NZ Part 2!

Looking across to Auckland CBD from Mt Victoria in Devonport

The North Island! We had even less time to explore this part and really spent most of our time in Auckland with a day trip down to Rotorua. Unfortunately the weather wasn't in our favor and was wet for the first two days we were there, pretty much rain the whole time with low cloud, so we didn't see it as its best. We still managed to explore the CBD and caught the ferry across to Devonport, tried some fantastic chocolates at the famous Devonport Chocolate factory. We hired a car and drove down to Rotorua for a day trip to see the smelly thermal pools and to go Zorbing! Now that was awesome fun, sliding inside an inflatable ball to bounce and roll down the hill, shame its not in Australia otherwise I'd be keen to seek it out and have another go.

On our last full day in Auckland we went to Mt Eden crater, Auckland Zoo (cannot resist the temptation to see some cute animals if I have a chance) and went up the Auckland Skytower to finish the trip. Unfortunately I fell sick on the last two days of the trip with a bad viral infection and made the 4 1/2 hour flight home to Adelaide rather uncomfortable. Illness aside the trip was fantastic and given the chance tomorrow I wouldn't hesitate and do it all again!

Devonport Chocolates... YUM!

Smelly thermal pool, Rotorua

Me in the Zorb ball rolling down the "Zig Zag" track

Crater at Mt Eden, Auckland

Auckland Zoo

Clockwise from top left: Flamingos, never seen so many in one spot and boy were they noisy; cheeky Kea, NZ native bird; the elusive Kiwi (would not sit still for the camera) & Giraffes munching away on lunch.

Auckland at night from the viewing deck at Skytower

I could do many blog posts on my adventures to zoos alone, we always take so many pictures, which makes it very had to choose some to put up for one post without photo overload!

NZ Part 1

New Zealand! Where do I begin. It is such a beautiful country, don't get me wrong, Australia has many beautiful places too but our Kiwi neighbour has plenty to boast about. I know two weeks was never going to be enough time to fully explore and enjoy the sights of this country but it gave us a good taster of where we want to come back to and new places to discover on another trip.

We started our adventure on the South Island; we flew over the snowy mountain ranges on approach to landing in Queenstown and what we saw was amazing. Staying in both Queenstown and Wanaka, we enjoyed 4 days of skiing on Mt Cardrona. Apparently all the mountain ski resorts in the Otago region had recorded some of the lowest July snowfalls in years, however there was still enough powder around for us to ski and we had a great time on the slopes. Both Queenstown and Wanaka are stunning, especially with the back drop of the snow capped mountain ranges completing the picture. We definitely would like to come back here as there is so much more to explore and do not to mention other ski resorts to try!

Besides skiing we went horse riding with Dart Stables down at the nearby little town of Glenorchy and rode through where they shot a lot of the scenes for the Lord of the Rings trilogy which was very cool, not to mention it was my first time riding a horse! :) This trip we didn't do any thrill seeking activities like a lot of people go there for, however on another trip I might consider some paragliding, it looked pretty awesome. I don't think I'm game enough to go bungee jumping, I'll leave that to the real thrill seekers!

We did a spot of bird watching and photography and found some quite pretty little things and some of the more unusual birds that are native to NZ. We spent 9 days in the region, nowhere near enough to fully appreciate everything that the South Island has to offer, one day we will go back and explore some more. We took hundreds of photos, too many to share on here but you get the idea how beautiful this part of the world was. In part 2 I'll talk about the North Island where we spent the rest of the trip!

 Queenstown, looking over Lake Wakatipu

Queenstown, looking down from top of the Skyline Gondola/lookout

 Lake Wanaka with Mt Alta in the background

 Skiing! Cardrona Alpine Resort, Mt Cardrona

 James and I on horseback on the Lord of the Rings trail

NZ Birds

Clockwise from top left: Tauhou (also known as White Eye, not native but I've never seen them before); Tui; Kereru (native pigeon) & Crested Glebe

July to September...

OK, I know it has been 3 months since I last posted, but like always you get busy and time flies. Throw in some illness and ta-da, here is the end of September! So I thought I'd give a brief overview of what I have been up to.

Firstly we went to New Zealand for a couple of weeks in July. New Zealand is a beautiful place and would love to go back, especially to Queenstown/Wanaka where the snowy mountains and skiing was fantastic.

I have been also very busy on the creative front, designing and making various things which I'll discuss in more detail in a later posts. There have been sightings of double rainbows, birthday celebrations and a trip to Melbourne thrown in for good measure (not to mention we couldn't resist the temptation and saw all the cute animals at Melbourne Zoo).

So basically that's where the last 3 months of my life has disappeared to and the speed that this year is going it will be Christmas before we know it! Eek!

Collection of Crafty Card Creations

We finally bought a new camera over the weekend and I am really looking forward to taking better photos, but first I have to learn how to use it properly :). While I'm doing that I thought I'd share with you some of my previous card creations I have made over the years. Seeing as it was my Mum's birthday a couple of weeks ago I thought I'd continue the theme with some more birthday cards I have made. I have made plenty of others but I'll save them for another time.

As you can see, some of these are rather detailed and they did take thought and time to make, but each and every one I enjoyed making and the reaction of the people who received them is even better! I have already shown a few cards I have made on here in previous posts which can be found here, here, here, here and here.

 Papercraft puppies

Watercolour daisy

Papercraft garden

 The card up the top was sketched from a photo in which I coloured with pencils (Derwent Studio and Derwent Artists) on black card and carefully cut out. The card below was a 3D caterpillar which unfolded (as shown) could stand by itself. This was a fun one to make although cutting the circles out was a little tiring on the hands with the scissors (if a hole punch that large existed, it would have made it easier).

 This was another fun one, I love using shiny silvery card and glitter, it makes the card pop!

 I love making character cards as they provide a challenge in getting all the details close, if not spot on with the real thing, but I only make them for those close to me, for obvious reasons. (Copyright infringements etc.)

This one is one of my favourites, classic Optimus Prime. Not only did I make this for my husband a few years back but I got to use up many card scraps I had around (I prefer not to waste any off cuts) and it came out great! And he got to relive some of his childhood memories upon receiving it :)

Mini Gromit

These are a few photos of a present I made for my mum's birthday. I finished it over a week ago but couldn't  publish any photos until after her birthday otherwise the surprise would have been ruined. I have been a huge Wallace and Gromit fan for years and I bought a big Gromit softie about 7-8 years ago. Mum has always eyed him off and when we moved to Adelaide she offered to "babysit" but my reply was sorry but he is coming with me :).

I thought the ideal present this year was to make her a Mini Gromit! Her reaction? She LOVED it! Mum said she had an inkling of what her present was when it arrived in the post and she couldn't resist the temptation and opened it up the night before her birthday, but I had no doubt that it was something she was going to love.

I didn't have a pattern to go off to make Mini Gromit, so he was basically a game of trial and error, I crocheted parts and tried my best to keep things in fair proportion. As you might notice in the second photo, Mini Gromit's face is a tad oddly sized, ideally his face should have been larger at the jaw and smaller at the brow but until you start stuffing it with fill, it is hard to really gauge what the finished product will look like. Some bits I had to start over as they looked totally out of whack, but I got there in the end. Having big Gromit sitting close by to look at helped a lot as I didn't need to keep referring to pictures on my DVD cases and books.

To go with Mini Gromit, I wanted to make an appropriate birthday card. So I decided to go with another favourite; Shaun the Sheep! This was a spin off from Wallace and Gromit and I love the animation in both! I created the card with Shaun and his little friend Timmy on the front. I really want to crochet a Timmy, Shaun or perhaps even both for myself sometime in the future, they are too cute.

The last photo is what I call my "family album" shot, every time I make a new softie I have to take I photo of it with my other ones before giving/sending the finished toy to its new home. Ducky (the first duckling I made, starred in my second ever blog post seen here), Lil' Robot and Froggy were my first Amigurumi toys I made last year and they live on my husband's desk and come out for family photo shoots like this one! :)

P.S. Sorry for the poor colouring in the photos, our little compact camera is having "colour issues" and we are hoping to buy a new DSLR very soon, so stay tuned! Can't wait to start playing with it and taking proper photos!

Snapshot!

Yes I know, I've had a long hiatus from blogging but I've been in Tasmania with my husband. Organising a hens party for my dear friend (with me being a bridesmaid) and attending their beautiful wedding in January. We also time spent at Christmas with family and friends, camping, fishing, bushwalking and relaxing amongst some spectacular scenery. 

Here are just a handful of snapshots from our trip.

From top;
- Hens sashes and badges, designed and hand made by yours truly
- Bushwalking in Holwell Gorge State Reserve (Northern Tasmania)
- Moss/Tiny Ferns, Holwell Gorge State Reserve
- My freshly caught Mackerel (Tamar River)
- My new friend, Mr. Spikey the Echidna
- Trying to catch a fish at Lake St Clair (Central Highlands, Tasmania)
- Windy morning at Lake St Clair
- The Wedding! Left to right; Stationary - my little contribution, the cake and desserts! (last 2 images courtesy of John and Kate)
- Sunset across Bass Strait, Melbourne bound!

Bowerbird Bazaar

On Saturday afternoon, my husband and I drove into Adelaide city centre to check out the 'Bowerbird Bazaar', Adelaide's design market. Held at the 'Queen's Theatre', a restored sandstone heritage building in the heart of Adelaide city. The place was packed with so many stalls selling everything from clothing and fabrics to jewellery and fresh flowers, the classic old building really served as a great backdrop to the handmade nature of nearly all the creations on show.

It was very busy; the queue to get into the Theatre flowed out onto the narrow street, extending nearly all the way back to the main road. We waited in the queue, shuffling along for about 20 minutes before we we're lucky enough to get inside. Unfortunately it was so packed with people it was hard to walk around and have a good look at some of the stalls at times, let alone have the space to take photos, still it certainly showed just how many people were interested and excited to get a chance to browse through all the stalls.

There were so many beautiful things on display, it made choosing what to buy and take home so much harder. However I did make a couple of purchases, one being at Thea & Sami's stall. She hadso many beautiful printed fabrics I didn't know where to start! I bought this 'Cottage Garden' print tea towel and I ended going through her entire basket of scrap packs, deciding on a pack that included these gems ('Pets & Bones', 'Mushrooms', Spoon &Whisk' and 'Bird'). My mind is already full of ideas of what to make with these, so stay tuned for the results in a later post.

The other purchase I made - well it's technically going to be my Christmas present :) - was from the wonderful crew at Mattt. They make the most awesome, practical bags and I have been eyeing them off for quite some time, dreaming of when one will actually be mine. Seeing them for real, and checking out the great craftsmanship and styling only increased my desire to be the proud owner of one. I could have taken one of the many that they had for sale however I decided to order one to be made, allowing me to select the fabric panel, and the colour of the straps and zips. Now I will have to wait a couple of weeks before receiving my order, but I think its well worth it to have exactly the colors and design I liked, with a panel from Ink & Spindle.

After an enjoyable couple of hours going round and round checking out the different stalls, we finished off with a freshly squeezed fruit juice from the stall Juice Junkies and left for home. My head awirl with lots of great craft ideas and thoughts based on some of the fantastic creative items I had seen, it really is a great experience to be able to see so much of so many different people work all in the one setting.

Monte

Meet Monte the monkey! 

Made especially for my dad's birthday, as he has always wanted a monkey of his very own, a somewhat impractical dream. I designed him based on my experience with a few previous Amigurumi; his body and arms are fairly standard, but his curly tail took a bit of fiddling and I especially like the way it turned out. I really wanted to give this monkey a cheeky personality (to match his future owner) so I gave him a contrasting white face and hands for dimension and a wicked little grin.

To go with Monte I also whipped up this matching card showing him swinging around and having fun. The card is constructed in my usual style; I like to draw a couple of rough sketches first to get approximate shape and proportion, then using a scalpel free-cut the shapes out. For this particular card I used both scraps of green patterned fabric and a nice embossed cardstock that gives Monte's body a bit of extra texture and pop. The next step is to build the subject up with a few layers to give depth and draw any extra features, backgrounds etc. Finally some birthday wishes on the inside and it's done.