Master M has a bed

I'm a little ashamed to admit that my son has been sleeping on a mattress for the last 12 months. 

We decided it was time for him to be out of the cot but we sort of never got around to getting him a single bed so he has been sleeping on the cot mattress since then. 

I know, I know, pretty shocking but he doesn't have to fall far when he rolls out of bed although lately it's been a bit of a pain bending down to change sheets every day when he wets them.

Then suddenly we sort of aquired this old bed.  When I say old, I mean pretty old as it was mine when I was a child.  My sister and I had beds that were exactly the same and I know that this was mine because I was a very bright child and carved my name into the top of the bedhead.

(note to future graffiti artists:  do NOT EVER sign your name as you'll be found out eventually:  even 30 years down the track!)

The above photo was when I was halfway through sanding.  I was intending to do a full before and after shot but I forgot.  That's about normal for me so I'm quite proud of myself for remembering BEFORE I'd even finished sanding.  Yay!

So after sanding and armed with some of this....

...it was time to get to it. 

Oh, by the way, don't you LOVE the test tube blue.  Master M and I had a morning outing to Bunnings which was pretty exciting I can tell you.  I mean hardware superstores are always pretty fun so we had a great time. 

We were good and only bought the paint though which I'm a bit unsure of whether to be proud of myself or upset because I wasted an opportunity to buy lots of stuff I would have LOVED but probably didn't need.

I did buy this pretty fabulous tube of blue paint as a spur of the moment buy, mainly because it was a tube of house paint and had it's own applicator so you didn't need a brush.  How fab is that!!  (I found out it's crap getting close to edges and corners so you really do need a brush after all.  Ho hum.)

After the first coat.....

(notice I didn't use anything under it to stop the paint getting onto the cement.  I decided that the cement needed a good clean and we have a fantastic Stihl pressure cleaner: that one's for you Kylie :)  that hubby can use to clean it off.  It was never under any circumstances because I was feeling lazy, couldn't be bothered and had no paper or anything whatsoever to put under it!)

The finished product..................

How much better does that look!  I'm SOOOOOOOO proud of myself.

I just need to clean the light area up.  I nearly painted over it but decided I'd better not and now the old light looks old and basically... crap.  It doesn't work anymore and has a big crack in it so I'll have to work something out to make it look a bit better. 

Then again, I let my son sleep on a mattress for a year so maybe the light will stay as it is......

Would you like to see the finished product?

Here it is..

The mattress has been bought and the bed made with the first ever crochet blanket that I made. 

xx Susan

Absentee

Yes I do know I've been absent a bit from blogging lately, sorry about that.

I really didn't think I had that much to blog about really as nothing much out of the ordinary has been happening.  Then I took a photo of a flower in my front garden this afternoon and when I downloaded it, all these other photos from the last week popped up too.

So just what have I been up to during my ordinary week?

Well first of all we celebrated the 7th birthday of my nephew J.  7 years already!!!!!  I can still remember easily the day he was born (might be because there was a bit of drama surrounding it too though)

I've also been getting a bit of this done.......(of course)

The neighbours had some work done on one of their trees which caused great excitement.  It's not everyday the kids get to watch a man climb a tree and use a chainsaw.  Unfortunately Master M was thinking it would be good to have a go.

Little Miss R has gone back to school for her final term of Prep.  I've been spending my days with one less child doing lots more decluttering and a little bit of something with this....... 

.....and this.......

(more on that in a not too distant future post).

And finally I've come to the reason for all the photos in this post.  I was taking Little Miss R to school this morning when I noticed these gorgeous hippeastrums in my front garden.  They were hiding amongst the geraniums and I was smitten by the colour of them.  Aren't they just gorgeous!

The best thing of all is that I have another lot in another garden that looks to be the same colour but the flowers are still closed for now.  They'll be fantastic when they come out.

I hope you're all having a great week.

xx Susan

3 Things:: Making me happy today

My new baskets on my kitchen shelves which are helping me to sort the clutter and make the place look a bit nicer too.

My teapot which I found while decluttering.  It always makes me happy.

A cup of tea in my new Cath Kidston mug my sister brought home for me from her recent trip to England.

I hope you're finding happy things today too.

xx Susan

A higgeldy-piggeldy scarf

I've finished the first scarf for one of Little Miss R's teachers.

I used a similar pattern to one my sister used recently to make a scarf for her Danish 'daughter' Katherine but tweaked it a bit and made it a little wider.

I also used different yarn so instead of an amazing array of blues, greens and other delicious colours from the Noro ball of yarn, mine was a lot more muted.

It looks like a bit of a mess all piled up doesn't it.  All layed out you can see the colours more and I know that the teacher that it's for likes purple things so hopefully she'll like it.

Because it's quite thin it needs to be wrapped around a number of times to provide the effect.  Excuse my bad hair day but I wasn't expecting to model it right then, the opportunity sort of presented itself.

So another little project is completed and the next one is well on the way.  I'm not sure when it will be completed though because it's still school holidays and hubby left this morning to start his new job. 

He'll be driving for most of today, then has two days of inductions before we find out which shift he'll be on so we won't know his roster for a few days yet.

xx Susan

Treasures

I've been doing a lot of decluttering lately and things are starting to look a bit better in my house.  Maybe I should say in the cupboards because that's where I seem to be decluttering most.

While cleaning out a cabinet in my bedroom yesterday I found a plastic bag full of treasures, including an old wooden jewellrey box that had been missing for I don't know how long.  (Years in fact!)

The below photo shows just a few of the things I found but they're the most precious to me.

 

This little hedgehog was a gift for my 24th birthday from friends in England when I was travelling there with my sister.  I had my birthday in Edinburgh and our friends had given my sister a couple of little gifts for me so that I had something to open on my birthday.

It was really sweet so this little fella reminds me of that time.

These small perfume bottles are beautifully decorated and if anyone's been to Venice then they'll probably recognise them. 

 I was given the middle clear one by my sister as a gift the first time she went to Europe and the others I bought in Venice myself when I went there about 8 years ago.  I can't believe it's been that long!

Now I'm not really a doily person but when I was living in Airlie Beach in my early 20's, my Grandma came to visit and whipped this up when I was at work one day.

I've always kept it because I was amazed that she could make some cheap thread that I'd bought to hang up Christmas cards into something like this. 

It's got a sparkly thread to it which makes it look quite pretty and it's something that always reminds me of my Grandma, especially as she's now no longer with us.

Finally there's some jewellrey which I had been missing for quite some time (obviously) and which I had been searching for lately.

The small round diamond was a gift from my daughter for my first ever Mother's day when she was a baby. 

The second necklace watch was a gift from my Uncle for my 21st birthday and I just LOVE it. 

I can't tell you how happy I am to have some of my treasures back.  I'm wearing my Mother's day necklace now, am planning to take the watch to the jewellers to get it working again and now have to clear a space on my dresser to put my other treasures.

More decluttering to come!!

It makes me wonder what else I'll find when I'm clearing out the cupboards.

Hope you all have a great day.

xx Susan

Christmas is one blanket closer!

Can you believe I've finished another blanket already!

This one has been quite fun to do.  Lots of stripy clusters and a sweet little pointy border that has made this into a lovely little blanket.

I wasn't quite sure who I was going to give this one too and I'm still not entirely sure.  It's either for Nephew J (older J as I have two nephews beginning with J) or Nephew S.

Originally I was making it for J but now that it's finished I'm starting to think that it may be better for S.  I'll wait until I start the other blanket and then I'll decide who I'll give it to.

I think the colours have worked really well on this blanket and I know I've got pink in there for a boys blanket but the nectarine colour I was going to use hadn't arrived and I didn't know when I was going to get it. 

There's lots of blue and light green too so I hope that makes up for any pink.

I did a little pointy edge as I didn't feel like doing a full shell edge and the picot edge I started just didn't look right.

So I hope you like this one too and you probably won't have long to wait until my next finished project as I've got a couple on the go. 

One is the blanket for little Nephew J and the other is a scarf which I'm making for one of Little Miss R's teachers at school.  Both teachers wore scarves all winter so I decided that would be a nicer Christmas present for them rather than the usual mugs and chocolates.

Hope you all have a fantastic day.

xx Susan

School holiday routine changes

As anyone knows, when it's school holidays sometimes you really need to change the most basic routine. 

In this case I decided that we'd do a treasure hunt for morning tea.

I made up a map of our backyard drawing a little treasure chest in 3 places.

I then made up some little 'treasure' boxes filled with morning tea.  Some biscuits and a popper juice for the final treasure to be found.

I then went and hid them in the places I'd marked on the map (the sand pit, under the barbeque and on one of the outside tables).

Then the hunt was on and the kids had so much fun looking for their treasure. 

My nephews will be here tomorrow morning for a few hours so I'm thinking of repeating the process but hiding the treasure in some different spots.  Maybe the top of the slippery slide will be good and once they find the treasure they have to slide down before heading onto the next spot.

I wonder how many times I can get them to run around the clothes line?

It's still really hot here and very smokey as there's a few bush fires around the place.  I'm spending my late afternoons in my usual spot, outside on my lounge with my crochet.

I've just started on the above blanket for Nephew J.  I've never tried this pattern before and I'm loving the way the shells all link together.  It's so easy and lovely.

Afternoon snacks are nearly always the same.  Cheese, crackers, apple and carrot. 

I just hope we get a storm or two over the next couple of days to go with our afternoon snacks. 

Enjoy your day everyone.

xx Susan