a weekend away...

after finding a great deal on here, bb and i booked a little post-birthday weekend escape to lorne.
we've not really spent a lot of time to the west (or the north...) of melbourne as we both grew up in the south east of victoria so it was a good little excuse for some exploration!
ready for some pictures?


eating fish and chips on the foreshore



the view from our room




our complimentary seafood platter (it came with the room! can you believe it!?!) for two, should read, seafood platter for four i think... we gave away our oysters and mussels to an older couple on the table next to us as we don't really eat them.


what was left of said platter...




a book we found in a second hand book shop (where we bought several awesome second hand books, love the character of pre-owned books), it was titled kane's arctic explorations and was published in the 1830's!



trampolining on the foreshore. about a minute and a half after this photo i realised i am actually not as young as i think as my back started hurting something shocking from all the bouncing! poor old thing!



a quick trip on the way home to split point lighthouse. also known as the lighthouse from 'round the twist, have you ever, ever felt like this. as much as i wanted to do the tour, my back was still feeling pretty delicate, perhaps not quite nimble enough for tramping up all of those stairs!

needless to say, i'm about to begin planning our next trip away. it was so refreshing to go somewhere new and make our own memories and get away from all the responsibilities that being at home brings (housework bleurgh!)

this week...

i'm recovering after a weekend away (more about that tomorrow...)



i'm doing lots of washing.
i'm making lots of spring cleaning type lists for both the inside of the house AND the outside. now if i only had the motivation to get some of them done...
i'm planning out my next crafty move now that i'm done with the baby blanket (more about that later too...)
i'm also working on framing some pictures for my feature wall idea for over our bed.
i'm organising a little crochet how-to afternoon, after promising lots of people lessons for a while...
i'm also vaccuuming and mopping the floors (excitement PLUS, i know! but if you knew just how desperately it needed doing...)

and most excitedly, i'm writing lots of blog posts, commenting on lots of blog posts, and just generally flitting about on my bran new laptop!



an amazing birthday present from my even more amazing boyfriend!
my old one was getting beyond ridiculous, i had to copy and paste a 'g' whenever i had to use one. very annoying but has made me appreciate my brand new shiny one alllllll the more. i've practically been using it wearing white gloves!

back tomorrow to share all about our little holiday!

ps. did you watch making it handmade last night on abc2? it was amazing! you can watch it here for a little bit :D

flea market finds.

this weekend just gone, bb and i headed off on a weekend away to lorne. it was a great adventure for the two of us as both of us had grown up on the south east coast of victoria and therefore had never spent much time on the south west coast.
my main priority once we got there on friday night was to hunt down an op-shop or two. we found one on the main street that said it was open 10-4 every day (optimistically, no it really said optimistically!)

before lunch the next day we headed back down. after a quick look around (wasn't really in the mood for a dig through anything...) we were about to head out when i spotted this high up on a shelf.



it was love at first sight and i knew it was destined to be mine.

i have no idea what i want to do with it, or what i should keep in it, but i'm very excited to have it home and sitting on top of my heater!

more flea market finds over with sophie!

friday.

and a lovely day it has been.
the sun was shining and the boy and i had the entire day off together and we went to see the new harry potter film. have you seen it yet? i did thoroughly enjoy it (even though they can't seem to get everyone's eyes the right colour...)

anywho, i just wanted to quickly let you know about a giveaway that the lovely pip is holding over on her blog! all you need to do to enter is to make a donation to the dry july campaign. easy peasy! you could win a whole bunch of awesome stuff for only $2!!!
now i'm off to have a glass of wine... (just kidding, mostly) and most definitely do some crochet!

shopping madness.

first stop on my planned shopping trip on saturday was lark! both for the warehouse sale they were having and to have a bit of a sticky at their newly renovated shop!



i found lots of things i liked the look of (and the price of) in the warehouse sale!
like this red spotty biscuit tin and matching oven mitt...

and these bits and bobs too! a cath kidston 'kerchief, some colourful tape and some cute as a button buttons! i especially like the i <3 to knit one. so appropriate! i did buy one more thing at the sample sale as a gift for someone, but she'll have to wait til tomorrow to see!

i popped into the lark store just for a quick look but didn't leave there empty handed either... some empty seed packets! so cute and i have a special project in mind for them too...


having seen all there was to see at lark, we toddled down to the makers market. so many beautiful handmade items! i could've spent a fortune! i limited myself though to this delicious packet of brownie ends (i couldn't decide on a single flavour and this bag has ALL of them!) and a make-your-own finger puppet book for my cousin.



then it was off to the farmers market, lots of fresh and delicious produce and products. we left with some scrumptious bread, flavoured oils, cheeses and i scored some of this....


similar taste to a cider but much bubblier and a bit drier. i'll save this one for a special occasion i think :D

hope your weekend was as fabulous as mine!

a weekend in the hills.

as i mentioned earlier, i headed off this past weekend to the daylesford area with some of my girly relatives for a girl's weekend away and i thought i'd share some pictures with you of the place we stayed.
the accommodation was called linga longa, and we stayed in one of the larger country houses. the house was just beautiful! a really gorgeous old house, kitted out with beautiful furniture, kitsch and retro artworks and little personal knick-nacks all over the place.
the most important thing i found though was that it was beautifully warm! although it is a very old building, it's been fitted with modern amenities such as ducted heating, electric blankets and a gas log fire (as well as the open fireplace which my mum revelled in lighting). the beds were also super comfy and the showers and spa were beautiful and new!
it was also very affordable! i would most definitely recommend it :D
now for the photos ha ha!

i shall be back tomorrow to share all of my purchases from here and here and here!

(almost) summer holiday.

so it's been a little while between blog posts, but i've been working hard. and by working hard i mean holidaying with friends.
yup it's been a pretty hard week ha ha.



we stayed in a friends relatives coastal holiday house, aptly nicknamed the pink palace.



and spent the first day swimming, beach walking, sunbathing, fishing aaaaaaaand...



meeting the neighbors.




but unfortunately on the second day, there was a little too much of this.




so we kept the boredom at bay by making mattress forts (what else would you expect of four 22 year old girls?)


and of course, drinking cocktails, eating yummy nibblies and playing board games.



and me, well i kept myself busy with my crochet hook!

how's your week been?

ps. don't forget to follow along to be in the running for my giveaway. only 2 followers to go!!!

happy hallowe'en!

happy hallowe'en!

yes i know we're in australia but it's all a bit of fun really. i love an excuse to dress up in a costume and have some drinkies!
are you celebrating today? have you had visits from trick or treaters?
i haven't luckily, all i have in my cupboard is water crackers and fat-reduced, salt-reduced 2-minute noodles... that kind of fair would most definitely get my front yard toilet papered i think!

more op shopping!

this time i went with mum though! the town that i grew up in has about a million op-shops so instead of just going to one op shop, like on saturday, we went to 4!
i feel that i was pretty restrained considering i only bought things from 3 of 4.
as you might have noticed, i picked up a lovely little set of drawers, which are very well needed as my current ones are literally falling apart! and an absolute bargain for $30. might change the handles though, they're a bit tacky and plastic.


a closer look at what treasures are in the drawer... 3 pairs of loooooong knitting needles, $1 each. a nice glass jar to match my others, $1. 6 balls of navy wool, $2 for the lot. vintage sunnies, $2 (they're prescription ones, but they're MY prescription, no wayyyyyy!). aaaaaaaaaaaand the piece de resistance, a stainless steel cocktail shaker, $2. i announced last week to my friends that i needed one of these and that my next alcohol purchase would be a bottle of vermouth so i could start making martinis at home. fate then delivered this baby to me. perfect!


aaaaaaaaaaaand we found a million of these, ok well 4. it took us aaaaages to figure out what they were for. anyone know?
they're cask wine containers. in case you don't want everyone to know you drink cask wine i guess... they were in the first 3 op shops we went into. mum and i couldn't stop laughing when we worked it out.
so i don't think there'll be very much opshopping from now on, our rent's going up so we should probably save our cash!
stay tuned for beanie updates on thursday!

falls.

falls festival 09/10. it was the first time we'd been to falls. and the first time we'd been on a holiday together. excitement plus.

i got really excited every time i saw one of these signs.

"look, look there's another one. WE'RE GOING THE RIGHT WAY!"

we got in ok. didn't have to wait too long in a car queue and despite the warnings didn't get our entire car searched. i clearly could've brought in heaps of alcohol! we were good and didn't risk it though. i didn't particularly want to get all the way to marion bay and then be turned around. it WAS the only reason we really went to tassie after all...

after setting up our tent we went and got our wristbands which MATCHED my nailpolish! THIS was something to be excited about! no not really, but small things entertain me.

i got my shoes ready for jumping around in a crowd of people. didn't want to be losing any shoes thank you.

when these guys came on, i went mental. i love me some philly j's. they played the good news and don't want to party last at which point THEY went mental. the roadies literally took apart the drummers kit as he was still playing because they literally would not leave that stage. it was amazing!!!

miss sarah blasko was quite lovely to listen to.

we lay down under a tree and listened to her blissful tunes. look how amazing that view is!

after a bit of a snooze under said tree, some exploration yielded the toilets. of the composting variety. do your business and throw in a cupful of sawdust.

fyi. sawdust in your undies or pants is NOT comfortable. take care when sitting down!

this was the view from our tent. just magnificent.

an absolute sea of tents and cars! there were so many people even for a festival in tasmania.

when night fell, wolfmother came out to play. they were awesome to listen to but reacted with and to the audience almost zero.

emiliana torrini was by far the most amazing! she was simply beautiful! and soooooo cute. some people in the front had a sign saying marry us emiliana and she went and got her polaroid camera and took a photo of them.

and her band was cool too. this drummer was playing a cymbal with a bow. it sounded really cool!

and so the sun set on 2009. yup that's a storm on the horizon. one last storm for 2009. and it was a spectacular storm!

we packed up all our stuff in the car that we didn't want to get wet and sat in the back seat of the car watching the amazing light show. i've never seen a storm like it. needless to say i didn't take many photos of the night. though we did venture out before midnight, caught some yeah yeah yeahs and the countdown before grabbing some yummy festival food and heading back to our tent to snuggle down for the first time for the new year.

bye falls! see you next year? hopefully but we'll have to wait and see if the old credit card's recovered from this one yet.

blog delays.

so that last post was written about a week and a half ago... it's just taken me this long to get my photos together with my words, i've been working simply stupid amounts. excellent for the pocket, not so great for the blogging...
the money's been excellent for planning the boyfriend and my big new years escape. we're heading to tassie for falls festival in marion bay and then some touristy type activities. stay tuned for lots of photos from that!
here's a little ripple update for you all... it hasn't grown much for the above mentioned reasons.



and because i've been making some more of these...
i've been meaning to string them together but i'm still figuring out how to. any suggestions?



oh and i'd tell you about how marvelous the backyard looks, but it looks like a jungle... i had a bit of a crack at it yesterday after work but it's still a mess. delaying that old chestnut til we're back from holidays i think. too much effort in this heat!
so what's everyones plans for christmas? i'm heading down to mum and dad's place tomorrow night. night out on the town to catch up with old friends on chrissie eve and then lots of dinners and lunches and some working thrown into the mix.
happy holidays everyone!

notable absence.

my apologies for the long spaces between blog posts. my capped internets have been driving me crazy! it would take about an hour to load a blog page to read, let alone upload pretty pictures to show you all. in any case with that madness behind me let me fill you in...

after my last post, i went back to the country to visit my parents again. this time though, i actually got some damn gardening done. i called on some help from this one.

and these old moles. they were both much more helpful than the damned goat. with boss cocky shouting encouragement (probably insults, he's hard to understand) and the chooks milling to find any tasty tidbits that were coming out from the clumps of weeds. they only occasionally went for my finger nails instead...


i worked away a little bit at this little garden bed. it's outside the gate of my mums vegie garden and it's been my dream to turn it into a little flower patch since we moved in (7 years ago). this summer it's going to happen! i can see it now, nicely mulched in daisies and pigface, brightening up everything, with some nice pavers leading up to the gate. it'll happen, mark my words.


i still hadn't managed to get any ripple wool so i was working frantically on this baby. it's getting quite long now. this is on the fourth ball of five so it should be finished soon. and i can't wait for it to be done. scarves are easy but get a bit monotonous. i can't wait to sink my needles into some juicy beanies. yes i think you'll be hearing quite a lot about beanies in the posts to come.


and to support a good cause, i purchased this lovely shade of nailpolish. opi are my favourite and if you buy this colour (queen of pink), they'll donate $10 to breast cancer funds. amazing. and pretty too! the colour reminds me of fairy floss :D


as for those pesky weekly goals, the teetering pile of filing is still there, teetering away. that's todays big goal actually, only a week after i decided i'd do it.
this weeks goal is to finally book tickets for the boy and my's new years holidays. and i've just done this. one way only though, i'll let the credit card recover a bit before purchasing return tickets i think.
i'm thinking a ripple update might be coming soon, it's been a while...