Happy New Year...and a post Christmas wish to everyone

Welcome to the eve of a New Year everyone.

I've been a bit absent over this last month, so it's time to catch up a little bit.

Firstly, Merry Christmas to you all. I do hope your Christmas Day was filled with love and cheer. My Dad is visiting from QLD and it was nice to have him here on the day.

My thoughts go out to my friends and family caught in the floods in my home town, Bundaberg and a very dear friend in Emerald. Both towns are in dire straits, so if you are able to donate to the flood appeals, please do so to help them out.

I've had regular contact with some of them and they are all doing fine, with no evacuations...yet. It's hard to believe the amount of water in the Bundaberg area. I remember the floods in the 70's, and yes I was 'very young' then.

A big thankyou in advance if you can help. 

So, the lead up to Christmas was pretty busy for me at work, including a quick 2 day trip to Melbourne to join the national team for some strategy days on what's in store for 2011.

Silly me, I decided a few weeks out from Christmas, I'd better get a move on with making the Christmas pressies for this year. I did OK in the end, thanks to some great ideas from you wonderful bloggers. I'll let you know who they are as I go along.

My boys have both moved into new addresses, and I thought as a surprise, I'd make them each a set of Christmas decorations. Darren's set was in green and Brendon's in blues.
 
I started with wreaths made out of circles cut from some Murobond paint chips I had accumulated. 

If you've seen the paint samples from Murobond, you'll know they are a decent size, so I was getting 3, 4 and 5 circles from each colour in varying sizes. I included some contrasting papers also. The project was finished with some small silver hearts and buttons for embellishments. Viola!...instant wreath in about 1 hour.
   

Then I moved on to making some birds from a post Tina at Rubie's Place featured. These are also featured on the 'Christmas Tree' we had at home this year. You'll see what I mean soon.

Next some wooden heart shapes covered on one side with a flocked transparency and a contrast blue (or green) on the other side. The wreaths and the ornaments were finished with a white or an ivory ribbon to hang them.

Garlands were next. Again, the theme of circles was carried through to these. There's also a photo of Brendon's tree (well branch) with the decorations.

With the decorations finished and mailed off, I settled in to making a present each for the girlfriends. Brenda at 'Hoo are you lookin at?' has fabulous fabric boxes. Mine aren't quite the same, but they were OK in the end and both the girls liked them, which is more important.


Sarah's is the owl and Natalie's was a shooting star.

The Christmas Tree was a bit different this year!!! 

There just wasn't any room in the house in Sydney to accomodate a long table for 12 guests, the loungeroom furniture and the usual Christmas tree. 

I used some brown paper to cut triangle panels to make the different levels of the tree then decorated it with bunting, christmas birds the same as the decorations I made for the boys, some more silver hearts, and circle 'baubles'. The tree was topped off with another dove.

I was really happy with it!! It all came together at around 11 pm on Christmas Eve.

This is what the normal tree looks like. It's quite big but beautiful, so we missed it a bit this year.

The theme for Christmas wrapping this year was white paper with a contrast tied off with twine and the gift tags I made in November for the 'Christmas Giveaway'.

Some other projects completed in the lead up to the big day...

A matching set of cushion and matryoshka doll for my niece in Bundaberg. The print 'In the Pink' is another great idea from Tina at Rubie's Place, using freezer paper as a template for the print.

 


Lastly, phew it was a busy week and a half, was a present for the wife of one of my co-workers. One of my products soon to be on 'jane on jane st'. Fabric Art similar to my Wallpaper Art. They will both be available soon and in 3 sizes. Stay tuned.

I took the photo at work on the carpet, with my phone, so it's not a great photo, sorry. The fabric is some curtain fabric offcut from Ikea. Beautiful colours.

So everyone, that's what I've been up to in the 4 weeks since my last post. I do hope you all enjoyed your Christmas and have a fantastic start to 2011.

May everything you hope and strive for comes to fruition.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

(Anyone else having trouble with Blogger formatting. It drove me crazy doing this post!!!)

And the Winner is....

Drumroll please.....

Sophie, you are the Christmas tag giveaway winner. Thanks for joining in!!

I strongly suggest you pop over to her blog Her Heart My Hands about her 'crafting and about my family including raising a child with congenital heart disease'. There is also a store 'Barefoot Babies'. Very cute stuff!!

{Image source Sophie's store banner}

Sophie, I've only just discovered you and will pop over more regulalry. Congrats, I hope you like them.

If you could drop me a line on my email address (I've left a note on your blog also) designed.to.a.t@optusnet.com.au, I'll have them out to you in the mail very soon.

Thank you sooo much everyone for participating and your lovely comments.

(I used the random number generator to select a winner, but the brain isn't in

gear at this time of night and I couldn't get it to copy into this post)

My First Sunday Session

Music fills my soul. I love all types and am really finding it hard to go past the recent run of fantastic Australian artists being played on Triple J.

Yes, I know. I'm nearly the big 50 and I still listen to the J's. I feel like I'm still in my 30's, and find it hard to believe I'm not, especially with my boys around and #1 son being nearly 30 himself!! Where did the time go??

Anyway, I think they need to rewrite the spiel on their listener's demographic because I KNOW there are a lot of my friends who still listen to the station.

Doing my usual 9.30 - 10pm whip around the blogs before I go to bed, I slipped over to Felix and Lily's and found another great blog Do I really Wanna Blog?

Thea hosts a Sunday Session where she asks you to post about 2 favourites, one oldie and one newbie.

My sessions are the same song. The first is by a band called 'Boy and Bear', who have had a phenomenal year after being discovered on triple J 'Unearthed'.

Here they are covering a Crowded House song from the album 'He will have his way', full of songs written and recorded by the Finn brothers Neil and Tim.

Having spent my school years listening to Split Enz and Crowded House, I couldn't go pass up the opportunity to add them. 'He will have his way' is the second album of the Finn brothers songs by local artists, the first being 'She will have her way'. The title came from the one of their songs. The first has all female Australian artists performing the songs, and this new one has male performers and/or bands. I bought the first when it came out and I love it (well I downloaded it from iTunes).

So, grab a cuppa, sit back and have a listen. Boy and Bear are fabulous! (So are the Finn brothers just quietly!)

Boy and Bear - Fall at your feet

Crowded House - Fall at your feet - Woodface album 1991

Great idea Thea, thanks!

Last chance for my Giveaway...Christmas Tags

That's right, my GIVEAWAY finishes tonight at midnight and I'll be drawing the winner tomorrow when I get home from work.

To be in on the draw, follow this link to:

1. Be or become a follower
2. Post about the Giveaway and come back to leave a comment on the Giveaway post here
3. If you Facebook or Twitter, tell your followers/friends, then leave another comment letting me know you've done so, here.

That's 3 chances to be in the draw and all 'roads' (links) lead to my FIRST BLOG GIVEAWAY!!

Good luck everyone!! and thank you for your encouragement throughout the year.

My one year blogging anniversary is coming up in January. Stay tuned for some extras that month!!

Have a safe and joyous Christmas...Terese

Handmade Christmas - Filigree Notepad

My Creative Space today showcases some of my Christmas presents coming along reasonably successfully. I've redone my Filigree design and will print it this weekend, then use it as new covers for 2011 Diaries.

To give you an idea of what they will look like, I've just photoshop-ed them for now.

I'm still tidying up my new design, which Jennie from Posie Patchwork has so aptly named 'Flutter'. I may do one diary in Filigree and one in Flutter. Not sure I'll see how it goes.

Hope you are all having a great time preparing for Christmas. I see Kylie from My Flying Ducks has a lot of her prep done already. I haven't even thought about my tree yet.

My Dad will be here soon to spend Christmas. He turned 80 earlier in the year and still rides his motor bike from Brisbane to Sydney to visit. Not sure if he's riding it down this time. Maybe I shouldn't ask, so I don't worry. You know the old 'blind as a bat' and 'deaf as a post' thing. Ignorance is bliss sometimes I think!!

Anyway, keep cheery in readiness for the 'silly' season and enjoy.

Don't forget my giveaway is still on until Sunday night, midnight Aussie time.

Hope you will join in!

More Creative Spaces every Thursday over here at Kootoyoo.