It’s been a whole year …

… since our little Quilting Bee, QCA#3, kicked off!

It’s really flown, but at the same time, it seems like we’ve been in it for ages!
Here are the last 2 blocks ~ August :

Bee Block ~ August

And September :

Bee Block ~ September

I’ve really enjoyed this experience but most of the ladies are too busy so have opted out on a second round.
One even has a baby about to arrive! 🙂 Excitement!
I was on the fence and thought I would have been happy either way but I am feeling a little wistful now …
Oh well, all good things must come to an end 🙂

Here are all of my contributions :

Collage QCA BEE #3

All the ladies made gorgeous choices for their blocks! Most All were a complete pleasure to make 😉 Mine is the top middle, I was November last year! I haven’t pieced the quilt as I have a couple of alterations to make … I have also made a further 8 blocks to make it bigger!
But here are the 12 blocks of the worker bees + the one I did for that month {It’s in the top left corner} :

Bee Nov - MINE collage

Pretty, hey!
I’m sad we’re disbanding the Bee … But so very happy to have been a part of it!
Thank you ladies!

Rightio, that all from me for tonight – short and sweet! Catchya next time.

KATE Sig for Manic Mumdays

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6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon #4

WARNING : Today’s edition is really “80’s ballad-y” sappy today, especially the first one – sorry folks! haha!

If there’s nothing on the TV on the weekends I switch over to MAX or Smooth on Foxtel …
Smooth is just nice, easy listening music and MAX has some awesome countdowns. Today it’s “Most Requested 80’s”

Anyhow, one of the clips got me googling a long forgotten song this afternoon and I noticed a clanger ‘bookmark’ in my life song on the side so I decided to play 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon leaping off from it!
{If anyone can guess the bookmark moment I have a box of chocs for you! 😀 Comment if you can guess! It’s a pearler, I promise haha}

Here it is ~ #1 Michael Bolton, Said I Loved You … But I Lied :

From there I jumped to my favourite Dirty Dancing song! #2 Patrick Swayze, She’s Like the Wind :

{The clip on this isn’t the video clip, it’s more of a Patrick tribute which I am ok with … love him still!}

The next one is one of my all time favourite songs! #3 John Lennon, Imagine :

From there, one of my all time fav bands. One of my all time fave songs of theirs. Nuff said ~ #4 U2, With or Without You :

Oh.eM.Gee! This group we such a favourite of my teens!! #5 Roxette, Listen to Your Heart :

How sexy was Marie in this film clip?! Barefoot, simple black singlet dress. *sigh*

Last jump ~ #6 Bon Jovi, Always :

Love, love, love Jon 🙂

K, well I have a couple of projects to work on so I am off – enjoy the rest of your weekend!!

KATE Sig for Manic Mumdays

#takingstock

So, yesterday I stumbled upon a fabulous challenge!

It’s called “Taking Stock”!

It can be found on Meet Me at Mikes, and I saw it via WoogsWorld!

I thought I’d give it a try, here we gooooo!

Making : A Bonnie & Camille Charm Along Quilt
Cooking : used to be a pleasure …
Drinking : Water atm. Only thing that helps with the coughing!
Reading : James Patterson 12th of Never. Standard JP so far …
Wanting : Ben and Jerry’s Clusterfluffs please!!
Looking : at the folding and ironing while thinking up excuses to not do it
Playing : Mahjong Trails is about the only game I play at the moment
Deciding : What I want to do with my life ….. it’s hard!
Wishing : my extended family all lived closer
Enjoying : the warmer days and ocean breezes
Waiting : to be finally over this damn cold!
Liking : my life at the moment!
Wondering : WTF is going on in the world lately …? 😦
Loving : the fact that one of my gorgeous goddesses got engaged last night!!! {Congrats S and N! ❤ }
Pondering : what to get the babies for lunch … boring sando’s no doubt lol
Considering : My options …. hmmm cryptic hey! haha
Watching : I am addicted to Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones … I know, I know! I’m late to the party! But better late than never 😉 I am also enjoying Orange is the New Black and Outlander.
Hoping : to win the RSL prize in 10 days 😉
Marvelling : that my youngest will be in prep in just a few short months :-/ … WHERE has the time gone??
Needing : a good night’s sleep. You know how you just don’t sleep well when ur sick? It’s been 3 nights now – I’m exhausted! Plus I’ve been staying up late which doesn’t help.
Smelling : Cigarettes! One of my back neighbors is smoking and it’s drifting right in our back door! Ugh! Wish we were on a bigger block with neighbours further away …
Wearing : yoga pants and singlet. I really need to shop for some new clothes soon!
Following : not much at the moment. Trying to stop being a ‘follower’!
Noticing : the kids aren’t fighting much these holidays – yaay!
Knowing : it can’t last tho, surely? haha
Thinking : that I better get off my puter and finish this quilt top now!
Admiring : single, working Mum’s … It’s hard sorting out life with a partner, let alone by yourself. School holidays + a job is a nightmare
Sorting : out my ‘to do’ list
Buying : nothing! I am trying to STOP spending!
Getting : more and more keen on buying a new {to us} car!
Bookmarking : my TAFE course was my last bookmark! 🙂
Disliking : all the terror/muslim/war stuff going on in the world of late 😦
Opening : my eyes later than normal is awesome – school holiday sleep-ins ROCK!!
Giggling : at the kids chattering away while playing Mario Kart on their DS’s
Feeling : happy that I am nearing the end of this list – it’s hard!
Snacking : on Doritos and Corn dip. Naughty.
Coveting : the house up the hill. I wish I had $2mill
Wishing : see above 😉 heehee {Just re-read my list and noticed another ‘wishing’ near the top!!! haha}
Helping : the kids bake over the weekend
Hearing : the news is bringing me down so I resolve to switch it off from now on. Ignorance is sometimes bliss!

WOW! That was harder than I thought it would be!
Have a fabulous weekend! Catch you soon

KATE Sig for Manic Mumdays

What’s New Pussy Cat?

Well, the Bonnie & Camille Aussie Charm Swap has wrapped up and I am totally organised for the B & C Charm along!!!

Here is my pic of the charms we received as I was sorting them :

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I have impressed even myself with my motivation as I am sick as a dog right now! I’ve even lost my voice which the kids love! haha

BUT! I am nearly finished a throw sized quilt top!

What a fabulous Swap! Thanks heaps Ms Midge!

 … Speaking of the Fabulous Ms M … I don’t know where she finds the time to do all that she does!
I am sure she has stolen Hermione Granger’s time turner!

Because, if you don’t follow her BLOG {you should!!} you might not know – she has just kicked off her 3rd Aussie Charm Swap!!!

This one is for another of my all time favourites ~ AMY BUTLER!!!! 😀

I am signed up and you should too! ❤

Amy Butler Swap Button

Also, don’t forget to check out my Manic Mumdays page on Facebook!

facebook image

I’ll be back in a couple of days with some pics of the B & C quilt I’m working on 🙂

KATE Sig for Manic Mumdays

Happy Birthday to Me!! Plus Astronomy and a Make Over!

Well, Happy Birthday to “Manic Mumdays” anyhow 😉

2 Years ago yesterday I started this little blog! Yaay! And I am only just this last few months being kind to it and spending some real time on here.

I was going to post this last night but we went with our Grade 3 classes out to the lake and had a session with the Astronomy Club!

Oh.eM.Geeeee!
I could soooo buy myself a decent telescope and get into that as a hobby! It was amazing! The fabulous telescopes they had out there cost less than I assumed! Might be time to start saving! Haha!
When our lovely host, Bob was talking about the Milky Way and the fact that it has 200Billion stars, I was getting a little teary with how insignificant we really are!
It blows my mind that all of that potential is out there. I definitely believe we can’t be alone in this … We’re talking 200,000,000,000 other stars – just in our Galaxy! And if each of those stars has 8 planets like ours does that’s 1.6Trillion possibilities! {that’s 1,600,000,000,000} There has to be some other life form out there – What do you think?

We saw Saturn which looked just like this but a little less distinct:

And Jupiter with a couple of its 60+ moons. Our view was exactly like this :

We got to see Mercury just before it disappeared over the horizon and Mars which really was red! There was some white on it from the nitrogen ice cap! We looked at a brand new {only 10,000,000 years old 😉 } cluster of 40+ stars called the Jewel Box Cluster :

We also looked at The Southern Cross and Alpha Centauri {actually 2 stars! And one of the Pointers!}; Scorpio; and Sagittarius.

*sigh* I desperately want a telescope now! haha

Mr Manic helped me move my newly made over sewing table into place on Thursday!

To say I’m in love is an understatement!

Here are some pics :

Desk Before

Desk After

The ‘After’ pics are in crappy light, cos we kept running out of time and I didn’t want to go without using it any longer haha
The colour is darker – more the colour of the top.

I replaced the handles with some gorgeous crystal drawer pulls I found in the Antique store; bogged up the old holes; repaired some minor damage to the bottom on one of the drawers; papered the drawers; painted it; and replaced the old, rusty castors.
It was a bit ugly with its old, yellowing varnish, but structurally, it was in fantastic condition!

I have decided to make over a little bookcase I got cheap at a garage sale in the same colour to put with it. I’ll finally have something to store my quilting books, patterns, and bits n bobs on! It was pretty sound but since removing it’s back it’s a little fragile. Fingers X’d I can fix him up 🙂

Anyhow … I am off to work a bit more on my little bookcase now!
Have a fantabulous weekend everyone!

KATE Sig for Manic Mumdays

Latest Upcycle Project Sneak Peek

Hi Everyone! Thanks for stopping by!

I am still working on my sewing table … would you like a sneak peek?

kates table snippit

I am in LOVE with the colour!
But … Looking at it I am kinda in half a mind that it’s too full on all in the same colour.
I was originally going to stain it.
Then decided to use some of the gorgeous Annie Sloan Chalk Paint I won and talked about HERE.

I think for now I will wax it and then down the track I might cut the top back and stain it … What do you think?

My gorgeous Kate Spain Charm Along quilt made an appearance on 13 Spools this week! You can find it HERE! I feel very honoured!

My poor little man is sick 😦 I had to leave a training course early yesterday to collect him from kindy and he came home and crashed. I thought he was mainly just tired but then we woke him for a bath and he insisted on going to bed without dinner and crashed again! He came out round 9pm saying “I just want to cuddle you and then go back to bed” which he did.
He is crashed out on the couch right now 😦 Poor little darling, I hate when they’re sick!

I dug round YouTube to find this and share with a friend today and thought I’d share it here too. Very funny stuff 😀

Anyhow, I’m off to check on my sick baby. Cya next time!

KATE Sig for Manic Mumdays

6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon Issue #3

I did heaps of sanding on my new sewing table for a couple of hours this afternoon and my arms feel like they are going to fall off!
So.Much.Pain! I was going to paint the underneath of it tonight {It’s upside down right now, so perfect opportunity!} But I took some painkillers and after this I might crash and hope they are ok in the morning!

Just came across this fabulous vid on a friend’s facebook feed and can feel a trip down the black hole of YouTube vids! haha
So I thought I’d play another round of 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon while I slid into the abyss! 😀
Here’s a couple of my fave dudes, Jimmy Fallon and the hugely talented Adam Levine for #1 :

From there I saw another vid I have seen on facebook this week. #2 is a beautiful Mother/Daughter moment. So heartwarming ❤ :

I am a sucker for Jimmy! So Jimmy + Will Smith = what could be better for #3? :

#4 I love these 2 together! So funny! {little known fact about me #1174 – I have a little JT crush!} :

#5 Jimmy Vids seem to have only Jimmy to 6 Degree from, so pardon me, but here is Jimmy again! :

haha they were funny! Might choose another #hashtag one! Here’s #6 :

Well … That’s 6 Degrees. They were all pretty close tonight. Might have to keep Jimmy off the playlist next time. But I have to admit, I am heading back to YouTube for a few minutes to watch some more #Hashtag reels right now! 😀

Don’t forget to head over and like Manic Mumdays on facebook!

ok, good night all! ❤

KATE Sig for Manic Mumdays

Lessons We Learned This Week

First of all, welcome Spring!!! Yaaay! My favourite season is upon us once again 😀

mist2
It’s still misty on my way to work at 6.15!! But it’s like this in no time :
spring morning

So, my big boy and I learned a couple of things together this last week or so.

Lesson # 1.

Back story = I detest lying!! If you wanna know only one thing about me, know that lying is a deal breaker.
Long story, short version. He had a little stumble at school involving some of the values we are teaching and I questioned his honesty and integrity {don’t laugh, these are words I use with my boys, they’re values I regard extremely highly!}. He then lied and made it worse. He was grounded and banned from gadgets for a month. This is his all time least favourite punishment! So it works a treat as a deterrent. Usually.

Anyhow, he got upset all over again when I told Mr Manic after work. Mr Manic asked if I thought shaming him was the right thing to do.

And do you know what? I’m ok with it. I didn’t set to shame him, of course. But I’ll sleep fine with it for sure.

I think shame in your own bad actions is one of the things missing from today’s society. If you’ve done something shameful you should feel ashamed! I wouldn’t have told it to a wider audience, just like I’m not sharing the full story right here. And now, here we are 2 or 3 days down the track and apart from sulking over being grounded and not being able to use gadgets, he is none the worse for it.
Personally, I believe that if wanting to never feel shame ever again is a deterrent to doing the wrong thing next time, then freaking YAY! Happy side effect and parenting win as far as I’m concerned.
The last part of his punishment was to go to school the next morning and deliver a heartfelt apology to the person involved which he did with courage and genuine remorse. He is generally a kid who we never have issues with. This was totally out of character and I am fairly confident it won’t ever happen again.

Lesson learned = Feeling ashamed of bad actions is ok.

Lesson #2.

My big boy has been promoted to ‘Squad’ at swimming lessons recently. Yay! He is such a lovely little swimmer! My brother was a fantastic swimmer and could should have gone all the way to the Olympics with it. If only … But that’s a loooong story for another day.

Anyhow, it’s now an earlier time slot. 9am on a Saturday morning which means we need to get up at 7.15 to get there on time.
I was lamenting this fact to Mr Manic a few days ago and didn’t think anything more of it. Until Mstr 8 started getting grumpier the closer it go to the weekend, and saying he didn’t want to swim squad. I pressed him and found out it was because “I feel bad cos you have to get up early on your day off after working hard all week just to take me to squad” OMG! My heart filled to bursting point!
He is such a gentle, soft soul, and so mature that I sometimes think I treat him like he is older than he actually is and then I get a little shock when he acts like a kid lol I love his guts so much!

Lesson learned = Kids hear everything! Even if they don’t appear to be listening, they are haha 🙂

I haven’t been doing any sewing lately 😦 Sad because I am running late with my Bee blocks!!
I lent my fold up tables to a friend for her little boy’s birthday party and haven’t picked them up yet. Kinda deliberately as I was trying to use it as fuel to get my sewing table project finished. That’s still a way off. I decided I wanted to paint and wax it instead of my old plan and that’ll take a while longer. I’ll then have to let the wax cure before giving it any hard use too … *le sigh*! I have had some very early starts this week and I am dead tired, but hopefully I’ll get it done over the weekend 🙂

Oh well … I have finished my Sunny chair tho! I’ll post a few pics over the weekend. Anyhow, catch you on the flip side,

KATE Sig for Manic Mumdays

I played FMS’s August-Photo-A-Day!

I have played along Fat Mum Slim’s Photo A Day alot in the last couple of years.
This time I thought I’d share it with y’all!

August 2014 Photo A Day

Before I share my own pics, I want to share something even cooler with you :
Did you know Chantelle from FMS has recently developed and released a FABULOUS new app?
It’s called Little Moments by Fat Mum Slim and you can find it in the App Store HERE.
I.Freaking.LOVE.This.App!
It’s cute and fun and best of all, if you play along with FMS’s Photo A Day you get sent a reminder and can add it right there! No mucking around or downloading/uploading/freeloading/or even plain old loading!
The app has some lovely filters, captions and stickers and there’s an option to add your own text as well. My favourite filters are ‘Glow’ and ‘Beachy’ but there’s a filter for every moment 🙂 Here’s how it went down in the August Photo A Day for me :

1. Landscape – “I love that even living so close to the beach we still have a gorgeous Aussie bush landscape to enjoy 🙂 ”
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2. Lunch – at work, drinking some crap softdrink, not eating. And totally regretting transferring from my old store 😦 {I later settled in and now adore being back at my current store and in my new dept. }
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3. S is for… Sunday Sewing Sesh *bliss*
IMG_4227 (2)
4. In the middle – yummyness in the middle
4 in the middle
5. Pile – pile of damn folding to do!  :-/ least the ironing pile behind it is nearly empty …
5 pile
6. Grateful for… family, health and walks on the beach 🙂
6 grateful
7. Spot – my usual Thursday coffee spot while my lil man has his swimming lesson = bliss!
7 spot
8. Pet peeve – The new rolls are right there – why can’t anyone else in the house work out how to put one on????
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9. Mix – cupcakes for class party tomorrow 🙂
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10. Art – on the water tank 🙂
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11. Mirror – My big man in the rear-view mirror
11 mirror
12. Gather – the seagulls gather in this exact spot every morning! They are always here 🙂
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13. Inside – a huge box + air bags and peanuts … What’s inside? 2 tiny bottles of pigment!
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14. Give
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15. Clouds – some serious around clouds today … That’s a large island peeking outa the clouds there!
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16. Clean – the streets always seem so fresh and clean after rain 🙂
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17. Dinner – Can I share your dinner please? 🙂
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18. Arrow

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19. To-do – I would be lost without my diary full of to-do’s!
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20. Before bedtime – Today’s project … Hope to finish first coat ‘Before bedtime’
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21. Decorate – this prize pack has just landed on my doorstep …. It will definitely help me to decorate!!!
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22. Words – on my boy’s bedroom wall
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23. Style – My style is comfy pj’s! haha
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24. Fragrant – I love my fragrant candles!
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25. Mailhe picture on the envelope is more interesting than the mail itself!
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26. Breakfast – vegemite toast n coffee … What could be better?
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27. Dull – some might say it’s dull … But I adore sea glass and Ryan and I add to my collection every time we hit the beach
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28. Travel – yes please!!
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29. Dessert – My little man is 5 today!!! So dessert is cake!
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30. Nearby – They’re nearby!
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31. 10amWas at work doing all these steps phone died round 3 so I only got this recorded. Reckon I would have made my 10,000 too – my feet are aching! Lol
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Well … that’s my Photo A day for August! Did you play along?

If you want to play along for September, here is the list!

 September 2014 Photo A Day
If you are keen, feel free to tag me when you share in instagram and I will check them out! 🙂
My insta is @twolittlerascals

Have a wonderful September! 😀

KATE Sig for Manic Mumdays