Boxy day

 

Oh, The yesteryears! When it only cost 30c for a loaf of bread, when your parents would walk for miles to school in the snow with barefeet and when old wooden boxes were used for packaging nails, screws, car parts and the like....None of this throw away nonsense of today. It's time to ask your Grandpa, Dad, Uncle or Old man next door if they have any of these sweet wooden boxes that you can make use of.... Or if you run out of man options....maybe just go to a junk shop.

 

These boxes were readily available in my Fathers garage, a builder for many years and a hoarder for many more he has (well, had) loads of them. So, I got to tipping all of the contents into any vessels available and using them for a greater good, like my bookcase, recycling bin, small side table, shampoo station in the salon and a place to keep all of my salon products.

I could drone on about how I did each one, but really, that's an incredibly long post. If you're thinking "don't be such a lazy mofo"... email me (maybe not with that subject title, meanie) and I'll send you some tips.

 

fragments of a few days

 

Seriously busy weekend, so busy it has to be done in bullet points... 

• Friday fun times with friends at our place, there may have been some "catch the cheese in your mouth while going fast on the cross trainer" games.
• Move Guys parents (and their impressive hoard of belongings) out of their family home and inherit some AMAZING stuff!! Including a couple of old wooden boxes, one of which is nice and shallow and ideal as a water station for my kitchen, yep, I like to feel like I live in a cafe.
• Meet baby Jack piercey... All 3lbs2oz of him, what is going on with all the TINY babies that my friends and family are having. Bite sized little beauties!!!
• Went for a Waikuku mission with my lady love Emily
• Made a massive lot of macaroni cheese for dinner....comfort foodius maximus! Yuuuuuuum
• Watched the hunger games with Guy, seriously.... Can't get over the Peeta casting. Just not what I had in my head! Gale... I'm ok with. Very ok.
• Mowed our lawns at the block...love our little tractor. Still trying to think of a name for her....
• Cut my lady love Clare's hair off....from lower back to above boob! She cradled it in her hands and then we both took photos of it. Not weird at all.

 

 

How sweet is this photo of my father in law learning to row a boat in the sounds...awwww

icecreamspiration

 

Inspiration for craftiness can come from anywhere really... Thought I would share with you the inspiration for one of my garlands (selling here soon)!

 

It came in the form of my brother-in-law/ cute man-child guiltily eating an ice cream on the harbour. Now, whenever i look at this garland it will make me think of ice creams by the sea... Like I needed to think about ice cream anymore than I do.

 

Oh! and I'm happily reporting that the...ummm..."head injury" I suffered yesterday has not lead to the copious amounts of ominous possibilities that may have run through my crazy mind. Woohoo! Cest la vie! Live each day to the fullest! High jump with ankle tap!!!!!

treated

 

Today was a day of treats....

 

This awesome little book arrived in the mail from my friend Caroline along with a Caroline Gardner card (my favourite).

 

A mini cheesecake and macaron from my crazy little creep of a client (hehehe)

 

 

 

 

A cupcake made with love from my friend Emily.

 

 

I also managed to spray myself in the eye with hairspray and then while stumbling to the basin to rinse IMEDIATELY I cracked my head into the ceramic basin. Tiny birds flew around my head while I slumped to the floor. My evil little client just laughed at me and cursed herself for not videoing the entire episode. Sweet wee girl.

 

chain gang

 

This is an advertisement....Not a blog post. 

Required: one hard working chain gang.... Preferably one that can sing "don't you know that's the sound of the men, working on the chaaaiiiiin" in sweet harmony while glistening in sweat and doing some hard some labour.

Not a big ask, right?

But, until I find the successful applicants, the gang of Dad, Guy and I will have to do....

 

 

 

Note to self, weed whacking is a messy business and do not punish your body doing at least 250metres of it before finding out that there are harnesses you can use to make it 80% easier on the jelly worms that you used to call your arms. Fail.

 

 

let there be light

 

I've started to invest a lot of thought into our lighting in the new house.... I want to avoid using any downlights/ceiling lights that are so commonly used in new homes here in NZ. Two reasons, I don't love the look of them and they often create problems and holes in ceiling insulation, we want to make this house as energy efficient as we can. When I think about how we use the lighting in our current place, it is very rare that we utilize all of the down lights. We have one main pendant light in the living room that we installed during the reno and its on a dimmer. We pretty much just use that and barely ever have it going full shine! Same for the bedrooms.... The old style of one ceiling light in the middle of the room suits bedrooms perfectly in my opinion, we barely ever have our ceiling light on, instead we just light up the bedside lights. Ambience aplenty.

I have been obsessing over Ico traders lighting fixtures... Not to mention their furniture, but that's for another day... Check out this range of rewired vintage lamps that popped up on my newsfeed this morning. I'm in capital letters LOVE.

 

 

 

Also, these aqua beauties below would look perfecto above the future kitchen island. Dreaming big!!!

 

 

Check our their website for inspiration and wallet emptying, I've liked them on Facebook and have been loving the giveaways and news showing up on my newsfeed.

 

baby baby baby ohhhhh

 

 

On Saturday I co hosted my first ever baby shower for who is essentially my first nephew!!! My cousin Olivia gave birth to little Hudson when he was only 26weeks!!!! Wowza! If you have been reading these ramblings of mine then you'll already be acquainted.

 

 

It wasn't your standard shower.... We had pimms, bubbly and no games (as requested by Livvy). The fact Hudson had already made his debut, meant that Olivia could enjoy a wee tipple herself and for the first time in 6 weeks, have a bit of a night with the girls.

 

 

In Lieu of games I made a book for the wee fella to look back on when he is a strapping young lad, each person had a Polaroid taken and filled a page of advice for him.

 

 

 

 

I also made the print at the top (using the photo that Johno, Hudson's Dad, took of his first wave at the camera) and framed a big one for the happy parents, one for the nana and two for the lucky winners of the draw.......the draw being that everyone wrote their name and address on an envelope and put it into a big jar, we did this to make one less job for Olivia when it came to sending thank you notes. Success.

 

 

It was such a great day with great girls and a big thanks to my fellow host the 'real' Aunty Amy. Who thankfully did all the talking, something I am incapable of doing in front of a room full of eyes staring at me without the possibility of self combusting with nerves. She actually very near brought a tear to my eye...which as it turns out is not a very difficult thing to do.

 

In fact, many a tear flowed today when I got to hold beautiful Hudson for the first time... Look how big he is!!!!!

 

 

 

Oh and this guy.... Gary.... You can hear more about him below.