Getting My Craft On

I had to go to Spotlight today to get some black buttons for a cardigan, that was finished weeks ago...
On the spur of the moment, seeing that it was 40% off all fabric, I bought some Halloween-ish colour fabric to make some bunting for the library, for a spooky book display, and also for a couple of great teacher's classrooms. I found ONE Halloween fat quarter and then chose gingham and plain orange and black. I think halloween is getting bigger and bigger each year - we don't celebrate it as a family (totally banned at the youngest's school - the word is banned too, but i am sure lots do participate, but we are in a different neighbourhood to the school) - but I am happy to decorate at school for it.
It is now all cut up ready to sew during lunchtimes this week, around 40-50 students hanging out in the library. :)

I also found 4 panels of Hungry Caterpillar fabric for $10 - I will make 4 cushions out of that! Bargain. And chose some fabric to make Christmas bunting -  I have a huge pile of Christmas books stockpiled for the next display.

My next cross stitch project is ready to go too...

And found some extra balls of wool (2ply) to match the ones I bought in Rotorua - I was thinking 100 grams is fab for socks and picked up only one ball of each... thankfully I found the same batch numbers up here to make the 4 play needed. Then promptly came home and casted on another parir of socks which I can easily knit while attempting to memorise... LOVE the wool - just not too sure I am liking how it is knitting up. One photo taken outside earlier and the other one is inside minutes ago - the wool looks quite different in the different light.

Counting down days till I can craft and not feel guilty....

Lately

Two of us are studying. The mother is s-t-r-e-s-s-e-d out studying for one poxy three hour exam, and the 16 year old, who has 12 Cambridge exams over the next month - well he seems to be taking it all in his stride. I came home to a bedroom full of 16 year old boys one afternoon who were all intently studing a computer game... this cracked me up. They do need down time I suppose. The kid and his mates have gone off to Armageddon this afternoon - most certainly not his mother's scene!

I met with the new principal for a BIG meeting this week - I've a job next year. Some others I'm not sure will.... He will pay for a uni paper or two next year - yippee and school library conference is confirmed for next September in Christchurch too. The school is getting a good turn around.

So I was pleased with myself, and having the youngest at school camp, I went shopping - yikes...I adore Father Rabbit.
Some new little things - wooden clothes pegs,kitchen brush and a milk jug (youngest having hot milk before he goes to sleep now) and a gorgeous dress. Then a quick trip to Citta Design to buy a new duvet cover and sheets for the youngest's bed.
I could do my Christmas shopping alone in these two shops. (the list is very small this year... few are getting gifts...).
I am on a mission to save money and to buy less, but better quality and NZ made as much as I can.

And out new bedside tables arrived. We have gone from this (now in boy's bedrooms)... and keeping it real with the mess....

to this...

I have soooo much I am itching to do around the house.. gardening, painting, cleaning, sorting out, socks to finish knitting, letter writing.. 10 days to go and freedom for a wee bit until next uni summer paper arrives. And a MANIC term at school with a 36,000 book stocktake to undertake....


Happy days!

gorgeous things

We have ordered a couple of new side tables for our bedroom -

http://www.freedomfurniture.co.nz/furniture/living/side-tables/23373143/piccadilly-side-table/

I am already in love with them, without them even being in the house! We have the matching hallway table and I am eyeing up the dining room table too... I also would love a new couch as well.... we have not bought a lot of furniture over the years, having being gifted quite a bit, so I am spoiling myself a bit. I think we may call the couch my birthday and Christmas present combined. (my birthday is early December.)

I have a lovely friend who sells THIS gorgeous stationery via Phoenix Trading. I have been buying it for many, many years, as my sister-in-law used to sell it too when she lived in England. I find it so hard to find reasonably priced stationery in NZ. I adore their Christmas range especially and am sure I own their entire collection of flat postcards. I've bought a few card sets for Christmas already. The little notebooks are so cute and will be perfect for penfriends as a small gift.

I found the most grooviest shop in Rotorua - Portico Gallery. They had a divine window filled with Orla Kiely items- big swoon and a big "shall I, shan't I" moment. I even went back the next day.... It all stayed there, as several friends and I have decided we will do a mail order from England closer to Christmas and split the mail cost. The cost of things is so much cheaper from England,even with postage... I did buy this divine 2015 diary though.... The pages inside are wow! (camera playing up with size of images and i can't remember how to switch...)

And I have been beavering away on my London cross stitch. I like the idea of framing in a hoop, but I worry about dust etc and fly marks.... anyone framed any stitching in a hoop before?

Newspaper run boy

The middle kid now has a paper run. It is just delivering the local free newspaper. We live in a mixed neighbourhood of industrial, housing and also a ton of apartments. It wasn't really until I did two of these runs with the kid, that i realised just how many apartments there were and how many people live in apartments. And also how many grotty places there really are in a neighbourhood with the average price approaching one million dollars. And how much litter there is. The kid stood at one multi- apartment lot, in front of their letter boxes, and looked at all the rubbish lying around and the piles of junk mail tipping out of people's letterboxes, and said " do i honestly have to put more rubbish into their letterbox for them not to collect? For more stuff to get ignored and blown about the hood?". Quite right really.
Now i always thought that a paper run would be a piece of cake. Not so. Your have to follow the route map religiously and not put a paper in letterboxes with signs such as "addressed mail only". And then a "stop". Don't put a newspaper in this letterbox. Find out where the letterboxes for businesses are. Where to post 20 newspapers for an apartment block when it tells you to out them in the foyer, but the door is locked?? All these things make it RATHER time consuming...
He is on his first run by himself tonight - usually we have taken turns to go with him, to help him get to know the route, watch his cycling skills (on a major Auckland road at one stage and crossing said road) - NO - you DO NOT cycle across this road in front of cars. (cyclists in New Zealand, on the whole, are treated like dirt... especially in this city. Little respect for any cylist in my opinion, no matter what age you are...). It has taken two of us, a side of a road each, around one hour 15 minutes.

ALL for $5.27 - yes you read that right! Slave labour or what??!!! Apparrently these paper girls and boys do not last long in the job - there are around 2500 of them working their little hearts out for this pitiful pay... AND this is TAXED! Children are taxed - i think that is possbly more outrageous than the pay really....
The kid is now riding his bike, which is a lot faster than us walking the route, as we did the day these photos were taken.
Anyone do a paper run as a kid? Have children doing one? I worked at Foodtown for $2.98 from form 4. I actually thought that was a lot of money back then and we used to get handed cash - working all through December/January was fab with cash like that! I never spent any money though back then...

More Rotorua pics

A few more photos from our wee break in Rotorua. I stumbled across the stunning Ohinemutu Marae and St Faith's church. I had seen many photos of this over the years, but it was quite a amazing to walk through such a spiritual place. There are little bubbling mud pools and steam all over the palce in Rotorua - this one was right on the shore ofLake Rotorua. There is a definite rotten egg smell to Rotorua too - the smell of sulphur from the hot pools dotted all over the city. We didn't do any trips to any of the geothermal areas this time, as have seen many of them over the years, but it is always incredible just to see steam coming up from anywhere/ from grills in the side of the road, to see steaming, boiling mud in parks, baths in yards etc. Rotorua is  a fab place for a few days away and has many activites to keep the entire family busy.

"Send us Christmas" Swap

Who is up for another swap? It has been several months since I have participated in a swap and I have also not seen very many around in blogland either. I thought it would be a cool thing to look forward to once my uni exam is over in 3 weeks.

Since it is fast coming up to that time of the year again (it is going to be so low key here this year), I thought I would do a Christmas based swap.

The rules:

The items must be in a one litre container (eg., icecream/margarine/sistema).

They can be some of your favourite things and some of your swapers favourite things.

Something handmade (decoration/bag/dishcloth/zippered pouch etc), tea, stationery ,craft goodies, Christmas things,food items etc - the choices are lots.

Try and put at least 2 Christmas based items in the swap.

Include a Christmas recipe - maybe a family favourite and a decoration (one which is representative of your own country would be fab).

There is no limit to the number of items sent - it all just needs to fit inside a one litre container.

Sign up by commenting below - sign ups close November 10 and parcels must be sent off by December 10 at the latest.

This is open worldwide - if you only want to swap within your own country, please state where you live too and I will do my best.

I will list the swapers a few days after on the blog - it is up to you to get in contact with your swaper and switch details.

Any questions/comments, let me know.





Please feel free to share the swap on your blogs.

Winners and I'm a knitting machine

If you commented on my Mollie Makes magazine give away, e-mail me your address (kimberley@atkinson.org.nz) and I'll send a few to you all.... :)

I'm happy as I received a "B" grade for my second essay - I struggled really badly with this one. One more month of hard work memorising essays and a 3 hour exam with 3 essays and this paper is finished. Then about 10 days of freedom before the next summer (short 3 months) paper begins!
Whew!

I have been a knitting machine these holidays. I finally finished a plain black cardigan for a girl (an order I received - first time knitting for someone else!). I have been gung-ho with dishcloths (can knit while I am memorizing) - oooh - I love them all sooooo much! I do not need many myself, so these will end up with some blog readers one day, penfriends, family for Christmas etc.

My new favourite and VERY quick pattern to knit is fingerless gloves. SO fast I knitted a pair each way between Auckland and Rotorua and 2 pairs in Rotorua! Wow. loving them. No idea who these are for either.. hee hee. I found a fab yarn shop in Rotorua and bought this wool. This wool comes from the only flock of sheep of its kind in the ENTIRE world. That is sooooo cool to me as a knitter! And apparrently it is the wool chosen by the "Lord of the Rings" crew for their costumes. (I must be the only kiwi who has never seen this movie/sequels nor has no interest in seeing them....).

Anyway , this knitting has done wonders for my stress levels and mental health - all connected with study. One 9 week term coming up!

Rotorua in Spring

What a truly beautiful city Rotorua is in spring. I walked a lot and took many, many photos.
Boys though are a bit blaise about this kind of thing. Ha!