Amazing Craft Swap Goodies!

Hi all, how is your weekend going? Mine's been swell - two parties, brunch with the bf and a spot of shopping! I even managed to snap a coupla quick outfit shots to share with you too!

I wanted to show you the amazing goodies I received from my lovely friend AJ from Missouri Daze. Her blog is super sweet and she shares all sorts of creative projects, so if you're interested in art and craft, check her out!

Here's the package!

A painting by AJ, some hummingbird transfers (I love hummingbirds) and a cute card

Gorgeous jewellery - I had to stop my work friend from pinching the bow ring! And I am looking forward to taking the turquoise earrings and cuff on holiday in September. I think the pendant is one of the pieces AJ creates for her Etsy shop - it's fabulous :)

Templates and cut outs and other embellishments

This little stone now lives on my bedside table. Hope it works! ;)

Swarovski crystals and jewellery findings :)

This was one of my favourite items - a set of personalised notecards and envelopes with my blog name and a flamingo!!! Thanks AJ :)

A bag of wooden, glass and pearl beads and other bits and bobs.

A stash of lace, fabric flowers and other fun bits

I received this little trinket box...and what was inside??

EEK how exciting!! Coral and turquoise beads (my fav colours) AND two amethysts!! I am saving these babies for something special!!

I have no idea how AJ managed to cram so many things into one modest box!!! :)

It made my day receiving this parcel and I kept getting the contents out to have another look at them al - thanks so much AJ :)

Weekend Etsy Sale and lots of cake!

Hello all, WOW it's Friday again! I have spent the day happily munching and sipping tea at our weekly work morning tea, and then again with a small afternoon tea with a small sliver of rainbow cake (which looked like this and was SUPER delicious)

Source

Then at 4pm we are having a small work function and tonight I am going to a friend's Mid-Winter Christmas Dinner Party! A lot of food orientated functions in one day - good job I went to the gym last night!!

What do you have planned for the weekend?

I received an AMAZING box of goodies from my good blogging friend AJ on Wednesday and am hoping to spend a few hours tomorrow making some bits and pieces with the treasures she sent me. (I have also taken a tonne of photos to share with you tomorrow of the goodies I received). 

In the meantime, I am having my first ever Etsy sale!! Yay! 

THIS WEEKEND ONLY!

Save 15% on EVERYTHING in the shop!

Use the code LOVEWEEKENDS

Why not share the love and tell your friends? :)

More Parcels!!

HOLA! I am back from koala land! Or should I say, RAINVILLE! It rained SO much on Monday!! I think my shoes are probably still not 100% dry!

We had a great time and I will post photos this week. I am more excited about what was waiting on my doorstep at midnight when I arrived home!

This baby was an unexpected treat!! I LOVE mail and parcels in particular!! (Who doesn't, right!?). It was from my lovely lovely Mum. Here's what she sent me:

I'd been looking at gilets in Sydney!!!

Can you see what's on this dress?? That's right - FLAMINGOS!!!

Belated Easter chocs and some other choc goodies..apparently there was a blue egg to match the yellow smarties egg....but my niece ate it!! haha!

My FAVOURITE crisps EVER - which you can't get here in NZ :D

Lush earrings and some woollen winter booties in my fav colour coral, knitted by an elderly family friend :)

What a wonderful surprise :D

Today I also received my hair accessory swap parcel from Tiffany in the USA - it took under a week to arrive, wow! Here are the fab items she made me:

Cute wrappings :)

I love this headband and it is totally something I will wear! It came unstuck in the post so I will have to mend it first.

Lovely clips, I'm particularly excited about the comb as I recently saw one in a magazine and thought I'd like to try this look!

A great swap! Here's a little peek at what I sent her - you can see we both thought quite alike!!!

Three hair clips. Do you know how hard it is to find hair clip bases in NZ?! Impossible :(

A yo you hairband. The first yo yos I EVER made. I am now addicted to them!!

Close up of the hairband. I've already made all of the yo yos for an identical one for myself. The most exciting part of this swap was the re-discovery of a box full of vintage fabrics my mum had given me before I moved to NZ!! These fabrics were all Mum's :)

Close up of the back of the flower.

So the postman has been busy with me lately! I am currently participating in a NEW swap - a chocolate swap with Gem from Cupcake Crazy Gem. If you have a sweet tooth, you should definitely check out her blog for some drool inducing inspiration!

I am planning on doing a tutorial for some of the items I made above. If you have a preference of which one you would prefer first, let me know :)

Have a great day! XOXO

DIY Fun

Hello everyone, I hope you enjoyed Cait's guest post yesterday! And thanks for all of your lovely comments on my guest post over at Sailing to Nowhere, it was SO lovely to read such fabulous comments.  

BIG HUGS to you all!!

Well I mentioned briefly yesterday that there was another first for me today.......My DIY Swarovski inspired bracelet tutorial is being featured on {trulie-scrumptious}! They have a weekly {tute-sweet tuesday}, and I was lucky enough to be chosen this week. If you like DIY tutorials like I do, you should definitely have a browse each week to check out what's new :) 

Whilst on a crafting theme, last week I received a package I'd been eagerly anticipating - my craft swap items from the wonderful Jaclyn all the way from Canada! (If you want to have a peek at what I made for her, she posted some pics here.)

Our swap was bird themed, (we are both a bit bird obsessed). Here are the lovely things she made me.... (Excuse the pants photos, they were taken on my iPhone in work)

Luckily Jaclyn had wrapped the contents well, cos look at the size of this hole!!

 

Some of the goodies!!

These magnets are so cute! I love the guy who looks like he's wearing a monocle!

This necklace is amazing. I must take a photo of me wearing it, because the bird dangles from the side rather than the middle. Quite an awesome piece of craftmanship :)

A lovely note card with explanations of each item.

This is also beautiful - a silk scarf with bird embellishments. I love the edging and the frills and everything about it!!See the little bird peeking in the corner? Another goodie from Jaclyn.

 She also sent me a resurfaced tin that now acts as a photo frame, but for some reason I can't find the photo of that :(

Thanks Jaclyn, I love it all :)

Today I am posting a hair accessory themed swap to a lovely swap buddy in the USA...I will be posting a DIY for some of the items I made because I am pretty darn sure you will love them as much as I do! <3 

Has anyone else joined any swaps lately?? 

A mixture of OPI and Nail Rock

Hello folks! Well this week has been ridiculous. It's Friday morning and I seriously don't know where the week has gone!  Work has been non-stop (which is very unusual for me) and I don't even know where my evenings went. I have been behind on blog love and comments, so it's been a week of catch-up. I love reading everyone's blogs and so have been trying to keep up to date with them rather than sitting and posting my own. Hope that's okay :D

Yesterday I took some time out to sit down and experiment with my OPI black shatter. I hadn't been too impressed with the 'cracks' I'd been getting so had a little nosey on some other blogs for advice. Basically, it seems to be that the thicker the layer of crackle you apply, the thicker the cracks. After a good mess around, here's what I ended up with...

A bit messy, but getting there!

The ring IS big, but I also have the tiniest hands! I've actually never met anyone with teenier hands than me!!!

Well, while I was poking around on ASOS (again) this morning, I came across these little babies:

Pony Skin White Black and Pink

They're in the clearance section, and with free P&P I am thinking of trying them out - the shades I am going to buy are the pink pony skin (shown above) - a bit mad, by I'll give them a go - and the metallic red style, as I thought they would be cool for autumn here in NZ.

Metallic Red - nice huh?

BUT I am a bit wary of messing them up! Has anyone tried Minx nails or these Nail Rock nails?!? Any tips??

I'm also looking at watches on ASOS - I have a thing for watches but come and go with wearing them (to me, bangles trump watches usually!). This is the watch I'm wearing today:

It's a charm watch by Guess that I bought many years ago (when I was 21 and living in Las Palmas in fact!), but I still kinda love it. I will show you my fav watches on ASOS tomorrow, so as not to bombard you with info today. :D

I attended a craft swap on Weds and received an AWESOME present, but will wait to do a bigger crafty post when my swaps arrive to Jaclyn and AJ. (Don't want to spoil their surprises!).

Tonight I'm going to a gallery launch and I'm really looking forward to it...as I work for a design college within a university, there's always these sorts of things going on, and some of them are great, but others are snoozeville. This one promises to be saucy and boozy, so I will let you know how it goes! 

How have your weeks been? I love hearing from you all :D
Much love XOXO

Weddings, Crafting and Awards!

Hello! I hope  you all had a lovely weekend - if you are lucky enough to be in the UK, you will have had another four day weekend. NOT FAIR! I did consider taking off one of the Bank Holidays here in NZ as I am a Brit so felt like I deserved at least one, but thought better of it ;)

I've enjoyed reading everyone's takes on the wedding / dresses / hats / etc etc, and won't bore you with mine as there is already SOOO much opinion out there on the wedding already - but I will say I had a jolly good time at my friend's house:

My friend made a great effort with the Brit food and decos! :D

Plenty of wine was consumed and it was a lot of fun :)

This weekend was pretty quiet after last week's break in Auckland. I spent a good few hours crafting in preparation for a swap on Wednesday. It's almost finished and I will show pics soon!

Here are some of the awesome crafty bits I bought in Auckland last weekend from an amazing Japanese store..

Loved everything in the shop- but limited myself to buying these!

Any suggestions on uses for these skull beads?!

 

And here are a coupl'a pics from dress up Friday and a lovely walk/ lunch stop yesterday:

Just your average day at work ;)

Scorching Bay, Wellington

I loved the menu at the cafe! LOTR themed!!

Can you see Gandalf's Mince! Oooh -er!! Love that Kiwi sense of humour! Wonder if Sir Ian does!??

I have also been lucky enough to have been awarded the One Lovely Blog Award (for the 2nd time, yay!) by the fabulous Jane at Love Makes the Girl. And I also received....the Blogger Luxury Award from the amazing Roxy Heart at fash-uh-nee-stah! 

Thanks ladies, and anyone who hasn't checked out these blogs - do it!! ;D 

I will be participating in these blogs tomorrow - so check to see if I pass it to you :D I love sharing all this blog goodness...

One other thing, I have entered my lovely blogging buddy's giveaway at Missouri Daze. Check it out and give it a go - you might win! 

 
What did you get up to this weekend? :D