Oh-so-sweet handbag giveaway

Well, it's very overdue as my one year blogging anniversary was back in August, but I'm finally doing my first giveaway.

Up for grabs is one of these two cute, little handbags. They're just the right size for when you don't want to take much, maybe your purse, keys, lippie and sometimes a camera. Well, that's what I keep in mine, anyway.

I'd like to credit the designer but I got the pattern out of a library book last year and for the life of me can't find it again, so I don't know who it is. I can't even remember the name of the book. But anyway, I DID NOT DESIGN THESE, I just made them, with a few extra touches.

Each bag is lined with a contrasting fabric, but I went a step further and made them so if you desire, you can turn it inside out for a different look.

So you can have one with this blue vintage fabric

(which I just love so much, I had to make another one for myself)...

or in pink with a spotty ribbon.

Or you can have black....

or white.

Each bag has a bow detail

and is able to be buttoned up.

So you know the usual drill. Leave a comment stating which bag you prefer, the blue/pink or the black/white.

So this means all you lurkers out there who I see on my sitemeter, but never comment, can now hopefully leave me some love. LOL.

If you link to my post on your blog, you will get two entries. If you link AND post a photo (we all know a picture is worth 1000 words), you get 3 entries.

If you don't have a blog, you are still welcome to enter....just leave your name with your comment.

The giveaway will be open until next Saturday 3rd Oct. so make me feel special and get those comments rolling in.

Welcome to the sleepout

I reorganised my sleepout this week and made it somewhere that is pleasurable to now be. I didn't take any before shots but imagine a junk room, where everything I didn't really have a place for went. I already had the below table in that corner, supposedly to do my sewing etc on, but it was so covered with material and scrapbooking supplies and other assorted stuff that there was no room to do any actual sewing. (The only other place to sew was at the dining table but that wasn't practical as I couldn't leave anything out.)

As well, our front door leads directly into this room, and so many times I'd be embarrassed about people coming to the front door, that I'd try to block the view inside with my body.

My craft supplies were in various containers and cupboards throughout the house, but of course I rarely remembered where things were.

Well no longer, because now the room is like this. (Bear in mind that this was an organisational makeover. The walls are desperately crying out for a paint because at the moment they're this really bad mottled brown...primitive without meaning to be.... and the carpet is foul but that's all for another day.)

In the far right corner beside the doors I put up these shelves that I picked up secondhand for only $2 or $3. I've tried to store as much of my supplies as possible in jars, so I can locate things easily and I also cos it looks pretty.

I'm really happy with the way it turned out. This tin holds my spools of thread and I love these scrabble letters.

My pretty ribbons and button collection.

This tin was bought several years ago for Christmas and never got put away. It was holding my record collection (and various junk)

but with a bit of spray paint it's now doing a better job holding my unfinished projects. The wicker hamper holds the girls' dress-up clothes.

I needed more storage so I made a shelf to go above the window. I keep things up here that I don't use much. I'm not totally happy yet with the arrangement but with a bit of tweaking, I'll get there. (You can see where I started cleaning and bleaching the walls prior to this.)

I am happy with this though. Barn star before (not bad but too primitive)

and after (thanks to some toile-esque scrapbooking paper).

This is my now-tidy craft table. Also a nice place to sit in the morning and read the paper. These two chairs belonged to the lady we bought the house off, but they were peeling and chipped and dirty. I gave them a good scrub and painted one blue and one green.

A close-up.

You can see more jars of goodies sitting on my lovely wide window sills.


I bought another suitcase to hold more sewing supplies but I'm undecided about whether to keep it the way it is or paint it. Blue, maybe? And on the wall above is some "3D art-work" that I'm really proud of the way it turned out. Remember these pictures with the green frames,

They now look like this....

and this......

and this.

(These are my Grandmother's button and quick-unpick.

I got all her sewing supplies when she died.)

And this is our little computer nook in the corner when you first come in through the front door. Nothing fancy, just simple and adequate to the job.

There's still a few more things I'd like to do.

Valance curtains? What colour do you think? White sheeting? Red or blue gingham?
And I'd like to make some bunting to hang below the shelf

and I've got a picture in the making to go above the shelf.

But at least I'm not ashamed of people coming to the front door now.

A Road Trip....of sorts

This last week of school had been a real struggle to get through. The hurry-up-and-bring-on-the-holidays, I-can't-stand-one-more-day-of-this blues. I was feeling worn down, worn thin, worn out. So Mitch, the wonderful man that he is, suggested that I take Saturday for myself and get out, out of the house, out of town. I jumped at the chance (but feeling a little guilty about treating myself...why are females so good at that?) and after dropping Ella off at a friend's "P" party dressed as a present,

I just kept heading on down the road.

It was wonderful. I had a loose idea of where I was going, but I took turn-offs I hadn't been down before, I stopped at places WHENEVER I FELT LIKE IT without having to justify it or put up with whinging, I took my time and just absorbed the countryside around me.

I could have stopped every 100m to take photos because everything just seemed beautiful and interesting and picturesque,

like these cows...

and these horses....



and these fence posts.


This house, nestled around a corner, was just crying out for a makeover but had the most wonderful character...

and I just loved this barn/shed that looked like it was going to collapse at any minute

AND YET had a new roof on the other side.

I stopped at this lookout

and was just still.....

and just basked in the scent of the eucalypts baking in the sun

and listened to the whipbirds and magpies.

I pulled over on the side of the road and listened to the bellbirds and thought of my Mum, who always made Dad pull over on holidays so she could do the same.

I drove through Kenilworth, stopping at a garage sale and a really dingy op shop where I bought some Country Style magazines, and then up to Maleny, where I browsed the shops and stopped for lunch.

Then turning towards home, I passed through Montville (completely full of tourists...yuk) and Mapleton, where I thought that I'd take a different road back to Kenilworth again.
Little did I know that it would turn into a one lane, isolated, really winding, really steep gravel road to get down the mountain. All I could think of was Mitch saying, "Now don't be foolish and go anywhere deserted or go bushwalking by yourself or anywhere where you could get into trouble." Well this female tackled it with ease (and a little relief when it finished)

and drove back refreshed and ready to be around people again, all the while thinking of Robert Frost and The Road Not Taken.

My lounge room - the good, the bad and the ugly.

I moved a few things around in my lounge room during the week, 'cos I always like a bit of a change so I thought I'd post a few photos and give you a little tour. It's nothing fancy but has lots of potential with it's nice size (4.5 x 5m), and its lovely (unpolished) hardwood floors and VJ walls.

This is one view from the hallway. All of our couches have been hand-me-downs so we've been lucky in that regard, but one day it'd be nice to treat myself to a matching set. The orangy coloured ones are okay in shape but I hate the fabric. The dark rust ones were part of a modular lounge and I can't wait til it gets replaced.

I love these shelves that go all the way around the room. They were one thing that really caught my eye when we first looked at the house to buy. At the moment, they are three different colours (which you might see in the above picture). They were originally white,then in a fit of boredom one day I started painting them dark blue but then decidesd that I didn't like it and so stripped one right back.

This is the view from the long orange couch. To the left is the doorway into the kitchen and to the right is the doorway into the hall. The two suitcases hold our CDs and board games.

This is the view from the kitchen. The doors you see go into the sleepout (currently closed to hide all of my sewing mess.)

Above the corner couch you can see an oil painting I bought from the op shop. It had been there for about two months, and I was baulking at the $15 price, but every time I went in, I would see it and it would call out to me. In the end, it won.

Here's a close-up. I think I'll paint the frame white but it's been professionally framed and I don't want to ruin it by pulling it apart.

The ugly TV corner. I want to put a built-in cabinet in this corner to hold the TV and all of Mitch's boxing trophies.

Hopefully on the holidays, I'm going to start preparing the room for painting. I'm planning on doing the lower plaster walls in a really pale robin's egg blue, the top cream and the shelves, cabinets and all trimmings in antique white. I'm open to any suggestions regarding decoration, colour, curtains etc. What do you think?

C'mon, Get Happy!

I've just got to tell you about this new blog, Happy Loves Rosie, that I stumbled across recently, because it's quickly become my favourite.

The owner, Happy Harris, has the best style; a bit funky, a bit retro/vintage and most of all, a lot colourful.

She's always cheerful and bubbly and it's one of those blogs that I need to have my FIX of every day.

I been scrolling through all of her older posts and saving pictures to my "inspiration folder" like mad. Check out her gorgeous vintage caravan that she has in her yard.

This is what it looks like inside. Love it, Love it, LOVE IT!

I also recommend that you check out At Home with Melmel. She loves Cath Kidston and her house is very sweet and colourful too but in a more feminine way.