No Camera!

That's right NO camera - one has a flat battery and the other was left out in the rain by someone who shall remain nameless!! So these pics were taken with the ipad. Which means they are not as clear as I would have liked but I really wanted to show you some more cards and garden delights.

Butterfly Card - Butterfly stamps and lots of little dots with 'Perfect Pearls' 

A very simple easy one using some card that I have embossed.

The bulbs are coming up! Yay - I just love bulbs to bits.

Fabulous winter colour in the garden with Bethel Sage and ??

Lovely white Camellia

Desire Camellia

More winter colour with the Leucodendrons

Finally the Camellia Waterlily. So beautiful.

When the camera is back on deck I will take some much nicer pics. Today was so beautiful, warm (well kinda, in a Warm winter's day in Melbourne way) and sunny that I just had to go out and click all of this lovely colour for you.

Papercrafting

I have been having a great time, since I retired from quilting and sewing in general, making cards and  fiddling with other aspects of papercraft.
Here are some pics of my endeavors.

I love this one with its little greeting envelope
on the front and the  die cut butterfly which was
 the very devil to get out of the die. 

Here is the little message inside

This card needed to be fairly plain so just a little bit of colour
on the flower stamp

A paper covered and embellished drawer unit and
special card for my MIL's birthday

Got this pattern from a mag. It's quite small but would be
quite good for a gift card and some sweets

See, there's room

My husband's birthday card. Used some old pics of him and his family then
just scanned them and the rest is with the use of some pattered papers,
stamps and gold embossing.

Cattle through the mist munching on the frosty grass.

Frosty Grass and Beautiful Camelias

 And just so as to not dissappoint those of you who have come to expect some garden pics with my posts:

New Name

My Quilting Machine sold to a lovely couple from Cobar NSW. Colleen and John.
Colleen owns a quilting shop in Cobar and John does the quilting! What a great arrangement.
They drove all the way down and back to collect the machine and it is now installed, up and running! Wonderful.
All of this means that I have to come up with a new name for my blog and that it  will no longer have any quilting content. There will be occasional sewing but gardening will probably be the focus now.

My new craft is papercraft. I have taken up card making with a vengeance and love it! My little brain is ticking away at other ways of utilizing these fun techniques.

Here are some of my first attempts at card making:

My 'Pretties' range

and the insides are always decorated too

A Little Birdie told me!

inside

Owl stamps - so cute

Don't forget the inside

Not my fav's but may be someone's cup of tea

love the insides

Lovely red and white card. Everything you see started off as plain white card.

SO - stay tuned as I come up with a new name for my blog. Hope everyone has a lovely day.

Call yourself a CAT?

Kanga came trotting up the hall with a mouse, from the garage. I tried to 'shoosh' her out with it but she let it go and it ran into the bathroom. I shut the door and told her to "get on with it". 

This is what I found when I came back 10 minutes later.

I was so disgusted with her ineptitude that I chucked her out 

and put the mouse back in the garage!

Tuesday Treasures

My treasure today is SPRING!
I just love Spring and I'm sure I'm not alone there.
This morning it was lovely and sunny and not freezing (I couldn't bring myself to say warm, cos it weren't!) ---
So I took to the camera and snapped some garden shots for you to help me celebrate Spring!'

Mint wrapped in Nasturtiums

The Girls - Notice the gate lying against the pen? This is to stop the girls from digging up their north garden. Notice the two pots elevated on bricks on the verandah? That's to stop the girls from muching on my Marjoram and Oregano! Naughty girls

Scratching in the sun. The little plum tree in front of the pen will provide lovely morning shade for the girls as it grows. To the north (right of pic) is another new tree. It is a pink Robinia. It will give the girls lots of shade in the summer and give me the joy of looking at the mass of gorgeous bunches of pink flowers every Spring. I can't wait!

Lots of lovely Lemons

Squillions of Mulberries

Blueberries galore

My glorious Dwarf flowering red peach and a girl busily about her business.

The Waratah - Corroboree - What can I say? Magnificent

A row of assorted lettuce

Tuscan Black Kale - full of antioxidants - Yum

Strawberries in the making

Species Geranium

Lavender - of course!

Pink English Bluebells

White English Bluebells

Bronze daisies

Hydrangea wrapped in Nasturtiums

Johnnies jumping up all over the place.

I hope you have enjoyed this little stroll around my Spring garden.
Please join Melody at The House on the Side of the Hill for more Tuesday Treasures

A Tea Cosy

Hello all. I trust everyone is having a good Monday?
For this past week I have been laid low with Bronchitis. (An activity I would not recommend incidentally.)
Anyway I did a whole lot of not much apart from sleeping, coughing! and finishing this tea-cosy.

Finally, I have beaded and finished my tea cosy.

I love tea-cosies: along with aprons, table-cloths and beautiful china. It's the whole 'sitting down to a proper morning/afternoon tea' - thing. Although, having said that, probably the most common time of day for me to use a tea-cosy is breakfast. I'll make a pot of yummy tea with real tea, you know, leaves not bags. I have discovered a wonderful shop called T2. This place is tea heaven. It has all sorts of wonderful tea blends from black Breakfast teas to Green tea and every herbal concoction you can imagine. AND they have teapots, cups and gorgeous, cute  accessories. I bought myself a mesh ball which eliminates the need for a tea strainer. There are times though when I like to use a tea strainer purely for sentimental reasons.

This is my mother's old tea strainer. It looks a bit 'gungy' with the posh china but I love it. It has wonderful character and OH the stories it must have heard over the years. There were tea parties with my grandmother and her friend Mrs Cohen and her sister in law Aunty Jess - Gossiping gurus! Years later My mother with my aunt and Mum's good friend and work colleague Joan. I can still hear them shrieking with laughter! Good times.

It fits perfectly into one of the dinky little jam/sugar pots where it can drip after use.

So back to breakfast: ... Then I will put it on a tray with a lovely cup and saucer, jug of milk, tiny jam dishes with marmalade, strawberry jam and butter on them and a couple of pieces of toast in the toast rack.
For those who are not acquainted with toast racks they are usually made out of china and hold your toast upright and separate to allow the toast to cool and crisp up a little without going tough or soggy.

An arty pic of the tea cosy and one of my favourite trios.

The new strainer ball - A brilliant invention! It has a rubber 'string' which doesn't get hot.

I take my tray out into the lovely morning sunshine and enjoy the leisurely breakfast of a 'retired' lady. The finishing touch is a lovely table cloth, of course. Ahhh, this is the life!
I feel the call of the tea-leaves! I'm off ...  catch you all later ...