Manes

With a beautiful black ribbon tying my hair back in a pony tail, my thoughts turn to romantic hair.... for any old day or of course for Valentines Day.

source: Sanderson Images via Style Me Pretty via Lonely Afternoon

source: VS Photography via PrettyCityLife and Live Fast, Dress Pretty

Basically tousled waves, timeless and oh so pretty...

If you want to find some more ideas I suggest taking a look over at The Beauty Department or She Let's Her Hair Down

Or if you are looking for a new place to get your lovely locks done and you happen to live in Newcastle try out the newly opened Dollhouse Hair in King St just near the movie theatre

projects

Yesterday I had a list and I accomplished things. It felt great. Today I have the things that I didn't get to do yesterday.... and I have accomplished nothing.

Well I did empty all my fabric onto my bed in effort to identify some new projects.

So I got white fur, a ton of tulle, lots of gingham, SO much blue upholstery fabric, black lace, odds and ends of patterned fabric, bright yellow silk, white jersey, white flannelette and a pile of failed or unfinished projects.

Now what should I do with it all? Because we really need the room...

Party in a Box

Not really a New Year's resolution but more a thing that I want to do/follow through with this year is to try and make a big deal out of family birthdays.... as this little idea didn't pop in to my head until maybe a week ago unfortunately I have already missed a few so for you guys (you know who you are)....

Steph Loves Ben via Hip Hip Hooray

But I did start with my hilarious cousin who shall be known as 'the peanut-butter monster' on account of the awesome stories he used to tell us, he turned 40 and I made him a 'party in an envelope' complete with confetti etc. And as I had SO much fun making it (and I hope he had equal in opening it) I decided to take the idea a bit further after receiving a whole lot of empty Natio gift boxes.... so here goes

pity about that hideous power point in that last picture on my 'not New Year's resolutions list' is to become a better photographer... maybe also it should be to find a way to 'cover' power points. I also have been doing a little bit of paper flower making in attempt to find my favourite paper flower. The ones below come from Twigg Studios and Handmade by Sara Kim via Utterly Engaged, I ran out of glue half-way through the rose so it doesn't look as full as it should and the larger one I think would look better if you went from outside to in and using more 'petals' more tightly 'scrunched'.
 

The next one I would love to tackle has been making its way around Pinterest is this giant crepe paper rose featured on Green Wedding Shoes. Do you have a favourite paper flower tutorial you would love to share?

But today I have a list to follow and unfortunately that is not on it... soon my pretty

Bon Voyage

today we said goodbye to our two great friends who are moving 6 hours away to that distant corner of NSW. We will miss them both SO much!!

so in effort to fill the rest of the day I have been crafting.... as there is no light like natural light you will just have to wait till tomorrow to find out what. I will however say that it involves my new Cricut machine which I got for Christmas.

In the meantime I think that you should take a look at Issue Number #17 of Utterly Engaged, it is filled with immeasurable beauty

Mexican Fiesta and Christmas Feast

so I have been a little hesitant about posting these pictures we took over Christmas on account of them being so terrible.... I am not a good photographer nor it seems is Joel and the fact that we were using tarps as sun-shades has resulted in a 'delightful' blue tinge being cast over everything. One thing I can say though is that you learn from experience, or at least I will endeavor to.

We wanted to keep things simple as it was Christmas Eve and none of us wanted to spend Christmas Day taking decorations down. Joel's mother made the table runner from fabric bought at Spotlight and we just used plastic tablecloths, plates and cutlery (cheap, quick and easy). The food was AMAZING we had cajun drumsticks, mexican grilled corn and burritos (SO GOOD). You can see the mini pinatas I made at the end of the table they were so simple to make, though I always seem to make pinatas that never get smashed. Overall it was a really relaxed simple evening.

we had eggs, bacon and french toast for brekky - total egg overload

you can see the effect of the blue tarp in these pics (yuck) again we went really simple (and cheap) I made the bon bons myself using this tutorial over on Design*Sponge and the tassel garland was another DIY from over on The Sweetest Occasion, we got the deer from Spotlight and the white lanterns are Ikea of course leftover from the wedding, the giant red one was actually Joel's Christmas present to his mother but we thought it would look good on the table anyway. We used random plants including ivy and something unknown that happened to have red berry like things to nestle in with the napkins they looked pretty cute and lunch you will see above was yes cooked on the BBQ too. Joel was the master of the BBQ on both occasions and did an amazing job.