A broochfest

There seems to be a little bit of a broochfest happening around crafty blogland, so here's my show and tell!

I try to co-ordinate a brooch to my outfit every day, even if I'm just schlepping about the house. Brooches just seem to make me happy.

• Top row - Beaded Heart and Flower Brooches by me
• 2nd Row - Aunty Mabels Handbag & Owl by Betty Jo - Wonderland and Chocolate by Sophie Isobel
• 3rd Row - Flower by Greenolive, Owl by Hokey, Vintage Diamante Cluster bought from second hand shop in Clunes, INXS badge from the 80's gifted to me from Steph.
• Bottom Row - Necklace / Badge Combo by Lauren Williams, 3 vintage floral & 1 Pippijoe fabric badge from Starashan.
• Cluster of badges on the right hand side made by me at Brown Owls last year.

Do you have a little bit of a brooch collecting obsession that you'd like to share?

A very special Hokey delivery

On our little shopping spree in the city a couple of weeks ago, I bought this gorgeous fabric fat quarter from Kimono House.


I gave it to Hollie and she has made this beautiful Hokey wallet for me....

....and I now have these fab Hokey resin earrings to match with my rose pendant and ring!

WARNING: Extreme Ear Close Up!

If you head on over to Hollies other blog, Vegan and Vintage, you'll find details of a special offer in her Etsy Shop....

Lighting up my night

Lastnight was another fun night at Brown Owls....and my last one for the year.... Boo Hoo!

We made these sweet tea light candle holders....

We very nearly had an entire table full of bloggers.... Liesl, Cindy, Lara, Steph, Hollie, Myself, and Kerry (who will remain blogless)! It was lovely to finally meet Liesl in person.

Gemma drew my name out of the magic prize barrel and I won one of Kirsty's fabulous swizzle stick rings....

....and this is Kerry modelling her fabulouso chain stitch embroidery!

Looking forward to next year.

Mikes Week of Happy - Day 4

Todays happy is my happy shopping from yesterday......

This beautiful fabric from Kimono House makes me happy.....

These bag rings and buttons from Buttonmania make me happy......

My sweet Hokey resin ring makes me happy.....

These zines from Sticky make me happy.....

Tomorrows Bizarre Bazaar inside the Spiegeltent on The Arts Centre forecourt makes me happy....

Some very talented girls will be selling their wares and I'm off to check them out!

Head on over to see Pip for much more happiness....

Love Fridays....in the City - Part 2

Continuing on with 'The Excellent Adventures of CurlyPops, Drewzel and Hokey' from yesterday......


We met up nice and early at The Nicholas Building and caught the lift upstairs, to begin with a visit to Buttonmania. We ooohed and ahhhed and looked through boxes of buttons before finding a few that we loved, and making some purchases.


Next stop was Kimono House. There were so many beautiful fabrics to choose from. I chose a couple of lovely fat quarters.


I've given one of my fat quarters to Hollie, and she is going to use it to make me a gorgeous Hokey wallet!

We popped in to Lincraft at Melbourne Central to pick up some matching thread and then it was time for a coffee/tea pitstop and of course, a bit of cake.


We decided to head down to Degraves Subway next.

We checked out the current art installation....

.....and visited Sticky to pick up some zines.

Look, there's a Mixtapezine poster!

By this time, the very excellently unpredictable Melbourne weather had taken a bit of a turn for the worse. Our next stop was supposed to be The Rooftop Market at Curtin House, but alas, it was cancelled. We drowned our sorrows with a visit to the Metropolis Bookshop instead.

It had started to rain lightly by the time we reached Cottage Industry, and then we made a pitstop for lunch at a nice little cafe in Gertrude St.

By now it was pouring rain, and we headed over to Sydney Rd to visit Sherrin who was holding down the fort at Olive Grove

Sherrin was working on some of her gorgeous Christmas cards .......

The time had flown by, so it was back to the city to make our departures. Last stop on the tour, Max Brenner for a chocolate fix....need I say more!

Love Fridays.....in the city

Today was such a lovely day out with Steph and Hollie in the city.....

More details tomorrow, but this was the ending.... Chocolate Souffle at Max Brenner, and how can you not love that?

Thanks Gals!

This is...my favourite movie(s) of all time

I've been thinking and debating about this one for days....

I don't really watch movies any more, as I never really have the patience to sit down for two hours to dedicate to watching. All of the latest things I've seen have been kids movies when I've taken my nephew to the cinema. The only movies I've watched this year are Don't Mess with the Zohan and Wall-E. But of course, I have heaps and heaps of favourites from the 80's and 90's.

I've decided to pick my favourite Aussie movie of all time and my favourite overall movie of all time.

My favourite Aussie movie of all time would have to be The Man from Snowy River. I fell in love with Tom Burlinson and I wanted to go and live in the mountains and ride horses and chase brumbies. It's definitely one of those movies that gives you goosebumps....and the music is magical.

I also had the chance to go and see the Arena Spectacular a few years ago...which was amazing!

My overall favourite movie of all time has to be this classic from the 80's....The Breakfast Club.

I must have watched it at least 100 times. We could all sit in the loungeroom and recite the dialogue all the way through the movie. It was on TV1 on Friday night and I watched the first half hour....and I still remember the words.

Back in the 80's, I took absolutely no notice of the serious message of the film, which was to not judge other people by their stereotype. I wouldn't mind watching it again now just to see if I missed anything else during the first 100 viewings!

Thanks so much to Hollie for inspiring a little bit of 80's nostalgia this week and to Angela for hosting....

Super Duper Giveaway

No, not here....there's a super duper giveaway over at Hokey.
Hollie is also having a super sale in her Etsy Shop. Check out the blog for details....

Oh Bernice....

With all of the excitement thats been happening at CurlyPops headquarters (olympics, mixtogether, brown owls, head in a bucket), I forgot that the lovely Bernice had bestowed an award on me last week. I only remembered when I was blogsurfing lastnight and read Sherrins blog.

So now it is my bloggy duty to share the love and bestow this award on some more crafty bloggers.....this is really difficult because there are sooooooo many fantastic blogs (about 170 at last count) that I read religiously.

Big Cats Emporium

Leni & Rose

Hokey

Kittys Kaboodle

So these are four of my faves...if you haven't checked them out yet then you definitely should!

Thanks Bernice.

PS. Thanks for all the get well wishes.....they definitely worked!

PPS. Blogger is throwing a spacing wobbly...sorry about that.

Mushies

I had a lovely stitchy night at Brown Owls lastnight and I actually managed to finish the project...yippee! We made these sweet little mushroom pincushions.


Kirsty did a fab job with her supersensational 'mushie how to slide presentation'.
Steph saved my CurlyPops owl from the last session that I missed and now I also have a sweet little Lara owl.

There were lots of delicious things to eat - chocolate cake made by Kirsty, apple cake made by Stephs mum, and cupcakes made by Cindy (which was lucky for me because I only had vegemite toast for tea before I left).


....and of course there were lots of lovely girls to stitch and chat with. I finally got to meet Hollie (luckily I was wearing my gorgeous Hokey Owl brooch) and had a walk down memory lane with Kerry from Quamby.......

Check out the forest of mushrooms here.... a collaboration of stitchy goodness.

The tree of happiness award...

I was bestowed the 'Tree of Happiness' award by Low GI Jen over at August Street last week and I haven't had a chance to sit down and think about it until now.....

I need to list 6 things that I'm happy about right now....thinking....thinking.....anyone have some good thinking music for me?

1. I have had an overlocker lesson and I'm not scared of it anymore.


2. I have lots of little crafty wip's and ufo's sitting in various places throughout the house (if you're wondering why that makes me happy, it's because lots of them are new crafts that I've only learned in the last few months....and learning a new craft makes me happy).


3. I'm drinking a hot milo (anything chocolatey makes me happy).


4. I have lots of little crafty adventures booked in this month (Mixtogether, Brown Owls, Thornbury Sewing Bonanza).


5. Vegemite Toast


6. My nephews

Sorry for taking so long Jen...I hope you'll forgive me!

Now I need to bestow this award on to 6 more deserving bloggers....so I choose Steph, Cathy, Michelle, Hollie, Belinda, and Serena....

How Now Brown Owl

Here's another sweet little pressie that came in the mail this week from Hollie over at Hokey.........
This is one of her brand new resin brooch creations.
It's the perfect accessory for a night out at Brown Owls!

Swapsies

All of my swap parcels have now been received so I can post some photos......

Here are the pincushions that I made for Fi and Michelle.... they ended up being a little larger than I originally intended......

This is the apron that I made for Hollie as a thankyou for the gorgeous beret that she knitted for me and the Hokey Resin Hairclips.

I also made a little matching potholder.....

A great big thankyou and some practicing

First of all, I would like to say a great big thankyou to everyone who left me a message regarding my Friday night post......

The fantastic thing is that most generous crafty peeps are already registered as organ donors and those who weren't have now signed up online. Thankyou from the bottom of my heart (and lungs). I've been laughing to myself all weekend imaging what my oxygen bottle would look like with a knitted or crocheted cover.....hilarious!

I've been practicing my knitting over the last week....I used some of the yarn that Cath sent me and I practiced changing colour, leaving the ends loose, knitting the ends in, and using 2 colours at once. It was fun to see what happened without worrying about wrecking something. I even remembered how to cast off and I didn't have to refer to the internet for help.....yippee!

I'm off to the post office now to post three little parcels.....I can't reveal anything yet. Have a happy Monday.