Rainy and at home

It's a lovely rainy day and I'm at home with another sick day from work. It's mainly cramps (argh to being a girl), some exhaustion and just generally feeling yuck.

I'm deciding what to do today. Whether it be a movie day or reading all day or just relax with both. I thought I would blog first.

I'm so glad I took a whole lot of photos because the lighting today is bad. Anyway, I received my beautiful skirt from Sweetsandhearts. Erica is so sweet. She added a few extra little bits. Here are a few photos.

I wish I could have put the skirt on straight in the photo but the hanger wouldn't co-operate. The bookshelf was the only place I could use that was half decent. Ahh the skirt is so lovely! (I try to arrange my books by genre lol)

How cute is the tag inside?!I love all the effort and thought put into her creations. Beautiful!

The packaging, business card and the little extras. I think hearts have become one of my newest loves.

These earrings are so sweet! And I love the little badge/button too. Thanks Erica!

I still have to share my little gifts from my brother Alvin and sister in law Melly from their Europe honeymoon. And I also have a whole bunch of question tags to do :) and some bits of lovely mail too.

Have a wonderful and beautiful day!!

Finders Keepers

This weekend I went to the Finders Keepers market with my lovely Laura. It was absolutely fantastic! It was really busy in the morning but we could still look at most of the stalls. I have some pictures that I took but I used one of Laura's fancy SLR cameras so I can't get the photos just yet.

It was great being allowed to take photos of everything. So we looked at stalls, bought things, listened to some live music (we watched Hello Yoko....loved them) while eating German sausages :) and just hanging out. It was such a wonderful day.

Here are photos of my purchases. I would have bought so much more but I had to control myself.

These are just a few of the business cards I collected. I love seeing how creative they make their business cards. And the way they display their items.

I ended up buying the new Frankie magazine at their stall. And I got this tiny badge too. Apparently they were selling toffees too but we missed out on that.

I got this from the Leeloo stall. They are scratchie cards. That little silver charm in the top right hand corner is to reveal a picture.

This sort of shows what picture will be revealed when scratched.

I just loved this card. It's from We Are Messengers. This was the last one and Laura and I both wanted it but she let me get it :) But the lovely ladies from this company gave her a discount to buy one online.

This is from Bespoke Press. I bought my tabletop letterpress from them last year :)

This print is a collaboration between Bespoke and Kristal Melson. I've seen this print before I and I adore it.

I just thought this was sweet. It's hard because I wanted to buy more for me and to give as gifts for friends.

I thought these little fabric earrings were really cute. They are from Brooke Johnston.

These sweet things are from LooseLeaf Paper. Laura and I really loved their items. It was a mixture of fabric and paper, photography and other little bits.

I thought these little heart pillows were sweet. There were these mixed fabric/paper brooches that I wished I bought now.

This little journal has a G stitched into the cover. The had all the letters. And this is what it said inside :) It was definitely one of my favourite shops.

And this is the lot. Oh I really can't wait until the next one in November. It's perfect timing for Christmas gifts.

Have a wonderful week everyone!!

Reminiscing

Via Weheartit

Hello lovelies! I've had a busy work week and it's so hard catching up with journals, letters, blogging, cleaning...

Anyway, I started feeling reminiscent this week. I think what started it was seeing a good friend from high school that I haven't seen in years. And then while cleaning this morning I was listening to my music on shuffle and a Backstreet Boys song came on. It really made me start thinking about high school. So I thought I would go through some old school photos and share them :) And a few thoughts from those years.

Be aware a lot of these photos aren't great. They are taken with a film camera. Also why I don't have as many photos as I think I would if I had a digital camera back then.

Our athletics team was defending champions. This was a fun photo I remember.

I still see these girls occasionally. They were at my wedding too! This was at a warm up athletics meet.

At the major athletics meet. We came 2ND I think :( It was a real shame. The tiny photo is me wrapped up in our school banner.

Kim, me and Alice again. This is us in assembly. One of the last we ever had in year 12.

My friend Doni and me. He used to call me Pixie because I was so small apparently. He loved hugs.

I think this was my ancient history class. I loved this class it was great.

The top photo is my Physical Education class. And the bottom is modern history.

Most of my classes revolved around sport, dance or some type of history :)

Sorry the photos are so poor. I scanned them as these were printed out and placed in an album already.

Sometimes I miss school and my friends and just hanging out at lunch time. I look back and it was a happy time for me. I was a lot more up beat about everything and I used to dance around and sing without caring.

Here is what I remember from high school....

* I liked soccer players or runners

* I had a huge love for everything Latino/Spanish....music, dancing, people, countries, the language

* I wanted to be a physical education teacher

* I was into R n B music from about year 10 onwards

* I was already obsessed with stationery

* I had journals with friends that we would write in and pass it around until it was filled up. Whoever bought the journal kept it. I still have all those journals :)

* I had a lot of crushes over the years lol

* After athletics training (or hockey training) we would buy a cheese and bacon roll and orange juice (how healthy haaa!)

* I used to love to do 3 way hugs or have 3 way phone conversations (or just use the phone so much more)

* I had some major crush on this guy and only ever chatted to him on MSN. I even talked to him on the phone yet we would never talk to each other in person. I used to see him at athletics training all the time and even when he would be standing there with other mutual friends we still didn't talk!! A very weird friendship. Maybe one day I would go into the story more in depth.

Anyway I'm bummed that Australia was unable to make it through even though they won their last game but I'm feeling gleeful that Italy got out (it's been a four year grudge for them kicking us out of the quarter finals last World Cup lol). It's all in good fun of course.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Random Musings

I just want to say thank you for all your beautiful comments! They really mean so much to me. You're all amazing! I'm feeling a lot better, though still sad. I feel so much for my auntie and my cousins, losing husband and father. But I'm praying for them and us continually.

I thought that I would share a random list of happiness. Things I'm doing, looking forward to and love.

I'm looking forward to the new Narnia movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader! Especially because so much of it was filmed here in Australia. Plus as I've mentioned before I love Narnia and it's one of my favourite book series ever!

Via Amazon

I cannot wait for Mockingjay. It's the last book in The Hunger Games trilogy. As I've mentioned before I love this series! It's definitely one of my absolute favourites. Plus there is news of a movie! There have been some rumblings saying that this series is about to explode but I've been a fan way before any of that :) I wrote about my obsession with this book back here.

Via Sweetsandhearts etsy

I can't wait to get this skirt from this lovely lady. I'm a huge fan of bows, in clothes, hair, jewellery.

I like the fairy tale journal I'm working on for Swap-bot. This is a sneak peak at the journal. It's getting so fat already.

My creative mess. This is so much neater than it usually is. It's a mixture of letters, journals and little earrings I'm making for Etsy and this event. As well as some mini note cards and other items that aren't in the photo.

Other things I love and make me happy...

* Fairy tales

* Pod casts (for Narnia and The Hunger Games)

* Watching soccer each night

* Cosy blankets and socks

* Buying things on Etsy

* Spending time with my family and laughing at anything

* Real Living magazine

* Travel books that give me a serious case of wanderlust

I guess that's it for now. It's a post all over the place. I don't even want to go into the last Australia soccer game. Too frustrating. Have a wonderful week!

Out of sorts

Via Weheartit

I had another post planned for today, but I can't post it right now. I'm feeling out of sorts, emotional and I need to spend the day catching up, being creative and let myself be emotional.

My uncle who I knew quite well passed away this morning. And I'm all over the place today. I'm glad that he and my aunty came to Australia from the US last year so I was able to see them again.

He used to have cancer in his oesophagus but he was completely healed from that. But he got cancer in the liver and lymph nodes which he only found out a few weeks ago? The doctor gave him a week to live. The only good that comes out of it is that he was a born again Christian and I know that he is in heaven right now and I will see him again one day.

This just makes me think about my family and friends and how much I just want to hug them all and be so grateful that I can. I will not take them for granted and love every minute I can spend with them.

Have a wonderful weekend!

30 Day Journal Challenge

I have accepted the 30 Day Journal Challenge over at Run with Scissors. Each day Janel will post a prompt and we journal the way we want to. It could be sketching, doodling, writing, pictures. However you want to journal.

I think it is a fantastic way to get my creativity going and to journal consistently. Day 1 and Day 2 prompts have gone up and I've done mine. They're not fantastic but it's a good start. So hopefully by the end they will be a lot better.

The first task was to introduce ourselves. Because I have always loved those mind maps I thought it was appropriate. Excuse my little doodles. Drawing is definitely not one of my strong points.

The next task was to write/doodle/sketch the best part of your day. The lighting wasn't too good because it was late afternoon by the time it was completed. I chose to be a little mushy and said that Jason was the best part of my day :)

I think will my normal journalling I will incorporate pictures and other things sometimes. It makes me feel so creative. Right now I'm in the most creative mood, which is a good thing I guess. Maybe I will finally complete everything I've put on my to do.

Anyway, poor Jason is home sick and I feel like I might have picked it up slightly. So I will relax today. And we have dinner at my parents house. My brother and my new sister in law Melly are back from Europe! But more about that next time.

Via Weheartit

This image reminds me that I have a 365 journal and I haven't started it yet. Plus I have a few journal swaps that I must start with some blog friends. Sorry girls it will happen.

Have a wonderful week!

The long weekend

I was going to write a bit about the how exciting the World Cup has been but it's too depressing at the moment. Jason and I woke up early this morning, 4:30am to watch Australia play Germany. It was utter misery. I could not watch after we were getting absolutely smashed by them. And it didn't help that the ref 'missed' a hand ball and gave a red card (uncalled for) to our best striker, who is not able to play in the next game because of it.

So moving on before I get all upset about it again. So sorry but I really do love my soccer.

This weekend was a long weekend which I just love (even though I got up early to watch the horrible game then had to work for a few hours after, but sorry this will be last mention of it).

On the Saturday, Jason and I went to the Lifelife bookfest. That was great. I bought a few old school looking books as well as some books I used to love when I was in primary school.

The books I got. Jason bought a few too. Those Teen Power books were among my favourites in primary school. As was Nancy Drew books and Enid Blyton's St Clare's series (and Malory Towers etc.)

I love these old hard cover books. Even better when they have an inscription inside. I was going to buy a few more (in the unpriced section...books for about 50 cents) and use the covers to remake into journals. Sigh I wish I did now but I was starving by this time.

We then went to Southbank which is a beautiful place to go. There are walkways, cafes, markets, a man made beach etc. A wonderful place to spend the weekend. We had fish and chips and ate in the sun to warm up. Southbank was only a few minutes walk from the bookfest.

It really was such a beautiful day!

This is part of Southbank Parklands. I remember when they first planted those purple flower plants back when I was at school. They have grown so much. I also went to school very close to here. We used to go running up the purple plants for cross country.

For dessert we had Coldrock choc mint ice cream. Yum!

On Sunday after church, Jason and I had our usual breakfast at the Coffee Club. I generally get a gourmet beef burger and cappuccino whilst Jason always gets a BLT sandwich and cappuccino.

And this was me today before work (after horrific game). This is generally my uniform. It has to be black and white. I wear skirts or pants.

All in all it's been a great long weekend and I look forward to having more adventures with Jason. We are trying to see more places around our city and go exploring.