See you in January!

I am so looking forward to starting a new year... 2012 is going to be grand! Stay safe, enjoy your holidays and I'll see you in early January.

love, Lisa
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New Roxy Longsocks Faces

I've just added some new Roxy Longsocks face panels to my shop. I named Roxy Longsocks after my Roxy, so it seems fitting that one of the faces looks like her.

There doesn't seem to be much choice around if you're looking for a doll with an Asian face, so at least now you have the option to make one... or some. The other new face has green eyes, so now you can choose to make your own Roxy Longsocks with dark Asian eyes, blue eyes, green eyes, or brown eyes.

The Pattern Kits, and individual faces are all available in my shop now. Some crafting for the holidays perhaps?
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Roxy's quilt

I managed to put together another block for Roxy's quilt on the weekend. At this rate I'll have it finished by 2020.

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Our Gingerbread House

Roxy has been obsessed with two things this Christmas: singing Deck the Halls over and over again, and making a gingerbread house.

There was much excitement and singing as we looked for a recipe, drew the templates, planned the decoration and shopped for the ingredients.

So yesterday, while we sang Deck the Halls we baked the gingerbread, and this morning - while we sang Deck the Halls - we put it together and decorated it. For a first ever attempt it turned out OK. Roxy was in charge of deciding how we decorated it (I had to let go and breath deeply and let her do it!) and I was in charge of applying the icing "glue" so she could attach the sweets.

I think she did a pretty excellent job. I love the little gate! All that is left to do is sift icing sugar snow over the top.

Half way through we had a bit of an engineering disaster when half of one side of the roof fell off! (you can see in the photos that the roof is shorter on the left hand side) It seems like it was too laden with freckle shingles and icing glue. So we now have a house with eaves on one side but not on the other.

Things I have learnt:
- you can never have too much icing or too many sweets (according to Roxy)
- make the roof pieces smaller next time
- buy a CD of Christmas songs. variation is good.
- for the base, cover a chopping board with foil instead of using cardboard which isn't so sturdy and can cause the equivalent of an earthquake when you try to move it.

We've decided to make it a new tradition and make a gingerbread house each year. Do you make them? I have a question... Christmas day is still nearly a week away, how do you store it? I've wrapped ours up in cellophane, but I'm unsure whether it's going to stay fresh. Have we made it too early? Should we have a pre-Christmas gingerbread tea party instead of waiting until "the day'?

Deck the halls with boughs of holly,
Fa la la la la la la la la...


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Christmas is coming

The weeks leading up to Christmas are mad aren't they? I've been at the post office sending orders every day for the past few weeks and the queue is out the door no matter what time or what day I go. I did most of my gift buying online and now I'm waiting on the postie and couriers every day hoping that things will arrive in time for Christmas. But of course there are always more to things buy and I'll have to brave the shops - and the car parks - sometime soon. School broke up today for the 6 week summer holidays. So many things are being left undone...

I'm doing a spot of late night web browsing and I've just had a look at my Google Reader and got a bit ruthless and deleted 86 of the 190 blogs that were in there. I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed by the 1000+ unread posts that seemed to be always waiting for me. I remember some time ago Pip deleted everything in her Reader and started again. Inspiring. Scary. I don't think that I'm brave enough to do that just yet! How's your Reader looking?

I just saw these lovely photos on Sania Pell's blog and the pops of fluro caught my eye. And because I haven't done anything terribly creative in terms of Christmas yet I thought I'd share this inspiration with you.

I love the idea of painting baubles, and especially swirling paint inside them (like in the photo below). So simple and stunning. I'm a sucker for Christmas decorations and usually go a bit nuts each year after Christmas when they are seriously marked down. I'm going to buy some clear glass baubles this time with a view to trying the swirly paint idea for next year.

... And fluro pops on berries and flowers. Gorgeous.

All images via Sania Pell.
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Tree, line

Wonderful installation art, or 'site specific interventions in the landscape' by Zander Olsen.


Found via Poppytalk via Free People.

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Christmas Gifts for Kids

The folks at the Finders Keepers blog asked me to compile a list of Christmas gift picks for children and if you pop over there you'll also find top picks from other Australian designers/makers. I bought the cute rabbit family mirrors for Roxy from Scoops Design at Finders Keepers market the other weekend... but they are an early house warming present, not a stocking filler. "Early" because she already has them and we don't even know where we are moving to yet (7 weeks left)!

How's your Christmas shopping going?

I'm not sure why they lists all say "spring"... am I missing something?

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Sold :: Before and Afters

We sold our house last weekend.

Although it's a great home and I love it here it's time to move on. I'm looking forward to a new start in a new home for Roxy and I - it will be much smaller, and will be an apartment rather than a house, but it will be home. I'm excited about it actually - having a new space to furnish and decorate! I'm hoping to find something that needs a complete renovation that I can make my own. I'll let you know what happens.

But in the meantime I was looking back at how the house looked when we bought it 6 years ago. I thought you might like to see the before and afters. First I have to make something clear... the furniture in the before shots is not mine, I took the photos before the previous owners moved out.

The front of the house before and after. The first thing we did when we moved in was pull out the hodge podge of plants and plant a much more formal garden. I love trimming the hedges and keeping them all neat and square (my Virgoan tendencies showing themselves!). We also painted over the heritage green, burgundy and cream with a dark chocolate/aubergine-hard-to-describe-colour, dark grey and an off white.  (After shot: Ray White, Lane Cove)

The back garden before and after. Again, everything is much neater and the pergola was painted. Although our garden is small by Australian standards it's been all we've needed and I'm really going to miss it.

The back of the house before and after. (After shot: Ray White, Lane Cove)

The living room before and after. The interiors were painted a bright white and the timber doors were painted gloss white, and the rest just comes down to furniture and styling. (Bottom image: Ray White, Lane Cove)

The living room looking back towards the kitchen. As well as painting we replaced the ugly laundry door.

The bathroom. The top right photo is the before shot - the walls were pink and there was a strip of burgundy tiles as well as five diamond shaped tiles featuring various sea creatures. The top left image is a half way photo - the painting was done, but the old mirror and fluorescent light were still in place. We couldn't afford to renovate the bathroom so we painted the walls in a beautiful colour called 'donkey', replaced the mirror, installed a frameless shower screen, painted the window frame white, and painted over the coloured feature tiles.

The front room of the house, before and after. Can I tell you again, that the furniture in the before photos isn't mine ! We lifted the tired old carpet in the front of the house to find beautifully polished floorboards that had never been walked on. Bonus. Together the gleaming floor, new timber blinds, light fitting and a coat of paint gave this room (my studio/office) a huge lift. We retained the original timber features of the front of the house. The ceilings are patterned too which adds to the character.  (After shot: Ray White, Lane Cove)


So as you can see we didn't do a big expensive renovation job, but managed to bring the house to life with a new coat of paint, some minor changes and an injection of colour. I do have to add that the look of the house has changed a lot in the last 18 months since I've been the only one who was making the decisions. As one of my friends commented "girly fabric heaven"! (which is much more evident in the lounge room and bedroom)
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Roxy Longsocks

How beautiful are these Roxy Longsocks dolls... and the photos! The colours just pop. Marina tested the pattern for me and took these lovely photos of her sweet Miss Wink in the garden with Roxy Longsocks x 2. You can see from these shots just how big Roxy Longsocks is.

If you're looking for some sweet and simple clothes to make for little girls take a look at Marina's (Wink Designs) lovely sewing patterns. Roxy has one of the Wrap-Up skirts and loves it. It's perfect for little girls because it looks like a wrap skirt but has a practical elasticised waist. Visit Wink Designs on Etsy for Marina's pdf patterns.

Roxy Longsocks Pattern Kits are available in my online shop.
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Loving This...

Man in the Moon poster from Mokkasin.

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The Design Files Open House

Are you in Melbourne? What are you up to this weekend? If you're interested in Australian design and up for a bit of shopping (ah, that would be me except that I'm in Sydney!) then don't miss The Design Files Open House.

Lucy Feagins, author of the Australian design blog The Design Files has pulled together an amazing four day event. Based in a stunning home in Fitzroy, The Design Files Open House is filled with wonderful furniture, homewares, art, books and so much more including a cool Mini in the garage - and all of it is for sale. There are even chefs cooking up a storm in the kitchen each day, including Rohan Anderson today. Lucy is all about championing Australian design and this is a genius idea to showcase the work of local designers and artists. I know it has been a huge task for Lucy to pull off, but she's done it and it looks amazing. (That's Lucy in the mustard pants below right enjoying a glass of bubbles at the opening.)

All photos by John Deer for The Design Files

The Design Files Open House is a pop up shopping experience that is only open for 4 days - until Sunday. You can find all the details here. If, like me, you can't make it there all the items will be available online from Monday. The link will be on Lucy's blog no doubt, so see you there.

For more images from the opening night preview go to The Design Files.

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