Yes, my op shopping addiction continues. Tell me please, how am I meant to stop when I find these gems? And this is only today…

Panda Keds $4

Enid Gilchrist $1

A one dollar pendant/necklace

Cute and complete glass & jug set $5 (if only these were plastic I could bring them on the trip, they would look mintie with our yellow picnic table!)

Bracelet 20 cents

Great new skirt and singlet from Salvos on Ryrie St Geelong ~ best op shop to take kids! Terrible self portrait sorry…

And because a young lady seems to have the monopoly on posing for the camera…

One cute 4 year old boy

Mr Tweetheart mentioned today, without prompting, “stopping in every town to visit the op shop” in regards to our trip . Hee hee, little does he know it’s been on my mind all along. Well actually, how could he not know?

Oh, and the little mouse has been spotted again tonight, right here at my parent’s place… Mr T reckons it is a cute native mouse with very big ears, awwww, I wanna see him!

I know I was there a whole week ago, which seems like a long time BUT isn’t!

We had such an awesome time. We stayed at Jubilee Lake Caravan Park which is just gorgeous. There’s a lake complete with ducks, heaps of lillies and canoes to hire.

 There are TONNES of Blackberries, ready to pick! I was assured they hadn’t been sprayed, so pick we did! YUM.

There are birds to feed! Rosellas, cockys, ducks and Peacocks all visited our caravan for some seed and bread.

Zoe was so patient and quiet. Her brother struggled in the keeping quiet department.

On Saturday we got up early and visited the farmers market. Tate ate a WHOLE red capsicum on the way around. Bless him. He then complained of a sore mouth, poor poss.

From the farmers market we strolled down to the MAKERS MARKET! It was really awesome. There were stalls I recognised like Curlypops, Twiglet & Lark, and the lovely Nat at Moederkip! There were so many gorgeous things for kiddies. Mine wanted the scotty dog softies from Vintage Chenille. They got alphabet badges!

Zoe scored an ace Olivia dress from Moederkip. She chose the pink, what a surprise! It is totally a favourite. The cute pixie hood KILLS me. Too cute! She is wearing it in the above photo. I cannot rave enough about the quality of Nat’s creations.

All the stall holders were super nice and didn’t even seem to mind my uncontrollable children lying on the floor, running and asking a million questions. Thank you!

 The op shop in Daylesford was lovely too. The ladies were great, and I walked out with a new favourite shirt and cardi. Both GREEN!

But my most favourite and BEST shop was of course Lark. The Lark family are so lovely and I dig that place so incredibly much. I utterly do!

Now to talk Mr Tweetheart into moving there…

Doing my blog browse this morning I found myself here at little eco footprints. Zoe just wants to be friends with that little girl! I asked Zoe if she’d like a mini mei tai too, or ‘baby carrier’ as I put it. Of course she did! So we set out choosing fabrics. She did the choosing, so not surprisingly PINK makes a major appearance here.

Super easy tutorial from OWLET. Really! This one is a fair bit shorter in the body, because well miss Zoe is rather short in the body. Unfortunately I didn’t have the forsight to include a tail hole for her baby - boots the monkey. Since it was finished a few hours ago, the MT has only been taken off for eating. Boots took a nap on the bed while his mummy ate. He is now riding in a back carry, I have managed to position his legs and tail a bit better.

I hope you’re having a lovely Saturday! Maybe you could whip up something sweet too!

No I’m not speaking about my beloved bike Betty…

The clutch. Yes, I admit it. I ride the clutch. I LIKE riding it. I love cruising around corners in any ol gear. I love slowing down with the clutch in and skipping from 5th to 2nd. I feel so much more confident using that clutch as often as I like. The more I do, the less likely I will stall.

Mr Tweetheart does NOT love it. AT ALL. Apparantly it will wear out the clutch. I continually remember that television ad with the dad crossly saying ‘DON’T RIDE THE CLUTCH’. That’s what happens when Mr Tweetheart rides in the passenger seat. So, I’m trying to mend my ways. I’m trying to let each gear have their turn.

This habit of mine, all stems from not ‘properly’ learning how to drive ‘a stick’. I first got an auto license, only learning manual a few years later when I just HAD to buy a VW Beetle. The beetle, although gorgeous and shiny and downright cute, had a tendency to stall very very easily. She would also backfire in the early days. NOT useful for someone who had never driven ’stick’ before. Not useful at all. Our relationship wasn’t very long to tell you the truth, attributed to the fuel smell that gave me headaches, her lack of speed in our hilly outer eastern suburb, and my fear of blowing off the westgate.

I still haven’t posted about our trip to awesome Daylesford. To come, I promise!

I took this photo DAYS ago, meaning to write this post DAYS ago too. But you know how it happens, life got in the way.

So, in my bag I found (please don’t expect anything exciting!), a mobile phone (shock!), a hello kitty coin purse given to me by Meaghan, new notebook from Lark (bought it in Daylesford on the weekend), KEYS!! ~ two sets, car keys and work keys, various hair bands for little and big girls, mainly from Sunshine & Lollipops, a moederkip card, a kids hanky, tampons (blush), a ‘nudie peg’ (blush), lip gloss, panadol, golden rough wrapper, WALLET (not shown), sunglasses (I think that’s what that black thing is), 3 envirosax. Oh! and Zoe’s ‘z’ badge.

I surprised myself with things like the panadol & tampons…. prepared, who me?

Guess who got a hair cut this week????? Me! I guess you didn’t really need to guess. It is way shorter and curlier and cooler (in both senses of the word.)

LOVE IT!

Now, head on over to VIC’s for more handbags…. go on!

Well I declared it yesterday. Fess Up Friday, a little theme for Fridays to keep me blogging away. The only problem is, I only thought of it yesterday, when I was working at a very quiet and wet mini golf(the two go hand in hand). I’ve had less than a day thinking time on this one. I’m not sure how personal the ‘fess-ups’ should be, how serious, how amusing, how embarrassing.
So, fess up number one…. I admit I haven’t put much thought into ‘Fess up Friday’. Jump in without thinking? Yeah, maybe that’s me.
Enjoy your weekend!! I plan to.
ps. WHY didn’t I participate in ‘my creative space’ yesterday? Because I’m a scatter brain!

pps. I just deleted about 5 extra posts identical to this one. I have a feeling they will still show up in your reader. Erm. Sorry! I did admit to being a scatterbrain

Sew I got stuck into my fabric stash, all prepared and ready to sort through and choose what I’ll be taking on ‘the trip’. Not this weekend’s mini break, I’ll only be taking the SHAWL there. Not the early March Noosa-for-a-wedding trip, that’ll be crochet too I imagine, but NOT the shawl, which will be finished by then I promise! No, I mean our super duper nomadic lifestyle around australia in a caravan trip.

 We are SO limited for space its not funny. BUT, my sewing machine IS coming, and with it the cutting mat/ironing surface thing, the ruler & cutter, sewing box, PATTERNS, mags, and um, fabric. The thing is that like most crafters I know, fabric stashes grow very quickly. I love fabric! It has been so hard to reduce and choose. Anyway, the fabric sorting was going well, and then I got distracted and made this.

The easiest dress EVER. It is a pilowcase dress made using regular fabric. For the polkadot strip along the bottom I used the selvege from another fabric = no hem! So fast! I whipped up a teatowel topper while I was at it. For the caravan! Photo to come of that one.  I thought of writing a tutorial for the teatowel topper, but seriously would anyone else want to make one?

More photos of the dress in action. The mean thing about this is that the REAL beach is only 300m down the hill. Yes, mean mummy prefers to buy ice creams than spend a hot  hour or two at the beach.

Oh wow,’boost’ on picnik really makes that red ZING!  Apologies for any damage to your retinas.

Now I have this great idea for ‘fess up Friday’, where I will reveal my deepest darkest… ok maybe not those…. but some stuff I bet you haven’t heard from me yet. Only thing is, tomorrow we are headed off to Daylesford for the weekend. And for the Maker’s Market YIPPEE! I may not be able to sneak in a fess up. Or maybe I’m just making excuses, OK ‘Fess Up Friday’ starts tomorrow. Feel free to join in

I’m afraid this will be a very boring post about my current predicament. You see we’re living in a kind of limbo land, somewhere between home and our home on wheels. Belongings have been boxed up, given away or sold. This includes shoes. The current mob still needs to be pared down (or is that ‘paired down’?) to fit our most humble abode-to-be.

Here they are

And my two ‘helpers’ who loved to try on all the shoes. Which on the steps seemed a bit dangerous!

The ladybird and dinosaur were added in Picnik… we had a fun time!

So as mentioned, our ’stuff’ is SLOWLY reducing. Bag after bag heading out the door to friends or to the oppies, who are my friends too. I’m not doing too badly with the shoes. I still haven’t found my nice sandals, purchased especially for this summer *sigh*, and Zoe’s left goldie is missing this week. Still that looks like TOO MANY for a caravan trip!

I’m being strongly encouraged to get stuck into my fabric stash. Yep, the best of it came here with me. It is so difficult to decide what to bring! The poor folks left behind to sit in storage for twelve months or more. Tomorrow is D-Day. Decision making time right here. One tub to take. Shown right here on this blog tomorrow night.

Wish me luck.

Oh, and show us your shoes!

Me? I want these for the wedding we’re going to in March…

thanks to Vic and Gypsy for My Place & Yours this week!

I’ve been eating birthday cake

Working on the shawl

Reading the ‘Bean’

Punctuated by many questions from the kids, frozen oranges, lovely visits from friends and SLEEP, that delicious past time.

I hope yours has been just as enjoyable!

Again, apologies for my lack of blogging… but just think, in a couple of months this blog is going to get EXCITING! If you’ve somehow forgotten, our little family is heading off on a big adventure! Yep, come April we’ll finally begin our journey up the East coast of Australia. I for one, can’t wait.

I feel like I’ve had my head in the clouds these last few months, or rather clouds in my head, a sleepiness I just can’t shake. This week has been better, although now I’m having trouble sleeping. I’m crocheting my little heart out to finish a shawl for a very nice friend. I’m using the crochet as a meditation, it helps quieten my mind. So what was I doing at 1am? Yep, up on the couch crocheting. I couldn’t sleep.  

Now look at this big boy. He really has grown up so much lately. His proudest achievement is having the training wheels taken off his bike, and he tells ANYONE who will listen.

Right now he is waiting patiently to make a birthday cake for ‘Pa’ ~ my Dad. We’re doing a blackforest cake. Yum!