Dress ups

On Friday we held a 70's disco and games night for our youth group. I thought I'd share with you a few of my favourite images of the night...


This girl is super Gorgeous, she stars in a lot of my images (including my photography major and modeling my textiles major for year 12) Because she is That Gorgeous! and such a great little poser :)

his is Noaxy - he's pretty cool and a really sweet guy. His costume was awesome - it was some white body suit he found in an op shop that his mum made smaller to fit him and added flares and sequins! And look at that chest hair hehe!

And dear Ed his chest hair was super glued and sticky taped on - ouch and ew!

My handsome Morgan (in clothes my Dad still owns and wears! :S ) and Mitch. It's been so great watching this guy come into church, give his heart to the Lord and watch the excitement as he finds new things and promises throughout the bible and shares them with us. I love it!

Flashback Friday..

I have decided that It's finally time I had a weekly feature on the blog..

I love old photos. I really, really do! Theres just something about the clothes. the poses. the way these images reflect small snippets of the past. Whenever I'm at my grandparents I love to pour over all the old albums again and again. In my family I'm so lucky to have had a grandfather who was so interested in photography and so many amazing images of my dad and his brothers and sisters growing up (and silent films with the sound of music songs playing in the background - they are awesome!)

So... here is my version of 'Flashback Friday' Because I believe these photos deserve more than to just be placed in a box or old album and forgotten about - they deserve to be shared!

My grandparents at a debutante ball the very first night they met. As fate would have it my grandma was asked along as a date. Something to do with keeping the numbers of boys and girls even for dancing.. I think its safe to say she spent the majority of the night dancing with my grandpa. He tells the story of how he came home that night and told his mother that he had met the girl he was going to marry!

Flickr Meme

I came across this on Hope's page and it looked like fun and so I decided to join in too :)

Instructions:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into a Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker ( i couldn't work out how to do this!)

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush? ( I had trouble with this one.. He's not really a 'crush' but I think he's super spunky looking and was great in Troy..why of why did he die and not Orlando!??)
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life? (ah I can't decide! so many many things/people/places/feelings..)
11. One Word to describe you. (see if you can guess what this word was!)
12. Your blog name (it was originally flickr name, but this didn't come up with anything for me..)

So anyone reading this post, consider yourself tagged (and let me know when you post so I can drop by and have a looksie - would love to see what colleagues you guys come up with!)

P.s Earlier this week I received my first ever promotion! Yes that's right..You are reading to the rambling ons of the latest Legal Secretary on the block :) no more office Junior for me! It still seems so weird this is something that I have been praying about for a loong while now,and came at a totally unexpected time, and not in the time I would of picked - I've been bored with my previous duties for ages now.. but Definitely a nice surprise and an answer to prayer! So I'm currently on my six week trial and the best thing is if I don't like it I can have my old position back, just like that! They won't fill it till I'm completely happy with my new position. But It seems those coffee run days are a thing of the past..because I'm enjoying myself! (well as much as one can at work :)

Smiling...

Things that have been keeping a smile on my face this week (and absent from the blog!)

- Spending time with this gorgeous girl.

- and this crazy funny boy! "That's sneaky!"

My two sweet cousins who are visiting for a few weeks all the way from the big bad US of A! Miami, Florida to be exact. It's been two years since I saw them last! This was after they moved back to Florida after 4 years of living only an hour away. We're a pretty close family so that was hard!

- a day on the boat with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Including a trip to the op shop as soon as the boat pulled up to the wharf - my aunts, they just can't resist!

- celebrating all the June birthdays in the extended family (theres 8 of us) with cake made by Grandma

- Numerous games of Scattergories with my cousins that end in uncontrollable laughter

- Horse riding with my cousins in the beautiful Glenworth Valley (above photo by Hanna)

- a 6 day weekend! :)

- shopping trips with cousin Hanna and new belts!

- sleepovers with the said cousins

- ice skating with said cousins

- new haircuts 4 M and me

- date night with my boy, to the drive in to see Prince Caspian. This sounded sooo good with M's sub you could feel the bass through the whole car.

- sing alongs with my boy to Angus and Julia Stone on the way home from said date
- taking tonnes of photos with my new camera :)- wintertime sun shine

- Lunch with Morgan's extended family to celebrate all the June Birthday's (theres quite a few on this side too!) including His Pa's 90th birthday!

- Being Thankful for all the memories that have been made :)

catching up..

Wow it has been (once again) quite awhile since I last posted. I tend to do that. Short bursts of posts, everything happening at once and then long lengthy pauses...space to clear my head and creative thoughts and to start all over again I guess :) So I have some serious catching up to do. Especially seeings it's been a super busy couple of weeks.. heres a few things we've been up to...

Last Monday was the Queen's birthday long weekend so on Monday Morgan's family and I headed north for a day trip to the Hunter Valley. This is well known wine country with beautiful landscapes and a perfect opportunity to play with the new camera :) We visited This gorgeous little chocolate shop, with heaps of hand made goodies: chutney's, jams, fudges oh and chocolate survival bags (as pictured below) This place also had a 'wine shop' that had a super yummy fire crackling away inside while the customers enjoyed samples. Outside the garden was full of lanterns, couches, coffee tables and chairs where you could sit outside in style and enjoy the surrounding mountains and scenery :) (or find the only existing wet patch, like Paige did and sit in it! hehe)


We then headed up to the Hunter Valley Gardens where we had lunch and looked around the shops. There was this awesome UK lolly shop were they were REALLY keen to let you test everything before you bought it! I seriously had a HUGE lolly in my mouth and hand and the guy was still trying to get me to sample more!! It was such a sweet experience everyone happily munching away while shopping.

Then we headed up to a lookout and had tonnes of fun jumping around (literally) and posing for photos. I also taught Morgan how to cartwheel, and he was super proud he could do it.

Then Friday June 13th was this little girl’s 20th birthday!

Yes 20! Wow! My teens are over – my that seemed so quick!

On one hand I can’t believe I’ve finally made it to this milestone and on the other I know that there is still so much living and learning and spiritual growing that I have to do and that I am just at the beginning.

I am ready to embrace all that my 20’s have to offer. Those years where I plan to get married, become a mum, travel the world and continue growing and being molded day by day into the person god wants me to become. Stepping into that closer and more intimate relationship with him and watching as the plans he has for my life start to unfold.

I simply can’t wait!

my new toy.

check out my new toy!!
I'd have to say I love the newest addition to my life.
blog readers I'd like you meet Mr Nikon D80...and Mr Nikon I'd like you to meet my blog readers (they are really sweet people!) :)

M and I spent last Saturday going around to the camera shops trying out all the different models, asking a bazillion and one questions and getting competitive prices! But the best bit of all was that my good friend Jes (we went to two of the same high schools together how crazy!) works at JB Hi-Fi and was able to give it to us at cost price (with the really nice camera bag) so that saved me almost $300 straight away. Also Nikon is having a $200 cash back promotion for the month of June yipee!

So hopefully there'll be some really nice images appearing on the blog. That is once we work at out all these buttons and features and try and remember all that I have learnt (and forgotten) from year 11 photography!

Sassy Apron Revealed!

Yay! My apron swap partner Beth received her summer sassy apron in the mail last Thursday! Gee Australia post that was quick, I only sent it on Tuesday!!! Beth posted up a little review and some photos of her wearing the apron on her blog - it's so great to see something you made being worn and loved by someone else! Thanks for posting that up Beth. So now I can share with you all here's my summery creation:

I really enjoyed being part of this swap (my first swap) and am excited to join up for the next (I've already joined up for the summer postcard swap which is being run by Andrea of Hula seventy i think this may slowly become a new obsession!).

It took me awhile to actually decide on my design and fabric of my apron and it only ended up coming out the way it did due to a mishap - hence why it was sent on Tuesday and not Monday (oops) But i figured this would be ok seeings I was sending it interstate and not to another country.

I had picked some similar colour cotton drill and white bias binding and had a simple chef's apron style (from a Mccalls pattern) as the original idea. I was inspired by the simple natural colours splashed with bright patterned cotton used by shim & sons, Tania Ho & leslie of one girl design works But it ended up looking very bland, the cotton drill wasn't hanging very nicely and the over locker broke half way and even though those sides would be covered in bias binding I wasn't happy because I knew they were there and that they looked awful! So i rushed out to Spotlight (the weekend it was due) and grabbed some more tea towels (at 50C each!!). This also meant that the apron really would match the tea towel I had already appliquéd. Doing it this way was super easy all I had to do was basically attach a waistband, the (already made) pockets and some buttons. The bib is also a tea towel that I cut smaller, added some darts and decorative stitching, some buttons and button holes - easy!

Infact it was that easy if anyone is interested I would be happy to post up my how to.

I'm so glad you loved your apron Beth I did have fun making it and now I'm just waiting for my apron to arrive... :) and for anyone who is interested...there is a sassy apron autumn swap coming up!

*edit note - I completely forgot to mention that my apron is a 2 in 1 apron and can be worn as both a cafe style half apron and a full apron. I really wanted to make a full apron (having only made half aprons before) but the half cafe style apron looked so cute by itself that I didn't want to join anything to it. I had previously found this free apron tutorial for a 1940's bib style apron from this site (56 free apron patterns!!) where the bib is joined to the apron by buttons. So I adapted this to my design. The last picture shows the mis-matchy buttons on the reverse side of the waistband that join up to the button holes on the bib. I just don't know how I forgot to add this important detail in!!

a little sneak..

Heres a little sneak peak of the apron I made for the sassy apron swap which should being reaching it's new home soon. This swap's theme was summer which is something that has definitely left us here on the east coast of Oz. It's been raining for the last 3 days and more rain in forecast for the rest of the week (note to self at you need to buy an umbrella and stop putting it off girl!!). I'm looking forward to Saturday (even if it is supposed to be rainy) as I'm sure Camera shopping will lift my spirits :) I can't wait to get some actual 'good' photos up on this blog!

In other completely unrelated news have I ever mentioned how cute I think my dad is and blessed we are to have him in our family? Tonight he cooked us dinner to give mum a break because she is not feeling to well (naaw!) and it was yummy. I really love having a dad who loves to cook (morgan take note here). After dinner as we were sitting around enjoying our after dinner banter conversing and laughing about our days he gets this sudden excitement in his voice and exclaims that tonight is 'just the night for making some rock cakes' (a big favourite of his) He looked at mum with a pleading look and asked if it would be too much trouble and fuss for him to make some tonight and if we had all the ingredients and then off he went. He got out his little blue recipe book where he has recorded all of his mum's best recipes - her potato salad, her casserole and rock cakes - all the favourite ones from his childhood and he was so happy.

So even though the weather has been awful over here it was just so lovely inside the Mac household tonight with the fire glowing, the rain falling outside and dad in the kitchen looking mighty pleased with his progress and I realised that as much as I want to leave home and get a place of my own (with my boy) to decorate and love these are the little moments that I will truly miss and will always think of with fondness. Thank you God for this amazing family you have placed me in!

I do like tea too!

Just how cute are these prints from Tabitha Emma? They were featured on Lily and Tulip and I thought they were too cute to not pass on. Tabitha is a Sydney based artist, which is pretty close to home for me :) So to any family reading this post, it also means that you save on shipping charges if you were wondering what to buy a certain someone for her birthday that is coming up soon :) They also come in little mini prints (2.5" x 3.5") for $4.50 US which are really sweet.