a month of moments - late (late)

Pregnant again (that is, last year, not again-again!), I wanted to make a place to welcome our newest family member. I knew he was going to be boy number three, but still wanted a space that was not too boyish, that was, well, lovely to be in. So, months of pinning images of other nurseries, lights, crochet works etc all resulted in this:




It's not a classic boy room but I love it for my wee pickle. Love the Helen Dardik print that ties all the colours in the room together and makes it fun. The other two prints we have in the room are also etsy finds, from seven star and nevertheless. Oh! and we also have a typography-style print designed by my very talented designy sis in law, with all of baby pickles' vital statistics.

[Oh, and of course my beautiful Billee the oobee by Leslie Keating - Billee has now been a very special companion for all three of our baby boys].

I was going to post this on the thirteenth for a month of - late, but I am, well, running late. You see, the mobile/lampshade is still incomplete - I still have to rethread the crochet motifs onto that magical invisible quilting thread, and have about another dozen that need threading. Oh, and the mat. Still unfinished - I have the binding half done... nearly there! Whilst searching for the binding I found some pre-cut baby short pieces on my wip pile for little pickle (now two) - if I sew these this week they may just fit baby pickle.

It seems that not only can I not complete my crafty projects on time, I also can't blog about them on time! Anyone else out there guilty of the same crime?

Perhaps an appropriate crime though for a post titled "late"... ;)

Chat soon xo

preparing to say goodbye

We love our home. We had originally bought it (as we did our little house in Port Melbs) to renovate and sell off. It has now been nearly three years since the day of the nailbiting auction - a much slower reno job than we had originally planned.

Little did we know we would be raising two boys under this roof, and becoming (somewhat foolishly) emotional about a pile of brick and timber. But, emotional we are. This is, after all, the home we brought the gherkin home to, the house he learned to crawl, eat (and eat and eat!), walk, talk, dance, jump, play, sing, giggle, and amaze us with his "him-ness", his cleverness, his humour. It is also the home we became pregnant with little pickle, the house I got fat in (again), the home we brought little pickle home, the house he has learned to feed, smile, laugh, eat, and where he has fallen in love with his big brother. And us with both of them. It can't be helped then that we love this house - it is a home.

But, the time has come. To tidy up, say goodbye and move on. Yep, our little home is on the market.

So, time for show and tell. What have we done with this house over three years (other than all of our life's moments which can't fit into a tidy photo mosaic)?

(it does look a bit sad and bare in these photos... remember we are trying to sell so have cleared the place out)

So, just weeks from now, we expect to be saying bye bye home, and hello to a new house. I am usually very happy about new beginnings, but this time around... well, it's much harder. Silly really, as the memories will travel with me - they are not locked inside this house. I don't think I am ready to go though. Guess I am lucky I still have some time yet to prepare to say goodbye.

Chat soon xo

magazine madness... and a little bit of cushion love

Hi again!

For those of you who thought i had perhaps fallen off the face of the earth and blogland... nope, still here, just extremely BUSY. Thanks to those of you who offered advice and support about Little Man's feeding. He is still finding this very hard, so I am still expressing every feed... feeling totally exhausted at this point, seven and a half weeks down the track, but am hoping that we have him on the breast by end Sept. Fingers and toes crossed.

As a result, I'm afraid that crafting has taken a bit of a backseat! As a result, this blog is probably now going to include a bit more baby stuff... So for those of you who checked in only for crafting, melbourne, and other creative bits and pieces... sorry... baby has landed!

now that Little Man has arrived we are desperately trying to clear clutter from our home... which takes me to the topic of this post - magazines. I am hopeless when it comes to magazines - I find that home and food magazines always stay in my house, once they arrive, never to see the recycling bin. Which means I end up with cupboards on cupboards of very gorgeous magazines that I very rarely read...

So! This week, in the spirit of the declutter, I am going through the magazines and ripping out all of the pages that inspire me right now, in the hope that they are the same pages that will inspire me in the future... The photos on this post are just a few snippets, with a focus on cushions, from magazines such as Vogue living, Belle, Home beautiful, House & garden, Inside out... favourite bits and pieces I didn't want to give up. Hopefully soon I will be able to photograph our home looking as stunning as the source(s) of inspiration...

Have a gorgeous week everyone,
xo

I'm incredibly excited!!!

our gorgeous hallway, originally uploaded by summer pickles.

Check out our gorgeous new hallway!

Sooo excited that we are getting closer to this house being done.... only floor sanding and polishing, some plaster patching, light fitting selection and installation (I am thinking about the ikea knappa light for the hallway... what do you think?) and painting to go!

And being only 34 weeks well-and-truly-up-the-duff I feel like we might actually get it all done on time for bub's big arrival, too! (It's not just the hallway that's progressing... our nursery is making some serious headway too). We will even have the furniture in the room in two weeks... Yippee!

Anyway, now that the carpenter has gone, I am going to see if I can still pop in on Miss Cinti at My Poppet... will have missed her biggest morning tea (you can make a donation to the Cancer Council here), but it would be lovely to get there to meet her and check out My Poppet!

Have a lovely day everyone!
xo

decorating 101

Help! I am not a decorator...

I have a whole house in the early stages of renovations (we still have some way to go!), and am feeling the urge to NEST. One major part of this nesting is to plan out, and design our nursery.

This is the nursery as it is right now... isn't it beautiful?!? (don't feel that you need to answer that!)

Floorboards are yet to be sanded and polished, but are likely to come out much darker than this. Skirting boards (arriving in 2 weeks) will be quite deep (high) and painted white, we have gorgeous detailed cornices which you can't see in this photo - these plus ceiling will also be white. But to do with the rest of the space? We have a dark timber cot for bub, still waiting for us to pick up at the shop...

At the moment, this room is such a joy to behold! (ha ha) As this is also our spare room for any visitors at the moment, we have kept up the gorgeous gold curtains left behind by the previous owner, which I think adds a little something special...

If you had this room, what would you do with it? The view out the window is the brick wall of the other semi-detached terrace next door... I thought I would throw at you various ideas/rooms that I LOVE, and will look forward to hearing your thoughts back... as always your ideas are welcomed and encouraged!!

--- I LOVE this colour!!! Thanks to Jess from how about orange for pointing me toward this great room seen in 50 of our favourite rooms by dominomag

--- love the details in this room... gorgeous. Of course, we wouldn't expect anything less from a room by house n baby

---I also really love this nursery by Kristi and Nick .

--- think I am particularly struck by the colour combinations in this room, love those blues and greens together! This room by prairieguns .

Of course I couldn't include all of my favourites here... you can see more rooms I love at http://www.flickr.com/photos/summerpickles/favorites/

Thanks lovelies, x

aaargh!!! fabric fabric everywhere (and no pins)

I was hoping that this post I would be able to show off all of my fabulous stitching with flannel... but alas, no! After a whole fortnight without any space to sew (hurrah for major renovations... you can have a cheeky peek here), I had been building up to the sewing fest which was to be today, all week.

So this morning I cleared some space on our kitchen table/study/clothes storage shelf, asked hubby to drag out the sewing machine, played madly with James Brown so he would be completely worn out and would sleep all afternoon, and waved hubby off to football. Switched on ABC Classic FM and then gathered all of my washed, dried and ironed* flannel together. (I have now bought twelve metres of the stuff and am rapidly developing an addiction). Breathed a happy, blissful sigh of anticipation, and then went to get my sewing box.

Nowhere to be found. Looked in the stacked-to-the-ceiling bathroom, the plaster-dust-covered bedrooms, on the "kitchen table", under the kitchen table... everywhere. I may be a beginner, but I am pretty sure that to sew without pins is just not a good idea.

Oh dear. I think I know where the sewing box is. I think it's in the boot of hubby's car. Bother.

Happy weekend everyone xo

* those of you who know me well (ie. incredibly distant from a domestic goddess) will know how impressive it is that I even knew where to find the iron... or could remember what an iron is...

what i did this easter

what we did this easter
Originally uploaded by summer pickles

1. new button bracelet 2, 2. gone!, 3. pancakes for Easter brekkie, 4. cheap entertainment

Hope everyone else had a good one! x

Terrifically Positioned Time Capsule... aka the house update

Hello all!!!

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas (to those of you who celebrate it) and if you don't celebrate Christmas, hope you enjoyed the public holidays. I am currently on leave from work, and it is absolute bliss! So I have been avoiding the computer (as I spend most of my working life in front of one), but realised it was really overdue for me to give you the house update... so here it is!

Soon we will be moving to the inner north side of Melbourne! (Very exciting).

Our new home to be (late January) was advertised as a "Terrifically Positioned Time Capsule" (a change from the usual term "renovators delight"... must admit I enjoyed their creativity here).

It's a 3br brick terrace with only one shared wall and a walkway down the left hand side. The bedrooms have striped wallpaper and shag carpet (noice!). Walking down the hallway past the bedrooms it has a large lounge room (2 whole metres deeper than the one we are in now) and an eat in kitchen. The bathroom and laundry (both in reasonable, if not pretty, condition) are at the back, before you head out to what we describe as an enormous backyard (after living with one just the size of one car for two and a half years). But enough words, I am sure the photos are much more exciting!

A couple of quick FAQs...

Is this another home you are planning to renovate?

Yes.

What's the first job on the list of things to do?
After any structural repairs we get into the fun stuff. Probably the shag carpet and the wallpaper in the bedrooms will be the place we start.

When will you get the time to do the renos?
In all of our "spare" time (!).

How long do you think you will live in this house?
A while... five? seven? years probably.

Any more questions are welcomed!

Have a fabulous week xo

the house update

Ah, I see, more interested in the house news than the crafting news then? ;) ... thanks to those of you happily nagging for a house update!

Okay, so we sold our house! It was a very intense morning, we headed out for brekkie after I had been to the south melbourne markets for all of the goodies for our post-auction barbeque, had bought flowers for the house, and we had finished another brilliant (but quick) clean. Oddly for me, I couldn't eat much (too nervous). We then slowly wandered back home to sit in the front bedroom and watch the auction. It was incredibly stressful! But, all went well, we got well over the reserve price and so now are on the mad home hunt so we are not homeless come the 25th January!!!

Thankyou to all of you who wished us good luck, it all did turn out much better than we had expected. Feel free to keep your eyes peeled for more renovators delights within 10kms of the city, we are looking for our next house! (By the way, hubby will hate me for posting this photo... all of the photos were duds, sadly! But great to have a picture with the SOLD! sign.)

I have been reflecting on the process that got us to this point, of the cricket pitch green carpet that used to be on the floor, of the green walls, the yellow and brown bathroom (with palm tree feature tiles... noice), the green window frames, and it has gotten me wondering.... does anyone else have any stories out there about homes / rooms you have run your creativity and sparkle over? I am sure you do... come on, be brave and share!

Chat soon, xx

a bit quiet on the crafting front

1. monkey minus head, 2. doorknobs, 3. plants from the lounge room, 4. jessica the elephant - close up

Hello! (in case you crafters are still out there?)

Just a very quick post to apologise for my lack of crafting content of late... I am one of those people who believes that if you start something with a clear purpose (eg. this blog, talking crafting and creativity) then you should stick to that purpose, and it seems I have strayed....

So, the reason I have perhaps strayed a little is that I have (sadly) had no time for crafting or even scouring the world for incredible crafters.... we have been renovating! (Please don't read the exclamation mark as unbridled enthusiasm... it is some exhaustion, some frustration and a little bit of manic giggling as things don't quite turn out how we would have liked!)

What I can show you today is photos of a number of works in progress.... some renovation work, some crafting work... enjoy, and I hope to be back to the land of creating (and finding inspiration) very soon!
xx

no craft for me this weekend!

Well, another weekend gone, and no more craft projects any further along... this whole selling the house thing sure does get in the way!

But, here is a bit of a clue re what we have been doing this weekend at our place...

1. rebuilding the back step; 2. replanting the garden; 3. packing boxes; 4. admiring (and standing on) the new back step...

hoping many of you got more crafty goodness out of the weekend!

xx