Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Time for a change

Huge day for me - I quit my full-time job!  Yippee for me!

I am at a point in my life where I need to spend more time being a parent and less time being an employee .. my "little" girls are not so little anymore and they need their Mummy, won't be long and the Mummy will be just Mum or something else! 

So I am looking for a part-time job that is not an hour commute each way that will let me contribute financial to our household, but will also let me be the kind of Mummy my girls deserve and the kind of Wife I want to be - ie that is one not so exhausted that home life becomes a chore!

A hard decision to come by, but now it is all over and done with I feel like a weight has been lifted!!!!

So Yippee for me!

Sunday, November 07, 2010

Girls Rooms - Matching Lamps

My two little darlings love to read their own books at bedtime so they each have a little kid friendly bedside lamp.  Isabells had a plain white shade on it while Lillian's was a very bright turqouise blue - of course this didn't match at all, so with a little bit of hot glue and their chosen Ikea fabrics we set about to make these match with the rest of the new decor:

Lillians Lamp:

1. Position your exisiting shade on the "wrong" side of your fabrice and roll it over the material and use a pin to keep in place while you mark around the inside with a pen.

2. Remove the pin, unwind the material and you have your basic pattern.  Add approx 2cm above the lines and cut.  Then snip the material every 1-2cm - this makes the fitting easier.


3. Glue one end of the material onto the existing shade and again roll the material around the shade - glue and secure the other end of the material.

4. Fold and glue the top and bottom of the material - pulling taught as you go.  Easy peasy.

The finished product:



Isabell's lamp:

1. I used the same process to make a band of material as I did when I made the curtains for the room.

2. I secured one end of the band to the lampshade with hot glue, wrapped it aroung the existing shade and secured the other end in the same fashion - again really easy and very effective.




Both lamps still give out enough light for reading at bedtime and now they look heaps better!

Girls Bedroom - Banded Curtains

One of the projects that turned out better than expected in the girls rooms were the curtains.  I'll let you in on a little secret - I didn't sew anything on them!  Crazy I know, but true.

I had seen a few tutorials on YouTube and various decorating blogs showing how to used Iron On Adhesive to hem and make curtains and although somewhat sceptical, I thought I would give it a try - so glad I did.

I purchased these curtains:

Ikea Alvine Flata Curtains

I think I may actually be in love with these curtains, so much so they will soon be making an appearance in every room in our house.  They block out the glare from our harsh Australian sun, without blocking the light - which is really important to me especially as the house we are renting is a bit on the dark side. 

The quality is surprisingly good and the price amazing - $29.95 - sensational, they came with a little pack of iron on adhesive heming tape and I also purchased another two packets to add the bands to the bottom of the curtains.

So it is as easy as this:

1. Hang and hem your curtains using the iron tape

2. Select and cut your contrasting material to the desired width - remember to allow an inch at the top and bottom to foldover.  Fold in the edges and press



3. Add some tape under the folds and press again to hold



4. Measure on and mark on the curtains where you want the band of contrasting material to go, again layout adhesive tape and iron on, fold around the edges of the curtain and adhere at the back with tape.  I used pins to keep mine in place throughout this process.


Finished product - pretty cute hey!

More posts to come on my little projects.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Girls Bedrooms Makeover

OK, so I would advise that you go and get yourself a nice wee cup of tea or coffee, possibly even a few bikies - then settle in for a VERY long post.

The major task of overhauling both of my daughters rooms in one weekend, actually ended up stretching over to two weekends, and that didn't include the wardrobes - mental note finish this weekend.

So lets see what we started with shall we:


Isabell's Bedroom Before
Isabell is my youngest darling daughter, who we lovingly refer to as the "fluffer"!  She can never find anything, always forgets things and generally "fluffs" around alot - but we love her for it!  Hence, her room looks like this most days.

This photo is really deceptive as Isabell's room gets only a small amount of light as that wonderful huge window opens onto the covered patio at the back of the house and those drapes are very thick and heavy.

I wanted to do a few things for this room:
  • Get rid of the heavy drapes and bring more natural light into the room
  • Get rid of the "little" desk in the corner - She wanted a big girl desk and at 8 was well and truely ready for one.
  • Re-arrange the room to give her more play room and make the rest of the room more functional
  • Make it look pretty!
So this is what we ended up with:

New Doona Cover, Throw Pillows, Curtains and Recovered Lamp
 
Isabells Re-decorated Bedroom including Ikea Fabric Frames
At this point I should point out that I am not very handy with a camera inside the house!  Outside, landscapes and people photo's are more my thing, so please forgive me if this isn't looking like anything really special at the moment!

It is pretty plain with just a little bit of colour - but that is what Isabell likes - she likes Ben 10, Scooters, Mario Bros and riding her bike.  She also likes pretty pink things, but only in small amounts.

So how did we achieve this and how much did it cost?  Well aside from taking two whole garbage bags of toys and clothes to the Charity Bin, we spent a lot of time and not a lot of money at Ikea and me and my sewing machine worked pretty hard.

But before I reveal all lets look at Lillian's room ... Lillian is my eldest Darling Daughter - 9 going on 19, and unlike her little sister Lillian is tidy and organised, even a little too organised at times.  She loves all things orange so that had to play a part of her room revamp, so again before:



Not looking very organised
With this room we wanted to
  • Have lots of matching accessories
  • Have lots of orange
  • Get rid of old desk
So we ended up with:


New Curtains, and accessories
  
New Doona Cover, Ikea Fabric Frames and covered lamp



New Desk, Chair and covered Memo Board
 The best thing about this room was that Lillian told me it looked like something out of one of your "housey Mags Mum" - without a doubt the best compliment a Mum could get!

So just quickly I want to share the frames that we made for the walls:

Materials:

Ikea Nyttja Coloured Frames - 2 pack 13x18cm / 5x7"                                AUD $3.95
Ikea Nyttja Coloured Frame - single pack 21x30cm 8 1/4 x 11 3/4"             AUD $3.95
Ikea Fabric of choice - I used two of the Gunilla patterns @ AUD $9.95 /m about 30cm wide AUD $2.99

Hot Pink Frames for Isabell's room


Ikea Gunilla Fabric for Isabell's room


Ikea Gunilla Fabric in Orange for Lillian's room


Pull the frames apart to use the paper as a guide to cut your fabric
Lay out the paper to use as a guide to mark up fabric



Mark around interesting parts of the fabric and cut to size


The finished products - too cute!

  1. Pull apart the frames and remove the white "Nyttja" paper.
  2. Use this "Nyttja" paper as a guide and mark up on the back of the fabric where you want to cut.
  3. These Nyttja frames are great for kids rooms as the "glass" is actually plastic so if one accidentally      falls or is knocked over you don't have to worry about broken glass.  Just remember to remove the clear flim on BOTH sides of this "glass".
  4. Cut fabric as per markings and insert in frame, and re-assemble.
  5. Hang - I use the 3m Command Picture Strips as we are renting and are not allowed to knock hooks into the walls!  If you haven't used these before check them out, the are amazing.

Simple, inexpensive and so cute - you could add as many frames as you want - Ikea have so many fabrics in one theme you could use all sorts to create a larger display.

I will put up the rest of the projects in coming days:
  • Bunting - this isn't shown in the photo's as I hadn't taken any once I had added this to the rooms
  • Recovered lamp shades
  • Recovered memo board
  • Throw pillows
  • Banded Curtains
  • Buget details
Thanks for reading - very interested to see what you think - so leave comments please and have a wonderful weekend wherever you may be!

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Weekend Childrens Bedroom's Makeover

So what is a girl to do ...  my DH was away this weekend for one of his RC Nitro Racing events (he place 13th overall for the Victorian State Titles - yeah Honey!), so it was just me and the two little ratbags.

Ever since we decided to stay in Adelaide for another year I have wanted to do a few things around the house to make it feel more like home and a bit more family friendly.  For a large house, the house we rent sadly lacks storage!  I wanted to get more storage into the girls rooms and ours and get the girls a new desk each and do a general face lift for each of them.

I have spent the last few weeks looking around for appropriate furniture that I could afford, eventually I settled on a few pieces from Ikea!

So the girls and I set off to Ikea early on Saturday morning, tape measure and designs in hand!  We ended up being there for 4 hours - OMG how easy is it to dordle in that place!  Then the stark reality of owing a "smallish" mazda struck - there was no way everything was going to fit in the car if I wanted the kids to come home with me, so I made a decision about what was the most important part of the makeover and just got two of these:

Micke Desk
The two top front panels are drawers and the large panel to the left is a cupboard with two shelves, and there is a little ledge across that back to hide all your electrical cords etc - it only took me about an hour to put together, going very slowly and carefully so as not to mess it up!  I also got a black chair for Lillian's room and a hot pink one for Isabell.


 I really wanted to get this: 

Micke Workstation
Unfortunately they were out of stock of the add-on so we will have to wait a couple of weeks - the back is a magnetic whiteboard, perfect for little girls pictures etc.

I picked up some plain white sheer curtains and quilt covers and the girls each picked some fabric that they loved:




I had a HUGE cleanout of old toys, bookes etc etc and moved some furniture around, recovered two lamps, made bunting and little throw pillows, recovered a pinboard and added panels to the curtains, although not quite finished yet, I am really pleased with the end result and am totally exhausted. 

We still need to get these to go in their wardrobes:
Trofast Storage Combination
I will share details later in the week!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Spring

I just wanted to share this:




While I surf the wonderous worldwide web, well maybe not the entire www - just those few blogs that I cannot live without a daily dose of, I am seeing fall/autumn decorations everywhere.  Put simply most are from the other side of the planet where they are easing into the cooler months of the year.  Here, on this side of the planet otherwise known as Austalia, we are dragging ourselves out of the slumber of winter and wishing spring would hurry up and push us into summer!

I am surrounded by blossom and new blooms, roses are budding, the daisies are everywhere and the tiniest of leaves are finding their way out onto the limbs of the bare trees that line our street.  But old man winter is holding his grip on this fair city of Adelaide, while the sun is shining and lulling us into a false sense of security, the temperatures are not playing the game at all!

This morning I eagerly (read reluctantly) dragged myself out of my warm bed, pulled on the layers of suitable clothing and took the little Reggie off on his morning walk through the park I thought to myself, there is more of a nip in the air than there has been this week!  So I pulled out my trusty phone and checked on the weather site and lo and behold it was only 4 degrees C!!!!  OMG!


So even though the weather isn't strictly adhering to "spring" I am not waiting any longer, spring cleaning for me this weekend and time to decorate the house in a more "springy" tone"!

Have a great weekend!

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Random Post - its been a long week

Hello to anyone out there!

Well it has been a very long week, work has been insane - not overly busy, but lots of interuptions!  I am soooo glad it is Friday!

Tomorrow we are heading out to watch the last Crows AFL game for the season, not being AFL followers this should be very interesting.  In Queensland we were huge supporters of the North Queensland Cowboys, well of course we would be - their home, Dairy Farmers Stadium, is just down the road from our home.  They play in the National Rugby League competition, and being from NZ originally I don't mind watching a game or two of Rugby Union, but this Aussie Rules Football has got me stumped!  But we thought that we would have to experience a live game seeing as we now live in SA!  Wish us luck!

Sunday will also be a huge day for us - my wonderful cousin Raewyn and her equally groovey husband Ralph are visiting friends in Adelaide and we are stealing them for a day of sightseeing and Cellar Door Visiting in the very special Adelaide Hills region - it is sooooo spectacular at this time of the year - daffodils in the fields everywhere and blossum on all the fruit trees.  The weather is predicted to be a perfect winters day, so I am really looking forward to sharing our adopted home with them!  They are thinking about moving down this way in the future, which we hope is in the very near future, would be lovely to have family here!

Also Lillian is off on her first ever school camp!  She is so excited, has packed and re-packed her bag soooo many times!  We will miss her for two nights, but hope that she enjoys camp as much as I did at her age!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

RC Enduro - Team Kaos

My Darling Husband is very excited, this weekend is the SDMCC Knights Locksmith 6 Hour Team RC Nitro Endurance Race - what a mouthful!

Basically four guys take turns racing their cars  for a total of 6 hours, talk about brain strain!  The team must consist of two Buggey Drivers and two Truggy Drivers - DH is a Truggy Driver.
We are ever hopefull that the terrible weather we have been having down here in Adelaide holds off for the weekend and the event is a huge success!

We have spent the last few evenings designing and making these Team Shirts using a printable ink jet iron on transfer product (Officeworks have several different brands, we went with the cannon product)


I think they have turned out pretty good - don' t you love the name of the team!

So to the guys in Team Kaos - race hard and good luck!

I will have some pics from the weekend next week.

Have a great weekend where ever you may be, whatever you may be doing and whoever you may be with!

Edit:

Just in case the words Truggy and RC Nitro are foreign to you, this is what a Nitro Truggy looks like;


Truggys all lined up for judging at the South Australian Titles 2009
Off and racing - these remote control cars reach speeds in excess of 40kmh
This is off road RC Nitro - so there are heaps of spectacular jumps, and crashes!



Sunday, August 01, 2010

I am missing this ...


and this ...



and this ...

I can't wait for summer!  Especially with the weather we are having here in Adelaide at the moment - Max 14 today, overcast with showers later in the day - yep pretty much a standard winter's day.

Summer in Adelaide means camping at the beach, long lazy evenings at the park and bbqs nearly every night!  We noticed this morning that it was light outside before 7am - the first time it has been like this for several months - so Spring must be just around the corner and then comes Summer!

Miss Lilly Ruffles

I have been toying with the idea of having a little Etsy store for a while - so stay tuned and I will be introducing you to Miss Lilly Ruffles really soon - it is just for little girls!



Can't wait to share more with you!

C-ya

Nic

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Alice In Wonderland Partie Decorations & Games

So I promised I would share what I got up to with the DIY decorations for Isabell's Party so here goes;

TEA CUP - MINUTE TO WIN IT STYLE GAME

Firstly I used an old packing box (moving every 12 months does have some benefits) and roughly drew then cut out a "tea cup".

Then gave it a coat of white paint, added a few outlines and voila:

Using a bit of Blu Tack we stuck this to the front of a bucket, lined the kids up and gave them 5 tennis balls.

Each child took turns at trying to get the tennis balls in the bucket, they had one minute each and they had to bounce the ball off the back wall and into the bucket! 

This was hugely successful, especially with the boys who were very competitive!

BOTTLE BEAUTY

For the centre pieces we wanted something that was a bit on the gawdy side, but nice and bright!  This was achieved by spray painting some empty beer and softdrink bottles, and a few bunches of flowers from the $2 shop!


The finished product can be seen in the photo's from Isabells Party in an earlier post.

BOTTLES OF BUBBLES

To fit in with our tailored mis-matched feel I got some bottles of VERY brightly colour Bubbles from our favourite $2 Shop - aren't they just lovely!!!


Measure the height of the bottle and cut some strips of patterned paper


Use a bit of double sided tape ...

Wrap around the bottles ...


Add a ribbon to hold the bubble wand and you have some pretty cute "Beautiful Bottles of Bubbles"


Now doesn't that just look sooooo much better!

That's enough for today - don't forget to drop in a the Jones Design Company and check out Emily's great Summer Giveaway!