Friday, January 30, 2015

So you might not see me around for a while...

Hi All! Just a quick post to say you won't be hearing much from me in the new few weeks. On Wednesday night my computer died - I only bought it in May last year so its pretty frustrating.

I will still comment on your blogs when I can - but the only other laptop in the house belongs to Rich and he is in the final weeks of his Masters so he kind of needs his computer most of the time.

I will be back, sometime soon, I promise and if you do want to see what I'm up to I will still be posting on Instagram.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Lavender Fields Forever.....

Last Friday was Ria's birthday and we decided some time back that on the Saturday we would go and have some kind of adventure. The question was - where to go? There are so many options for fun times in the summer months. We decided on something a little out of the ordinary and took a trip to Carterton to go lavender picking!
Thankfully Carterton isn't too far from Wellington, so we didn't have to get up too early! These photos make everything look a bit bleak, but it did turn into a beautiful day.

The lavender farm we visited was called Lavender Abbey they sell all kinds of products (we bought tea and culinary lavender) and have a couple of weekends a year where people can come and pick their own lavender. For $5 you get to pick one bunch, there didn't seem to be too many rules around how much lavender is in a "bunch" - we were given a pair of scissors and a rubber band and told to go for it!
One thing I didn't realise about lavender is that bees freaking love it! Once you're in the lavender field all you can hear is the buzzing! The first time I realised just HOW MANY bees there were was when Ria took this photo - I may be smiling, but I'm thinking "holy crap I'm surrounded by bees".
I have to say if you're allergic to bees or have a bee phobia then lavender picking may not be for you.
Once we actually sat down and started picking the lavender we found the bees were actually pretty easy to avoid, sure they were noisy, but if you left them alone they were so busy doing their thing that they didn't worry too much about people.

I have to say it picking lavender is super fun and makes for great photo opportunities. How often do urban girls like us have the chance to hang out in the fields picking lavender? Pretty much never.
 In case you were wondering - yes it does smell amazing when you are hanging out in a lavender field.

Obviously if you're hanging in a lavender field you need to take selfies because of reasons......
This final photo was taken by Ria on her fancy camera - its my favourite from the day! It makes us look so magical. In case you were wondering what I'm going to do with that bunch of lavender. I think I'm going to dry it and use it in soap. Watch this space! Also I need to make lavender cookies with my culinary lavender and of course I need to make lavender tea as well. I think lavender MAY be taking over my life.

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Dinosaur Date!

Last Thursday night, Rich and I decided to head to Te Papa (they have late nights on Thursday) to check out one of the current exhibitions - Tyrannosaurs!
I've always loved dinosaurs since I was little and so when I found out I could see some scale models as well as see some real dinosaur bones, I was pretty excited.





That first guy is actually a pretty tiny dinosaur - I thought it would have been a cute thing, until I read about how it used to kill its prey. Then I decided it was less cute than I first thought.
Part of the exhibition was about fossils found in New Zealand and included some background on Joan Wiffen - who was an amazing lady who was an amateur palaeontologist who found all kinds of cool dinosaur fossils in New Zealand. She was pretty awesome.

There was an area of animation which included dinosaurs running wild along the Wellington waterfront.


Next up it was time to check out T-Rex, who is obviously the star of the exhibition! Nothing like T-Rex to make you feel tiny.


 This was a fun interactive thing they had at the exhibition, stand on the space and see yourself on a screen in a museum (not Te Papa) filled with dinosaurs.

Finally these feathered, dinosaur guys - these guys were actually my favourite thing in the whole exhibition. They remind me of the Jim Henson movies I used to watch as a kid - like Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.

Thanks for dropping by to check out some dinosaur geeky! Hope you guys all had a wonderful weekend. I'm pretty happy as I have one more day off for Wellington Anniversary day.

Friday, January 16, 2015

Ria's Birthday - Pink Flamingo

I'm pretty proud of myself - I'm actually working on my New Years Goals! One of which was to cross stitch more. When I realised that Ria's birthday coming up soon, I decided I needed to make her a cross stitch. The question was - WHAT to make? When I was on Esty I seen SO MANY things Ria would love.

I finally settled on this cute flamingo pattern from  Daily Cross Stitch who have a lot of other cute patterns, I really like this t-rex one.

When I went to Made on Marion I found this amazing sparkly Aida fabric! I used to buy this stuff in Korea, but this is the first time I have seen it in New Zealand. There is going to be a whole lot more sparkly cross stitching in 2015.

Here's a close up of our flamingo friend! Initially I tried to "make it work" with the colours I had in my cross-stitch thread stash. But after taking advice from my "stitch expert" (Rich) I decided it was best to buy the actual colours instead of making it up. I think this guy is pretty great.
Here's an extreme close up of the stitching and all of the sparkles - in real life you can kind of even see the sparkles through the stitching.
Here's the finished project - complete with a pretty ribbon for hanging up the cross-stitch.
We met up for lunch today as today is Ria's birthday! We had some Vietnamese food in the park and I gave her the cross-stitch and she was happy. Yah! I always love it when friends are happy I made them things.

Also Ria has started a really fun channel on you tube and you guys should check it out - its adorable and hilarious!


I hope you guys all have a wonderful weekend! It's Wellington Anniversary this weekend - so I get a long weekend. Hurrah!

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Here's to a creative 2015

I've been thinking long and hard about my new years resolutions for 2015 and I've decided that I want to focus on my creative stuff this year. When life gets tough it seems for me that the creative stuff is the first thing in my life to give, which is a shame, as its also one of the things that keeps me sane!

So here's to some creative resolutions for 2015!

Cross-stitch more!

I love cross stitch, its easy to do and fun and there are SO  MANY amazing designs out there now (including Rich's of course). I also find cross-stitch so meditative. 

I love making cross stitch for our house, but also for our friends. There are so many patterns so you can easily make cross-stitch that is on point for your friends interests - regardless of whether their interests are horror movies, narwhals or Adventure Time. I love cross-stitch and I want to make more this year! I've just been to buy some supplies today to make a start on a cross-stitch for a friends birthday.



Do more craft swaps

I love craft swaps - I used to do HEAPS on Craftster, but in the last year or two I have only done a couple. This year I want to do one swap a month - I have signed up for a "fill a mug" swap on Craftster for January. If you want to do a craft swap with me (Valentines, Easter, Christmas?) let me know. 

Tackle the terrifying UFO and mending pile

First up I need to tell you guys I have this weird thing where I REALLY love cutting out fabric, I feel like I should take up patchwork/quilting because cutting out is my favourite part of the process by a LONG shot. My love of cutting out stuff means I have a LOT of cut out projects that I am yet to sew up! This year I want to actually SEW UP all the stuff I have cut out AND tackle that mending pile! There are some cool dresses I have that only need minor repairs, I need to make those repairs!

Sew more from my stash & sewing for others

Like a lot of sewists - I have a lot of fabrics and a lot of patterns! A lot of what I have is from op shops, swaps, fabric-a-brac or has been given to me. Some of it is new and I have to admit, I just have TOO MUCH. I need to sew this stuff up and I need to stop "saving" fabric and just sew it. Even if I mess it up and its cool fabric, there is loads more cool fabric in my stash and in the WORLD! I also want to sew more for my friends, my niece and nephew and of course for Rich (hes been waiting for a shirt for a REALLY long time).

Has anyone else made any new years resolutions? Any creative/sewing resolutions?

Thursday, January 08, 2015

A snippet of Christmas and New Years

We had an extremely busy Christmas and New Years! We visited my family in Taranaki, Rich's in Tauranga and spent a week in Auckland in between. Here's a wee snippet of our end of year adventures.

Christmas began at my parents and included plenty of time with my nephew Lukah and my niece Sophiia.









We did a day trip to Whanganui (I don't care what anyone says, I think Whanganui is a pretty little city) and took my niece and nephew to Kowhai park. It's a part we went to when I was a kid and it had a paddling pool/sprinklers and a mini train.


Our next stop was Auckland, where we spent five days with our friends Conor and Sue. We stayed in their beautiful inner city apartment and had a blast!



We all love this game sequence - many, many games of sequence were played and most of them were played Albert Park which is next to Conor and Sue's apartment.
There is a lot of bubble tea places in Auckland - so we had to have some obviously (its delicious).
One day we paid a visit to both Mount Eden and One Tree Hill - it was a perfect day, the views were amazing.

We went to a Japanese restaurant for lunch one day and it had a lot of cute a quirky drinks - I loved this lid off my bottle!
We visited Rich's sister and her family in Titirangi and did an afternoon road trip and saw all kinds of amazing things!


We visited the art gallery and then walked to one of Conor's favourite diner style restaurants. It was the first Canadian diner I had been too.


On new years eve we ate a LOT of Korean BBQ, sang a LOT of Karaoke and watched the sky tower fireworks from Albert Park.

On New Years day we traveled to Devonport by ferry and then walked home through Britomart.


I really liked the mirrors in the foyer of Conor and Sue's building - so I took selfies like a weirdo.
More walking around beautiful Auckland city!

Also more mirror selfies (obviously).
On our very last day we visited the Auckland Domain and ate gelato - it's really a beautiful spot.


I think by the time we reached Rich's house I must have been over photos, as I didn't take any! How is 2015 going for you guys? I  feel so busy already - time for another holiday yet?