An Angel, A Hummingbird, & An Elephant

Greetings dear friends & readers,

A couple of days ago marked exactly One Year since Miss Pippi Longstocking came into our home & our lives

To celebrate the day, she decided to bring a mouse inside & promptly let it go.

This simple action very nearly sent me completely over the edge into insanity !!*!!
But alas dear friends  . . .   here I remain .  .  .
teetering on the brink !!!***

Pippi - who spends a large part of her day in her basket . . . supervising & over seeing the household !!!

I must admit she has bought such joy into all our lives, including dear old Blackie . . .

Since she danced her merry way into our hearts, The Mr & I have laughed so much at her endless antics.

But I must confess there are times too, when I wonder if perhaps I have fallen through some sort of parallel universe & am living someone elses life ??

One whose entire day revolves around a small, rather crazy, furry ginger being !!*??

We do love you Pippi Longstocking.

Although we live in the country, my closest little township is Kihikihi (whose name in Maori means Cicada)

We have lived near this tiny township for nearly 20 years now & witnessed shops come & go, & lots of changes.

For several months now as I pass through, I have noticed this cute little brick building getting a bit of care & attention.

This building was an originally old Butchers shop but had sat empty for many years.

It finally opened a couple of weeks ago so my dear friend Carolyn (who is up from the South Island) & I, met up for coffee & a looksy
 Oh My - what a pleasurable experience.
Nita - the Owner of The Hummingbird - chatted away to us both & allowed me to take lots of photos.

I have tried to make up some collages to give you somewhat of an idea of the beautiful interior of this quaint little shop

I love how Nita has retained the old wooden shelf block in the window that the Butcher used to display all his cuts of meat upon

The shop is stocked with a truly gorgeous eclectic mix including fresh flowers, plants, vintage wares, fresh artisan breads, homewares & giftware .... as well as fresh coffee, teas, cakes & Protein balls

The wee dog in the photo above right is Alice who has her own special bed & presides over the daily comings & goings ... she was just delightful

There are two courtyards, one is stocked with beautiful plants, grown by Nita & sold either on their own, or in the arty array of containers they are displayed in ... I loved this outdoor area with small vignettes of seating away from the crowds.

Though I forgot to take a photo, Carolyn & I sat out here - tucked away in a corner - & enjoyed coffee & hummingbird cake.
What a delightful way to spend time with such a lovely friend in beautiful & inspiring surroundings.
If you click on this link here & scroll down to page 6 you can read a lovely article in our local newspaper about The Hummingbird

And of course, some purchases came away with me .  .  .

They sell delicious artisan breads so I bought a loaf of fresh Olive & Rosemary bread for The Mr & I to enjoy

I loved the verse on this wee cushion - I plan to stuff a big wad of lavender in amongst the filling - & how could I resist this little battered suitcase ??

I am hopeful that The Hummingbird marks the beginning of good things for my little township of Kihikihi & that more little boutique style shops open up here.
It is certainly a credit to Nita & I wish her all the very best ... I know for sure I shall be popping back to visit often.

When the builders were banging & clanging endlessly for all those weeks, I would often take my Tilda books down by the pond to have a glance through, to inspire me, & try to lose myself for awhile.

In this lovely book Tilda's Studio, the elephant really appealed to me & I bookmarked the page.

When I was packing away some summer clothes recently, I came across this linen blouse - purchased many years ago in Australia, worn lots, but not for several summers now.
I decided to cut it up to make my elephant.

I was really happy with my completed linen elephant .... it is to be a gift for my grandson Alec, who turns 1 year old next month,

I am hoping Alec likes his elephant made by Granny Julie.
I was especially delighted that I didn't have to purchase anything to complete it .... everything was already in my stash, or like the shirt fabric, was preloved.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend dear readers, & that the coming week is good to you all.
Thank You So Very Much for your visits today ....hope to see you back again.
with much love & friendship,
Julie x0x0x0x

To Mums & Back Again ...................

Greetings dear friends & readers

I had a good trip to Mums although my visits are never long enough now to achieve all that I would hope to.

Mums beautiful cat - formerly Marley, now named Bubby - has been with her just over a year now.

They have a bit of a love/hate relationship to tell the truth ... but Bubby is good company for Mum.

I just adore her & could easily have sneaked to into my car when I left.

Mum turned 87 while I was there & I cooked a family dinner for all of us.

To be honest, whenever I leave Mums I usually spend the 4 hour trip home worrying & fretting over her & wishing I lived closer.

I often feel quite anxious ....   so I was lucky enough to be able to call to see my lovely friend Claire on my way home.

Claires gorgeous home has featured often in my blog & a visit with her is always such a tonic & a "pick-me-up" 

 We chatted, ate slices & drank coffee & suddenly .... well over 2 hours had gone by !!!!

I clicked away & put together a few little collages of Claires home to share with you

Her Mum crocheted her the beautiful ripple blanket above on Claires spare bed

Besides being just "one of lifes nice people" Claire is especially kind & generous & always happy to show me her new creations & share her inspiration

This is one of the things I love about visiting her as - on my drive home, instead of worrying & fretting over Mum for 4 hours, my mind spins with all sorts of creative pursuits & things I would wish to make !!!!!

In her spare room, Claire pulled out a big old vintage suitcase & begun showing me some christmas makes she had completed last holiday season

Her beautiful Easter Table .  .  .

I tried really hard to sneak this next little vignette into my car ... but alas I was not successful

Claires new vintage table in her lounge room

And lastly, Claire had just made her bed up with quilts & cushions in warmer tonings ready for the cooler months ahead .... just stunning

 I hope you enjoyed your little peek into my friends gorgeous home.

Mum informed me quite bluntly upon my arrival, she was NOT sitting waiting while I "trawled endlessly around the Op Shops" this visit !!!

Who ?????   Moir ?????

But while Mum was having her hair done on her birthday, I managed to have a quick squizzy around 3 of them.

These little treasures below were rather quickly hidden in the car 

We went to the Garden Centre to buy vege plants so I could plant Mums raised garden up for winter.
While there she secretly bought me this cute little planter as a "thank you" for all my work .  .  .

Since my arrival home I have planted the pots with Mint & Parsley.

I am most happy to report that as I type this .... the Plasterer is currently beginning our lounge room plastering
Oh yes ...... at long, long, looonnnng last !!!!!!!

I was also happy to see that Madam Pippi was checking he did bring all the correct tools he might need in his wagon !!!!

However, there are two things I am not quite so happy to report upon my return home .  .  .

(1) The cat baskets on the table appear to have multiplied & now the little sods have one each !!!!!!!!

(2) The Mr appears to have broken his leg the very day I returned home !!!!

Knocked over by a cow who then stood on him no less !!!
Right in the middle of autumn calving !!!!
Oh the absolute joys of it all !!!!
I shall get around to visiting you all at your blogs as soon as I manage to stop grinding my teeth !!!

Have a wonderful weekend dear readers ... thanks so very much for your visits today
with much love & friendship,
Julie & the (spoilt) furry ones
x0x0x0x

You're excited about A CUPBOARD ????*!*!*!

Good Thursday afternoon dear friends & readers

Goodness me ... the last fortnight sure went by in the blink of an eye !!!

When the architect drew up the plans for our lounge extension, one of the things I felt most excited about was turning our old back door entrance into a cupboard

Our house is small & lacks cupboard space badly, & ... with 6 entry doors already into our house, I was not sorry to wave goodbye to one more!!!

The photo above shows the former back door entrance from inside & outside

This is the new cupboard beginning to be framed in.

I had to make sure the builders made it to the maximum depth possible as I wanted to use every last inch of space available.

As we are still waiting for our hopeless plasterer I ran out of patience over Easter & decided to fill the holes myself.

The Mr came home & asked me if I knew what I was doing??

"Haven't a clue" I replied "but after all - its only a cupboard"

This is how it looked when I had filled all the holes & given it two coats of paint.

Not too bad for an un-professional I must say

I found some wood in The Mr's shed to make the side brackets for the shelves ... I gave these a paint also.

Then - just today - The Mr cut me up some timber lengths for my shelves.

Oh beautiful new cupboard .... how exciting you are !!!

You see folks, it is to be a craft cupboard to hold some of the supplies that are overtaking my sewing space

This is just a practise run ... to ensure the shelves can actually hold things ... I plan to organise my cupboard properly & really utilise the space available. Great excitement !!!!

After a young man came along & purchased two gollies from me for a baby gift, I noticed my golly stock had indeed diminished.

I thought I had better rectify that, so I cut out two more bodies & made them up .... the first is Baby Annie Golly, a pattern by Angels in Disguise ... she is one of my all-time favourites

I like to give them a little toy in their hands ... this teddy I named Rosebud as I embellished her with silk rosebuds

The next one I made needed to be a boy ... I used Tobias Golly, a pattern by Melody Daly  ... another old favourite 

The golly fabric I used on his pants was just perfect.

You can see in this earlier post here where I made this same pattern up into a wonderful girl golly.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed at The Warehouse, they had reduced their galvanised watering cans from $18 down to $10 in their weekly specials .  .  .  so I purchased 2 of them.

Wanting to make a gift for my Mums birthday, I dragged one out of the sleepout & gave it the Amulet treatment 

(for those of you new to my blog, this means I painted it green !!!)

Yes, I was tempted to rust it like the bucket I did here, but lets be honest, there are some folk you can give a rusty item to & some you simply cannot .... & somehow I don't think Mum would get excited about a bit of rust quite as much as I do !!!!!

Mum loves pansies so I planted some of the "antique variety" in the can this morning & then glued a doiley onto the front.  I just need to modpodge the doiley & lace trim & then it will be waterproofed & ready to gift.

Our old carpet & underfelt sits rolled up in our incompleted lounge room & Blackie likes to sit on the underfelt in the mornings & have a wash ... I snapped some pics of him yesterday enjoying the autumn sunshine

Well dear readers, I am off on my annual jaunt down to Mums to help her celebrate her 87th birthday so I shall be away from the internet for awhile.

Thank you all for stopping by today & visiting me ... I do appreciate you popping in so very much.

with much love & friendship,

Julie & the furry ones

My First Experience with Chalk Paint

Greetings dear friends & readers,

I have read lots of bloggers rave about using chalk paint & have wanted to have a try myself for a very long time now.

I contacted my clever friend Michelle & she gave me some good advise so I felt confident enough to give it a go.

I emailed Ali at Newtons Paints & this exciting little package arrived in my mail box

I have to say Ali was just lovely to deal with & very helpful & informative .... she told me not to hesitate to get in touch if I needed any further information.

I watched her painting video here & found it just so helpful

This little table above had sat in my sleepout for many months now.

I had put off doing anything with it as the varnished finish on it meant I would've had to sand it back before painting.

Not so now . . .

I simply gave it a good wipe down as Ali suggested, then off I went with my first coat of "Aged White"

I gave it 2 coats of this as I felt I was a little hesitant with my first coat & only applied it rather thinly

I let it dry for just over an hour then I applied my "Pale Duck Egg" which I had bought as a test pot

This is how it looked after the coat of Duck Egg had been applied.

I really liked the way the aged white colour was showing through in places

Then I let it dry for 24 hours before lightly sanding the areas I wanted "distressed",  then applying the wax.
 Ali explained the wax makes it wipeable as the chalk paint itself is quite porous.

It also gives a lovely light golden sheen to the finished article

I was so thrilled with my new/old table & am pretty sure there will be quite a few other things around here getting the "duck egg treatment" rather soon

Looking a bit more blue in this photo than it actually is 

Some other snippets from my week included . . .

This cracked china teacup above was rescued from the Op Shop rubbish bin by my friend Joyce

Yesterday afternoon while I had no power for two hours I was able to sit & put together a dainty little teacup pincushion.

I weighted the cup first with a little fine gravel then added some wadding & the circle of gathered fabric. 
The rest is all simply glued in place.

I had to wait 20 minutes for some photocopying to be completed whilst in town last week.

I wandered a few doors along to the Red Cross Op Shop & managed to come away with this darling vintage cane basket & 2 doilies in excellent condition for the sum total of $10.

Though I forgot to take a "before" photo, this little cross stitch was so gorgeous, but had been framed in a heavy matt black frame which did absolutely nothing for it.

It was sitting on the shelf at the Op Shop just wanting to come home with me.

I removed it from the frame, used my chalk paint colours & transformed it.

Though my intention was to pop it for sale in the Cottage, I did think it looked lovely sitting on my new/old table in matching colours

My friend Lois asked me to make her two cushions to gift to her son
Her instructions were "2 large cushions, about 40 x 40, plain blanket backing, reds & blacks, flowers not hearts, anything is fine"
These were issued out the car window as Lois drove out the gate one day in a hurry.
"Oh & both the same" she added !!

I was really thrilled that I managed to get the entire order out of my fabric stash with the exception of 25 cms of black ricrac which was purchased.
Lois was delighted & collected them late yesterday - in a hurry  - as always.

I have been painting on my outside table & usually have company of the 4 legged variety.
I had to quickly nip out to post off a package & returned home to find Blackie had slid off his cushion in his sleep

He is a dear wee soul our Blackie & no longer the hissy, swipey, scratchy feral cat he once was.

With the little touches of autumn in the air I noticed the two furry ones are tucking up together alot more

Leg only partly ""in the air" today Willie  !!!!!

Thank you so much for your visit today dear friends ... it was so lovely of you to pop by
I hope the rest of the week treats you kindly
sending much love & friendship to you all,
Julie & the furry ones
x0x0x0