Palms

I try to think of a new word a day to google image, you never know what will appear.  I do find it hard, some days to think of a word, but today I thought of palms.

We have a rather fabulous Phoenix Palm in our garden, so it seemed relevant.  Next three pictures are of my tree.

 And some palm fabric designs below.

above Kaufmann-Jungle-Fever-Fabric

above braemore palmshore pineapple

above Escape to paradise

above dwaikikis

above stylehive etsy

above patterns shop

These next two are from spoonflower above by Kamiekazee

this one by Designmagi at Spoonflower.  If you are ever looking for many different and cool fabrics or want to have your own designs printed try out this site.

And how can I miss out, above and below Versace for H&M winter 2011

more cushions

Here are the rest of the cushions I made the other day. 3 IKEA and one from some fabric a friend gave to me (second from left) which I thought was rather groovey.

 below. This is a little picture I drew and then added a Dr Zeus quote.  I used a iron on transfer for the printer, it didn't come out too bad, but I think it will go in my daughters room.  My girls wondered if I could make them hoodies with rabbit ears, but I am not sure how I would keep the ears sticking up.

bright cushions

I finally got around to making some cushion covers for the sofa.  We had some but they were getting old and some of them were falling apart.  THe unfortunate thing about making cushion covers out of lovely old materiel is that it is quite often not long for this world and will disintegrate sometime sooner rather than later.  Just less than a year ago I went back to England to see my new baby nephew and his mother took me to Ikea where I bought some materiel.  For most people in the world this is not too exciting, but I live in NZ and we have no IKEA, not even one, so it was frightfully exciting, except of course that I can't take a flat-pack kitchen home with me in my suitcase.  I did however buy some materiel, not enough, again serious suitcase issues.

I bought this for my daughter, but I thought it looked a bit plain so I made a heart stencil and painted 3 big hearts onto it to brighten it up.

I am currently out of photo space on my google account, just waiting for the new storage to come through.  Will continue to post after this

diy sparkly necklace

My mum came to stay, she bought my nine year old a book on beading, and they went to the local bead shop and bought beads, fixings and some polymer clay.  THis was two weeks ago and small child is still making jewelry.  She has good style I think, photo of her first design on her sweet little nine year old neck.

gorgeous kitchens

Our kitchen needs re-doing, probably moving to another room in the house, cause the flow ain't right.  We can't afford that but I have done some kitchen day-dreaming anyway, mainly at this fab blog Pretty Kitchens .  Loads of inspiration and different styles to choose from.  And I don't have links for these next four photos, any one know?

 loving rustic

Loving the lime green splash-back. mark bolton photography

 all photos below from pretty kitchens

 If my house could fit a kitchen in this big I wouldn't really care what it looked like, futuristic, light and simple pimple.

 this is so sweet, my husband would not understand/hate it.  Those tiles look a bit hard though, smash the dropped things to smithereens.

 The plywood house/kitchen thing has been around for a while, this mixed with colour cup-boards and the light-shades ( I want some) is rather cool I do think.

 turqouise work top!

 beautiful old falling-down mansion style kitchen, admiring the floorboards and that spiral staircase.  Where's my ball gown?

 wasn't sure if this was a dressing room or a kitchen, it is sooo yellow but I like it.

 Great eclectic style and splashes of bright colour

 I liked the banquette on the right side and all that lovely natural light and the fact that it is enormous.

I love the wallpaper in this one and the check flooring and the table and chairs, I love it all!

event day

We (husband and I and 350 other people) have now accomplished the run we have been training for (well I have been training, he has been too busy, but done a little bit).  Loop the Lake.  Beautiful sunny day, lots of tree roots, lots of rocky river beds dry and wet, many undulations, mountains, a big lake and some beautiful native plants.  I ran it in 2hrs 38minutes and 20 seconds and came 126th.  I ran quicker than last year and me and husband got our second night away from the kids in 12 years(my mum looked after them for the night).  So It was all very nice.  Funny photo of me running through a river here, ha ha.

 This is probably the only flat section of the whole run, but it is the only bit I have a photo of.

vintage wallpaper

Just been nosying around some houses on the market in our town.  one house we went to was full of potential, needed lots of work but could have been really cool.  But the best thing about it was the wallpaper in one of the bedrooms.  I was smitten by it.  Must have been put up with the house (1930's).  We went along because the photos of the house made it look like a serial killer house.  The garage was satisfyingly reminiscent of the film "Misery" and  "Texas Chainsaw Massacre". but we liked it.

 and the carpet was sweet too.

little denim bag

 I made this bag for a 13 year old friends birthday out of some old fallen apart jeans.  To make the front of the bag I drew black outline, coloured it in on the computer, printed it onto transfer paper and ironed it onto some denim.  My daughter decided  it needed a butterfly to brighten it up.  The pattern for this one came from a japanese book from the library.  It is meant to be bigger and have a little drawstring purse in its body, which is really sweet, but it would have swamped this bag and its wings would have been too flopsy.

 I used some grey lace from my stash and coloured in some black stripes onto the side panels.  The strap is made out of a faded thick silk scarf. 

The lining of the bag has a little pocket to put an ipod or phone into.