To The Maxxxxx

Tonight I've been reading my old old blog. The one that started when I was just a girl in love with her best male friend. The one where I publicly declared a vow of singleness for a year, then a few months later posted a gush-y declaration that I was finally with the man who would, 2.5 years later, be my husband. Also, entertainingly, the one where I tried out vast numbers of fantastic phrases myself and my friends were using... "Oh yeahhhhh...", "Or bagels", "To the maxxx!", "Of love." "Your Mum [insert something that doesn't make sense here]", "So's your face!" Not to mention... something about a personal trainer, copious tie-jokes, referring to Kat as "Cupcake" or "twin" in pretty much every post, and constantly referring to myself as Uncle Klara. Yep, good times. It all ended on a lovely high.

Then I got this blog and it has been great. High lights (from memory) would include my life of being a Church employee, the beginnings of my craft passions, the day I got engaged, the day I bought a house, the week-ish after I got married... fun times.

But, new chapter. I've not been Klara Jury for a long time now and I've really been meaning to start from scratch for some time. Without going into detail for the second time tonight (the new blog does that for you, I promise) allow me to direct you... HERE.

It's pretty plain and boring, with no great links or anything. Give it 2 weeks and I promise it will be beautiful.

2009...

2009 has been the year for learning:
- How to be married (and thoroughly enjoying the process)
- How to cook amazing food
- How to drive an automatic car (shut up, it took some getting used to compared to manual!)
- How to create something other than stuffed animals ;)

2009 has been the year for things breaking:
- Plates, glasses & mugs that we received as wedding/engagement gifts
- The solar hot water system
- The oven
- Chris's Rav 4
- My Hyundai Excel

2009 has been the year for things being great:
- Dinner parties & entertaining at our house
- Adding 2 puppies to our family
- Loving my besties EVEN MORE than I did a year ago
- Our trip to California
- Finding total joy in silly little things!!

2009 has been the year for things sucking:
- Being pitifully broke for almost the entire 2nd half of the year
- Our (in)ability to keep up with the housework (especially the dishes!)
- Losing my Grandad
- Leaving the best work environment ever (the Mounties Church office) after 3.5 years

2009 has been the year for dreaming:
- 1,000 ideas to improve our house
- How to spend all that money we'll be earning some day ;)
- Wanting more than anything to be a house wife while Chris earns the bucks
- Running a successful Etsy store

So far, this is what I know 2010 will bring:
- The Kitchen Renovation (starting this Saturday! Eeeek!)
- Big life decisions to be made
- Some kind of struggle
- Some really great things
- More broken stuff (possibly more expensive broken stuff, realistically)
- More lessons to be learnt
- More dreams to be had

Going into a new year does make me nervous, because you really don't know what's coming, what you'll be reflecting on at the end of it. Hopefully mostly good stuff. Hopefully minimal heartbreak. Either way, it's going to happen. So 2010, here we come. Treat us well, OK?

And So She Blogs Again...

Wow, how time flies. I've been piling up the reasons to not blog, and they all begin with our wonderful trip to America :) Basically, I didn't wat to blog until I had time and energy to post all the stories and fun times we had! And when time lapsed a little too far... the excuses began snow-balling.
So, here I am, with a list of what Mrs. D has been doing lately..!
1) Falling in love with like 100 new blogs... it's an obsession, really!
2) Washing dishes. The eternal chore.
3) Looking for a new job
4) Experiencing the very worst money-woes ever experienced by me, to date!
5) Cooking
6) Looking forward to the wedding of the year... 9 days until my sweet bestie walks down the aisle!!
7) Developing opinions I would be happier without
8) Being amazed at the fact that our little boys (AKA Dog & Cupcake) will be turning ONE YEAR OLD soon!
9) Desperately looking forward to our anniversary, and trip to Margaret River
10) Holding out excitedly for Christmas
11) Not cleaning the bird cage (sorry Rocky and Orlando! This weekend I swear!)
12) Eating cheese and crackers (currently!)
13) Wishing I could study some more in music :(
14) Growing some serious roots where my blonde high-lights are/were
15) Thinking "I really must get back on my blog"
So wow. What an informatively boring post! But hey, at least you know I haven't given up all blogging habits. And I'll really try to come back, very very soon.
My tip of the day? Go check out Summer Teeth. So so beautiful...

Gahhhhh..pppp...

So, just now I've learnt that Skunkboy Creatures is about to release a pegasus. I haven't seen a glimpse yet, but I'm 98.7% certain I'm going to want it, really really badly.
I'm basing this certainty on my previously posted about love of these two guys:


Oh gosh. What am I to do????????

A Sale!!!

I've been working on some new designs, updating some old ones (pics will come soon!) Although it's over a month away, my big shop update is planned for late July after our trip to America.

So, in the mean-time, I'm declaring a big fat SALE on all old toy styles as they've now been updated!

Cuties like Magda:

Kiera:

Betsy:

and Norah:

have been reduced by a fair chunk, along with others just like them!

So hurry on over to Buttonfactory :) and grab yourself a BFF (that stands for Button Factory Friend!) Aaaaaand look forward to the update, of course. I know I will ;)

Just A Boring List

- I have a lot of blogs down my left sidebar. It may look pretentious, but seriously, I read every single one of those with incredibly keen interest!
- Freshly baked cakes that turn out dry are annoying. Especially a) when they're your self-assigned 'signature cake' or b) when they're really really tricky and take hours to make
- Cloud pins can go with virtually anything
- Chilli con carne is love love love. Us crazy Donovans almost made it twice in one week, it's so good!
- My Little Pony is back in my heart
- I think we need a real-deal coffee machine. Mmmm...
- Lots of people are having babies. I'm sort of jealous and sort of not.
- I made my first ever mashed potatoes tonight, and they were onion-y and great
- Cold cold cold cold cold cold cold!!!!!
- I wonder what I will be when I grow up?
- I love Picnik. I now want to go out on a photoshoot so that I can impress people with my mad editing skills.
- Puppy growling sounds so silly!
- Pretty fabrics...!
- I need to add some new recipes to my repertoire.
- Long days are so long
- I don't feel like icecream right now
- We say grace at dinner now :)
- I wonder if we're all going to get swine flu eventually?
- Flowerrrrrrrssssss

Mmm...

The last few days have been sort of... horridly insane. The puppies got neutered and need to be monitored, Chris is (as of this morning) away at Circus Maximus camp, and most prominent of all these distractions is the fact that our hot water system has gone belly-up. What I thought was raining pouring off our roof on Thursday night was, in actuality, the contents of our solar tank.
Chris spent a good chunk of Friday on the phone to various solar HWS companies, receiving quotes and such. The verdict? We need to replace the whole darn system. The cost? $2,000 (better than the $3,060 we were originally quoted by a different company, but still... ouch.)

So today, with husband off at camp, and a little time to myself, I've decided to take it easy. The most strenuous thing I plan to do is bake a cake. I'm taking a day of Sega-playing, DVD-watching and Twilight-reading, and the only real interruption will be when I head to my parents' for a much-needed shower. What a joyful break :)
So, I'm banishing myself from the computer, the craft table, and taking an entirely selfish day to relax in whichever way I please.
Yay me!!

Such Funs!

Well, the big day is finally over. Penny, Kirstin and I had a stall together at the Hilton Harvest Festival (they were raising funds for a community garden project in Hilton). It was so much fun!
Here's the final set-up stages, just before 9am:

Penny is posing with my bunny there, and Kirstin's doing stuff in the background.
A close-up of the middle section, MY section:

I made us matching price-signs, which tied it together nicely. Our stall was totally the cutest, most colourful stall there. We received visits from my family, and friends Jacki, Bec, Bec's Mum, Kat, Cheryl, Lisa, Hayley and Amy (I hope I remembered everyone!) By the end of the day, we were all able to enjoy a decent number of sales. Penny even sold out... twice! She brought 50 cupcakes at the start of the day, and sold out within the hour... so went home and baked more. Batch #2 sold in under 5 minutes when she finally returned!

It was a great day of Freo-types, families, exotic foods, and cultural performances. Not so much craft, but that was OK. Plus, I got this sweet purse from Kirstin (Xstatic Designs):

I'm using it as a camera case.

So, my first time as a stall-holder was pretty successful, and definitely a ton of fun for all 3 of us.

End of de-brief :)

To Market, To Market...

I've been a bit scarce lately... Uni, work and sickness have been keeping me majorly busy! And on top of that, I've been trying to get ready for a craft fair/festival! But here I am to check in quickly before the big day... tomorrow!
I spent 9 big hours solely creating these cloud pins yesterday:


I came out with 32 of them by the end of the day... 4 of each colour. And I pretty much never want to make another one again!! ;)
My main joy these days is creating these flowery posie brooches. Lately I've been adding a petally edge to some of them, and I'm finding it so hard convincing myself to sell these! I've showed great restraint and only kept one... I'm just so nuts about the colours, and I'm sort of hoping that all my favourites are bought by people I know! Keeping them close... yep, I'm a sucker.
But anyway, here's my little tiered display of brooches, all ready for market tomorrow:

It doesn't look like much! But it'll hopefully be enough. Plus, I've also got all my stuffies that are coming along for the ride.

Hopefully we'll not get rained out of our venue (I've been told it's outdoors!) and I'll have some wonderful pictures to share.

Until then...

Seeya on the other side of my very first market!

A Secret Admirer...

I'm always intrigued when a secret admirer hearts my shop. Lately though, it seems I'm being inundated with secret admirers (or one secret admirer who loves lots of things in my shop!), as opposed to non-secretive users. Just this morning, I logged in to find 3 new hearts, all from secret admirers.
I wonder what makes someone decide to keep their favourites a secret?
That's my thought for the day ;)

Leaf-ing it to the last minute

I'm still procrastinating on my 2000 word essay, and in doing so I have come up with another new creation. Ooops.

Yesterday I was jotting down little ideas, and when the puppies woke me up at 7 this morning, I sat at my craft table and looked at my list. My eyes settled on "felt leaf coasters" and I set to work on the design. It wasn't long before I sat, looking, at these:

Pretty cute! But even cuter when they're actually in use:

There's 4 of them, and I made them with 2 layers of felt - green on top and brown underneath. They're hand-stitched (of course!) and actually a lot more vivid green than the pictures show :(

I want to do some heart-shaped coasters next. I just have to stop myself from doing that today. Or maybe as a reward after my first 1000 words or something. Ergh. I am so not designed to be a student.

In other news, I've become a little bit addicted to Mr Jeremy Larson's music of late. I wish he had more than 2 CDs. His 2nd one especially is just BEAUTIFUL. And he makes me want to be an indie music artist. I'm so easily influenced!

Forecast... Cloudy!

It may have been a sunny, 28 degree average week... but at the Buttonfactory table, clouds were abundant!

These are my new cloud pins! I had a lot of fun creating all these, and as you can see they come in 8 wonderful colours!!!

And seeing as clouds were on my mind so much, out came this new notecard set too! (the colours are so much brighter in real life, my bad photography makes me sad!) The set comes with 4 different designs, 2 of each design, for a total of 8 note cards in a pack! They're just printed on paper, as opposed to card. I'm still considering making the switch to a light-weight card though. Thoughts??

Also on the note-card front is another set (my personal favourite)... the fat bird note-card set!!

Aren't they cute?? I really enjoy the colours, and the fat-ness of the little birds. This set will be in the shop soon... I just have make sure I get my printing right with these, as so far I've failed a little...

Finally, some new brooches are filling my basket of creations (I actually have a basket filled with the stuff I make, I'm not just saying that in a figurative way...)

These are a little bit different... I'm really happy with the direction the posie brooches are heading these days :) A bit of tulle, a petal-istic scalloped edge, extra layers... the newest posie brooches are definitely developing more and more!

Sadly though, you won't be seeing these in the Etsy shop. I've got a craft fair at the end of the month, and I'm busily preparing. In fact, I guess I won't be listing many new products at all until after the craft fair :( But it'll be worth it. And what's left after the fair will of course go straight into the shop. So yay!

In other news, I'm 'working on an assignment' today. It's been the least productive day ever. Other than grocery shopping, laundry, and dish-washing, I'm ashamed to say I've done nothing. Not one word of my 2000 word essay. No craft. I've been procrastinating on the assignment by browsing the net. *Sigh*. What a waste!!

It's A Public Holiday!

Thoughts from my long weekend:

- Puppies are so adorable, so crazy, so funny... and sometimes just soooo annoying!
- Butter cream frosting is almost too sweet
- It is WONDERFUL to have my husband back on Parmelia soil... even if he's been asleep pretty much since getting home!
- Sister sleep-overs are good stuff
- Choc-chip pancakes are also good stuff
- Cakes that take 1-1.5 hours to bake? What is that???
- Weekend time travels way, way too quickly
- People can be very creative in the ways that they wear their scarves, although I think that a scarf worn as a (rather bulky) G-string is just too much!!
- Sometimes you HAVE TO have McDonalds for lunch. It's the law.
- My sisters' shower kicks the butt outta my shower. Heavenly!
- I need to pick up my feet and start working on the house & garden again
- Elsie has the same colour in her kitchen that I will have, as soon as I get round to buying the paint
- With this recession, we might be living in this house for a long, long time. And apart from the things we need to fix up, I'm OK with this (but I can't wait to someday build our own place)
- Gossip Girl is OK. The clothes are the best bit.
- This is my first post in a while without a picture. And I am sort of accepting of that.
- Chilli con carne is fast becoming my favourite dinner ever! Bring it on... tonight! Yum!

Oh Yay!!!

Sale # 2 and a blog feature were the happy news that greeted me when I checked my email this morning!!

The item to sell was this tan posie brooch:


I am so so pleased. It's nice to sell a brooch, because I soooo love making them!!
And the lovely girl who bought it made a rather flattering blog post about me too :)

Yay!!

Sold!

I made my first sale last night...!!! How happy I am!

Augustus is heading to his new home in Michigan first thing tomorrow!

This Weekend... (How I love my digital camera!)

I feel like this a great, productive weekend. With so many things to post about, and for organisation's sake, I'm going to do it list-style. Good stuff.

1. Long-lost fabric returns to me!

When I was 16, my family did a big trip around America. My Mum was really into quilting, especially quilting fabrics, and so we made a lot of stops of quilting shops. Being a crafty girl myself, I made the most of these stops and began to show a keen interest in fabrics too. I came home with a crate FULL of fat quarters, purchased from all around the states. Once home, I made 1.5 quilted squares, then promptly lost all of my fabrics.

My Mum's turning my old bedroom into a craft room, now that I've moved out, and the other day I was in there looking at the family's hot new computer. And just sitting there was... my crate of long-lost fabrics! Eeeeeeek!!

(Sorry for the blurry picture). The colours are so vivid and stunning. I'm thrilled beyond words. With not a lot of extra money floating around, craft spendings are taking a real dip. But now, all is well with the world. I don't need to buy fabric for a loooong time! Yay!

2. Masquerade party

Last night was Sarah's 21st Masquerade Party, so in the afternoon I whipped this up:

Yep, I used some of my American quilting fabric for the main part of the face. Love it! It matched my dress perfectly :)

3. I have a new stuffy!

This is Estelle the show-pony, a brand new Button Factoy design, and my first-ever double-sided stuffy! I'm really happy with how she turned out. She was freakin' hard work, and she's a lot bigger than any of my other designs. I love her.

4. New mossy posie brooch

This is possibly my favourite brooch I've made so far. I'm nuts about the colours.

Unfortunately I made one teeny mistake, and am therefore offering this brooch at a discounted price. Basically, I sewed the back layer on, forgetting that I had not sewn on the quilting fabric layer yet. So the front looks perfect, but the back is covered with ugly stitching. No one will know except the person wearing it at least :)

5. My puppies are the cutest in town.

We had a photo shoot this morning, so I have evidence:

That's all for today. I have the next 2 weeks off uni, so am planning on treasuring my Mondays like never before, and really using the time to get busy creating (and ummm... maybe doing a few things around the house. Maybe??)

Guess who's old/21?

Yep, 'little' sister Nahn is 21 today! Nahn sounds a lot like Nan, so it works.
Happy birthday old Nahn. Yep. Old fart.
(At least she makes a pretty old lady)

This Makes Me A Saaaaad Panda!

Pretty sure this project is the ultimate wet-panda-hug to the crafter's heart....

(Wet Panda Hug = the sloppiest, biggest waste-of-time, barely there obligatory hug. More like a mutual soft touch to the shoulders between two people who are awkward with each other)

Panda is based on a pattern from the Pretty class. Panda was adorable. I can vouch for that (if he wasn't, he never would've gotten to the stuffing stage!) He had a beautiful, full round face. Yet somehow when I stuffed him, it got squashed in. He now resembles a hammer-head shark! And I have no idea how it happened! Nobody else's pandas have squashy heads! And my THING is making felt toys!

His one saving grace is the little heart on his butt:

I guess he has a somewhat artistic charm about him...? But my husband snickered when he saw the finished product.

It reminded me of the time I had a terrible haircut, ran to him at work with tears in my eyes and wailed "They gave me a mullet!" and he responded with a laugh and said "Oh wow. They did!"

Basically I'm looking forward to take #2 of the panda project... *sigh*

Rainbow Journal

I've FINALLY gotten a good start on Elsie and Rachel's class, Pretty. Project #1 is well underway and I wanted to share, because I'm enjoying the way it's turning out.

It's a rainbow scrapbooking journal project. I can't wait to fill it up!!

That's all for now. I have a floor to sweep and a good-looking husband to cook dinner for!

The timing of these things...

I have to have a moment!
Background: when I was 11 years old, I made an online friend called Latisha. We met through a now non-existant website created by the people who made our then-favouritest game ever, Dogz3 (you had pet dogs on your computer). We swapped dogs or something, and then BAM! Email pen-pals for YEARS. We talked about everything - especially boys. She was a Christian, and a few years into our friendship, I became a Christian too, so we had that in common. We even spoke on the phone a few times. Eventually, we somehow lost each others' email addresses, and that was that.
In 2007, on a whim, I looked Latisha up on Myspace - and found her! It was so cool re-connecting, but we were different people, busier, with a lot more friends, and we didn't really stay in touch other than the odd update. She told me last year that she was getting married, and I thought, cool.

Today she added me as a friend on Facebook, and I just had a "nawwwww" moment!

I found it amazing that 2 girls who met 12 years ago online, who had so much in common, who went through many ups and downs around the same time, can re-connect and discover even more similarities... to the point where they even get married in the same month!! Yep, Latisha got married December 31, 2008, just 25 days after me. Cool stuff.

Moment over. Written down it's not as cool as what's in my head but meh. My blog, my rules.