Fabulous Finds

These are a few of my thrift store purchases for December.

Bridgewater Op Shop, I love the small dishes at the top.

 A few orange things from Bridgewater and Balhanna.

Mum picked this up for me at a store that had 50% off.

From Aldgate op shop, I can't resist a vintage printed tablecloth.

A selection from Balhanna including a small apron, vintage linen and Christmas fabric.

Also from Balhanna, they had lots of great vintage Christmas decorations. We had cookie cutters like this when I was a child, tried them out and they work great if the cookie dough is very cool. Love the cool green label machine, always wanted one of these.

Now this was a find, the Nairne op shop had 50% of and this Mikasa dinner set was only $2.50. I had been looking at one of these at Aldgate but each piece there was $2.50 so it was very exciting.

A nice glass vase filled with ornamental sugared fruit, $3.00 also from Nairne.

Christmas in Torquay

We spent Christmas in Torquay at my brother and sister-in-laws house with the family and had such a lovely time, it went way to quickly and we are all looking forward to going back. Torquay is just near the beginning of The Great Ocean Road in Victoria, it takes about 8 hours to drive over from Adelaide, about 11 or 12 hours for us with stops along the way for the kids.

 The boys had a great time at one of the beaches in Torquay, the weather was beautiful and my brother was teaching them to surf a little.

There are fantastic parks for kids in this area, these are a few of the large wooden sculptures in some of the playgrounds.

We drove along The Great Ocean Road to Lorne one day and had an explore along the beach.

This is Aireys Inlet, we had the best fish and chips for lunch here.

 There was a fabulous park amongst wetlands with a big pirate ship at Anglesea.

Christmas Eve we had a beautiful dinner with lots of yummy food, the cherries were amazing!

 Christmas morning, busy preparations and great food for lunch. My brother Shaun cooked mouth watering lamb on the BBQ and my brother Travis cooked a delicious turkey, it was great to see the them working together in the kitchen. 

Christmas afternoon and time for backyard cricket, present opening and a trip to the beach.

We loved Christmas in Torquay!

Christmas Crafting

I was working on a number of Christmas crafts, these are a few easy projects for tags and decorations.

Gingerbread Tags

Some fabrics from my Hansel and Gretel collection were used for these cute little houses that can be used for gift tags or decorations.

Wreath Tags

These are made from two co-ordinating fabrics in my Christmas Time collection, the backing fabric can also be used as a Christmas cheater quilt panel.

 Felt Owl Decorations

These were made for my Grandmother who is in a nursing home so that she could have here own Christmas tree. She really loved it and as you can see her favourite colour is orange.

Handmade Christmas Gifts

We have had such a busy December and just recently come back from two trips away so I am a little behind with December news. Here are some of the gifts I have made from my recently designed Spoonflower fabric.

 The cotton-linen canvas calendar tea-towels make great gifts.

 The Nutcracker Knit made a great quilted bag for my mother-in-law and stockings for my kids.

Autumn Treasures was printed on cotton voile and I made two scarves for my mother and sister-in-law. I love how this printed and can't wait to have more designs printed on the voile, maybe more scarves and I would love to try a shirt.