poor neglected blog...

... I've just checked and it's been over 2 months since my last blog post. The days, weeks and (dare I say) months have just flown by.

In October we took a trip overseas to our beautiful neighbour, New Zealand. We had a fabulous time staying in Christchurch, Lake Tekapo and Queenstown and driving through the most gorgeous countryside in between.

 
I've finally uploaded our holiday snaps to Flickr, if you are interested you can take a look at them HERE.

The family have kept us busy. Sport and music fill our lives. Phoebe's representative basketball season has come to an end, as has her regional soccer development squad .

 
Emily's school rock concert was fabulous, they prepare for this concert all year, it is such an entertaining production, so much talent in one school. Em's still playing the drums...

I have a new camera. I upgrated my Canon 300D to the Canon 500D. I'm loving it. It got a good workout when we went to New Zealand and I'm really happy with the results.

The silly season has started over at Ribbons Galore. I sold some baubles and pouches at a school fair recently. The baubles will filled with ribbons and hung from tree branches. They looked so pretty. Unfortunately I have now SOLD OUT of the baubles for 2009.

 
That's about all for now. Thanks for visiting. I'll be back with some festive news very soon, so stay tuned.

Fiona x

catch up time

Life's busy as always. Everyone says the same thing.

Firstly, thank you for all the lovely comments and emails about the pouches/pencil cases/make up bags I've been making (see my previous post). I've had several inquiries about making custom pouches or cases. Yes I certainly can make these up, you can choose the ribbon from Ribbons Galore, and I'll match fabrics. Just email me, and we'll go from there.

In other news...

Emily has turned 13! I am now the mother of a teenager. She hasn't changed much in the last few days... being a teenager now, she's still as lovely as ever. She is home sick this week though, with the latest bug that seems to be going around the schools here.

She had her party last weekend. We made the invitations...

Used lots of scraps and sewing for these.

... and we made the thank you cards while we were printing and sewing and creating...

20+ girls arrived at our house last Sunday for the party. We walked to a local Thai (Bai Yok, Castlecrag) for dinner. The restaurant was great, its our favourite local for delicious Thai food. Then we walked home for Ice cream Cupcakes, which were a big hit. One of the girls at the party grabbed our camera and took this photo on the night.

On Saturday night we went to Broad at the Sydney Opera House. Five female singer/songwriters of very different genres singing, playing and chatting on stage for a couple of hours. Fantastic.

Phoebe's soccer season continues... Last weekend was Gala Day  and her team won. All the games were great and well matched. I think it was the hair ribbons the girls wore on the day that increased their enthusiasm.

This should have marked the end of the soccer season for Phoebe, but no, she's been picked to play in the under 11's girls representative team for our region, so the soccer training continues a little longer. She is so excited to be in this team, she loves her soccer.

I have a few other things to catch up on. I've been tagged by Miki (I'm getting there, Miki) and I've received an award from Sophia (very exciting). I'll work on these two in new posts very soon.

Hope you have a great week.

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona x

Christmas eve in Sydney

So school's out and we are finally on school holidays. Lots of end of school stuff went on last week, but it all seems a long time ago now, and we are finally getting into the Christmas spirit.

Today I was at the fish and fruit markets at 7.30am buying the salmon and prawns and salads and fruit for tomorrow. With that all finished by 8.30am, it left a pretty long day ahead of us. So the girls and I caught up with friends, jumped on a bus into the city with the main aim of visiting the David Jones Christmas display windows.

It became a fun festive adventure, wandering through the busy city. Here are some photos from our day.

Martin Place Christmas tree:

Martin Place is looking very festive with the stars and banners:

Pitt Street Mall had these groovy Christmas trees:

Bush firemen:

The bush fire service Santa was also found in Pitt Street Mall:

Free Hugs man.... (if you don't know about him, see HERE):

We did make it to David Jones. The window story this year was The Nutcracker:

Beer Bottle Busker (see him HERE, but today he was playing Christmas songs outside St James Station):

Lindt Cafe (a trip to the city is not complete without a stop here):

The girls decided to try their luck at busking in York Street while waiting for the bus home. They sang the same Christmas song over and over and collected $2.15 between them.

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I'd like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy, prosperous and healthy new year.

Thank you for visiting my blog this year. I look forward to bringing you more craft and scrapbooking ideas and classes in 2008.

Enjoy the holiday season.

Until 2008

Cheers

Fiona

x

Holiday catch up and a RAK

School holidays are over. All's quiet in the house today. We've seen several movies, caught up with friends, been out and about our beautiful Sydney and had a relaxing break up the coast last week to finish off.

We walked the Balmoral Beach to Chowder Bay track again. I've mentioned this before, but it is such a nice way to spend some time around Sydney (and you get some of the best views of Sydney Harbour too, in my opinion). The Sydney Harbour Federation Trust is opening up some of the best land located around Sydney Harbour to the public. The photo below is taken from George's Heights looking across the harbour to South Head.

Since our last visit to this area, Ripples Cafe and AquaMine have opened. Ripples Cafe is a great cafe located just under the Sydney Harbour Bridge at North Sydney Pool which has been operating for several years now, and now they have opened up in one of the restored buildings at Chowder Bay.

And up the coast, this is the view we enjoyed for a few days. The girls and I went away with friends to Hawks Nest. It was so lovely up there.

Emily was in charge of breakfast one morning while we were away. She made a stack of her fabulous pancakes. She says she knows the recipe off by heart now, and in this case, how to double the mixture!

And there were several morning and afternoon tea opportunities. Nicole's Cafe over at Tea Gardens is a favourite, they have the best cakes and they serve real Chai Tea (with tea leaves in a tea pot - not the powdered variety). I love the presentation of their cakes, this one was almost too good to eat (almost!)...

Just thought I'd throw this photo below into the post. Phoebe loves getting hold of my camera and takes all sorts of photos. It's usually when I clear my memory card that I discover what she's taken. This was one that I really liked...

We started the holidays off a couple of weeks back with a weekend of music. Emily was one of 20 kids to be selected to play in the Primary division of the annual Billy Hyde Drummer's Playoff. It was such a fantastic experience for her (and very, very loud for us). She played on a fantastic kit up on stage at the Institute of Music in Surry Hills and had a great time.

She wanted to wear a t-shirt for her performance that said "girl drummers rock", which of course we couldn't find anywhere in the shops, so we made one. We screen printed the words onto a white t-shirt and she was very pleased with the result!

I've also been doing a little bit of sewing. I have several bags cut out ready to be made, which I'll be placing in the Ribbons Galore store as they are finished.

I think now it's time for a RAK. I haven't done one for a while, so if you've actually read (or just scrolled) to the bottom of this post, leave me a comment and tell me (if you want to) where you live (state and/or country is fine). {I love knowing where readers of my blog are coming from} You will have the opportunity to win a RAK from me.

I've been collecting all sorts of things lately. The latest find is a daisy lace runner which I think would look great cut up and used on some projects. I've also been collecting lots of old buttons. I'll pack in some ribbons, (maybe a few little bits and pieces from my DT companies). So I'll put a RAK pack together. It'll be a mixture of old and new things... leave a comment if you're interested in receiving one (I'll post worldwide too). I'll post a photo later, when I've put it together.

Thanks for visiting, and reading. Hope you have a great week.

Cheers

Fiona x