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!

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.

Once a month not enough

I can't believe it has been about a month since I last had the chance to write here on my blog.  I so wanted this year to be the year I was able to blog more regularly.  I wanted to blog at least once a week.  I came to the realization just recently that I write too many different things, I have my G&T weekly newsletter, the Better Deals shopping email as well as the big monthly newsletter (which oh bother, I just realized I have not uploaded to the website - will do that next) and then write my blog, no wonder there are times I just don't know what to blog about with regards to my scrapbooking, I am all written/talked out.  I do want to do better and to write here more often and share what I have created and learnt so lets see if I can try to do it tad more often.

Anyway, one of the new things that I have recently got myself into is my garden.  When my girls were younger - even before I had children - I was not very good with plants and gardening.  I was more prone to killing things off that growing them.  Well over the past couple of years I have discovered I can grow strawberries - they don't seem to mind neglect from time to time.  This year my daughter Melissa and I have turned our hand to growing some Spring bulbs, and sure enough over the last 2 weeks they have started flowering.  We are so excited.

I had made one mistake earlier in the season, as I had planted one of the bulbs upside down - was wondering what this white spider looking thing was coming out of the pot.  So turned it up the correct way and re-planted it.  It is flowering now.  Very happy.

Seeing as these were such a success and because over winter I purchased a gardening book (and even finished it - this must be serious) I have been inspired to try to grow more veggies this year - other than tomatoes and lettuce.  The author of the book I purchased is running a class that I have signed up for so you will probably see lots of gardening photos and layout coming through the next few months.

Also lately I have managed to get some of my own scrapbooking done.  Oh it is so nice to be able to take time and actually scrapbook for my own pleasure. Letting my creativity shine and not be confined to a specific range or style.  Here is a layout I have created of my daughter's school production.  I really love the cityscape die-cut from my Silhouette Cameo.  It really added meaning to this layout that was set in New York - love it.

Well that is basically all from me at the moment.
Will hopefully be back to write again soon.