Crocheted Cacti

I've been bed-ridden for the last few days with mastitis - ick! Super fucking horrible, and just before Christmas is NOT the ideal time to get sick! Luckily I sent hubby to the shops on a last minute expedition, and I'm feeling marginally better today so I've been able to get on with some last minute Christmas preparations (can you see a theme here?!)

I finally got around to doing my little bits of Chrissy baking but MOST importantly I finally finished off my little crochet cacti that I'm giving as a present this year;

The pattern comes from Simply Crochet #22 (my fave number!) and I just thought they were SUPER FUCKING CUTE!

Our Early Christmas went swimmingly - except for a drama with Pop's boat motor, which meant no crabbing for us! But we had a super relaxing day eating good food and chilling out in the shade down by the Estuary, my Big Man had so much fun opening all of his presents (to be honest it kind of feels like Christmas is over already)

I know I say this a lot, but I really do love Christmas. Even though we only have a small family over here, it's still special to me. 

Merry Christmas everyone! I'm off to paint my nails a festive red and get ready for Santa's visit!

Christmas DIY's.

I'm all for Christmas DIY's (obviously), over the years I've made truffles, crocheted baubles, stubby holders, and all sorts of kooky and fabulous bits and pieces for the wonderful people in my life.

This year I've been lazy (okay, MOST years I am lazy, then absolutely frantic on Christmas eve trying to finish off six half-done crochet presents and pulling my hair out) but this year I have been SUPER lazy, and I find myself with less than a week until Christmas and pretty much absolutely nothing done. I headed down to my local Kmart and picked up a few of their Preserving Jars for $2 and have filled them with some ingredients for sweet, delicious cakes, added some pretty tags with instructions for baking ("Date & Banana Bread" and "Orange & Sultana Loaf") YUMMO! Then I topped them off with some pretty wrapping paper that I picked up from Big W and voila, instant DIY Christmas, minimal effort required!

I apologise if my photo's are really crappy quality, with this dodgy computer monitor I can't tell what the colouring is like in my pictures AT ALL! Sad, sad times.

Another DIY that I am SUPER proud of isn't even one of mine, my Bestie sent me a fabulous photo frame that she made for my family and I LOVE IT. She's basically the opposite of crafty so the fact that she even went to the effort just warms my cockles!

HELLO! Amazing present from my beautiful best friend!

Another thing we (okay - I) really need to get on to is the Christmas Baking, the kids have made this years Christmas Cake with Ma (as is tradition) but I am way behind on all that I add to the mix, eek! And tomorrow is the day that we are going to have a "half-christmas" as my eldest is going to Darwin with his Dad for Christmas and I didn't want him to miss out. We received a lovely old Christmas Bikkie book with some cutters from a lady that I used to work with, her children are all in their 30's now so she said we would be much more likely to use it - lucky us!

Umm, super cute!

And finally, for good measure, here is a picture of my boys pretending to be presents! (This year I'm not putting the presents under the tree until Christmas eve - I'm not having a repeat of last year!)

"Look Mum, I'm a present!"

I'M BACK!!

With a vengeance! Haha. I have FINALLY set up my silly smashed laptop through an old computer monitor, (it looks like shite but it means I can finally blog again, praise Jebus!

SO much has been going on lately, my little brother moved out of my Granny Flat so I have been setting it up ever so slowly to become my Craft Room/Cafe/Escape from my children (trust me, every parent needs one right??) Mind you, they don't seem to respect the idea of personal space and "Mum's Area" anyway, so usually we all end up hanging out there. Still, baby steps! It just feels good to start getting things organised, and it gives me a place to do Wedding Planning (and Christmas present wrapping!!) in peace! I have so much planned for our Wedding, at this stage it's mainly only decorations but I still find it super fucking exciting! I'll share some of my bits and bobs later on down the track!

I've been joining in with the Fox In Flats style dare again this month, I love the December one because it's always #DAREcember, and I do enjoy a good pun! I also like having an excuse to get dressed everyday. Okay, it's not really an excuse, more just motivation to actually put in a bit of effort with my appearance, cause as a SAHM I know I can get a little complacent about the way I look, and then I start to feel like shit, and then things just spiral out of control and all I want to do is eat chocolate in my underwear (which of course is a good thing, but not when you're in that mind frame!) So if any of you are that way inclined you should pop on over to the website and have a gander at what Miss Andrea has to make you feel SO much better about yourself!

I've also been lusting after lots of goodies, Christmas time always makes me go a little feral because I'm bombarded on all sides by so many pretty things (I'm actually a bit of a sucker for advertising, I'm not stupid, I know that it is designed to make vapid people buy, buy, buy, but I enjoy looking at different things and trying them out for myself) does that mean I am one of those stupid people, even though I know that's exactly what advertisers set out for?? Anyway, regardless of that we are on a tight ship at the moment and I'm trying so hard to be good. Christmas always makes me want to spend a lot of money on everyone too, and I'm nowhere near finished my Christmas shopping yet either which SUCKS because I know I have bills coming up that I need to be putting money aside for!

Enough blather and depressing budget talk, here is a couple of things I've been keeping a beady little eye on;

This stunning Emily and Fin dress off ASOS for $77

This sweet clutch purse off Etsy seller Reabags for $49.92. 

These extremely Christmassy "Celebration" tumblers from Target Australia which are currently on sale for $16

Ah, so pretty. I must admit I'm longing for very whimsical things lately, maybe it comes from being surrounded by boys 24/7! What sort of things are you lusting over in the lead up to Christmas??

Mobile Lovin.

Hey guys, I know it's been AGES since I've posted, I still haven't fixed my laptop! So I'm just checking in with a quick mobile post, how is everyone going getting ready for Christmas? We have been pretty busy, doing lots of baking, trying to be frugal! I love that I can make presents for people and it's fairly cost effective! We've also been getting crafty in preparation for our wedding, I've been trawling through craft books figuring out what sort of things we want to get done. It feels like everything is coming together quite nicely! 

I hope you've all been smashing my loves. Enjoy the holidays!