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seagulls often only hang around when food is on offer & the other day as i walked the beach i stopped to spend some time capturing the gulls floating around catching fish with their beaks. i had swapped my beloved 50mm lens for the zoom so was able to get a little closer than usual! not everyone loves these sea birds but i can't resist photographing them & would secretly love to have an exhibition of all my seagull shots one day & would name it 
'gull' !

happy snapping. next weeks topic is green

i am


still here.

looking forward to blogging more regularly.
once the internet speeds up.
it is taking me hours to upload photos.
as our internet provider is working on upgrading the towers.
sometimes its fast. & more often its so so slow.

looking forward to visiting my regular blog reads & catching up on all your news.

see you soon!

{snap it is all set to go for tomorrow. only took me 3hrs to blog the post. so i hope you will play along}

Paper Flowers for Easter

Paper Flowers for Easter

This past weekend I started to make paper flowers for my Easter tree and the little bunnies wanted one each! So now I have a few less for my tree, but don't they look cute!


Paper Flowers for Easter
Tools and Materials

Pretty Easter Egg boxes, How-to step by step
Making paper punch flowers
Making paper punch flowers

Start by punching out the petal pairs until you have a pair for each flower you want to make. Place one of each petal on top of each other and tuck one punched petal shape into another to create a beautiful flower. Then carefully push the craft pick through the centre of each flower so you have a small hole in the centre. Thread a sequin onto a stamen and thread the stamen through the hole. Glue in place.


Butter dish to fill
Flower Bunnies


Have a sweet day!

Awakening the 'I Wish' Beast


I know, I know, I KNOW that I'm supposed to be living my own life and not worrying about what everyone else it up to. As my mum always told us, "you do your thing and let them do their thing." In an ideal world, in an ideal me, I would be doing all the things that make me content and I wouldn't even have a clue what everyone else's 'thing' was. I wouldn't have a clue.

I don't know if it's this blogging business or if it's just plain life business, but lately I'm not doing that. Lately, I just can't stop comparing myself to others. I just can't.

My life is a good one - an unbelievably good one - and I'm happy as a kid planting sunflowers with it. I'm happy, I think I do okay.

But then...

That girl's got so many friends.
That girl's so smart and funny.
She's making her own skirts.
She's growing her own minestrone.
That one owns a holiday house.
That one feeds her kids quinoa.

Many etceteras later...

That one, this one, she and her. I can't stop looking and it's making me think 'I should be doing that too'. Like all the girls who are doing great things could possibly be rolled into one great, big, giant achiever who does all those things put together. That great, giant achiever should be me.

I wish, I wish, I wish. I wish I could do this, I wish I could do that, I wish I was funnier, prettier, cleverer, nicer, friendlier. For all it's wonderfulness, blogging is a poisoned apple sometimes. It allows us to delve into so many lives, not just a few. More, more, more. It awakens the 'I Wish' Beast and she's a beast that will not rest.

That Beast makes me dissatisfied with who I am and what I do. Even if I'm not especially into the things that I'm looking at, that Beast makes me think that I should be into them. The 'I Wish' Beast makes me wish that I could do lots of things that I don't do and even more things that I don't especially want to do.

It is a very complicated beast.

What I mostly wish is that I could grow-up and stop comparing myself to others like I'm fifteen years old and desperate for my life to start. I get angry with myself. For godsake, when will I be enough?

Do you do this?
Does it make you feel angry with yourself sometimes?

[Image by Marta Bevacqua]

My Easter decorations part 2

My Easter decorations part 2

Continuing my Easter colour scheme of mint, peach and gold, I designed an Easter bunny lace print in mint and white which Hello Canvas kindly printed onto a large canvas for me. I've started making paper flowers to adorn my Easter tree with and filled plastic eggs with pretty candy, all of which I will be sharing with you here this week, so stay tuned!

Also don't forget there's still time to enter my Oodles of Eggs, giveaway.

Have a sweet day!

Party Pooper

It's the weekend... you've been invited to a good friend's child's 2nd birthday party. It's in a smallish apartment, and you really don't know anyone else there apart from the host. There are other small children there too, of course. They are playing happily with the little plastic trikes and toys and their parents mingle comfortably with wine glasses in hand.

Your 18 month old son barrels into the scene and within minutes has tipped a bowl of crisps over the carpet, had a screaming temper fit on the floor and scratched a large gash in the face of a little toddler girl you have never before met because she was playing in the little car he decides he wants for himself.


Do you,

(a) Shout and scream at your toddler;
(b) Smack his bottom;
(c) Apologise profusely to host and parents and carry screaming toddler out of apartment for time out, or
(d) Do nothing?

I took the (c) option but it felt hollow. How do you explain to someone you have never met that your child really is a beautiful little boy with no intentional malice when they have just scratched a chunk out of their precious little girl's face?

The mother didn't say a word as I attempted an apology, just gave me a half glance and requested Detol from the host and my friend to attempt to repair the damage. Detol, like my child has rabies.

But I couldn't judge her. I know would have done the same. I would have been horrified if the shoe were on the other foot. And, before Elliott, when it was just Fern (who at three has never scratched anyone in her life), I would have cast immediate judgement at the parents of such a child for 'allowing' such inappropriate behaviour.

But now I am the parent of such a child. And I was mortified. Embarrassed. Horrified, actually. And, as a room full of people watched with interest to see my reaction to this spectacle I wanted to crawl into a hole and quite literally die.

Folks, I did not raise my children to be violent. I hate violence. I can't even watch a movie with any violence in it without leaving the room. I do believe in discipline, but I am at a loss for how to discipline an 18 month old child, and teach him that this behaviour is not appropriate. Elliott is an energetic, vivacious, otherwise adorable and loveable little person who - in social situations - does not understand the difference between right and wrong.

Any advice you can offer will be gratefully accepted; what do YOU do when your child behaves inappropriately in public? What do you do when your child smacks another child? And how do you deter such behaviour in the first instance? Please tell me I am not the only one who has had this experience and that it is not my dreadful parenting that has made my child this way?! xx

Pretty Fresh Easter

Pretty fresh Easter

This week on Flickr Faves Sunday, I bring you some pretty fresh Easter decorations from the gorgeous bowl of Easter eggs to the chicks in the Easter Tree!

Some beautiful shots from my Flickr favourites



Have a sweet day!
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