Over the hedge

At the start of the month Toby and I planted 80 Murraya hedge plants along our front fence line. We've been undecided about what to do with the front fence since we moved in (2 and a half years ago) as its an ugly old metal fence that isn't at all attractive so we had the option of knocking it down and putting up a picket fence or growing a hedge.

For a long time Toby wanted to have both, but I've been leaning towards a hedge. We have also been unsure as to what type of hedge. After visiting our wedding destination who have a Murraya growing around the verandah it won Toby's heart (it's the one I wanted from the start, it's amazing how boys have to see things first before trusting your decision making). So off to the local Markets we went to buy 80 plants. We got a good deal since we were buying so many and because they are only seedlings. Here's a picture Toby posted on instagram.

Murraya's are an evergreen shrub that get a pretty white little flower in spring and late summer that smell just like orange blossom. I can't wait for them to take over the fence and provide the front yard with a little privacy.

Grow babies Grow

Our new couch

What do you think?

The last 2 weeks.....

Wow I'm officailly an incredibly slack blogger! I've been meaning to blog since Easter! Pathetic I know. Life has just been super super busy! Toby has had the school holidays off with me so on good Friday I came home from visiting our wedding venue (more on that later) to find that he had been peeking under the carpet in our hallway and it looked pretty bad how he had placed the carpet back down so I suggested that maybe we rip it up...... which started a whole week and a half worth of work ripping up carpet, moving everything into our shed, cleaning, sanding and varnishing floor boards, we are officially moved back in now, thanks to my mum for putting us up fpor a few days. We have completed everything but still need to varnish our back hallway and laundry which is ready to go we just need to leave the house for a bit for it to dry. We were unsure whether to do it before we get our house re piered in a few months but we just got sick of doing nothing! It was a massive massive job but im so so so pleased with the results.

While we were out of the house for a few dayes we got to spend some quality time with these to beautiful babes! they were such good girls for us. We had one beautiful day and one rainy day!

I hope you all had a wonderful Eatser surrounded by loved ones!

and I'll leave you with an Easter pic of toby and the Eatser bunny (aka Willow Bebe)

Apple Papple

For My birthday last week i was fortunate enough to receive a whole heap of goodies! I am one lucky girl! One present I really love is the Apple Papple print from Fine little day, I received from my SIL jessica. It's currently leaning against a wall in my lounge room waiting to be hung. (when i decide where to hang it) here is a few pic's of it in some of my favourite bloggers homes. 

Here it is in little birdies room over at Bleubird vintage

here it is at Bodie and Fou

and here its in Elvis' room at Maggie and Sparrow (I'm inlove with this velvet chair as well)

I think it's going to look lovely on my walls :)

Life lately through instagrams

 

The last week has been pretty busy, varying from Ring-a-ring-a-rosy on my sisters trampoline, to homebake in Sydney where we got to see some great Aussie (and kiwi) bands (and catch up with a few friends), to xmas decorating and card making, to chilling out under our Apple tree. Life has been busy busy. I haven't worked the last two days as school is starting to wind down so I have tried to get into some Christmas crafts. I think December is busy for everyone but that's one of the reasons I love it so. 

Olive tree Markets

Have you been? I went to the Olive Tree markets on the weekend with Jessica and baby Willow and they were SO good! I hadn't been for around a year and it was their 3rd birthday! Even Willow enjoyed them...

They had lots of new stalls including a lady that sold the most amazing salted caramel macaroons! YUM! I think we will be making it a monthly date just for those macaroons. A girl that I went to school with had a stall selling prints of her artwork which I brought she is very talented and is also studying to be an art teacher like me! I also brought some cushions from now that's gorgeous which I love and have placed on my bed (they have brown velvet backing)

I found it funny that I brought cushions this week as my friend kelly blogged about being a cushionaholic which I think I may be bordering on, really though, I can think of worse things to be addicted to! Also here's looking at me kid talked about her fetish with vintage velvet cushions. What is your home decor addiction?

Decorate

This year one of my favourite bloggers, Holly Becker along with Joanna Copestick released a book called Decorate. I have wanted to purchase the book since it's release but it took a while to reach Australia and I kept putting it off having more "important" things to purchase. One of my dear friends (who is also very observant) surprised me with the book last week! I was so surprised and thankful, it was such a beautiful gesture and I love her for it!

So as for the book, I love it! It's everything I expected and more. Holly is a great writer as you can see from her blog so f you enjoy her blog you will, like me, love her book. I haven't finished it yet but the homes she chose to display are so inspirational yet achievable, if that makes sense. That's one thing I don't like about decorating books, they are often unrealistic for most people. This book cater's to many taste's and offers advice in all area's of the home. In the school holidays (this time next week yay) I want to create my own mood board for a room in our house.

I Love this quote she uses from Amy Butler in the book:

"Allow yourself the patience to know it will all come together in time, and enjoy the process! For me home decor is not a goal, but a continually evolving and kinetic art project."

Thanks Mel xoxoxoxox

We have a light!

On saturday before we headed out we tested the fireplace. It looks good here but it did take some time and a youtube clip to light it! How amazing is youtube for stuff like that. On Sunday we spent an hour fiddling with it until we ran out of newspaper and gave up.

We need to find some tools and purchase a cover, I think I need to go shopping :)

June

So this morning I woke up at 6.20am and hit snooze and as I was laying there trying to wake up I thought It's June how on earth is it June already? June I mean really the year is nearly half over! June means winter (even though it has been a bit cold the last few weeks) this whole week I have had my chimney sweep cancel on me as it won't stop raining he said wet soot is a no deal! I cant wait to have a fire, I've never had a fireplace before an in this house I have 2! 

Below is the fireplace in our bedroom.

So I was thinking about seasons and it took me back to my autumn goals and I can honestly say I've done 5/10 how poor is that! So I'm going to try harder with my winter goals (I don't have any yet but a few autumn goals will be carried over!)

June is going to be a busy month, with christening's, birthday celebrations, & lots of catch ups.

 I say bring it on

What are your plans this June?

Home

So I'm sitting at home on a Saturday evening and it got me thinking about my house,

it probably doesn't help that I have Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zero's song "Home" stuck in my head (it's just so catchy!). One of the reasons I started this blog was to document the renovations that were taking place, however they are on a bit of a standstill at the moment while we are saving for the grand job of re-piering our house, you've seen our new fence and vegetable patch but there are many other things that need to be done. Toby did do a little fix up in the bathroom today with re-sealing the tiles but thats not all that exciting. With all this said I really do love our house, some things I love about it include: the family connection, Toby's great Grandfather Built it (we had no idea), it's 99 year's old  (i think we may have a birthday party for it next year), it's location, the yard (and the puppies that live in it), the fruit tree's that are older than us, the arch in the hallway (even with it's chip), the high ceilings, the fireplaces, it's comfyness, our art and photo's on the walls, it's crack, it's potential, the sunroom and most of all that I get to share it with a beautiful boy,  it's definitely a home!   

Ahh, Home
Let me come Home
Home is wherever I’m with you
La la la la, take me Home
Baby, I’m coming Home

Amy xo



Fresh Flowers

Nothing beats having fresh flowers in the house!

We had heaps left over from the baby shower so I've had a week with these

 beauties on my dining room table.

I just put a small bunch of Roses in a Grolsch bottle.

 I like it when Toby occasionaly drinks Grolsch beer as I love the bottles.

Sadly Today I only have one mixed bunch left! Hopefully Toby will buy me some flowers soon (I'm not getting my hopes up)

What's your favourite type of flowers?

Amy xo

Jessica's Baby Shower

On Sunday I hosted my lovely 'one day to be' sister in law's baby shower. I found out that I really love planning and hosting parties and what a better party to plan then a baby shower where we get to goo and gaa over beautiful baby things. Jessica is due on the 21st of June & I've wanted to share plans on here but she reads my blog and I didn't want to spoil the surprise for her. I have been inspired by many blogs so I will share links where many ideas have come from.

I was inspired by Taza's from Rockstar diaries invites they were the coolest I'd ever seen

Jessica's were fun to make, I love bunting I used Vintage fabric purchased from thriftypyg and sewed it onto the invitations with my new sewing machine (thanks santa) that I had printed at officeworks, I think they look pretty sweet.

Jessica and Dean are not finding out the sex of the baby so instead of the traditional Blue and Pink's we went with a multicoloured theme for the shower, I made lots of paper pom pom's for decor. The shower was held outside so we set up a shade and hung pom pom's as a centerpiece, and from my pine tree.

I wanted to have some unique games, we started with an ice breaker where if froze plastic babies purchased on ebay in ice, the first person for their water to 'break' wins.

The most beautiful shower game I found on Dandee. I made felt heart pins and placed them in a Jar and directed guests to take out a heart and pin it on there shirt and say there name, how they know Jessica and what they think of motherhood. It was very sweet even a couple of tears.

Another lovely activity I found on Dozi was painting dolls for Baby Campbell, being arty I thought this was the perfect activity, I found the wooden dolls on Etsy from iUsedToBeATree 

I also painted a blackboard where we paid $1 to have a guess on what day Jessica will have the baby and what sex it will be. The winner takes all.

Two hours into the shower the clouds turned grey! it started to Rain

So we headed indoors and Jessica began opening her presents,

and boy was she spoilt. Her friends gave her the lovliest gifts. Below is a blanket my mum made her, i think my mum's pretty clever :)

This is what I got for her a beautiful skunkboy creatures custom doe head, Baby Campbell's nursery is going to be woodland themed so it matches perfectly. Katie from Skunkboy creatures is oh so talented I have a few of her pieces. You can visit her blog here or her etsy store here.

We were pretty cosy indoors and ate some lovely sweets made by Jessica's mum Kay, Casey and myself. This is the cake Kay made, she's also a clever mum.

When the shower wound up the guests left with these gorgeous cookies from hello naomi, I've eaten mine they taste amazing! I placed them in cello bags and made a thankyou swing tag out of cardboard and I used my sewing machine to sew a felt heart onto it.

It was a great day for a gorgeous girl who in two months will have the most wonderful gift of all

"Two Lives, two hearts, joined together in friendship, united forever in love" 

Thanks for letting me plan your shower Jessica I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did

xoxoxox



The Vegie Patch

So as mentioned in an earlier blog entry when we got our new back fence I said I wanted a vegie patch. On friday afternoon I got home from work to a surprise as T had brought all the materials to build it! So on Saturday morning we got up early (when the soil got delivered) went out for our usual breakfast before voting then headed back home to build the patch.

We used treated pine as a frame purchased from bunnings

Three layers of pine, then we lined it with plastic so that the treatment in the pine

wouldn't hurt the soil, so much soil was shovelled.

The herbs and vegetables, I decided with a variety, Rosemary, Thyme, Mint, Basil (spicy and sweet), Lettuce, Dutch Carrots, Snow Peas, and Chilli all from Bunnings.

The finished product (looking a little droopy I'm hoping they pep up soon)

In the afternoon I decided to paint our old back door it had paint peeling everywhere, so after a light sand I painted it white, it's something we won't keep once we renovate but it needed to be jazzed up a little. These two kept me company.

Amy

xo