Grab A Coffee...Long Post...Thanks Gail And Valerie..You Sweeties

Well Its freezing here this morning :(

Looks like winter is round the corner at last.....I love the cooler weather...we are close to the Bunya Mountains..about half an hour away and so our temperatures are a bit cooler than the rest of Queensland..especially at night...I'm wearing warm jammies already :))))








Anyhooo.....
guess what arrived this week..........

My giveaway prize from the fabulously talented Gail McCormack.....it is just so beautiful...she also sent me one of her cards and the sweetest note. The packaging smelt of roses...truly beautiful....I am in raptures.....here are a few photos but my camera just does not do this work of art justice.....Gail, Thank You sooooo much. I am truly honoured to own an original piece of your work...




Next and just as exciting...my Easter Basket Swap arrived from my swap partner the sweet Valerie.....
Oh My....my basket was filled with coloured straw....there were glitter eggs, bunnies, more eggs, chocolate chiccies that didn't even make it to the photo shoot....they were soooooo yummy...














And wait theres more.....pastel coloured crepe paper, vintage paper embellishments, chocolate drinks ( dh and I enjoyed them very much!).












Oh and four vials of GLITTER!!!!!
Oh Valerie you just made my day. I am keeping them all to use next year........ Oh and gorgeous wired ribbon in rainbow colours and a foil flower and the prettiest bunch of lavender velvet flowers...

there was so much it just kept coming out of the box....Valerie you are the best Angel ever......I'm afraid my parcel paled in comparison to yours.......
And lastly I am sharing my Easter decorations.Took photos but haven't had the time to show up to now. I really had a relaxing time over Easter and just did NOTHING!!!
Glorious NOTHING!!!
Enjoy the photos.....they are all packed away in a pretty blue gingham box waiting for next year......













Bye for now.......I am taking part in Sweet Goodness Swaps....Paris in Spring Swap...its all about duck egg blue and Paris.....my favourite city in the world behind London......
huggs

Goodbye Ol' Blue Eyes........Heaven Has a New Angel

On Monday, St Patricks Day our beloved Ol' Blue Eyes, Thomas, left our world to become Heavens newest Angel. He was 12. You will see Thomas sitting on our butchers block on an earlier post. Well Thomas had been losing weight and had a snuffly nose for the past 6 weeks. Despite several doses of antibiotics he was getting worse. A trip to a different vet for a second opinion resulted in an xray which revealed that he had an aggressive tumor in his sinus cavity......so we made the painful decision to let him go.....he was literally starving to death because he wouldn't eat.......here are pictures of Thomas and his friend Sophie last winter....Sophie had a coat on and Thomas was cold...simple solution...piggyback.......

Thomas had the most incredible blue eyes. He was so gentle and placid. He meowed incessantly as all Siamese do when he spoke to us...oh to hear that meow just one more time. You see he lost his best mate Bear (a German Shepherd) about 18 months ago and his Juliet last year. He never connected with our other dogs so he was quite lost. He gave us so much joy we had to let him go. So Thomas is in heaven being nibbled by Bear and snuggling up to Zoe (his Juliet).
Goodbye my brave boy. God Speed until we meet again at Rainbow Bridge.

Have a lovely Easter.

Welcome To My World

I'm home! Back from my Conference. It was very full on but alot of fun. I caught up with some great people. Forgot to take photos. I could kick myself. I left the camera in my car and just kept forgetting to take it out!!!
So I thought I would give you a peek into my world. The area I live in is blooming at the moment. We have had more rain over the summer than in the past 5-6 years. So everything is sooooo green. I live in the country and my neighbours are growing sunflowers...don't you love them? I do.....took these photos from my car today...

I love sunflowers!!

This is the road that leads to my house.



The view on the other side of the road from the sunflowers. It reminds me of a parchwork quilt.

Don't you just love this gorgeous red barn. They use it to store peanuts!

This orchard is just down the road and they grow persimmons on those vines. If you look real close you can see the orangy coloured fruit amongst the vines. They are yummy! and are exported to Asia.



This is my driveway with a peep of my house.

My roses are spectacular this year. The recent rain has produced this late bloom.

I believe these are peace roses. Just gorgeous and they smell amazing!!

So this is my world I hope you enjoyed the ride.

Linda

Easter Swap And Pink Polka Dots

Our Pretty Chic Group decided to have an Easter Swap......and my parcel from Cherrie
arrived a couple of days ago ( check out her blog, Cherrie is so talented and makes the most gorgeous bags,cushions and quilts) ...and what a lucky little Pretty Chiccie I am.....People watching me in my car must have been puzzled at the flying paper as I ripped it open....just a wee bit impatient was I:) Anyways there was a gorgeous pink tussie filled with tiny pink chocolate eggs, some tiny pots of jam...yummo...the most gorgeous lavender filled strawberry ( you have no idea just how much I have lusted after one of these)...you must have esp, Cherrie.....I just loooooove it....a sweet nodding bunny egg cup with more lavender and gorgeous pink soap which I am saving for just meeeeeee....not for anyone else....all packed in the prettiest pink floral box...Thank You Cherrie you are just too sweet...I JUST LOVE EVERYTHING.... So here are the photos......

Oops who opened the box?!?

Look at all those goodies......Just love the...... do you want to see more? ok

Look at those yummy pink eggs......not for long......

Another of my finds this week is.............wait for it............pink spotty cutlery.......CHECK IT OUT.... Just loved it, had to have it, have it........yay.......

And would you believe it is from Target and under $20....sweet........

Oh and last but not least this is my star find............

A giant roll of wallpaper or lining paper as they called it...there must be a couple of hundred metres there...and it was sooooo heavy....

No plans for it yet but it will supply me with heaps of vintage wallpaper for a looooong time :)

Its nearly the end of my work week and I am off to a 3 day Conference next week yay......on the Gold Coast.....so looking forward to it.......so hopefully I will be able to have some time to do a little treasure hunting :)))
take care now
Linda

My Kitchen And A New Blog Site

Hi! Its been a while since my last post, busy , busy with work and lots of trips away. But the sweet girls on my group have been swapping photos of our kitchens so seeing I took time to tidy and I must say it took some time. I thought I would share these photos....now before you take a look...our house is nearly 100 years old and the kitchen is old...not quite 100 years but has not had any major work since the 60s...I have painted and fiddled a bit about 8 years ago but we need a new kitchen badly. When we moved in the cupboards were a sexy 60s orange, the previous owner had updated the benchtops to a brown laminate...you get the picture.....anyways here it is....ta tah......

Its very blue and yellow. I do love blue and white china. Its a country kitchen and I must say I have loads of space to work. I love the top cabinet. I have everything that I use everyday on it so don't need cupboard space. The only thing I don't like is we have no pantry...can get a bit frustrating....I'm so glad you can't see the cobwebs on the window.....

This is not such a great picture....I have a new camera and it takes some very yellow photos....must have a look at it....but a few years ago I added the shelf to the top of the alcove....I though it made it look really good and I guess I still do......great excuse to buy more blue and white stuff.....these alcoves are quite common in old queenslanders....it used to house the wood stove and you can still see where the chimney hole was patched up.....good space for big fridge and stove...really would love one of those stainless steel cooks stoves with the double ovens...
well I need to get a move on and get to work..its Monday morning and there is a whole weeks worth of work to do :)
Oh and why don't you stop by our groups new blog...http://prettychickitchens@blogspot.com...

Take Care
Linda

PS I got the prettiest and heaviest vintage wallpaper border at the market on Saturday. Need to take a photo to show off. And you can see some of my other buys on Ebay this week. My seller name is Raspberry*roses. Check them out.........