Necklace out of Scrapbook paper

You have probably all seen the lovely coloured necklaces around that have been made with various assortments of paper rolled up and sprayed with clear varnish.

On Pinterest last week I came across a tutorial with the template cutouts to make these necklaces so thought I'd give it a go. You can follow the tutorial from here.

Here are my photos of making them.

Above: These are the papers I chose

Oops forgot a photo of the actual pattern and rolling!
Above and below: The rolled beads on skewers.

 Above: I placed them into a florists oasis to spray with the clear varnish

 

Above: All finished

 

Above: The necklace is now at home amongst my other necklaces and scarves

 

I quite enjoyed making them. I made mine with the first pattern of the templates but made them a bit longer than what appears  here. 

Perhaps you could give it a try for a weekend project.

 

Baked not fried Spring Rolls

I discovered via a blog some months back that you could oven bake spring rolls. I had always thought spring rolls needed to be deep fried, hence I never made them!

Since that discovery spring rolls have been served up every few weeks at our house. The first time I made them I found a fairly traditional recipe for the mix, but now I just make up a mix of whatever I like.

I fry up whatever minced meat I desire (pork, chicken, beef) and slice or grate up finely whatever vegetable I want and add seasonings and stock to taste. This is very vague but I do just make it up as I go. Allow the mix to cool and drain any excess fluid before placing on the pastry to roll up.I just place a little oil on the edge of the pastry to seal it. No need to brush the rest of the rolls, just pop them in a moderate oven until crispy.

These photos aren't very good, but it was my record of making them at the time.

 

I have been enjoying building my boards in Pinterest with those things that interest me and my favourite find for the week would be this crotched bag.

 

I am quite keen to give this a go. The tutorial can be found here.

Remember if you would like an invite from Pinterest to start creating your virtual pinup boards, just ask and I'll send you one. It's much quicker than just requesting one from the Pinterest site where you will have to wait up to a week to get started.

Pinterest....I'm addicted!!

Over the last week, my evenings have been spent discovering Pinterest! You may have heard or seen links to it of late and wondered what all the fuss was about, like me.

It is a place where you can create virtual pinup boards in your space and add, like, comment, follow and pin all the things that you see on the net or within the Pinterest community that interests you. You create 'boards' with categories that best describe what you want to put in them..eg. Food, Creative Ideas... You can view my boards here http://pinterest.com/nettii62 - If you aren't signed up with Pinterest you can only click on the images and view...once you are signed up you can then do all the fun stuff.

I can 'Invite' you....Without an invite you can only view all the eye candy.
As I didn't know anyone with a Pinterest account I clicked on  Pinteret's 'invite' button and waited around a week before I could start the fun. As I'm now a member I can now invite you so you can get started straight away. Just email me or leave a comment if you would like an invite.

Blogging vs Pinterest...Pinterest won't take over the blogging world. I've discovered that even though you can 'like', 'pin' and 'comment' on people's images you don't have the personal communication like you do on blogs.

Here are some things that I have found and placed in some of my boards so I can easily refer back to them.

In my 'Drawn to Pink' board

Source: cutoutandkeep.net via Annette on Pinterest

In my 'Food' board

Source: glamour.com via Annette on Pinterest

In my 'Clever Ideas/Things to make' board

Source: giverslog.com via Annette on Pinterest

To 'pin' an image from a blog or website you install a 'pin it' button which sits in your browsers toolbar. If you see something you like and want to add it to one of your boards you click on the 'pin it' button and the images from that sites page will come up. You choose which photo you want and a pop up window all bring up the list of your boards, you simply choose which board to place the photo into. The 'pin it' button will automatically save the website address of which that image came. So in your board if you pin a tutorial, you just click through and you come to the website of which the image came.

Important...if you want to pin an image on a blog, make sure you click into the appropriate 'post' where that image comes from. If you don't the people might have to wade through a whole lot of posts before coming to what they are wanting...frustrating. I learnt this by mistake and had to go back and re-do my links.


If you want to learn more I found this beginners tutorial quite good http://www.sortacrunchy.net/sortacrunchy/2011/05/pinterest-a-beginners-guide.html

If you have any questions or want to receive an immediate invite, please comment or email me and I'll forward you one so you can get started. WARNING....It is addictive!

61 years of marriage!

My Mum and Dad celebrate their 61st Wedding Anniversary today...wow what an effort!
The have 6 daughters, son in laws, 10 grand children and 6 great granchildren.

 

The below photo was taken at Christmas time.

 

Parcel in the post

While perusing through the Ezibuy catalogue recently I came across a Deborah Hutton throw rug that was drastically reduced in price. I'm a bit of a sucker for throw rugs so hopped on the net and ordered it.

It arrived a couple of days ago.

I love it!  It's so soft and the knitted cable running through it is just beautiful. Another throw to add to my ever growing collection!

Last night I made baked potatoes which I hadn't made in ages. I rolled up the potatoes in alfoil and popped in the oven for around an hour. You can do them in the microwave wrapped in gladwrap with holes poked in the gladwrap.

 I then fried up some bacon, capsicum, tomatoes and mushrooms.

I plated them up.

Then topped with cheese, and put the plate in the microwave for around a minute to melt the cheese and then topped with sour cream and chives.

It was delicious and very filling!

Federer and Nadal....funny promo!

Even if you're not a tennis fan, you'll love this video of Federer and Nadal trying to do a promotional advert....very funny!

A couple of recipes

Over the Christmas/New Year period I happened to catch the New Ideas Test Kitchen TV show a few times. I really enjoyed the recipe ideas and tips that they shared.
One of the recipes which I have made twice now was a Chicken and Bacon Roll...mmmm delicious!

As I didn't have my camera at the time I took some shots on my phone but they turned out quite blurry. This is the only one I had which was laying it all out on the baking paper.

Here is a photo of the finished product, taken from the New Ideas Kitchen website

 

You can get the recipe from here   and while you're at it you might like to view some of the episodes. It was a great show.

At one of our family Christmas gatherings I experienced a new taste sensation...a Beetroot and Egg salad...who would have thought?!!  Not me anyway!! I'd never heard of this and loved the look of it too because it was pink!!

I didn't get any photos of it but have found this one on the net.

The salad has only 3 ingredients...finely sliced beetroot and quartered boiled eggs, mixed with mayonaise. Simple!

Speaking of 'simple'...last weekend we had a group of friends over for a BBQ. The girls usually like to bring something, so I asked if they could all bring a salad. To our amusement when they all rocked up, we discovered the 3 out of the 4 girls had bought the same salad!! It was the crunchy noodle salad that they all said "it's so easy"!!!  Hence it was the butt of many jokes on the night, but it didn't matter as they all had a slightly different takes on them. One used slivered almonds, one used pine nuts and one didn't use any nuts. Next time though I might check on what they will be bringing!!

For those that haven't heard of this salad it can be found here.

We came another step closer during the week of finishing our bathroom makeover, but still a little way to go yet. We had the towel rails, shower shelf and hand towel rails fitted along with a new bathroom door. We actually had 5 doors installed from the rooms leading off the passage. Need to paint them all now :(

Here is another sneak peak.

The feature colour I'm using is that green/teal colour of the towels. I purchased them and am happy with how they look, but boy do they give off lots of fluff. They've been washed about 6 times since I've had them and they are just starting to slow down with giving off the fluff. It was driving me crazy seeing all green bits all in the bathtub and on the floor.

I will be joining Pink Saturday today, so here is a few photos I have featured before to satisfy those who are visiting to see some 'pink'!!

 

Above: From my hutch

Above: A page from a booklet I put together for a client

Above: Some of my favourit things!

Summer Days

Not sure where to start seeing that I have had my longest break from blogging!! I look forward to catching up on some blog reading soon too as it's been quite a while since I called in on my blog friends.

Our Christmas this year was spread out over a week, with 3 family gatherings. We had Christmas Day with my hubby's family, a boxing day BBQ at our place with our sons, their partners and their parents and then one a few days later with all my family. It was a great time of catching up.

For my family gathering it was a scorching day of 39° so instead of having it at one of my sister's places, they hired the local civic hall, which gave us lots of space and air conditioning. The young kids loved the stage and provided fun entertainment with impromptu dance displays and skits...very funny!

This was the long lunch table at the civic hall with my family.

All my sisters on the steps of the stage at the civic hall.

We had a garden party for a friends 21st. It was a beautiful setting and very pretty!

 

The only picture I had of the pretty setting!

Us old gals enjoying the afternoon

 

This was the birthday girl who got dressed down later in the night
and enjoyed choosing a treat from the huge box of chocolates!

 I always enjoy our outdoor entertaining area at this time of the year. It's a tranquil place to sit and read, or to share meals with friends and family. 

 

I love relaxing with a good book and a couple that I have read over the past months and really enjoyed are these.

And yes our bathroom makeover is progressing but slowly!!  We have the new vanity in now, but still waiting on a few other things to be done before I can show the big reveal!! Here is a sneak peak of the vanity.

 I will be back soon with a new delish recipe I came across the other week...yum!

Our changing front garden and house over the years

Since we purchased our house back in 1994, we have made many, many changes inside and out, with our latest project of renovating the bathroom. The bathroom is at a bit of a standstill while we wait for our new vanity and shelving to be built, but I will show lots of photos once it's all finished.

When we bought our house it had mission brown window frames and a huge palm tree. Here is a shot of back then.

After a few years we had the palm tree removed. It actually got transplanted into someone else's garden so it is still alive and well today, overlooking the River Murray. I will have to dig out the photos of the removal as it was a feat in itself with 2 cranes used to get it onto the back of a semi-trailer!

Around 7 years ago we had the outside of the house painted in creams with country blue window frames and last year we added a bullnose verandah which you will see in the below photos.

 About 4 years ago, due to the drought we had the front garden re-done and planted out with grasses and roses. Roses were proving to be very water wise and I liked colour so that's why we chose them. The grasses however, became a bit straggly and I didn't really like the look of them, so a few months ago we pulled them out and planted up some petunias in their place. The petunias still need to fill out but they are getting there! The water restrictions aren't in place, but we are still water conscious.

Here is another shot of how large the palm tree was.

I am really enjoying having the colour back in the garden again.Notice we have some twinking lights hanging on the verandah for the Christmas season.