One blog

I've decided to have only one blog now, 

2 was too much to up keep. 

So if you  have come here to see 

what I have been up to. 

Check it all out HERE

I leave you with this wonderful poem:

Why I like making cards

A Cardmaker delivers the most welcome kind of unannounced visitor: A handmade card.

A card touches us - somehow, a small folded piece of paper can comfort, celebrate, reach out or just say hello.

Creating a handmade card is an honorable and important task. As a Cardmaker, you are entitled (but not limited) to the following rights:

You have the right to take as long as you want to complete one handmade card. This may be five minutes or two weeks.

You have the right to send a card for no other reason than to show off your new stamp, embellishment or technique.

You have the right to create a fabulous card for your husband, partner or roommate - just because you know it will stay in your house.

You have the right to spread your cardmaking things out all over, just to admire them.

You have the right to purchase a certain cardmaking item for no other reason than because a) you like it; b) you think it's cute; c) you'll never find it again, or; d) you know you'll use it someday.

You have the right to reserve using your most precious supplies on cards only for recipients who will truly appreciate them.

You have the right to a workspace of your own. This may be the basement, your college student's old bedroom or the kitchen table.

You have the right to make cards when inspiration strikes - whether the dishes are done or not.

You have the right to request peaceful, kid-free, stress-less cardmaking time - guilt-free.

You have the right to let the handmade card be the gift, too.

You have the right to value your personal style.

You are creating a treasure - and part of that treasure is you.

~Author Unknown

WOYWW #278 and Cold Remedy Recipe

So here is my work desk, I took the project off my desk and had to do a sweeping photo so you couldn't make out the stuff I was using to create my 'secret' project. The tv is one my brother gave to me and sits right on the end of my crafting table so I can watch as I craft. 

 The buffet and hutch above

 Another buffet single layer near the computer desk

The extendable dining table and most comfy chairs

 The new furniture quickly turned into a new photographic studio lol, the old one HERE can only be used when the sun is at a certain point, so no night photos. This new area has light coming in from the garage door or the flourescent light above all hours so its ideal and a larger area.

Some of you may have seen the picture and caption below on my post yesterday, and because all the Northern Hemisphere are coming into winter so I thought I'd share it again.

I made this cold and cough drink which consists of slices of lemon, fill jar with honey to cover lemons, add about a 2inch size of ginger sliced. When you want to make a hot drink scoop out a spoonful into a cup and add hot water. Voila infused ginger, lemon and honey drink to sooth that sore throat. We are coming out of our flu season and going into spring but I drink a cup of this a day all year round to keep bugs away from me and build my immune system up for the next winter season. Store in fridge, keeps up to 3 months if there is any left hahaha. Below is what it looks like after a few weeks in the fridge. Be sure to scoop the honey from the bottom as well.

Last week I posted up a photo of our library errrm hubby's library and  had some interesting comments that I'd like to answer....you will be pleased to know the cook books have their own shelf now, eye level to me. 

Another comment was the way we displayed my painting, it is so heavy it wont survive going on a wall so we had to find an easel for it.

Joining Julia in her Stamping Ground to see more crafty areas around the world

T Stands for Tuesday-Disaster!! Lemon drink for coughs and colds

 Opps I was setting up my new photographic area and the dowling stick fell down on top of my new saucer. I can still use the cup. Why did it happen to one of the loveliest of cups?

I made this cold and cough drink which consists of slices of lemon, fill jar with honey to cover lemons and about a 2inch size of ginger. Scoop out a spoonful and add hot water. Voila infused ginger, lemon and honey drink to sooth that sore throat. We are coming out of our flu season and going into spring but I drink a cup of this a day to keep bugs away from me and build my immune system up for the next winter season. Store in fridge and keeps up to 3 months if there is any left hahaha.

Come back tomorrow to see my new photographic set up on my WOYWW post

Joining Bluebeard and Elizabeth for her T for Tuesday Meme

T for Tuesday on a Wednesday

For some reason I can't seem to finish the last bite of a Turkish delight choc bar. I've done it a few times now.

Joining Elizabeth and Bluebeard for this Tuesday Meme.

WOYWW #277 & A missed opportunity - Michael's Library

I thought I'd show you hubby's pad, or the room I gave up for his library. We both love books so I guess I still have half of this room as half of it holds my books LOL. I discovered my cookbooks are shoved in-between his engineering books...and it's one book here and one book there. MEN!!!

So this room is upstairs and used to be a TV room for kids. It measures 10 feet x 12 feet or 3 meters x 3.6 meters. It would have been a real cosy craft room for me but I can't get too greedy because I have the downstairs which measure 26 x 36 feet or 7.8 meters x 10.8 meters

 So as you can see this area is still to be furnished with bookcases. The photo Michael commissioned in Hawaii on our honeymoon 16 years ago has finally been uncased and displayed. It has never been displayed all these years as we never had room nor a suitable stand to display it on.

 Going around the room, he is waiting for a coffee table to put his chess set on it.

 His lazyboy chair that reclines, we are looking for a second hand one for me. Drawing that I commissioned a fellow student in my graphic design class to draw for us of Michael's dog Shelby that he left in the US. His cat KD is in the photo above that was also drawn by my friend Abbie Boyle.

The third wall with more books. Bookshelves were a bargain and sturdy. We both love reading books so this room is a great little nook for us.

I can't show you my desk just now because I have a secret project going on that I can't share.

Joining Julia's Stamping Ground to see more crafty spaces.

WOYWW #276

What a difference a week makes!!

                                  Before                                                                          After
I spent an entire day to achieve this, from 6am till 8pm WHEW, makes me tired just thinking about it. This area will be the storage area because the lighting is not good for crafting.

                              Before                                                                               After
I moved the white cupboard in the second photo, you can just see it on the other side of the silver post which is probably holding up the whole house upstairs lol.
This side will be my crafting area because there is direct light. I'd love to have the craft table further down where the roller door opens but the 'new' dining table will go there. We pick it up on Sunday yay. So next week you shall see the 'new' loved furniture and hopefully all unpacked and ready to go. Well all hidden at least hahahaha. I have 2 projects to do so time is of the essence.

And yes Julia I do craft, sometimes I just can't show what I am doing because they are no public friend or 'secret' projects LOL.

Had some very interesting comments on my desk/room last week, so I'll address some here. Julia Queen of Desks said she has never seen me craft, that made me laugh out loud. My craft posts are on another blog to this one, you can see it HERE. This blog is my photography blog, I decided to split my two loves of craft and photography into two blogs. She also suggested throwing out some of my furniture to make way for the new...ahem....I need all the surface space I can get and since most of them were given free I am not complaining about the hodgepodge of furniture I have now. One day I will win lotto and can make one of those to die for craft rooms I see in the US.

Others wondered how many dies I owned to fit in that white cupboard....have you seen Becca Feeken's die collection? She has so many she has to have a system to store and collate them. Mine is a baby collection LOL. I promise I will photography my dies collection when I have them all in once place.

Another question was the actual size of the craft room and yes its the size of the house which is upstairs and measures 26 x 36 feet or 7.8 meters x 10.8 meters. So I practically craft in the space of the house we live in, just downstairs which makes it a really small house compared to the one we just moved from which was double the size of this one.

LLJ commented that I could hold a WOYWW crop in here, so I am putting out an open invitation for anyone who wants a WOYWW crop here are welcome to plan a holiday with LLJ and Julia to come on Downunder.

Check out some awesome craftrooms:
Scrappin2do
Mayholic
Brenda's Studio
Cathy's stamping Oasis
Christie Hund

Joining Julia's Stamping Ground to see more desks/craft areas.

T for Tuesday and Cauliflower Soup another version

Well as promised I made another version of my Cauliflower Soup Recipe, this version is way tastier..ahem I didn't get to taste the first one but I bet this one beats the first. Now in my first recipe I forgot to put the cheese in, this time I remembered but I forgot the anchovy hahahaha. What a dill I am when it comes to cooking. 

So this is what it looks like to start with, hubby and I are trying to lose weight so I found a recipe book that I had a long time ago that cause me to loose 5 kgs in 4 weeks by cooking sensibly. You cook with tomato juice instead of oil. So you can see a tinge of tomato juice in the pot. I added zucchini to the pot after roasting the cauliflower, onion and garlic in the oven (at this point I didn't know I was adding more ingredients so nothing else got roasted. Also added round cabbage, because I had both ingredients in the fridge I needed using up.

I added some chicken salt and pepper but found it still bland, then I found a jar of chilli and lime salsa in the cupboard from Anthony's Sauces in Canberra, definitely going to order some more of this ingredient.

And here you have the finished product, I asked hubby if he wanted it as is or pureed. He does not like his soup pureed lol. Had I known that I would have cut the vegetables up smaller into bite size pieces, so here I am struggling to fit a large cauliflower in my mouth LOL. Luckily it was boiled all day so its soft and I can break it up with a spoon.

Seriously this is one of the tastiest soups I've ever made with so little ingredients, the secret is in the roasting.

Joining Bluebeard and Elizabeth for T for Tuesdays. 

WOYWW #275 and Cauliflower Recipe

These two photos show the progress I have been making in unpacking, I am standing at the computer end of the room. The white cupboard took me 2 hours to move is now in the middle of the room. Here is the story of why it took me 2 hours to move. You can see the bathroom door in the middle half open where I discovered in THIS POST that I could take the perfect photo in there of all places.

 The photo above and below is taken from the other end of the room, looking towards the computer desks. Tables are out and boxes are down. All looks a little hodgepodge right now as nothing is in its place. The white cupboard will hold all the dies and embossing folders, I decided I would dedicate a whole cupboard to it as the collections are expanding. I get my exercise just walking from one end of the room to the other LOL

We will be picking up a 12 seater dining table (don't ask me where I am going to fit it), and a chest of drawers and a buffet and hutch. I will have to make them all fit, at a bargain price of $500 we couldn't pass up this offer as they are all very hard wood and in perfect condition. Stay tuned for more photos of these new additions.

For the foodies who visit, I made some cauliflower soup which was delicious, so hubby reckons, I didn't get to eat any because it went off before I could try it hahahaha so today I am making some more. 

Here is the RECIPE if you'd like to make it.

You can check out the refreshing drinks I've been making lately HERE

Joining Julia's Stamping Ground for more desks or craft rooms