Hoppy Easter

Hoppy Easter! I hope everyone had a wonderful, chocolate filled day :) We had a lovely relaxed day - starting with a sleep in, visit to the markets and then lunch at the beach. I spent the rest of the afternoon crocheting up this little Easter cutie :) I found the tutorial here on The Green Dragonfly blog. The pattern was very easy to follow (lots of pics) and quick to crochet up - the ears were a bit fiddly though.

Layouts



I'm sharing some of the layouts I scrapped at the retreat last weekend :)  Love how these all turned out - I have been trying to make some changes to my usual scrapping style - adding more embellishments (time to stop hoarding them!! LOL), a bit more stamping / misting and less clean & simple.  Not big / drastic changes, but improving onto my usual style :)

 



 

 

 

 

Thrifty Thursday

I got to do some op shopping on Monday - what a perfect way to end a few fun filled weeks :) I think this was my best day for bargains / finds - lots of random goodies!

Sunglasses 50c each and Cath Kidston wallet $2

Cookbook (this is my 'go to' biscuit book - I think everyone should have a copy, so everytime I find one I buy it and give it to family / friends - this copy is for Craig's mum) $1 and dinosuar books for Cohan 50c each

Some books to add to my ever growing reading pile - $1 each

Wooden car garage (think this might live at mum's for when Cohan visits) - $6

Metal tea set (so excited to find that there were no pieces missing!) $2.

Bowl $2 and Christmas tray $5

Cute cane sleigh $2 - will be sweet on the table for Christmas filled with lollies!

 

I'm linking up with Sir-Thrift-A-Lots Thiftasaraus this week.

Ripple-along Week 4

I have gotten a few more rows / band done and I think I am on track to get the blanket finished before bub arrives :) I managed to do some rows while travelling back from Melbourne and a few more last night - 22 rows / 11 bands of colour.  I am surprised by how much wool it is using - I had to duck into Big W today and get some more wool. 

 

 

Week 4 total -  22 rows / 11 bands
Total - 90 rows / 45 bands

Scrap retreat

Thursday I get back from Melboune, then Friday I'm off on another adventure - the scrap retreat at Chaverim! I'm sooo glad I packed for the retreat before we left to Melbourne! It was a fabulous weekend, starting Friday nibght - we all arrived, unpacked, had some nibblies & drinks, then settled in for some scrapping. Saturday & Sunday were filled with lots more scrapping, chatting and way too much yummy food :) I managed to get 10 layouts completed - will share pics soon.

 

My table :)

 

Melbourne is a foodie heaven

Oh.My.Gosh! Melbourne is such a foodie heaven! There were so many cafes, bakeries, restaurants and shops offering so many delicous goodies :) I thought I would share pics of some treats we tasted :)

I decided to step out of my comfort zone and try a few things that I wouldn't normally eat...starting with battered octopus!

Pistachio melting moment at Werribee Mansion.

 

BBQ pork, plum chicken and fried rice at The Golden Orchid.

 

 

Dim Sum = Seafood & noodle soup, crispy BBQ pork & noodles, sticky pork buns and chichen dumplins at Mings.
 

 

Goats cheese wrapped in capsicum and proscuitto.  Vanilla slice and turkish delight macaron from the Queen Victoria markets.

 

Yum Cha - Seasame prawn toast, duck spring rolls, crspy BBQ pork, fried rice, prawn dumplings, chicken buns, and pork buns at Chine on Bourke.

 

Salted caramel chocolate from Koko Bean

 

 

Peppermint & chocolate cupcake.

Hmmm my mouth is watering now, just looking at the pictures :)

 

Holidays - Day 12 & 13

Day 12 - We got up early, packed up camp and hit the road. We didn't do any sightseeing along the way, just stopping for lunch and to stretch our legs.

Traffic jam :)

We got as far as Dubbo, so set up camp, grabbed some dinner, then had an early night.

Day 13 - Up early again, packed up and back on the road again for another day of travelling.  No sightseeing again - just occasional stops. We usually stop and set up camp around 5.30pm, but since we so close to home, we decided to keep driving till we got home. We pulled into our driveway at 9.30pm! We had a shower, then crashed into bed - happy to be home :)

Holidays -Day 11

Day 11 - Our last day in Melbourne :( Due to cloudy / rainy weather we had delayed going to the Eureka Skydeck.  We were lucky enough to wake to clear blue skies - perfect weather :)  From Flinders station we walked across the bridge and down to the Skydeck.

Travelling 9 seconds per metre on the elevator up is an experience LOL The views from the observation deck on the 88th floor were spectacular! We even went out onto the terrace for a look - it wasn't as windy as I expected.

 

We walked back across the bridge and got on the city circle tram to jump on & off to get some pictures. 

Etihad Stadium

 

 

We stopped at Harbourtown to have lunch and a bit of shopping. 

 

Parliment House

The Treasurey

St Patrick's Cathedral

Flinders Station

 Display in a chocolate shop

 

Holidays - Days 9 & 10

Day 9 - Because we had decided to extend our stay in Melbourne for another 3 days (instead of heading to Sydney like we had originally planned) we had to find a new camping site as we were only booked to stay at Werribee until Sunday and they were booked fully booked after that. I managed to book us into another caravan park at Coburg (only 9km from he city centre) at the park we were originally thinking about staying in. We had a very windy and rainy night the night before and woke up to more rain clouds. Luckily we had just finished packing up he camper trailer just as it started raining again! We drove into Coburg and set up the trailer and had a lazy day resting. We had another gorgeous view from our campsite - this bushland and stream.

Day 10 - The commute from the new campsite to the city was much shorter - just a 15 minute walk to the tram station, then a 20 minute tram ride into Collin street station. We walked down Collin street aka Paris end of Melbourne - named that due to all the high-end shops - Gucci, Hermes, Burberry, etc.

Found this gorgeous movie theatre.

 

We jumped onto the city circle tram to go to the Melbourne Museum. I could have spent all day wandering around the exhibits - especially the dinosaurs, insects and animal sections.

I found this room fascinating - it had all the animals arranged around the room with touch screens for you to use to find out more info.

We walked outside to look at the Exhibition Centre - another gorgeous building. We didn't try to look inside as thy were busy setting up for an event.

From the museum / exhibition centre we caught a tram to Chinatown so we could finally try Yum Cha - it was delicious and worth the wait :)

After a late lunch we got back on the tram to head home.