My Boy Joseph......

Just look at my beautiful boy Joseph. My doll Joseph that is! I remember the day he arrived at my home. I was around 6 or 7 years old. Up the road from our home lived a family who had three daughters and I guess at that time they would have been in their late teens to mid twenties. The youngest of the family, Gayle had decided that there were some of her childhood things that she didn't want to keep and that is when Joseph came to live with me. I have loved him for the past 35 years or so. He has never had a large wardrobe as he is a large doll. He had a couple of singlets and a matinee jacket or two and alway a nappy to wear. He has wonderful eyes that open and close but the most unusal thing about them is that they move from side to side!

My Mum has been busy smocking and he is wearing his beautiful new smocked bubble suit and his darling little beret! Isn't she so clever. I wish my little girl was still small enough to wear pretty smocked dresses.

He has just had a trip to hospital - the dolly hospital that is. His hand needed fixing and his face was a little worn, but he is all better now!!

I think he looks a darling sitting up there in his lovely vintage high chair (a recent find) with his Bunnykins bowl and mug (that belong to Alexandra) .

We recently took him to a valuer and were quite suprised to find out he is worth at least $200! I was astounded.

Another recent find is this lovely old mirror. I just love its' oval shape. It looks wonderful above the sideboard.

Can you see my mannequin wearing her new "fur". I was so pleased to find it also in the local thrift shop.

Also at the thrift shop last week I found this beautiful cake plate. It has delphiniums on it. It was meant to be I think as I have just planted quite a few punnets of dephiniums in the garden. I am going to hang it on the wall in the kitchen.

My dear friend "B" has been spoiling me again. Look at this lovely trailing vine she bought for me. It certainly did the job of cheering me up during a few weeks of feeling a little low.

I made this "Vintage Tag" a little while ago. It was a lovely little project to work on. I had a lot of fun going through my old lace collection and choosing just the right pieces. It has some embroidery and also quite a lot of little beads and pearls too.

A little more pottering around the house this weekend I hope. The children are on school holidays now which means a little more leisurely pace around here for a few weeks. I just had a phone call to say my two pieces of furniture have had their makeover and will be back tomorrow - so that will be exciting to play with.

So, with some lovely thrifting finds and some very nice pottering in the garden the last two weeks have been a little more bearable.

I visited the lovely Penny McKinlay in Pittsworth this week and bought five beautiful Old Tea Roses. The two I have already, Mrs. B.R. Cant and Rosette DeLizzy are growing beautifully, so hopefully these new ones will perform just as well.

Looking forward to a wonderful weekend.

Rearranging.....

Last weekend we had a bit of a cleanup of our paved area. Having the gas bottles on full view had annoyed me for two years since we moved in. Small thing, I know - but those sorts of things just stick out and annoy me!! I found a little woven screen at Bunnings and thought it would be ideal.

With everything pulled out and then cleaned of course I couldn't help myself other than to rearrange the whole lot. This area gets the full northern winter sun and is mostly quite a nice place to be in winter. We are spoiled here with our winters - although they can be cold and windy we do get a lot of very nice days that are quite pleasant to be outside .

This little table was on our front area at our last house. It hadn't really found a home here but I shifted it to the bottom of the back stairs and put some bits and pieces on it. I think it looks right at home now.

This little ladder had been a bit lost too, but straddled across the garden bed with a few more bits it too looks a bit more at home now.

I love playing with arrangements around my home. I am quite excited to be having two pieces of furniture picked up today to get a face lift. My pine hutch that we have had for at least twenty years is going to be painted white/cream and is having new glass knobs put on and the back replaced with VJ boards also the day bed from Nana and Pop's house is getting the white treatment too. They will go is the living/dining area off the kitchen - one more step towards my dream come true! I hope that I will be able to get a wingback chair sometime soon and a footstool too!!

Blessings...... Small and Large

The week is flying by once again. The school holidays will be here before I know it!

The little plants in the garden are doing well, so far. There are larkspur, foxgloves, delphinium, poppies, snapdragons and then the bulbs, daffodil, jonquil, rununculi and tulips! I really enjoy this time of year in the garden, not too hot to tackle all the jobs at once and exciting to plan for Spring.

I have also made a start on Mitchell's quilt - with a little peep in the picture! I have been quilting now for around seven years and todate my boys do not have quilts - bad Mummy I know!! So this year they are both getting one each. Mitchell is a bright boy and loves green, so his is bright with lots of green to match his room. He has a "Bok Choy" feature wall and he just loves his green "hand" chair (shaped like a hand). His fabric is the Friends and flowers range.

Cameron's will be more sedate in the Peace on Earth range - just love the map fabric for the back - so very Cameron .

Well, my biggest boy has been busy, busy. He has started an Arts/Business degree at University and is juggling two part time jobs to pay for his passion and long term goal in life - flying!!

Cameron has loved all things aeroplanes since he was just a little boy. We gave him a trial flying lesson for his 12th birthday and that was the beginning of this very long haul for him. It is just so expensive to fly and basically you buy yourself a job at the cost of at least $60000 for starters
!!

On the 1st May, 2008 this 17 year old son of mine flew solo!! I thought driving a car was bad enough, but knowing he is flying on his own is definately worse.

So I guess he is on the way to fulfilling his career goal. I just pray he will be kept safe and that he is always just so careful when he goes flying and also out in the car.

I just wonder where the last 18 years disappeared to.

As I have written today my thoughts keep wandering to a family from our church who have lost their little boy after a hard battle with illness. I am truly blessed with healthy children and I thank God for that each day.

We really should be humbled everyday and be thankful for the lives most of us live, but it shouldn't take a tragedy to bring me to my knees in thankfulness.

I am truly Blessed beyond belief.

Bits and Pieces.......

An adventurous few days for me. We had a most enjoyable time away, just the two of us! We had won a prize package to stay at the Casino at the Gold Coast - not something we would have ever chosen for ourselves! It was certainly a different weekend than we've ever had before. The room and the food was wonderful. The show was not quite my taste in music, but not unbearable! The casino - an eye opener!!!! :-)

It made be feel quite sad that from very young people to quite old ladies were at 11 p.m. on a Saturday night in a place like that with obviously nothing else to do with their time or money!! Oh well, each to their own I guess.

We stopped at Ikea on the way through Brisbane. Just loved all the bits and pieces there. I hope to go back and get a couple of pieces of furniture soon. BJ thought we had finished on the top floor but I gently explained to him that the things to buy were on the next floor down!!! I made sure he was fed between floors!!!

I enjoyed some time shopping on Sunday before we came home and thankfully, I finally bought some new shoes for winter - I can tell you, it was becoming quite embarrassing to go out!

Charcoal Flannel with Black Patent Trim!

Just Black!

The last couple of weeks I have been able to get small snippets of time in the garden. I got all the bulbs planted and found a couple of jonquils popping their little heads through this morning. I have done quite a few pots and baskets up with pansies and other bits and pieces.

I found this wagon in one of my favourite places and got BJ to drill some holes in the bottom so I could plant it up too!!

I was a very lucky girl a couple of weeks ago when Leanne was having a giveaway of her new pattern "Two Brown Chickens". Thank you Leanne - I hope I get to stitch it soon! It's just like my Scoot and Trixie at the bottom of my garden!!

New shoes, a new pattern and flowers in my garden - what more could a girl want - well, maybe just some time to stitch and then life would be just about perfect!!!!