Never a Thread Lost or Wasted

Thread, string, cotton, twine, yarn, ribbon, cord...

I am a bowerbird in many ways, especially when it comes to string. A piece of twine from a label, a length of string from a gift, even the funny little bits of ribbon they insist on sewing into the shoulders of clothing... in my home it has no chance of ending up in the rubbish, I horde it all in jars, remnants from Christmas and birthdays, bows tied with love, beautifully presented purchases, some wrapped around wooden pegs and pinned neatly, ready for the next adventure!

Sorry I've been absent lately. Things became super busy out of nowhere and the posts I left half done quickly became irrelevant as time slipped by. But I have plenty of things to share and talk about, stashed away like ribbons in a jar waiting patiently to be used!

Refreshed Office!

I've been meaning to show you this for a while... the photos weren't coming out amazing (it's a small room) but hey, I'm fairly pleased with how it's all come out so here it is anyway!

Unfortunately I wasn't very good at taking before photos, so just imagine boxes of junk surrounding a tall roll top timber desk with random things blu-tacked to the wall... and that's about it. 

I sold the roll top desk and for the same price bought this white desk from a friend. I love that it has lots of storage and the rustic paintjob means I don't have to worry about the surface if I'm painting or cutting!

Did you know it's really cheap to make your own shelves? I purchased the brackets on sale at a local hardware store for $5, and the timber cost about $4 - so under $10 for a shelf exactly the size I want! I painted the shelf with left over paint from my window frames (a warm white gloss). I really liked the industrial type look of the brackets.

The floor lamp means I don't have to use bench space for a lamp, and it's adjustable for projects that need a little more light. The frame is actually from our engagement party decorations and the poem is:

"The sun brings forth beginnings,
The moon holds in darkness,
As above, so below,
For there is no greater magic in all the world
Than that of people joined together in love"

Cute huh?

On the wall, the wire organiser I found on ebay, and the J is also from our engagement party decorations which I bought from Typo! In the frames I have a cute little postcard made by a local artist to Bruny Island, which I picked up when I was over there about a year ago. If you have never been to Bruny, I highly recommend it. Beautiful beaches, great places to eat and so much inspiration! We camped for a week along a river right near the sea and it was lovely, I didn't want to come home... "Linger" is handwritten by me as a reminder to take time to be in the moment, relax and just enjoy the right now. I'm not very good at this, always looking into the future, the next step, and thinking about the ways I can make things better... but sometimes the truth is that life is pretty perfect right now, there is nothing wrong with the here and now so it's my little reminder of that. The third frame is actually a piece of wrapping paper! Its embossed metallic copper which I just love, it wrapped a gift for our engagement from my mum so not only do I love the paper but its a reminder of all the things that my mum has given me, and how even though I might not see her as much as I would like she loves and cares for me always. The little compass I have had for years, I love compasses, they remind us that no direction is the wrong direction!

I realised when doing this post that I haven't done a very good job of taking a photo of the shelf but as you can see I have my lovely print block purchased from A Creative Lifestyle and my timber pencils from Trees 4 the Wood. Also the brass scales from the market are up there too!

It's not finished yet, I want to get a board to clip up inspiration things (the frame won't be staying) and some more items for the shelf... I want to stick with the grey/black/white theme my house has but I'm feeling like its missing something. What do you think? Do I need colour, or a plant, or just some more things? 

Weekend Moments: Tea, flowers and fans

Have you had an amazing weekend?! I did! It was a long weekend here in Hobart, Monday being a local public holiday because of the Hobart Cup and Regatta Day. I didn't go to either (I don't support horse racing and I'm a little old for show rides) but what I did do was a rare treat - I was home alone for the weekend! My lovely man was off to Melbourne for a bucks weekend, and so I happily did my own thing for a couple of days.

When was the last time you had some time at home on your own? Can you remember? I know that for some people the idea of being home alone, especially overnight, can be a bit daunting - and maybe for some people they wouldn't know what to do with themselves without partners, kids or other people in the house - but I highly recommend spending some alone time at least a few times a year, because its amazing! You can work with your own energy levels, do exactly as you please and appreciate the peace and quiet. Of course if you have cats like I do, company is never too far away anyway, but I just love flitting between this and that, balancing housework with hobbies, sleeping with the curtain open so I can see the stars and watch the trees in the wind...

Now I don't want to turn this into a food blog (it's on my list of what this blog is not about - food!) but I'm making an exception for Pollen Tea Room. Have you heard of it? If not I'll tell you all about it later in the week - the image in the top left of my weekend moments box is of a lovely organic earl grey I had there.

Also, I can't wait to show you some photos of the amazing flowers I purchased from the farmers market!

Plus, I was lucky enough to come across an amazing market find in the most unlikely of places. More on that later too. 

Anyway I hope you had a magical weekend! Don't worry, by the time my lovely fellow was due back I was sick of my own company and ready to share my space with someone again - no ideas of batcheloretting it up for me that's for sure (which is lucky seeing as we just booked in our wedding in February 2016! Eeeeee!!)

Apricots!

Living in a cooler climate means summer is a feast of local stone fruit, and for me, berries and stone fruit are something worth getting excited about. I can't remember if I realised there was an apricot tree in my backyard before or after I purchased my little house, but its definitely one of the things I love about my property and this year has been a particularly bountiful harvest. The thing with fruit is that it's all ripe pretty much at once which means a huge picking effort happened on the weekend!

Even after giving away bucket loads, I still had heaps left over so I popped a sign out the front and sold some to the neighbourhood! 

So my weekend was filled with fruit picking, grading and jam making! Oh I did have time to pop down to another market, which I will tell you about shortly. I have a dream of making a little stand out the front of my house and selling my excess jams, chutneys and other home made creations... maybe that's what my apricot sales money can go towards!

Market Find: Brass Scales

Wasn't the weather on the weekend just magic? I love the hot, muggy feel in the air before a storm, and it was so much fun watching the clouds roll in across the river. 

I decided to kick the year off with a visit to the Sorell Market on Sunday, and met a lovely lady with a great collection of vintage and antique items for sale. I almost didn't ask how much this lovely piece was, but when she mentioned the rock bottom price of $5!!!! I couldn't say no!

When I asked her where the scales come from, she said they lived in her dad's shed for many years. A lot of the items for sale were from her grandparents and dad's years of hording, and although its hard to let good items go, a person just doesn't have the room and after all you always have your memories! I'm glad she told me the story, I couldn't help but think of my own dad and all his collections, and how my sister and I are still wondering where to keep them all...

I couldn't wait to get the scales home for a polish, and posted a sneaky picture on Instagram to try and make everyone guess what my find was! The guesses were great (vase, hookah, candle holder, door knob, barometer!) but no-one guessed correctly!

And here they are all polished up! I love the little enamel flowers, and I think it looks so much better all shiny.

I can't wait to give them a home in my office revamp!

Transforming a step ladder - complete!

A few weeks ago I showed you my step ladder transformation project. I was a bit stuck on what to use as a bedside table in my teeny tiny guest room, until Pinterest inspired me and a little step ladder destined for landfill came my way - for free!

The stool was a little worse for wear and as the bed in that room is a timber finish, I wanted this little guy to be painted.

I would definitely encourage anyone to try a little project like this, it's so much fun, fairly quick and very rewarding! 

First step was to take the stool apart and give everything a sand. Sanding down creates a rougher surface for the paint to adhere to, and if the timber has been varnished you want to get most of that off. It also gives you a good up close and personal look at what you're working with, and if you are a perfectionist (not me) you can patch up holes with putty.

A good orbital sander definitely helps out with a job like this, but there's still plenty of nooks to get in by hand. The grit of sandpaper you use depends on how hard you want to sand the item back. I don't mind things with dents and holes so I just went over with a finer paper.

Next step is undercoat! If you were after a perfect job (see above, not me), you would need to use a stain blocking undercoat first. This will stop the varnish and colour of the timber coming through the paint at a later date. But word of warning! Your perfection comes at a price and that price is, stain blocker is a hard thing to use! I've tried a couple of different brands, and to apply with brush or roller it's stinky (being oil based), dries so quick you don't have time to smooth your brush strokes and is very annoying to clean off your brushes! This stuff comes in a spray in some brands and I would definitely say its worth a go to save the drama.

So this time I used a normal undercoat (one coat). I've found the trick with undercoat is to get your brush strokes all nice and pretty. It saves on sanding later on and makes for a nicer job, and I think its more important than a perfectly even coverage. But that's just me!

I also decided to paint the hinges and bars from the stool in black, as they had marks a sand wouldn't remove. Sometimes however its nice to leave the trimmings the way they are to leave some age on your piece of furniture. After all, you don't want to take away all it's story!

And here it is, complete and in place!

It's a perfect fit, and the pale grey fits in perfectly. 

I have no idea how other people do such a good job of hiding cords in their photos. Photoshop? Cable ties? Fake lamps?

I'm so happy with my little step ladder come bedside table!

Have you ever rescued a piece of furniture? Tell me about it!

Through the Lens...

A long, long, loooong time ago I purchased a DSLR Nikon camera. And I kinda thought that simply by having an expensive camera, my pictures were going to start turning out great (silly, I know!) and of course I was very, very wrong!!

So I started reading my manual, and looking through guides on photography, and although I understood what I was reading about shutter speed and aperture, I just couldn't seem to get my head around how to actually apply them! So like a big silly, I put my camera away and continued relying on my phone and instagram to record my life. 

At the start of every year, I sit down and write out a goal list of what I want to achieve in the next 12 months. It's not a serious list - previous years have included "read more books", "make hollandaise sauce from scratch" and "don't stress out if you don't complete everything on this list". Among other things, "learn to use my DSLR camera" has been a constant item on the list, being transferred year to year and never getting crossed off.

I was looking at my list the other day, and realised, this year I have done everything on my list!

I've visited Mount Field National Park...

Admiring the view from the top of the mountain

...I've read more novels...

I'm a late bloomer when it comes to Terry Pratchett, loving the Disc World stories!

...and I have replaced the garden along the front of my home with plants that I like, and that are edible!

I hated these square (!) bushes and boring ground covers!

This is an old photo. The Bay at the front is going really well and the Thyme just along a bit is huge!

Okay, so I might not have gotten any better at jogging. But I have jogged, so technically I haven't gotten any worse. So that counts, right?!

So, how could I possibly finish the year with that one thing left outstanding?! Well, I couldn't. I so I signed up for a course and learnt a thing or twenty.

Making sure an object is straight before snapping away is a good practice...

The results aren't perfect

But I like to think I know a little of what I'm doing

My Turkish Van cat Luna tolerates the camera for a short moment

And I'm fairly sure that practice will make all the difference!

Do you set yourself goals every year? New Years Resolutions? How do you go with completing them? 

Transforming a step ladder

For the past couple of years I, with the help of my family, have been renovating my plain little suburban house in Hobart.  It was a "renovator's delight" back in 2011, and has slowly been transformed into a bright and modern home. By current standards, my house is small - only 10 squares, with a single bathroom and three small bedrooms. I love it though, especially now that the major works are done and it's just the trimmings to complete.

The part I have enjoyed the most is decorating and bringing together the interior with furniture and art and items I've collected over the years. I've had to be mindful of the potential resale as this house is also a stepping stone for me, which means a neutral interior - white walls, pale floorboards, grey tiles... perhaps not very inspiring but its a palate which allows me to bring in colour where I want it, and means when its time to sell I don't have any major changes to make with floor coverings and wall colours, and not doing things twice sounds pretty good to me!

Out of the three bedrooms, one is mine (obviously), one is a guest room and one is an office and craft room. The guest bedroom has a double bed, and even by putting the bed hard against two walls, I only have about 35cm for a bedside table - and let me tell you, there are not many options out there for very small bedside tables!

So when I went looking for inspiration I fell in love with these:

Aren't they just the sweetest?! Lucky for me, I just happened to have my eye on the perfect little ladder! I bided my time and when the poor rickety old thing finally gave in and its owner decided it was destined for landfill, I quickly whisked it home for its new life!

Here she is! Obviously in need of some serious TLC, I'm looking forward to transforming this little piece into something new and great!

This poor step will need repairing or replacing.

With old furniture, I can't help but wonder what it's story is. The marks underneath means its probably home made. Was it a school project, proudly bought home by a budding furniture maker? Did an experienced man whip this stool up for his wife to reach the heights of her pantry? Maybe it was a gift, or simply an item made from scraps someone had lying around....

I will never know its story (the previous owner can't remember where she got it from), but I look forward to adding to its useful life, and showing you how it comes out along the way!

The small joys of spring

I couldn't resist picking some of the gorgeous blush pink blossoms from a wild apple tree at the start of my road today. Aren't they just the sweetest thing? Nothing says spring more than fruit blossoms, delicate and soft against the crooked rough branches and deep green leaves. Apparently my Nanna Norma, who I never had a chance to meet, loved filling her house with apple blossoms, so I feel particularly special about this little row of blooms in the sweet teal bottles I couldn't resist from Typo on a recent Melbourne trip!