I turned 50 today . . .

So the news of the day – I turned 50 years of age. I am grateful for so many things . . .

I am grateful that I am here to celebrate my 50th birthday

I am grateful that I am generally healthy & do not suffer with much pain

I am grateful for my supportive, loving, caring husband

I am grateful for our loving, cheeky son

I am grateful for all our family and friends in my life and for those I am yet to meet

I am grateful that I have a roof over my head

I am grateful for my car getting me from A to B and beyond

I am grateful that we have such fabulous neighbours

I am grateful that we didn’t have a long, hot summer this year

I could go on but you may have already stopped reading?!?

What am I saying with all of this … appreciate the good in your life. Go out and make the most of life. Do what you love. Make time for you. Eat that slice of cake. Drink that glass of wine. Live life to the best of what you can. Don’t regret anything. Travel, explore, love, laugh, enjoy … do what makes you happy!

Coconut Soap

Oh, I think I am in love with the simplicity of pure coconut soap. You cannot get any simpler than a single oil soap. I made 2 batches over the weekend, one to be made into washing powder once cured and one for a body soap. They are superfatted at different % so they will react to the body very differently, it will be interesting to compare the two once cured. Thinking out loud … being as there is no lye (sodium hydroxide) left after the saponification process and the water evaporates during the curing process in the end there will be nothing but coconut left. It’s that simple . . .

A special birthday . . .

This year sees a few family with special birthdays. With my Aunt’s birthday just a few days away now, I recently crafted her 70th card, along with another Aunt’s 80th and my cousin’s 60th. I wanted something different so looked for ideas ‘out of the box’ … pardon the pun! What I ended up creating was 3 Cards in a Box! Here is a peek at Brenda’s 70th card. Super happy with how it turned out … hope she loves it as much as I do (yes, I know … shouldn’t have increased the light before taking the photos. Hindsight is a fabulous thing! LOL).

Brenda’s turning 70

popped flower

The side view

front view of the whole card

A little hint of autumn . . .

Photographed this gorgeous leaf on my walk to work this morning … hopefully a sure sign that autumn is really here.

Millbrook Winery

• Stunning location
• Amazing food
• Beautiful hidden gem

A friend visited here recently & I thought it may be the perfect place for me to celebrate my upcoming birthday so we popped on down to check it out. It was all of the above & more, however I feel it is just a bit far out of the way & maybe a little more than some people could handle … so looking at other options & ideas for my birthday. My thoughts on the food … it was amazing, produce where at all possible was from the heritage vegetable gardens. Simple. Elegant. Devine. I use these words to describe the food. Brian & I had a share plates – sashimi King Fish paired with freshly grated horseradish, beef with roasted fig & snake beans with olives. All melt in your mouth. The sourdough served as a starter with softened butter & salt flakes was amazing! We finished with fresh liquorice, ice cream & sorbet … O.M.G. The liquorice was incredible! We will return . . .

Another day … another card

This year sees me and a good number of people I know turn 50! Still trying to get my head around that one a bit, however very grateful that I have made it thus far!
So, for my school friends with whom I’m still in touch, I’ve made this card (in various colour versions) to help celebrate this momentous occasion. I know, it doesn’t state 50! or yell of getting older, and that is just how I wanted it, understated.

50th birthday card

Sharing some cards I’ve made recently

I’ve made quite a few cards in recent weeks due to new additions to the family, the usual birthdays, including a few special occasions. here are a few quick snaps of some of those cards.

for our new great nephew Lincoln

for our great nephew Archie

for our great niece Lila who turns 4

for our nephew Ben 

NASCAR here we come . . .

Well in a few months anyway. Very exciting weekend as we booked our NASCAR experience for our trip to the USA/Canada later this year. This part of the trip is a very belated big 5 0 birthday present to Brian as he didn’t want anything in particular when he hit the half century a couple of years ago. Figured eventually something would come along that would tickle his fancy and it finally did. It’s so nice to see him excited about something … I think if he had the opportunity to, Brian would become a hermit and hide out at the reservation (what we call home).

Ok … I hear you. Stop talking holiday and share something else.
So … I’ve been a little more creative with my card making of late. I’m loving that Stampin’ Up! have picked up their game in the last couple of years and have added matching dies to their stamp ranges. Although not all my cards are 3D or have die cuts on them, I’m beginning to expand my knowledge of card making and what I can really do and having lots of fun along the way.

This card was a fairly quick one I made for my cousin as a thank you for some goodies she made & sent me just prior to Christmas. Had a bit of fun with the leaves creating texture so that when popped up with some foam mount they looked more realistic. What do you think?

Thanks to Karen more detail close up of leaves

Falling in love with Lensbaby Lenses once again …

Did I mention that back in January I purchased a new camera … actually a whole new camera brand and system. I have been a Canon fan and user for as long as I remember, as long as I have been interested in photography, however I’d been considering something smaller in size and lighter. Then in October 2016 at a WAPF (West Australian Photographic Federation) event in Busselton they announced the release of the Olympus OMD EM5. It looked exactly like what I was looking for. Something that was very innovative and smaller & lighter in design. I’ve been contemplating, uhmming & aahhrring over this now for about 2 years (the whole idea, not just changing brands) and January saw the Australia Day sales I finally bit the bullet so to speak and jumped on the Olympus brand band wagon. My excuse was I have a big birthday this year so this was an early birthday gift to me!

So why is Lensbaby my post title … I have quite a number of the Lensbaby brand products – a couple of lenses and a few optics … however they were all purchased to fit on Canon cameras. A week ago a little parcel arrived in the mail for me with a Canon EF lens to micro 4/3rds meta-bones …. which in layman’s terms just means I can now use all the Lensbaby products on my new Olympus camera. Yay! Lensbaby Lenses are not for everyone, however I LOVE their creativity, the blur, the bokeh especially the original type of the double glass optic. Here is a shot of our fur baby taken last night using the newly added with the latest firmware update bleach bypass. I’ll have to work on the focus and point of view however as this was just a quick test shot I think I can be forgiven.

Long weekend here so I’m off to craft some special birthday cards . . .

and how quickly plans can change!

if you like my header image, you can purchase it in various forms “HERE”

Ha! In my last post I said that we were likely going to include NYC in our trip later in the year. Well, after some serious planning, I just don’t think we’ll have the time I would really like to spend in NYC so I’ve taken it off the list … which leaves more time for other things and less time having to rush around. As much as I’d love to see NYC I don’t want to try to see it in a blink of a flash. I think a minimum of 5-6 days would be required to really get some NYC experience in and well with everything else that we’d planned, it was just too hard to try fit it in. Next time!
We do have plans for lots of national parks and canyons, mountains, rivers, lakes and I think that is more us on this trip. Of course there is that side trip to the east to fit in some NASCAR racing. Hubby is a LONG time fan so while in Rome …

On another note …

Here is one of my first real attempts at bird photography. Not a super exciting start but I’m really pleased with how this shot came out. I was shooting into the late afternoon sun and everything is nice & clear … no dark shadows or anything like that. These two, are 2 of about 24 or more, pink & grey galah’s that reside around home. Despite being a bit messy and noisy at sunrise/sunset I love that they have chosen our home as their home too. Still learning the ins and outs of the new camera, as is to be expected, but am loving the new compact size, weight and all the features that I’ve discovered so far! #Spoilt!

Today I am grateful for the cooler weather, even though it is quite humid.
Have a great weekend!