Linaloo

Race against time

Ok, that may be a little melodramatic, but I seem to have all these deadlines rushing up to bite my you know what...so I'll be taking a little blog break until some point next week.

First of all, to get to the UK on time, all my parcels and letters need posting by 3 days ago according to Canada post's website. Oops.

Here's the finished wall organiser I made for my niece, an avid late night reader, who sleeps on the top bunk.

Secondly, this is how far I'm at with my advent calendar with 2 days to go.

Thirdly I have other stuff to do. You know, life. (And there's some big things going on right now in mine, which is a whole other post)!

Breathe in and out. R E L A X!

Holiday Ornament Swap

These are all in the post today group 1. Hope you like them, they were definitely a learning experience for me...it took me about 6 attempts before I perfected my heart making technique!

Front

Back

For those of you who were interested in my scrapbook star - simply stork has found two tutorials here and here for projects that look similar.

Kindness

I feel a little overwhelmed by this pay it forward package from Tess.

Thank you for making my day such a lovely one. Inside was a perfect little Christmas heart, a gorgeous felt brooch (of which the photos don't do justice) and chocolate for my sweeties.

(Um, there were actually two packets of stars but one was intercepted before I could get the camera out). So you know Tess, I'm a huge heart fan and have quite a collection that I'll show you one day. And as for the brooch, well I knew where that was going the minute I saw it - I have this jacket that I wear a lot and it needed a little something....perfect.

The preschool issue reared its ugly head again today, so this was just the ticket to cheer me up. A heartfelt thank you.

Fresh Start

Life in these parts has been a bit hectic recently. A few too many late nights, plenty of over indulging and lots of time spent with friends and family resulted in a pleasant (although entirely unintentional) blog break. With a newly cleaned up sewing room and rested mind, I'm fully refreshed and energized (well sort of) ready for the weeks ahead, which, let's face it, will likely be very busy for us all.

Finishing touches on Christmas presents and ornaments to be sent off this week. I do love blanket stitch.

Simple cookie cutter Christmas cards. I bravely stood back and let the children go crazy(ish) with the glitter, not easy for a sparkle loathing control freak like me.

More fun in the snow.

Hope you had a good weekend.

First Snow Storm

Tommy woke up this morning with the news that outside "looks like pretty".

Happy Thanksgiving.

Little Star

I'm not a scrapbooker (I can't afford another expensive hobby), but I was invited to a scrapbooking night last week. Not one to turn down a glass of wine and the chance of some girly chit chat I went along anyway and made this:

Cute eh? Not too many gadgets required and even a bit of sewing involved, I may even make another one.

I've been tagged recently for random things by Driftwood and Stefani, I'm not sure if it was a good idea to do this as I've had a bad day!

1 I’m a potato lover. My perfect meal would be roast potatoes, jacket potatoes, mash potatoes and chips. (Fries that is).

2 In my 35 years I have lived in almost as many houses.

3 My last name is 14 letters long courtesy of my Greek husband.

4 I had a huge argument with the woman who runs my children’s preschool (not their teacher, who is truly wonderful) on the phone today. She called me a “negligent parent” for failing to read a note in my son’s school bag.

5 I do not like confrontation.

I sound like a barrel of laughs don’t I? Seriously though, it was horrible and quite exhausting. I normally let these things go but today I just couldn’t let myself be labeled that way. I tag anyone who cares to join in!

First Snow

Thank you for all your lovely comments about my little Robins. Glad you like them!

Oh Canada!

The Parliament of Canada.

This weekend we managed the trip to Ottawa which we had originally planned for last week. A little family outing turned into a large scale adventure with 3 other families joining in. Our visit was all about the Canadian Museum of Civilisation, more specifically the Canadian Children's Museum which was excellent, creative and brilliantly thought out, albeit a little exhausting with 8 children under 5 wreaking havoc! No pictures as the light was bad and quite frankly I was too busy counting heads to get the camera out much!

We've been living in Montreal for almost 18 months now and although we are settled in many ways - we've bought a house in a great neighbourhood, the children are at a bilingual preschool, my husband's family are close by, heck we've even managed to make some wonderful friends already - it all too often seems overwhelmingly alien to me. So I'm attempting to immerse myself a little deeper in Canadian culture and a visit to the country's capital felt like a good starting point.

Next up: listening to more local radio and tv to brush up on my quebecois. My degree is actually in French but I still have problems getting my head around the accent and colloquialisms. Pimp mon char (MTV's pimp my ride) is my current favourite!

Friday WIP

Ornament swap goodies.

Enjoy your weekend.

Raining

It's grey and wet outside.

Thank goodness for a kind Granny who sent us a care package from England.

A bit of colour to brighten our day!

Thanks Gran (and Grandad of course)!