News Years Resolution

Happy New Year to all and I trust that the new year commenced smoothly. I really enjoyed New Years Eve with friends on Brighton Beach, South Australia.  It was as expected a very hot finish to the year and an even hotter start at 40 degrees Celsius. The weather encouraged us all to swim and sloth around in shorts and T-shirt, not very festive attire but practical.

Each year our family heads to the beach to watch the fire works and join with friends at their house near by to hail an end to the year. We bring our large shovel and create a giant sandcastle which we adorn with tea light candles. This sand mound becomes a mecca for beach goers with sparklers and no light to ignite their sparklers. Its great fun sparklers and glow sticks everywhere.

Of course some quantity of champagne is consumed but I must say I was very aware this year that I would be working new Years Day and didn't go overboard.

Ben my adorable middle child was not particularly happy to be on the beach with mum and sister eating fish and chips, grumbling that we were there way to early and  spent considerable time hiding under a beach towel playing with my phone. The beach towel was so that he could see the face of the phone without the glare.
I warned him not to play with the settings of the phone , which of course he did and also informed him that if my alarm went off at some ungodly hour I would be kicking him awake. Well he said he cancelled the alarm but it went off a 4 am, so I in turn roused him in the manner suggested and shook his mattress until he too was awake. The phone didn't just go off once, 15  minutes later, just after settling back down, the retched thing resounded again. Sadly I managed to wake most of the household as we had all the doors open to cool the house with the air conditioning. A interesting start to the year.

Since the commencement of the year I have pondered upon what I might hope to achieve. I always have an agenda, the list of things that I think I'd like to do and stuff that I should do. My life is delineated between professional planning, family activities and the wants and desires of completing art and crafty projects that I am most desirous to commence or finish but never seem to find enough time to do it all in. I know one way I can immediately gain time is by not playing so many games on Facebook, my what a time waster they are.
I will endeavour to publish on the blog fortnightly but that will be dependant on the ability to find something to write about and how creative I might have been.

I've taken photos of handmade decorations and thought I would try to write up a few patterns for them and post them so that you'll have plenty of time in the coming year to produce your own. The first pattern will be for a beaded star. Its a little time consuming when you want to make them in multiples. I made at least 20 so that I could hang them on swags.

 I was given some wooden cotton reels and made some beaded men with my children to hang on the tree

Beaded angels nice hanging decorations or can be gifted as a broach

The angel swag is a pattern of Annie Downes a talented Australian quilter but the strawberries are my embellishment. (There wings are a little tired as the swag was made at least four years ago)

Decoupage hanging balls are cheap and personal way of decorating your tree, just  find a paper you love, a selection of paints and foam balls and ribbon and away you go.

 I added this snow man which I made several years ago but cant remember where I got the pattern.

As they say better late than never but I did take these photos as I was taking down decorations.