This is my place to chronicle the simple pleasures of my life.....I knit, crochet and sew etc. I'm a proud Mommy, a wife and above all a soul of living light. Join me on a journey to inspiration amongst craft or life.....

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Liebster Award

RULES

This award is given to new or up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. The award is then passed along to other bloggers in the same category to help spread the word and support one another.
1. Answer the questions the tagger has set for you.
2. Then, create 11 new questions for the bloggers you pass the award to.
3. Choose 11 new bloggers (with less than 200 followers) to pass the award to and link them in your post.
4. Go back to their page and tell them about the award.
5. No tag backs.
Thank you for the nomination, The empty cookie........Here are the answers to your questions...
1) If you could go one place in the world and money or time wasn't an object where would you go?
The united Kingdom - I'd love to see where my Dad grew up and I would love to meet my bestest friend in the whole world in real life.

2) If you could go back in time and meet one famous person who would it be? Why?
Lucy Maud Montgomery (author of Anne of green Gables books) - I'd love to see how much like Anne she is!

3) What are your irrational fears? Spiders? Bugs? Anything
I used to be afraid of heights but I can overcome that if I try BUT I am afraid of walking up or down stairs that are open and where each step you can see the floor below

 
4) What is your favorite color?
Green - always been green

5) Coffee or Cocoa?
Coffee although I do like having a mocha

6) What is your favorite season and why?
Autumn/Fall......I love the excitment of the winds and falling leaves as well as the changing colors


7) Favorite Holiday?
Christmas - It becomes very special when you have children

8) Day or Night??
I like night for the calm and quiet but I wouldn't say I was a night person

9) Do you like flea markets or garage sales?
I love looking through secondhand shops, markets etc - there is something special about bringing home a piece that already has a history

10) What is the best item you've ever found in a place that was unusual and what was it?
I once found a 5 sided long piece of quartz in a bush area - it was smooth and has always been special to me

11) What kinds of crafts do you like to do? 
I crochet, knit, sew, hand sew, embellish, paint, draw with pastels or pencil - I try anything that takes my fancy


My nominees
A mixture of crafts and life......

Myvintagevow

 Justalittlebitcoucou

Christineolsonoriginals

Yarn-madness

Beambolong

Vallyksglutenfreeblog

Coffeencrafts

Kimmerseyourself

Buttonsbybenji

little-brown-owl

Handyhooker

My questions to all of you: 

1- Do you have children? How many? 
2- What is your fav thing to do for yourself?
3- What is your fav dessert?
4- If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?
5- Do you believe in angels?
6- What was your fav tv show as a child?
7- what was the title of the last book you read?
8- What is something you wish you had right now?
9- If I gave you $100 what would you do with it?
10- What is your eye color?
11- If you know where you are going how do you plan to get there?
 

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

52 trees..... Challenge!

52 trees planted in 2013 is the goal my little family has planned for our beautiful earth.......

Trees are our best allies.......I'm not about to go into a goody goody rant about saving the forests and then go chain myself to a tree but lets face it, trees are what we need to  help reduce climate change, they beautify your surroundings, purify our air, really the list of benefits just goes on and considering it's our children who will eventually inherit the earth next it's time to do our bit and how cool would it be if all of us decided to plant just 52 trees this year. That's A LOT of trees.

This is our start - these hoop pines are native to our area, our property has quite a few but when the area was first settled quite a lot were cut out too. We potted these yesterday.....not all will survive of course but when they get to about 60cm tall they will be planted out in a paddock that sits alongside our long winding driveway.


I wasn't going to do a post on this but then I thought that others might like to embrace the challenge too!
So whether you plant one tree a week or become involved in a community project where you plant out 20 in one go why not come on the journey with me............I know the planet will thank you ;)

And if you want to share the love on your blog or facebook page feel free to use my image I created above....don't forget to comment here if you take the pledge as I love to hear from you!






Monday, January 14, 2013

My handmade.....

A fresh new year and that means it's the 5th year I've been an online presence offering handmade bits and bobs created by me. I'm by no means a big seller and I'm not into big fan counts or followings, I create and offer just because I love to do it and hope to spread my handmade message ' buy handmade, buy love'.

I craft between 6 children, a husband, a vege garden, trying to live green and conscious, animals and all the other surprising things that pop up in life......I offer my items up for you to buy because I enjoy the thrill I get when something I've made finds a new home, and lets face it I can only keep so much of my craft pieces LOL



In 2013 I've set myself a goal of 13 random acts of kindness (RAOK)..........placing a handmade item into the hands of 13 people who need or deserve just a bit of universal karma. I don't even know who these 13 people are but I know that they will come to me as I involve myself in online communitys, friendships and life.
Maybe that is something you could do as well?
It doesn't have to be something handmade, you could mow a lawn as a RAOK, pay the toll fee for the car behind you, anything :)

Anyway I hope you'll take the time to check out some great handmade businesses this year and delight a few crafters!

Oh and if you've read this far maybe you'd like to check out my lil shop too......These Little Wagons...

xxK

P.S You didn't think you'd get away without seeing a knit hot off the needles did you LOL

A cute lil 'Scapulae' shrug for a friends daughter

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Green living adventures....

Summer days in our garden and the heat sees us watering like crazy (lucky we have big dams) and only able to do the bulk of the work in the late afternoon but so much is progressing and the days have been full of learning and just playing around in the dirt.
Over the last week we've planted turnips and silverbeet (spinach), tigger melons and I've just planted my pumpkin seeds......
We're also harvesting quite a few foods - below is my coriander seed harvest! I've chopped off all the stems and will now leave them with the seeds on to dry out for a few weeks in paper bags before sifting all the seeds and placing them into spice jars, I'm quite excited to have our own little stash of this herb and what's more I bought the seedlings as rejects at a nursery for only 50cents. It always pays to look in the clearance/reject section of a plant nursery....most plants only need a little water or care and they repay you so much :)



This is our other harvest - our sunflowers. We got heaps of seeds from our flowers and they also attracted lots of bees to our garden which helped the other plants. We are now starting two more gardens with some of the seeds.

cut and ready to leave in the sun for a few days to dry before rubbing out the seeds.


Strawberries are one of our families favorite fruits so we have to grow a lot of them to keep everyone satisfied with so many mouths all wanting that sweet taste. At the moment we have 4 long rows of strawberry plants and we are now propagating their runners and planting out more rows once they take root.
It's so simple - we just place pots of dirt beside the plants and put the runners into the pots where they find the dirt and take root. Once the baby plants are chugging along we snip them from the main plant and into their our garden patch they go ready for next season......


This is a tiny little mango tree that I have grown from seed......It's the way of nature but it sure does feel special to grow something from seed.
We will be starting a fruit tree area soon next to our vege garden so that is where this lil guy is destined for - we've also got a pomegranate tree growing away too.


And who is this?  Why little baby 'Arabica' coffee plant of course ....always the way I start my morning so I couldn't resist giving a coffee bean plant a go myself :)

And our mini greenhouses made out of cut juice and soft drink bottles are perfect for shielding the new baby capsicum plants from the toads who dig and tromple everywhere uprooting the poor seedlings (This is how I lost all of my celery seedlings that popped up, NOT happy Jan!)


And what else does every green garden need why feathered friends of course!!!! Meet Classic and Roast our new chickens! Already they've become so much apart of our family spending time with us while we garden. Our children love them and run around finding them grasshoppers and bugs LOL
Once these two start laying eggs that will be another item ticked off our 'provide for ourselves' list......


Til next time...........xxx

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Knit/crochet/yarn - totals update for 2012

Feeling very proud once again....more than surpassed my IN column for yarn and the output, Yay me!!!!

  • 2011 totals in grams: 9300 IN, 10565 OUT
  • 2012 totals in grams: 8472 IN, 9450 OUT
 Now that January has begun I've jumped aboard the 113 projects  in 2013 train (or rather group on ravelry)....I completed 111 in 2011, 112 in 2012 (well actually I smashed it last year with 126 projects all up) and now I hope to succeed again :)