Like in your bag of mushrooms.  This one went into last night’s Coq au vin.  It was my best yet.  Sign quietly added by Miss Viking.

A little behind on the giveaway – it is a coming, I have just suddenly got carried away making paper rabbits.

Hi everyone!  It is really nice to be back.  I know it has been a while.  I took a really long break and it all had to do with the above event.  See, today my baby started school.  There she is, second from the right, surrounded by big brother and big sister and our lovely neighbour Jade on the end.  I chose this photo because I would probably be a mess crying into the keyboard if she stood alone.  She is not alone, so I should not be worried.  We go to a lovely school (five doors away) and I think she has more buddies and friends than I can count.  So she will be ok, won’t she?

So, the break was spent at the van doing lots of outdoor things (I promise more photos soon Kate) and we had a visit from my in-laws.  We also had a couple of instances that were not great – like our giant liquid amber losing half it’s height and blocking the road whilst we were at le van.  My wonderful neighbours all patrolled the street as power lines came down and SES workers moved in!  My father in-law also suffered a minor stroke whilst on holiday in New Zealand last week, he is making a wonderful recovery and they will be back here with us this weekend.  Which is great.

I am really looking forward to this year with Paperklip and Tivoli Vintage.  I  have more time to devote to designing, making and finding lovely things.  I might not be at the markets so much.  But I will be around and about.  I hope you will hold my hand as I venture into this new era.

Here are a couple of random photos.  I made this sweet card for a new baby boy.  I used three stamps and some pretty glitter gel pens that I picked up at the Papercrafts Show a couple of weeks back.  There was a few nerves before these lovely girls danced up a storm last Friday night.  They were fabulous.  Miss Viking is the one on the right looking out to sea.  Finally, Little Miss Viking is quite adept at building.  Architect maybe?

Last week it was school holidays. We went to visit my Mum and Dad.  And had a look in an op-shop or 2. I almost passed the above over because the plastic bag was stained, though decided to give it a little chance.  We brought it home, sent it through the washing machine, dried it for 2 days on the line and turns out it was in perfect condition.  Miss 6 has slept in it on top of her bed for the last week!  It is a vintage Happy Sac sleeping bag, covered in a very 1970’s Holly Hobbie type print.  Did you have a Happy Sac?  They were made in Australia in the 70’s.  I didn’t.  My sleeping bag was army green, zipped up the front and had a really annoying hood, that didn’t come off.  My friend had this one.  I love that you can use your own pillow with a Happy Sac. So cozy. My friend also had a Barbie campervan which we played with all the time.  I had an Etcha-sketch.

The lovely Anastasia from Percival Road has tagged me.  I think that means I have to follow on and post 7 things about me.  Do you really want to know?  Okay, here I go.

1. Before I loved paper I loved cross stitch.  I started in my late teens and completed quite a few pretty samplers and things.  I still love the look and feel of cross stitch and appreciate the patience involved in creating a piece.  I guess I stopped because I found the patterns becoming a little boring.  Give a craft a few years!  I think cross stitch has been resurrected in a totally modern way and I love the new simplicity of the designs coming out today.

2.  Mr Viking and I love mid century modern furniture and design.  It started with a pair of Safari chairs I bought at an antique shop in Copenhagen about 14 years ago.  We have saved our pennies to own and Arne Jacobsen Egg chair.  I am often on the look out for hidden gems in Op shops that relate to the 50’s, 60’sand 70’s.  Mostly West Germany pottery vases and Holmgaard glass. It makes us happy.

3.  My favourite song is Nirvana’s ‘Smells like Teen Spirit’.  I love it.  I guess I am a bit of a grunge girl at heart.

4.  I start the day with a cup of tea.  Without fail.  Dilmah is my brand of choice.

5.  I have wanted to own a caravan forever.  Most of my childhood holidays involved trips to Caravan Parks, mostly down the NSW south coast.  I love the laid back lifestyle caravan living provides.  Being able to escape and live with a whole lot less for a couple of weeks ever year appeals to me.  On our trips my brother and I made lots of friends, we fished, swam, bbqed and often had dinner at the local RSL twice in one week!  Great memories.  So, I am saving for one so that the little Vikings might enjoy a bit of the same.

6.  I am a Cancerian.  Through and through.  Though I’m not crabby.  I am home loving, romantic, I love old things, I am sentimental.

7.  Greece.  I met Mr Viking on the island of Paros (backpacking I was).  We have since taken the little Vikings back for a holiday to the same spot.  Amazing.  We have this thing about Greece.  We love the food, the people, the climate – and I have this retirement dream to visit lots more Greek Islands.  With a backpack again.  Thank goodness dreams are free.

All of the above images are from Etsy sellers.  I could not get my act together to refer back, though the mid-century inspired print is from Inaluxe.  My intentions are good!

Now, I tag my super Craft Group girls – Helen, Kristen and Lisa.

I have been MIA.  We took the little Vikings to Thredbo for a ski holiday.  It was buckets of fun.  Here are some pics.  I think this might just be Mr Viking’s first apprearance on the blog.  We had 3 lovely days of sunshine, 2 days of mixed up snow/rain/wind kind of weather and the first day was totally miserable but we were not going to let that shake us.  After 4 days the little Vikings could come down a green run on their own.  I think that is a great start.  Mr Viking was impressed with how little I fell over considering we haven’t skiied for 10 years.  Such a vote of confidence.  We found the cutest little snowman and built a few of our own.  We drank lots of hot chocolate and had a fantastic brazilian bbq dinner where they just keep bringing the food until you put up the little red stop sign (dangerous).

Today I am back on the job.   I have a wholesale order to work on, some samples to match and a few things to list in the Vintage Shop.  Tomorrow I will post about the project that I wrote for Grant Studios.

Have a super day.

Lemons you ask?  Well, I have much to tell you about.  Around Christmas time I planted a lemon tree in my front yard.  My Auntie Wendy had a huge lemon tree in her backyard and I loved collecting buckets full with my brother when I was little.  She also had chickens, greyhounds, cats, birds – the whole menagerie; this all took place in a suburban Sydney backyard.  Well, my lemon tree does not produce buckets full, but it currently has 13 lovely ripe lemons hanging.  I picked one nervously and gave it to a friend.  She said it was good.  So I am lemon happy about that.

I feel it is almost to the point of embarassing that my debut as a teacher is still to come.  Unfortunately the collage classes for June for Notebook have been re-scheduled to July.  This time round they won’t co-incide with a long weekend (or the school holidays).  I have many lovely supplies to break out and lots to share, so if you are interested in joining a class, stay tuned – I will let you know of the new dates.

Tomorrow night I am going to a party.  Do you want to come?  You can!  It is an Etsy Craft Party organised by Notebook.  It is to celebrate Etsy’s birthday.  It will be fun.  And crafty too.  I am taking along some papercrafting to share, there will also be fabric yo-yo making and other fun things.  You will meet some very crafty people.  We are all taking a plate.  There will be tea and coffee and a goodie bag to take home.  It will be from 6.30 to 9.30pm at the Notebook Studios at 180 Bourke Road, Alexandria.  You can get a ticket from here.

I have also been moonlighting.  This vintage is taking me over.  It is taking me over so much that I am working on a little side project to feed my cravings for ‘the vintage’.  I can’t wait to show you.  I’m hoping in about 2 weeks.

So, I have been a busy worker bee too.  I am working on a wholesale order for THE English textile magazine Selvedge. You can buy the magaine at Artisan Books, Fitzroy, Vic in Australia.   Selvedge have an online shop here called Dry Goods.  I like that name a lot.  I am working on a project with Fiona Kate.  I have been watching Bright Star, at Amanda’s recommendation.  I loved it too.  I have been bidding on a copy of  Bless this House at Pilgrim’s recommendation.  I have been making garlands, drinking tea, talking to old friends and having a time of it.

What have you been busy with?

My $5 chairs

I was blog hopping over at Megan Morton’s lovely new blog (she has a lovely book too, called Home Love) and I found a link to this fun little gadget.  You can find out your Swedish furniture name.  Useless?  Maybe.  But fun.  Paperklip seems to be a chair.  Quite appropriate as I love chairs.  So does the Viking.  We grabbed a couple of special ones when we lived in Denmark.  We have Arne Jacobsen’s egg chair in the stue (lounge room in Danish) and our dining chairs are Jacobsen’s 7’s.  Both design classics and have held up well with 3 little vikings in the house.  We also have some 1950’s chairs found for $5 each at the local op-shop in our entry, love those too.  Do you love chairs too?  Do you have a favourite classic or just an old favourite around the house?