Flea market finds

A few weekends ago the Mister and I headed off to the swap meet, child free at that!
I had a mental list of things I was after and I was thrilled to cross a few treasures off that list!
I picked up three beautiful pieces of milkglass. That makes five pieces all up now so I'd say that makes a collection yes?!

The little vase on the left was a score at $2.00
The seller was thrilled with my enthusiam because it belonged to her mother. I assured her it would be cherished. The other pieces were picked up for $5.00 each.

This little mustard coloured teapot also came home with me. For $5.00 it was a perfect match for some previously thrifted cups become planters.

And last but not least and possibly my favourite purchase of the day, this rustic piece.
Have you ever come across one of these? Do you know what they were used for?

Sultana Drying. Yep!

In the photograph below they are 'loading perforated dipping buckets of sultanas on to a dipping frame on the back of a truck on the Fenwick property at Berri circa 1950.  In this process 75-100 buckets of fruit at a time were immersed for half to one minute in a cold dip solution contained in a concrete, above ground tank, using a gantry and windlass.

 Bulk dipping greatly speeded up the dipping operation where previously buckets were dipped 12 at a time or singly.  In the 70s bulk dipping was superseded by rack spraying of fruit with cold dip solution and more recently the adoption of trellis drying.  For a number of reasons mostly associated with marketing, the production of dried sultanas had all but ceased in SA by the year 2000.'

Source

So much character!
The seller suggested it might make a lovely herb garden but I am thinking of housing it inside maybe with some magazines or books. Ideas most welcome!

Have you ever been to a swap meet?

I'm linking up with Sophie and other treasure seekers over here.

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At last the boy's blankie is on his bed!
He is very happy and it is dragged downstairs in the morning for snuggling on the couch. Made entirely with thrifted fabrics, sheeting  on the front and a chenille bedspread for the back. I haven't used any batting. The chenille makes it surprisely warm and it makes for a lovely soft, snuggly blankie.

Linking up with My Creative Space.

The lovely package swap

So now that my swap buddy has received her package, a little bit of show and tell.

When signing up we were asked to give a little brief of things we like and words to describe our style.
When putting together Rin's package, I was thinking all things 'whimsical, bright, colourful, imaginative, creative'. Rin's loves included 'airmail stickers, vintage atlases, books, Harry Potter and anything and everything papery'.

I had so much fun with this. I scouted Rin's blog and pinterest boards to give me a better insight into the things she loves. She is a big Harry Potter fan and even celebrated her 21st birthday in HP theme! My Bella is a HUGE Harry Potter fan also, having read every book and watched every movie a gazillion times over. Our family visited the HP exhibition in Sydney earlier this year. Bella and I had heaps of fun looking up Harry Potter stuff online and Bella chose this print from etsy to include in Rin's package.

 

When reading Rin's blog, Bella noticed her cute fingernails so nail polish was added to the list!

Some bright neon was selected and a little bit of papercrafting was thrown in as well as a colourful pencil case. Lulu created the wrapping for this one using the age old technique of potato printing (albeit a carrot in this instance) and I stitched a little paper garland to wrap around.

 

Some more handmade love...

And finally a little bit of whimsy.

As much I LOVE, love, love receiving happy mail, the real joy in this swap for me was in the putting together of Rin's package and the fun that Bella and I shared in working on it together. Guess who else has a new Harry Potter print in their room?!

Wrapped with love

One of my favourite things about giving a gift is wrapping it with love. Recently, I signed up for 'the lovely package exchange' hosted by Oh Hello Friend. I was so happy to have this beautiful girl as my swap partner. I had so much fun putting her package together-more about that later!

This week I received my package from Rin. When the parcel man delivered it, he said 'someone's gone to a lot of trouble for you'. I was SO excited but I carefully opened it, saving all the cute stickers and tape.

Rin sent me the loveliest gift. I absolutely loved everything she chose for me.

1. Colour My Day Notepad and a thick Highlighter Pencil (this is SO great!)
2. MT Decorative tapes-LOVE these!
3. Fun fortune scratchie card

4. A sweet little Kite handmade by Rin using children's book illustration, Pack of floral decorative stickies

Rin also popped in a little bag of tattoos for my little loves. Lulu was very quick to choose the puppy!

Thank you SO MUCH Rin!
Thank you for your sweet note and such a beautiful package...totally made my day!

PS Be sure to pop over to Rin's cute blog. You'll love it!

Baby, it's cold outside

In an effort to embrace the season, I made a scarf. I used some scraps of woolen fabric and some vintage sheeting, all thrifted. It was one of those gratifying projects that can be whipped up in one session.
Unlike this wooly number that I started a couple of Winters ago.

 

I cut a bunch of fabrics of varying widths and then stitched them to make a strip. My favorite bit though, is the pretty floral sheeting on the back. It nice and soft...can't have an itchy scarf!

Despite the little loves sporting coughs, runny noses and temps the past few weeks, we had a lovely, relaxing school break. There was crafting aplenty, drawing, cooking, reading, a lot of snuggling on the couch and staying in jamas. 'Fraggle Rock' was the DVD of choice and 'Guess Who' was our favourite board game. Two out three kids have recovered and I am counting down the weeks until Spring.

In other news, I am still plugging away on Ollie's quilt binding. Almost done.

How about you? Have you been making lately? Are you well...I know a lot of you have been sick too. Are you waiting for Spring, like me. Hope you're having a happy week.

Grateful for big things and little things

I am so grateful for this fancy schmancy nebuliser that takes 10 minutes to pump through the medication. It's predecessor took 30 minutes. And it was noisy. Really noisy. The TV volume was bumped up to compete with the noise. It was all a bit crazy. This neb is silent. It has changed our lives. Worth every cent.

I am grateful that our government-finally-included Tobi on the PBS. Now we have access to this medication that other countries have been using forever. When Boo was a baby she participated in a research trial for this medication through our cystic fibrosis clinic. Now, at 10 years old it is finally available for her use. It's specifically designed for inhalation. Prior to this being available, she breathed in a medication that was designed for IV use, not inhalation. This medication is much less irritating on her throat. And I do not have to draw it out of the vial with a syringe and mix it with saline.  It comes premixed in a nice plastic vial where I snap off the top and pour it in. It also saves me a trip to dispose of the needles. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. A happier, more compliant little girl. Big win in my books!
You can see it's expensive which is mostly why it took so long to be placed on the PBS. Ever so grateful for a health care system that reduces the cost of Boo's treatments considerably. 

It's been a challenging week at our place with 4 out 5 of us being sick. Sleep deprivation makes all it seem worse than it really is, I think. For all of us! Tired, cranky, sick kids and a tired, cranky, sick mama equals no fun for anyone. On the weekend I was able to have some early nights. The Mr cleaned up the dishes from the previous night. He bought my morning coffee to me in bed and manned the fort while I had a litte lay in.

I am SO GRATEFUL to have my man by my side.
And to all those parenting alone, for whatever reason, I admire you. It's a tough gig some days.

To my partner in life and love,
While it isn't always a bed of roses, I am ever so grateful to be sharing the journey with you.
Thank you for all that you are and all that you do. I am lucky indeed!

Joining in with this little community of gratefuls.

PS I am grateful for Sunday evening TV.
New Girl you never fail to induce some laughing out loud and for that I AM GRATEFUL!