Jikana Damaru

just the two of us

I love being a Mum & adore our 2 little girls

& I also love spending time with my husband

just the two of us

yesterday I packed the girls overnight bags for them to spend two nights with my parents. all four of them love hanging out together doing extra special baking, movie watching, swimming in the pool & being spoilt {as grandparents are entitled to do!}

I strolled around the shops finishing last minute Christmas shopping & needed to make several trips to the car with a trolley full of bean bag beans!

When my husband got home from work we made plans to head out for dinner. Just the two of us. Thai takeaway. By the sea. Then before we headed home to a quiet house, we stopped by the back beach to watch the sun set.

Merry Christmas

There is a lot of excitement in our house with only 3 sleeps to go so I am going to sign off with sweet wishes to you all for a wonderful Christmas celebration with your family.

2011 has been an amazing year for me, for my family and for Sweet Style and I thank you for your incredible support.

The store will remain open for your orders over the Christmas/New Year period and we will ship out your products as you need them - please let me know if things are urgent and we will do our best to get them to you with plenty of time. I am looking forward to a little down time with my family in the coming weeks but I will still be around and popping in and out if I have interesting things to report or photos to show.

I look forward to exciting times and new possibilities in 2012.

Much love ...

not quite worldess wednesday

Addison, one week old
A photo I took of her but never shared. The more I look at it now the more I love it.

I already miss the newborn look
but I'm amazed at my beautiful growing baby.

I never knew how much the simple things she has and will learn to do would make my heart so happy.

And this grin. AH.

As much as I her big gummy smiles,

I pretty much just fold in half when she does this face.

Christmas tree card holder

Yesterday I showed you my upcycled wooden Christmas trees, today I am sharing with you my upcycled Christmas tree photo holders that I did the same thing with. I am using them to display my Christmas cards.

This brings me nicely on to the gorgeous Christmas cards from Portuguese graphic designer, Filipa, from Kids and Babies design. Filipa wrote to me a few weeks back to ask if she could use my Winter Wonderland colour palette as her inspiration. Of course I said yes; I loved what she did for her cards and she kindly sent me a set.

After working for several years in some design studios and publishers, Filipa decided to create a personal project, the "Kids & Babies Design", a printable party shop where you can find, among other things, vintage and shabby chic custom design partyware and personalized party printables. All her pieces are unique, customized and inspired by their recipients and made to order.

Have a sweet day!

Christmas Lunch No 1

As we race towards the 25th December here are a few pictures from the first of our two Christmas lunches with our family - last Sunday we had a gorgeous day with my side of the family celebrating both Christmas and my mum's birthday.

A last minute change of colour theme to red and white but hey last minute changes can be good!

My immediate family - my mum, my sister and her two kids and my nan (my dad's mum)

So now we head to Christmas Day and the decision of whether to go with red and white again or to mix it up - can see a last minute decision coming again!

Handmade Gift Idea for <$5

The night before I sent Fern off to preschool for the last time this year (she goes once a week) I had a mild panic attack. My best intentions to gift her wonderful, caring teachers with something thoughtful were looking a little bleak. What to do? I couldn't send her with nothing, just couldn't!

But never fear. My never-fail, so quick its almost criminal recipe for 'nanna cookies', pilfered from last year's "Afternoon Tea" recipe book by Frankie magazine saved the day... and with a little creativity, some bits from my craft-box and a $4 glass jar from Coles, I came up with this:

So easy!

Bake cookies.

Find a bit of leftover wrapping paper and cut to wrap around glass jar. Fix with sticky-tape.

Wrap a paper doily around top of jar and affix with ribbon, string or (in my case) piping cord. Slip a candy cane and gift-tag (a Dulux sample-card) to the top and give away with pride!

Fern's teachers seemed well-pleased. Perhaps they were being polite. No matter!

What did YOU gift the kid's teachers this year? Do you gift them anything at all - or am I being the world's sulkiest parent in doing so?!

wordless wednesday : oh Christmas tree

thank you for a fun filled year of wordless wednesday blog posts. I hope you all have a merry little christmas {wordless wednesday will start up again in feb}

to those of you who are new here please enter your wordless blog post to the list below, link back to here & enjoy visiting as many links as you have time for!