GIFTS FROM NEW YORK

Rebecca, our youngest daughter travelled to the US late November for 3 weeks and these are the lovely pressies she bought for me.  

This gorgeous maroon Kate Spade of New York bag, I love it.

A Christmas ornament from "The Big Apple" personalised with "Merry Christmas 2017", Rebecca said you could have anything written on it.

A key ring with "Kaylee" on it, how exciting, when Rebecca saw it she had to buy it for me.

 We looked after Rebecca's fur babies, Kendrick and Nala while she was away.  When Rebecca came to our place last Saturday I put a message around their necks to welcome their Mumma home.        This is Nala.

This is Kendrick

Rebecca with Kendrick and Nala, they were all excited to be reunited.

Hugs

Kaylee

AUSTRALIA DAY 2018 SWAP

My Dear Bloggy friend Anthea of Hibiscus Stitches is hosting her second Australia Day Swap in 2018.  We had so much fun this year, if you'd like to join for 2018 head over to Anthea's Blog and join up. SIGN UP CLOSES ON FRIDAY 5TH JANUARY 2018

Cheers

Kaylee

PASSPORT AND CHRISTMAS

I'm so excited, I'm 59 and applied for my first ever Passport for my travels next year, the pages are so pretty with the Australian photo watermark pages.

            Kate gave me this really gorgeous Oroton passport cover with my Birthday pressies.

My old Christmas Wreath was over 20 years old so last year I threw it out, this year I made a new                             one, it only took 20 minutes using my glue gun, it's simple, I love it.

Last Thursday I went into Brisbane city to visit my ex work place of over 19 years for a visit and I                            had my photo taken in the Foyer next to the glorious big Christmas tree.

I went to lunch with two of the girls I worked with to Jellyfish Restaurant at Riverside Centre (I worked in the Riverside Centre), it's my favourite restaurant in Brisbane.  We enjoyed the most delicious meal as usual.

My Mum has come to visit for 2 weeks over Christmas/New Year.  While she is here she is going to teach me cake icing.  This is my first attempt, I know it's not a masterpiece and I really don't intend to paint cakes however apparently I need to learn everything "just in case". 

This will be my last post for 2017

Looking forward to a Happy & Healthy 2018 for us all. Also for many new adventures in our van and some travelling overseas.

Hugs

Kaylee

LAUNDRY BAGS AND DRESSES AND POPPIES

My craft efforts over the past few weeks have been these 2 laundry bags for our ADF, through Aussie Hero Quilts (and Laundry Bags) for squadron and they need to be done in Black and Yellow.

       I also finished the hems and pockets on these 15 dresses for Dress A Girl Around The World,                                                                               Australia

     I started making some crochet Poppies for the project 5,000 Poppy group. Next year is 100 years                                                since the end of the great war WWI.

Happy Friday everyone

Hugs

Kaylee

BLOCK #1 "LOVE IS" BOM AND A PEG BAG

A whole month has gone by without a post from me, well since I last posted on here we were away in our caravan on two trips, the first one for 2 weeks, then home for 1 week and gone again for nearly 3 weeks and we've been home a week today. We had a wonderful time away in our van going to Woolgoolga and Ballina for the first trip and then to Port Macquarie, Nambucca Heads, Yamba and Evans Head for the second trip. I have a ton of photos and need to transfer them to my computer before I can do a BLOG post.

In our travels I have been doing some reading and Chicken Scratch on a table cloth and also finished BLOCK # 1 of "Love Is" BOM by Rosalie Quinlan. I've also started on BLOCK # 2. I love the embroidery thread colour DMC 3831, it's a Raspberry colour.

In the week in between our two trips I decided I needed a peg bag as I only had the pegs in a plastic zip bag and was very inconvenient so I made myself this apron peg bag for the van and it's also storage for the pegs, hence the zip.  I love it, so handy.

                                         

I've wanted a Sue Daley Rotating cutting mat for some time but at $39.60 I couldn't justify the price so I improvised with my own.  I received an email from Patchwork with Busyfingers 2 days ago and they have some specials on their web site so was really impressed when I saw the little package below for $99.99 with free postage. The package included the Sue Daley rotating mat which sells for $39.60, so adding up everything individually this was a really good buy so I made an executive decision to treat myself for Christmas as I hadn't joined any BLOG Christmas swaps this year.

Getting back to my own version of the rotating mat, I really couldn't justify spending $39.60 so last year I found a black rotating mat in China for $7.99 which has grooves in it and so I would use it with a small green cutting mat on it. How lovely is my Sue Daley rotating mat with the pink on top, it doesn't compare to my make shift one....

Well to my surprise and shock when I turned it over its the exact same mat as mine which I paid $7.99 for.  So actually this made me a little mad as essentially it's the same as the Sue Daley one and they charge $39.60 and the only difference being they have added the pink piece on top and it's just glued on as I could easily life it off with my finger nail.  Well I'm sorry ladies but really how can it be worth $39.60. They are making tons of profit on these. They could easily afford to sell them for $25  to make them more reasonable. Also as you can imagine they would buy them in bulk and would be paying less than $7.99 each for them.  So in actual fact I'm not as happy as I first was when I placed the order.

Ho hum we live and learn, just beware if you don't already have one and you'd love one, make your own.  I had asked my husband a couple of times if we could go to a cabinetmakers to see if we could obtain a small offcut to hot glue onto mine but it never got done........

Happy Friday everyone.

Cheers
Kaylee