Better After

A while ago now I stumbled upon one of my most favourite blogs called Better After ... read about my finding it HERE

I have been doing a lot of renovating, upcycling and rejuvenating around my place since I moved in. I have a lot of before pics! Not as many after pics but I am slowly getting there!

I decided that I would start doing a weekly Better After post to share with you guys what I have done, as well as encourage me to get MORE after's finished!

So here is my first Better After!

BEFORE

This was how part of my back yard looked when we first moved in. The previous owners had a spa pool set up here, which didn't come with the house. It was ugly and such a waste of space. As soon as I had a think about this space I knew I wanted to put my vegetable garden here. So I put it on the list of things to do.

My BEAUTIFUL friend Sima J told me that she was starting a new thing through her Church called "Help Your Neighbour" and she wanted to come help me do something around the house. Now I am a bit of a typical kiwi who tends to NOT like asking or accepting help. I almost said no thanks I'm all good. But then I thought about it some more. I am on my own now. I CAN'T do everything by myself so just suck it up and accept the help gratefully!! So I did.

So one Saturday Morning Sima J, her lovely family and a few friends and my Mum trucked on up and got MAD busy.

DURING

They were AMAZING. My crazy weird square of nothingness became an amazing vegetable garden all in one morning!! 

Silly time of year to make a veggie garden since it's mostly the wrong time for planting much!! But at planting season I plan to fill my garden with yummy things! I sure hope I am a successful gardener so I can share the fruits with my labourers!!

AFTER

Love Love Love my garden!! Thank you SOOOOO much Sima J and crew. I can not even begin to express how much your help means! 

And anyone who knows about veggie gardening, when and what to plant advice is GREATLY received!!

I Love Summer

It is my Favourite time of the year ... You have kids in shorts/skirts, swimming, summer fruit!!! - peaches, nectarines, strawberries, melons, cherries, plums, apricots ohhh my mouth waters at the thought! Christmas, beaches, BBQs, I just love everything about Summer.
Today finally feels like Christmas, we got our tree today and the kids had fun decorating it. I am sitting here in the dark with the Christmas lights on (and a few Christmas candles) and I can smell the tree and the candles and ahhhh smells like Christmas!



This year I got involved in a Christmas Ornament Swap. You make 10 ornaments and post them off and get 10 different ones in return. I made my ornaments from Cd's an idea I got from my Friend Jennie I was completely blown away by the AMAZING ornaments I have so far received in the letterbox. There are some amazingly talented ladies out there!
These are mine ...




and these are the amazing ones I have received in the post so far ...








Something else that I love about Summer is the garden! I have the most awesome Veggie Garden at the moment and OMGoodness the flowers I have around are simple stunning!







Nothing beats home grown veggies!!!

So I am also part way through making a few different Christmas Projects so watch this space! And I have a couple tutorials coming .. and I can't wait to show you my Homemade Christmas Presents!!

BIG Weekend

WARNING: This Blog post will contain a photo BONANZA!!!

We were lucky enough to have Jase home again this weekend! Feeling a bit spoilt really! We had such a fun time this weekend.
Saturday we packed up a picnic lunch and headed off to The Glenbrook Railway for a Day Out with Thomas the Tank Engine with our friend Taryn and her son Adam. Riley has a bit of a phobia about noises and he wasn't too happy to begin with (trains are very noisy!) But after his first ride he was fine and everyone had a great time! We even got to eat our lunch on the train!!
Here are some of my favourite pics ...






And of course the train himself ... THOMAS! (and a couple of his friends!)






On Sunday we packed up another picnic lunch and went to the Auckland Botanical Gardens with my cousin Nicole and her family. We had such a great time wandering around the gardens, with Riley leading the way! Lots of Fun, so much fun that BOTH my kids fell asleep on the way home which is pretty amzing since Riley doesn't sleep in the day!
More fav pics from that day! ....






Jase is lucky enough to have a four day weekend this week so this morning he was lovely and let me have the morning in my craft room :)
I completed 3 LOs today which is the best I've done in a day for a long while! Here they are ...


This LO was for the TM Scrappers Challenge 'Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue' ... I'm not 100% happy with it. I do love how the photos show off Abbey's beautiful Blue Eyes though :)
Something Old - the patterned paper I've had for ages
Something New - Threading Waters Boarder Punch
Something Borrowed - 2184 Challenge #6
Something Blue - Title, paper, my daughters eyes lol


I have wanted to scrap this pic for along time!! Abbey was 2months old and it was our first professional photo shoot with all four of us. I am really pleased with how this turned out :) The papers come from My Minds Eye I tried out making my own bling swirls on this LO, I think they turned out pretty ok! Check out how to make them on this tutorial. I used beads and Kaiser Bling on mine, time consuming but oh so worth it!


Last but not least ... another old pic of the kids. This was one of those times when the page just fell into place. I think this LO took me half an hour to do. It rarely happens that quick! But tonight it did! Heidi Grace papers on this one.
Hubby has just gone to bed which tells me it's bed time!!
Goodnight :)