinations
My favourite country is Switzerland and my favourite city is Edinburgh, Paris is a close second. My favourite holiday spot in Australia is Noosa in Queensland.

Noosa via here

7. I recently learnt to step up and be more brave
When I say brave I mean getting the guts to just do things instead of sitting back and weighing up every risk under the sun and procrastinating. I figure that you only live once and if you don't do the things you want to do in life then you may live with regret but if you give things a try then at least you've grown, even if you do fail.

via here

I now have to tag a few people. Over to you Amanda, Mel and Hillary if you feel like it tell us seven things about yourself!

See you next week and wishing you a very lovely weekend,

My every day objects

I thought I'd do something a bit different for today's post and put together a grouping the things which I use every day and have become my routine. It's actually an interesting exercise to do. Stop and think what would be on your 'every day' list...