Happy New Year 2026 ❤️

Greetings lovely friends & readers

Wishing you all a happy & healthy (& creative) 2026.

Today we have a jug full of Alstroemeria (Christmas Red) & white Penstemons. 

 

Well Christmas & New Year came & went for another year.  I hope it was a time of contentment for you all.  

Even though I got very organised early this year - it still felt busy as it drew closer.  

Sue came over one day & we visited the Lavender farm just around the road from me.  

Sue gifted me a piece of her gorgeous Daisy Chain Pottery & a wonderful fragrant candle.  I was most excited about the angel wrapped around the gift - Sue had made this from egg cartons & toilet roll wings  💓😇

The Sunday prior to Christmas day we had my Stepson & his family over for lunch.  My step grand-daughters Juno & Sadie opened their gifts & we all enjoyed a lovely time together. 

A rare photo taken in the garden - this is my stepson Jared, The Mr, myself & the two girls.

 

On Christmas Day itself, Sid & his family came for a roast lunch & he opened his stocking.  It is always special when they send me photos of what he has made using what I gift him - I enjoy this.

A little tradition that Sid's Mum has started is to give me a handmade card with a photo of Sid each Christmas & I have kept every single one.  The bottom right one is this year's.

  I hang these in my sewing room & enjoy them so much - he always writes me a message in the card.  It is wonderful to see how he grows each year. 

We have not seen (eldest grandson) Alec's family as yet but I hope to travel down to Kinloch in the next week & catch up with them all.  

I haven't taken any photos of my Christmas decor this year but if you are on Instagram  go * Here * & you can watch a video of my lounge that I uploaded.  It is over 2 minutes long.  

My decorating was very similar to previous years but my favorite this year was this wall in my dining room. 

Some of you may remember the Woodland Santa that I made back in this post in July.    He needed his own special place so I hung a vintage sieve on the wall & sat him on top of this.

Some days he was on a bit of a lean so I'm not sure if he had a hip flask hidden in his jacket (!!)  😳

The Angels beside him have all been handmade by myself over previous Christmas's. 

Christmas has all been packed away now for another year.

It took two weeks to set it all out to my satisfaction ... & two days to pack it all away.  

I think I could probably manage to pack it away in one day if a certain ginger fairy 😺 didn't insist on going to sleep in my storage containers (!!) 😖 

All that remains of the Kauri stump is the pale trunk broken off.

Four days after Christmas Day we had a nasty wind storm go through our area & lost power for 8 hours.  We had trees down between us & our depot yard, though this was not the cause of our power outage.

A large old tree simply uprooted & blew over & unfortunately broke a lovely native Kauri tree in its fall.

That is the Kauri lying to the right.

This saddened The Mr & I a great deal.  We have not begun the clean up down here as yet, though I have managed to clean up the damage up closer to the house.

While the storm raged for many hours the furry three took up residence inside - 2 in my sewing room & Little One on the bedside table ... The Mr put a blanket down for him.  

New Years Eve was spent drinking Christmas tea, eating fruit mince tarts & reading my book.  I was in bed by 10 & it was quiet all around as the weather was still nasty. 

I have been harvesting vegetables most days - I picked the last of my cauli & baby cabbages yesterday ... I will blanch the cauli & freeze it for winter stews.

This above was picked this morning - my tomatoes in the hothouse are growing well & we have had good success with cucumbers this year - The Mr prefers the apple variety.  I have been able to share a lot of produce with friends & family.

I wish you all the very best for the coming year dear friends.

Thank you for your ever welcome visits here today - I still really enjoy my blog after all these years & the friendships I have made,

Sending much love & friendship out to you all,

Christmas Crafting & Sewing Part 2 . . . . "The Mouse Family" & Crafting With Sid's Class

Greetings lovely friends & readers

(Apologies in advance - another photo heavy post)

 Instead of a vase of flowers, today we have my vintage wringer washing machine overflowing with fluffy ruffles petunias  💗🤍

When the tree men removed the old Silk tree here, they left my washing machine tipped on its side with one leg broken, where it sat for over a year.  Recently I propped it up with some bricks under the broken leg, scrubbed it & filled with fresh compost & a punnet of petunias.  Much nicer!

It's a dull overcast day here today (which I LoVe) & I'm enjoying the tree lights twinkling away & changing colours.

Longtime readers of my blog may remember that I've tried this year to work my way through the many kitsets that I had on my sewing shelf, some not ever opened.  This Corinne Lapierre felt Mouse Family kit was among them.  I sewed these up back in early October but I'd decided to dress mine in a festive theme.  I used plastic pellets in their bases as they were tricky to get to stand up properly.  

When it came time to decorate I thought they may need their own little table so I could display them properly 🐭🐀

They are all dressed in their Sunday Best & I've woven a little story around them .  .  .  .

Here we have Mrs Mouse dressed in her pearls & festive hat -  she is carrying a wreath & she wants to decorate it with the berries in her hand.  She is tired of Christmas preparations & all the work being left to her  .  .  .  she'd quite like to lie down, have a big nap & wake up on the 1st January next year !

Here we have Mr Mouse in all his finery - Mrs Mouse sent him into the woods to get a tree for the children to decorate.  She can't believe that he has come back with this stupid skinny branch .  .  .  words fail her!  He says it is fine & she just shakes her head & thinks he needs glasses (!!)

And here we have Junior Mr & Junior Miss Mouse - they are all dressed up ready for Christmas festivities & getting into mischief. They are wearing their best outfits & Miss Mouse even has a bow in her tail. 

 

That's as far as I've gotten with my story - I need to think on it some more.   Feel free to add to it in the comments dear friends .  .   . any suggestions gratefully received  😊

This little wooden house was $1.50 in the Salvation Army Op-shop - it was already painted white so I just added a festive transfer to it.  I think it looks sweet with my mice family & a couple of bottlebrush trees.

And then I found this little book amongst my Christmas books.  I purchased this in the Stratford Hospice Shop for 50 cents when I used to visit Mums.  I remember when I came across it & thought I'd found such treasure.  

I'll share a couple of pages - it is immaculate despite being old.  Each page has a lift out surprise & these were all still tucked in there, none were missing.  The lift-out surprises are on the left hand pages & a sweet accompanying picture on the right hand page.  

It is truly just the sweetest little book & I love picking it up & thumbing through it.  

🎄

At the beginning of this term in what I can only describe as a moment of madness, I asked Sid's teacher if she'd like me to do some Christmas crafts with the class.  Of course, she said Yes!  

I spent some time putting together some samples including air-dry clay ornaments, a peat-pot & calico tree, & a paper bag snowflake.  She let the children choose & they all chose the snowflake.  

I used this tutorial * here * ... but changed it as cutting through 9 paper bags was far too thick for the kids so I got them to cut each paper bag individually & we cut ours prior to gluing.

 We had a day doing this in groups of 6 or 7 at a time.  There are 28 children in Sid's class so it took some time & of course, they all worked at different levels.  

Sid, who is still in a plaster cast, was my helper.  I've blocked the kids faces out & also forgot to snap many pics as it was very full on, including supervising using hot glue guns & Yes - some did burn themselves (!!)  

The teacher strung them all up in the classroom when they were finished & they looked wonderful.  

This is my sample above left.  It was a fun day but when I came home I did feel like I needed a rather long nap!! 😉 

I decided I needed to make some Christmas coasters as I wanted to fussy-cut some of the gorgeous Tilda Merry Little Christmas fabric that I'd purchased months ago.  

I used this free pattern from mollyandmama.  The felt I had was too orange-y so I purchased a piece of pure wool felt which would wash better when The Mr slops his mug of tea on them!  

My local sewing shop had this colourway called Holly Berry - how perfect ❤️🍒

I'm delighted with how they turned out & think a pair of these would make great gifts, tied up with ribbon. 

This wooden tree was a $3 op-shop purchase last year - I painted it yesterday & then applied some leftover transfer remnants, before sanding it all over.  I like the vintagey effect of it all.

Thank you so much dear friends, for staying with me through these lengthy catch-up posts,

I hope the lead-up to Christmas is going well for you all,

Sending much love & friendship to you all,

Christmas Crafting & Sewing . . . . Part One

Greetings lovely friends & readers

 On my bench today, my first pick of Sweetpeas.  Growing these from seeds & getting them to the flowering stage has felt at times, like extracting teeth - it seems to have been a VeRy long process this year.  

I am still dehydrating oranges to fill my last potpourri orders, so I strung a garland of them along the rake in my kitchen as well as refreshing the oranges on my faux tree, that sits at the end of my bench. 

Long time readers may remember back in * this post * when I made these little Country Friends dolls for my friend Claire, to fit in a Pringles tin.  I'd cut out a set for myself at the same time & finally got around to dressing them & making them into a swag.  

I managed to use fabrics & felt scraps already in my stash as they only require very small pieces.

I've shown this guy photographed beside a small teaspoon to show how tiny they actually are.  VeRy fiddly to make. 

I've strung mine across the shelf that holds my red china, in the lounge room as the colours all went well together. 

This pair of doll shoes was in my sewing room - they measure 12 cms along the length of the heel so are either large dolls or small childs shoes.  I wanted to take the shiny-ness off them & googled it - it said to rub them with nail varnish remover, which I tried.  This did not a thing, so I lightly sanded them to dull them a bit.

I love small vintage shoes decorated at Christmas time & have several on my Pinterest boards.  I glued some offcuts of Oasis in the bases & then simply jammed a selection of things in.

A small teddy that came off a keyring, some greenery & pip berries, a couple of Christmas ornaments with the hooks removed & the smallest size bottlebrush tree that I had.  I love how these turned out 🎄💚

This white linen doll was in a wardrobe  ... I remember making her about 10 years ago now.  I wanted to do a small festive display on my bed & thought if I made her some red wings, she could pass as Christmassy.  

I cut into some of my Tilda fabrics as the red shade was perfect - I'm really pleased with how she looks now.

(She is a Rosalie Quinlan Angel - Friendship Angel pattern, very old now but still available I think)

Remember back in October in this post when I made this Pixie/Elf - he is a free pattern from shabby art boutique

This wooden trolley cart was $4 from my local SPCA shop, purchased during the winter months.  I painted it, lightly distressed it, & glued a piece of scrapbooking paper onto the tray part.  Even the red cord was able to be used again.

I found a couple of offcuts of transfers that were festive looking & applied these to 2 sides.  I thought it would make the perfect "vessel" to sit my Christmas Elf in.

I thought long & hard about what else to put in my cart - what would a busy elf need??  Some presents to deliver or help with  ... & perhaps a spare pair of elf boots for when his get worn out ?? I covered tiny boxes in fabric as I couldn't find any wrapping paper in the right colour way & then I made some simple elf boots from scraps of grey felt.  

I'm thrilled with him - he doesn't stay on my deck table, I've just photographed him out there as its dull inside the house today.  I must say he looks very happy sitting in his trolley cart  😊

I give my Grandsons a selection of choccy treats in their stockings each year.  I thought I'd like to make them a simple drawstring bag to contain all their edible treats this year.  This was very much about using-up-what-I-had-on-hand & I didn't want to purchase anything, apart from the treats themselves.  

I was pleased how the bags turned out & I even managed to line them with some other festive fabric I had in my stash.  

I banged into an old acquaintance in the Supermarket carpark last week & she asked me what I'd been up to recently?  I explained that I'd decorated the house & been hosting some folk to look at my festivities including my craft group etc.  She commented did I not think this was all a waste of time & energy when I could be doing other stuff ??

I didn't agree with her - we both agreed to differ ... but I felt it was timely when I came home & saw this verse online & it just kind of put into words how I was feeling.  I hope you enjoy it dear friends.

Thank you as always dear friends, for your welcome visits here today,

I shall be back soon with Part two as this post was more than long enough,

Sending much love & friendship out to you all,