My Creative Space

It has been a while, but I am back. I am just trying to get my life into some order to make the busy times not so stressful. Actually, things are starting to return to normal and I will be going back to 4 days per week in about a month.....aaahhhhhhh.....blisssssss. Anyway, while I haven't been blogging, I have been creating lots of things and designing lots of things and planning lots of things. 


On the creative front this is what I have done.


I have made a quilt top for one of my friends. She is such a beautiful soul and I know she will love it. I have just purchased a walking foot so I will be quilting this over the weekend. I might do a practice run first!






I have been making cushions.....lots of them to go into Handmade Heaven. If you read this Liesa, I will get them into the shop soon.....just haven't been around Ipswich much of late. (I have actually made more than this, but some have become presents)




I have quilted my first quilt using a quilt top I made back here. It isn't perfect as there is a little puckering because I didn't have a walking foot. Anyway, not sure what to do with this quilt now.






This quilt below is made using upcycled upholstery fabric samples. I just need to back it and it is all done. I am really happy with how it turned out. It is most suited to becoming a picnic blanket as the fabric is quite hard wearing.

I have designed some stitcheries, quilts and homewares. I am working on finalising designs and patterns. Here is a sneak peak at two of them. These will go in my Esty store when they are done.

Here is a picture of my messy creative space. I have now tidied it up but this is what it looked like when I finished sewing last night!

I have also been spending time reading my sewing machine instruction book. This is a first for me as I am usually the type of person to just just in and have a go. I really didn't want to stuff up any of my designs so for the first time I have taken my time and I have to report that I can now do buttonholes, and zippers. I feel so clever. 


I think that's enough from me for now. 


Happy creating everyone, and for more creative spaces or to play along, just pop to Kirsty's over here.


Yay!!


Lis
xxx 

Waiting......Waiting......

I am not very good at waiting. We are waiting on some important news and things seem to be moving vvvvvveeeeeeerrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy slowly. I just have no patience and I also don't dilly dally when making decisions so I hate it when other people dilly dally.

Please stop dilly dallying and let us know!


See ya
Lis
xxx

Wow, I won something!

While catching up on some blog reading this morning, I was reading through Amanda's Calico & Co blog and to my surprise, noticed that I was the winner of her competition! I really was surprised because I NEVER, and I mean NEVER ever win anything. 


A big thanks to you Amanda for this gorgeous prize. 


If you haven't seen the Calico & Co blog, go and have a look. I love this blog.


See ya
Lis
xxx

The prizes are finally on their way.....

yes, the prizes have been posted. I told you I was going to do it.


Right now they are flying to WA, Tassie and the USA. Yay!


Hope you like your prizes ladies.


Love
Lisa
xxx

I haven't forgotten......

.......... my competition. To the lovely ladies who won prizes, I am not being one of those not nice people who run competitions and then don't send out prizes. Well in a way I have been but I am going to rectify this.........they will be on their way this week.


I am so sorry lovely ladies, I have had them packaged and ready to go for weeks and weeks but have not managed to send them. I have gone to the post office a couple of times and have left without posting them as the line was out the door and my life has gone crazy busy. I am going on Thursday and standing in line......I AM NOT LEAVING UNTIL THEY ARE POSTED!!.


Hopefully, you will have them next week.


My apologies again.
Lisa
xxx

Hey, there are some competitions...................

That you need to know about. If you want to boost your stash, why don't you have a go and enter these competitions.

Check out these fantastic fabrics in these giveaways.

 

This one is at the lovely Blueberry Moon blog.

And this competition is at the Sew Fantastic blog.

Goodluck!

See you next time.

Lisa

xxx

This time 4 years ago.......

This time 4 years ago I was on my way to Norway on a business trip. I had been so busy at work and was feeling a bit apprehensive about going on this long trip so I attributed the sick tummy I was feeling to nerves.


Well as there was plenty of time on plane to think on the way to London, I started thinking mmmmmmmmmmm, I have skipped a period. I then put it out of my mind as we had been told we needed to undergo fertility treatment for me to fall pregnant.


Anyway, when I got to Heathrow airport with a few hours to kill before my flight to Oslo I found a chemist shop and purchased a pregnancy test kit. So in the dirty toilets in terminal 4 at Heathrow airport I found out I was pregnant. Shock was the word. (I still have the kit in my undie drawer).


I couldn't get a hold of my husband until I got to Oslo, needless to say we were both totally stunned.


That business trip was the longest 10 days of my life and I have never been so sick.


This story is something I will never forget and I can't wait to share it with Ella when she is older.


Hope you all have a lovely day.


Lisa
xxx

My last Monday of freedom.....for a while

I had the most relaxing day yesterday with my lovely girl. We decided to ditch swimming and gymnastics and go to the library and out for lunch instead.


We really did have a lovely time. Ella did say one particularly funny thing. We were walking into the local shopping center, people all around. Ella says (out of the blue mind you), " i have a little tummy and a little bottom". I was thinking, gee she is cute, next thing "you have a big tummy and a big bottom mummy". Why thank you darling!!!


I am going to miss our Monday's together and will be totally filled with guilt when I take her to daycare instead:(


Bye
Lisa
xxx

Commuting.........the jury is still out

 

Well last week was my first week of commuting to work as opposed to walking down the hallway to my home office. 

It has been a bit of a shock to me and I have to admit, with all of the rain last week, it was a really bad week to judge the commuting by. One day it took me 2 hours....yes 2 hours to get to work. The roads where chocked in every direction. I had a bit a a chat to my boss about it and we have come up with an idea for me to either come in early around 7am or after 9am so I can miss that peak hour HELL! I left home on Friday at 6am and dropped Ella at daycare (poor baby) and was at work at 7am on the dot. 

Commuting must have really been playing on my mind last week as I even had a dream of trying to get funding from Prime Minister Rudd (Kev) to set up Satellite offices on the city fringe to save commuters. In my dream I saw Kev and called out "Excuse me Kevin, can I have your ear". How funny, but I do like the idea of Satellite Offices!

On an exciting note......I discovered Reverse Garbage last week and I fell in love. Lets just say, the $15 I spent last week is the tip of the iceburg for me. I will be back. Just to give you an idea of how close I am to Reverse Garbage. My office 205 Montague Road, Reverse Garbage 296 Montague Road. It is a 2 minute drive - LOVE it.

Well I hope everyone had a lovely weekend, I know I did....lots of cuddles with Ella and lots of sewing in my reclaimed sewing room. Ella has set up a space in there as well and she like to pull a chair up next to me and "help" me with my sewing. It is lovely. I have also totally fell in love with my Brother NS30 sewing machine (that almost started to sound very revolting!!). I purchased it last year and haven't had much of a chance to sew since then so this weekend.....well, it was BLISS.

Well, I need to say goodbye to my Monday's off for a little while. We are so busy at work that my boss has asked me to come back full time for a few months. Not sure how I will go, but one thing I know is that I will be getting someone in to do my cleaning!

Hope you all are well and I will be back again soon.

Hoo roo

Lisa

xxx

Traffic photo courtesy of Alef Arendsen

Reverse Garbage pics courtesy of Reverse Garbage

Brother sewing maching pic courtesy of Brother

A Giveaway - And the winners are.........

Thanks so much for entering my competition lovely ladies.....I am sorry that I couldn't send you all prizes.

Well, the winners are:

First prize: Sheila C

Second prize: Nettie

Third prize: Sally

Congratulations ladies. Could you please email me the design you would like and your addresses, so I can get your prizes off to you.

Thanks again to all you who entered.

Lisa

xxx

..............last days to my first ever giveaway!

The count down is now on for my first ever Giveaway. It ends soon (Sunday 28th Feb)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


If you want to join in the fun just pop here to see what it is all about.


Bye 
Lis
xxx

Handmade Heaven Giveaway

Hi everyone


Just wanted to let you know about an exciting giveaway that the Lovely Liesa from Handmade Heaven is having.  


THE GIVEAWAY WILL BE:

1 x $20 Handmade Heaven store credit....This means that if you are local, you can come in and spend it and if you are interstate, you can go shopping as well....HOW EXCITING...




For all of the details and to enter, pop on over to Liesa's blog and have a go!


Bye
Lis
xxx

Crochet

From time to time I love to crochet, mind you I am not very good at it and I don't think I have ever completely finished anything I have started. I have a bag that contains my crochet needles, wool and all of my unfinished crochet projects.

Lately Pip from Meet me at Mikes has been posting some tutorials on crocheting granny squares and I am starting to feel inspired. I am now completely inspired after checking out Sarah London's blog. Here are some pics of her super duper work. This is just a very small sample of her absolutely stunning work. I think she is amazing. Here are links to her blog and to more of pics.



Enjoy
Lis
xxx

West End - here I come.........

My Boss got the keys to our new office yesterday. My set will be coming next week when we move into the new office. I am so excited about this as it will get all of my work stuff out of my house. I am sure this has been affecting my creative mojo! Also, I just love the West End (Brisbane). There are going to be so many shops and restaurants for me to visit.......to bad I will have to combine it with work.


I guess on the down side, I am going to have to commute and that will be a pain in the bum some days. I did read an article on commuting the other day. Can you believe one lady in the US commutes 6.5 hours per day....yes, you read correctly......6.5 hour PER DAY. She must really love where she lives cause I think that is just crazy. I just couldn't do it. Think of all that extra crafting you could achieve in 7 hours per day.


I need to visit IKEA to get some bits and bobs. I really like this set up for my new office.......what do you think?


I like this. It looks nice and simple and clean. Hope my boss likes it too cause he is paying...ha ha.

Bye
Lis
xxx

Oh what a day.....

Yesterday was the pits in the Thomas household. Our air-conditioner in our lounge room died last week. No problem I thought, we now have insulation in the roof and it isn't tooooo hot.

Well blow me down, yesterday was a stinker. 37 degrees out here in Ipswich. I reckon it must have been hotter than that in our little hot box. Ella and I ended up hanging out in my bedroom all afternoon with that air con on. Jas set up our portable air con in the lounge room, but it just couldn't/didn't cope with the high temps. I don't know what they put in our ceiling (not our house - rental) as insulation but it didn't seem to do anything at all. Not to mention, there are no tree or shrubs around our house and we face the west. Oh what bliss.

Well, we all were EXTREMELY happy when the storm hit last night, although Ella was a little frightened by the thunder we ended up convincing her that it was a very good noise. (I can't imagine what it will be like when we get a bad storm here........how do I explain that one to her?)

What a relief when the breezes blew in and the rain cooled the air.

This leads me on to renting a property. I know that this isn't a choice for some people and they need to rent. I have to share that I really don't like renting. Hopefully we won't be renting for too much longer. We are waiting for our little house just south of Newcastle to sell and then we are going out to buy a home. YAY. I can't wait. Every time Jas and I talk about it, Ella pipes up with.......'when we get a bigger house, I am getting a doggy'. So, it looks like we will have a puppy then too. I might buy a pretend one and see if that keeps her occupied for a while.

So I am sending out the good vibes to the little house (below) that her new owner is coming along very soon. I really do love my house and that was always going to be home for us, but our circumstances changed and we had to move away for work. Our new home is here in sunny South East Queensland and I am very happy to be here, but sad that we couldn't stay in our home. Anyway, the time is right to move on so please please please our little house, please sell soon :)




Oh by the way, I am ramping up the prizes for my comp. There will be extra bits and pieces in each of the prizes including, fabric, magazines (yes...more magazines), and nice creams, scrubs and those kind of potions. So please spread the word about the comp as it is getting bigger and better.  I will take some pics this week of the prizes when I get a chance so you can see what they are.

Until next time.
Lis
xxx


Photos courtesy of
1. southeast regional climate centre
2. dirty martin at worldpress
3. mine

Sleepy Time

We are trying to cut out Miss Ella's daytime sleeps, mainly because if she has too big of a sleep during the day, she can easily be up until 11pm at night. This is far too late for a 3 year old, and far far far far far toooooo late for a tired old mum like me.


Anyway, it has been going really well with Miss Ella falling asleep nice and early and sleeping all night. This does lead to her falling asleep in funny places and/or positions.


This one is a really funny one. She fell asleep on the ottoman which is small compared to her so her little legs are squished up. Anyway, you can see the pic. This one really does make me laugh.

Bye
Lisa
xxx

Make it perfect - Giveaway

Just thought I would let you know that Toni over at Make It Perfect has released a new pattern. It is so beautiful and I am going to give it a go and try and make it for myself.


Anyway, to celebrate the release of the new pattern, she is having a giveaway. If you want to try and win the pattern, just jump on over to the Make It Perfect blog and enter.


Here is a pic of the design. Isn't it lovely.



C ya later
Lis
xxx


PS Dont forget i'm having a giveaway as well. So just go over here if you want to play along with mine as well.:)

My Creative Space

I am a bit slow at getting this on this week.....damn that day job of mine. It gets in the way of my crafty pursuits, bugger that I need it to buy my crafty supplies:) I do love playing along with this as it inspires me to keep on being creative.

At the moment I have my little pink quilt top ready to be basted and quilted so hopefully this will underway over the weekend. I just went to take a picture of this but my camera battery just died. Oh well, it may be finished next week so I will put a pic in then.

Also, I am working on a project that has been in my head for quite a while. I certainly feels good to get it out and happening. The theme of this one is 'blue lotus'. I plan on stitching 9 lotus flowers for the quilt. This is going to be an ongoing project.........

The other thing that is going on here in between my other projects is I am working on another stitchery design called 'home is where the heart is' It is not my usual style, but I like it anyhow. This has been designed, stitched and redesigned so now it is time to start stitching the final version and start the pattern writing. I will list this on Etsy when it is done. I will put a pic up of this when next week.

For many more creative spaces or to play along, just go over to Kirsty's at Kootoyoo.

Happy Crafting :)

Lis

xxx

PS Don't forget, I have a stitchery giveaway happening at the moment so for entry details go here.

A Giveaway - Finally!

Yes, I have finally got my act together and organised the much talked about giveaway. I am so sorry that it has taken me so long to organise, but what can I say, life just got in my way.

The prizes are:


1st prize
- your choice of a Sunny Street Designs stitchery deluxe kit + the latest handmade magazine + 1 piece of fabric from Funky Fabrics.


2nd prize 
- your choice of a Sunny Street Designs stitchery kit.


3rd prize 
- your choice of a Sunny Street Designs stitchery pattern.

There are 3 stitchery designs to pick from and they are:
1 - Flowers make me smile
2 - Will you come and play with me
3 - Loving and giving

Entering is very easy:

1. Simply leave me a comment for one entry and let me know which stitchery you prefer.

2. Start following me for another entry. (if you already follow me, just leave me another comment for another entry).

3. Blog about my giveaway on your blog for an entry.


Because sometimes things don't happen so quickly in my world (you know, with normal family stuff and work getting in the way :) ) the winners will be drawn on Sunday 28 Feb. 


Happy playing along.


Lis
xxx


PS This competition is open to anyone, I will post the prizes to anywhere in the world :)

A Bubba Chenille Giveaway

Don't you just love a giveaway. I know I do. I will have one organised for Sunny Street Designs shortly, enough about me now..........


The lovely Miriam, the creator of Bubba Chenille is having a giveaway. Miriam makes lovely children's clothing and household items using vintage chenille. My daughter has 2 of her skirts and we have a heat pack as well. I really love her creations and they are so well made. And to top that all off, she is just a really lovely lady as well.


So enough rambling from me, CLICK HERE to be taken to the Bubba Chenille blog to enter the comp and join in all the fun. You better hurry, cause it is closing soon.


See you later
Lis
xxx

School Reunion

Hello everyone


Well we were all up at an ungodly hour to drive my husband to the airport. He flew to Newcastle to catch up with school friends from about 25 years ago. I hope he is having a great time, but I do think he will be waking up with a very sore head tomorrow. He had started drinking at 2pm catching up with some mates..............glad it is him and not me.


He is staying with his parents and will be coming home on Monday afternoon. I think he arranged it that way so he didn't have to fly with a hangover. Clever.


Ella and I have had a lovely day. We went to IKEA and spent about 3 hours checking things out and playing. I pick up some fabrics and Ella got a few bits and bobs. We had a lovely day. Tomorrow we are going to hang about at home and spend the day just playing and I am looking forward to it.


I hope my husband has a blast and comes home with heaps of good stories for me.


Does anyone have some school reunion stories? I don't, I chickened out of mine a few years back.


Bye
Lis
xxx

My Creative Space - Yay it is back for 2010

I don't know about you all, but I love playing along with Kirsty's 'My Creative Space'. I love it because I don't really have anyone to show my crafty pursuits to as my husband gets really bored with it and just say's ' that looks good darls' after he is prompted. Same comment every time, ho hum.......


Anyway, I have decided to do more patchwork quilting and combine my love of stitching with it. I have about 4 projects on the go at the moment and have the biggest stash of fabric to get through. I am looking forward to heaps of craftiness in 2010.


My pics here include:

• the little quilt I am currently working on. This has now been pieced together and I have added some stitched hearts. I will add a pic when it is finished.
• My little snacks I had to have while I was sewing - this helps to keep the creative juices flowing!!!!
• My new sewing machine. We are still getting to know each other but we are off to a good start.
• The last pic is of all of my christmas presents. My stash is so full and I have so many projects in the wings.

If you want to play along, go HERE.


Craft is the best!


Bye
Lisa xxx

My Place and Yours ... is back courtesy of Punky & Me

Yay, I love playing along with this when I have the time. Thanks to Punky & Me for hosting it this year. 

And another Yay, what a good way to get back into blogging for the year. I have big plans.

Anyhow, I am currently reading Gerald Durrell's 'My Family and Other Animals'. I have decided to read more this year and always seem to struggle on what to pick to read, so I have joined in on Pip Lincolne's book club. If  you are interested go HERE.

Happy reading.

Bye

Lis