Such a Busy Weekend - Love It!

It was the weekend of Craft Out West last weekend.  Yippeee!  Craft Out West is one of my favourite craft shows.  I think I like that it supports Hospice West Auckland.  I also really love meeting all the locals and getting to chat with lots of lovely people.

We had enough room with the wall behind us to have our sign up and some layouts and card ideas

Here is my table that I worked out.  Melissa and I made a great team!

Here is the stand for the Martha Stewart goodies and the EK Success Punches

This was the stand for the Spectrum Noir pens and lots of lovely stamps

And of course here I am getting ready for another great show!

Here are some photos of my stall at Craft Out West.  I was in a different spot this year.  Not sure if it was the different spot or that fact that the weather was so beautiful outside, but the crowds seemed quieter this year.

My daughter Melissa helped me for both days and she did a fantastic job of demonstrating the Martha Stewart Crafter's Clay and the border punches.  I on the other hand was demonstrating the Spectrum Noir pens, and the Teresa Collins modeling paste and templates.

The big surprise again this year was the popularity of the Dress It Up Buttons from Jessie James.  On Saturday in particular these just went crazy.  Mind you so many of the buttons are just too cute to pass up.

The craft show was from 10am - 4pm both days.  So after the show each day there was not much time to do much else but get ready for the following day and have dinner.  But on Sunday morning I was able to get out and water my veggie garden before the show.  Little did I know that there would be a wonderful surprise at the end of the day.

So after the pack down of the show and getting home, the front fence was completely finished and there was another beautiful looking garden bed at the top of the three I already have.  Also my bean seeds and corn seeds have sprouted - so excited.

My baby beans just starting to sprout!

On closer inspection I found these tiny corn seedlings had finally sprouted!

Who is scratching at my ceiling?

The other day Grace and I came home from Aqua Zumba and after my shower Grace said she could hear scratching but wan't sure where it was coming form.  I stood beside her and sure enough there was a scratching noise coming from the ceiling - the attic.  This got me concerned that maybe we had a mouse or worse ... rats.

Well I didn't think there was much I could do so I went out to the workshop and did some work on the online shop and thought when Brad got home he could take care of it.

When I came in for lunch I decided to face the 'rat' or 'mouse'.  But when I opened the attic door and climbed half way up the stairs I could hear a baby bird peeping.

Sure enough at the far end of the house sitting on the top of the pink bats was a little sparrow fledgling.  Grace and I carefully stepped on the beams and Grace was able to get the little sparrow into an empty Weet-bix box.  The we saw the other fledgling, but it was dead.

Once out of the attic and into the kitchen I made some mush with Weet-bix, water and a tiny bit of honey.  I used a toothpick and carefully fed the little sparrow.

It turned out that the night before Brad and Melissa could hear the peeping of a bird that sounded like it was in the house (because little did we know that it was).  We do have a family of sparrows in the corner of the house under the gutter area.  So it looks like this little sparrow was from the family and had hopped out of the nest and up under the roof on the building paper where if fell through into our attic.  But seeing has it did not have very strong wings yet it could not get back up to its nest.

When Brad did get home we managed to get the dustpan under the building paper and sent it back towards its nest.  Since then it parents outside seem to be calling more and it sounds like more than one baby responding back in the nest, so hopefully it made it back to Mum and Dad (who we have nick-named Jack and Jackie)

Gardening - a new beginning

I have started a course via facebook helping me to grow a veggie garden.  It has been really exciting to see all sorts of things happening for this lately.  Over the past couple of years I have managed to grow strawberries, lettuces and silver-beet quite successfully but I wanted to be relatively self-sufficient and grow more veggies.

To do this I need more garden beds.  So to start with I have chosen a spot on the bank of our property where we can build some raised garden beds.  At the moment we are trying to kill of the grass so it looks like we are growing a broken trampoline and some wooden pallets.

But last weekend Brad and I popped down to Placemakers and found some wood that would work to make my raised beds.  I think we may have a bit much, but I am sure I will find more use for it round the back to make even more gardens LOL.

When moving all this wood from the trailer to the front of the house and then from the front of the house to in front of my current strawberry beds Kitty supervised - and played with the recently cut grass, so funny to watch her play seeing as she doesn't normally like being on the grass.

Once my garden beds are ready I will be able to plant my seedlings.  At the moment they are growing from seed in my little greenhouse.  Growing from seed is kind of fun.  Sowing the seeds and then waiting patiently for them to pop through the soil.  My family thinks I am crazy when I get excited that a shoot has popped through the soil and, that I refer to my seedlings as my babies - but they need me LOL!

Here are my peas that are coming up.  All going well the garden will be ready soon and they will be strong enough to go out into the garden.

More seeds arrived yesterday so I will be sowing even more seeds shortly.  Brad said on the weekend that I will be getting an extra bed than I thought I would be so I wonder what I will plant in that one.  All my other three beds are planned out.  Maybe the next lot of lettuce or maybe some herbs.

I honestly never thought I would become a gardener.  My Mum has always been into gardening but it never seemed to rub off on me.  If anything I used to be very good and killing plants.  I guess that is why doing this facebook course will be very helpful.

Cold in the Wild West of Auckland

I know many think that Aucklander's are just great big wusses and we just might be - I know I am especially when it comes to being cold. This morning before I even got out of bed I just knew it was cold.  I was glad that it was a Saturday morning as this meant I could get a sleep in.  Brad and Grace we up as they head off to Grace's morning Zumba class over on the North Shore.

Anyway Brad was out warming up the truck when he came in to let me know there was some thick frost on the truck.  I bounced out of bed, grabbed some warm trousers and my dressing gown then like a good scrapbooker I grabbed my camera.

Yep sure enough there was a frost.  Thanks for the visit over night Jack, everything looks so pretty dressed in white in the morning.

 I loved how beautiful the frost was on the roof of the car.  I looked like really short grass all sticking upwards.  It was fun to gently run my finger across the top.

Then I turned my attention to the garden and sure enough there was frost everywhere.  It was impressive to see it on the dirt and my flowers.  I am sure it was probably thicker down country but I do like to frost even if I don't like being cold.

Even my poor relatively new veggie garden was dusted in Jack Frost's handy work.  The gardens by the house seemed fine though - phew LOL!

But the rest of the day has also been pretty cold, feels like I cannot leave the side of my little fan heater.

Stay warm everyone!

In the Garden

I love scrapbooking, it isn't a job to me it is something that makes me happy and I love being able to share what I love with others.  To inspire others.

I have discovered that as much as I love my scrapbooking it is also good to enjoy other things too.  I always admired how my mother could grow such beautiful and bountiful gardens.  In the last few years or so I have started trying to grow veggies and flowers.  This year has to be one of my best years.  I have had a bountiful harvest of strawberries, not much else as my strawberries kind of took over.

Anyway, I was checking on my veggie patch the other day and my poor little self seeded tomato plant - I almost lost it in the wind a couple of days before.

But then I turned around and just happened to look over at the other side of my back yard and was very surprised by some more self seeded tomato plants.  I have a habit that I chuck stuff out from my veggie garden to the area behind me.  I had done this last year with some not so good tomatoes from last years plants and to my surprise this is what I saw.

It is also funny as I was just mentioning to Brad that I needed some more veggie garden beds and in these areas where I found the new tomato plants.  So now I guess I should do some cleaning up of the areas and create a better bed for them.

Also this season my wonderful Mum was kind enough to give some of her Dahlia tubas.  I have not had a go at growing flowers in a very long time.  But this has been the result this year.  I am very excited about maybe getting more flower gardens going as time allows.

This weekend I decided to tidy up the rock garden I have between my house and the garage.  It had become a little unruly with some weeds.  I was given some wonderful weed mat by a lovely friend and so decided it was time to move all the stones, put down some weed mat and put all the stones back again.  It is now completed and I am very pleased with the results.  There are a few more stones that I have found in another area of the garden and will move them to here during the week.

When moving all the stones I did find some little paving slabs.  Instead of hiding them under the stones this time I have moved then and they are now in between my veggie garden beds to make it easier to get to the beds and to keep the weeds down there too.

This is a view looking down from our front deck.  I am very pleased with the results so far in my garden.  It is nice to have another hobby that lets me get outside and a little exercise at the same time (yep, feeling some muscles I had forgotten about today).

I do think I will be in my craft room this afternoon creating so will post again real soon.