Miracles do happen....

It's only taken almost a year, but both cars are finally in the garage. Bit of a milestone, really!

Oh, and don't mind the terrible 'lack of' landscaping, we are still waiting for a quote from a brickie to do the front fence before we contemplate the driveway and paths...

Poodles in Paris.

It's that time of year again, where I find myself surrounded by icing sugar! In my family, we have 4 Birthdays in the space of 2 months.

For the last 2 years, we were in the throws of packing up and moving both times during our Birthday months, and the kids both missed out on parties 2 years running. This year I decided to make up for it, and organise 2 parties for my Daughter! Mad...I think! So last weekend, it was my Daughters 9th Birthday, and she requested a poodle and Eiffel Tower cake! It was the school girl's 'Pizza and Movie Night' party on Friday, and the family get-together on the Sunday. 2 parties = 2 cakes!

All throughout last week I was cleaning the house and making poodles out of the fondant icing. I made 4 poodles, used 2 for her first cake and made 2 extras for the second cake as spares, just in case the first 2 were damaged...or eaten!



The first cake with 2 poodles and an Eiffel Tower statue (I wasn't even going to attempt to make an edible one after the time it took me to make the poodles!)







Cake number 2 with a little bit of recycling!





To add to the 'theme' I iced some Marie biscuits, used a little creativity with marshmallows, licorice and M&M's and made some poodle faces.



It took me a few days to get over the exhaustion and sticky floor!

It's Hubby's Birthday today, but there is no cake until next weekend when we host another Fathers Day/Birthday family get-together. I'm a bit 'caked out' at the moment, but I have to start planning my Son's now. He wants a guitar cake (naturally), but I'm going to jazz it up a bit with a Union Jack as well...somehow. I think I'm just asking for trouble!!

Busy, Busy, Busy.

It's been a very busy time lately, and I've found it difficult to find some time to update the blog and process the photos that go along with it!

To begin with, I was asked to make 4 butterfly frames for a blog reader, and I was absolutely stoked! It didn't take me too long to cut out the butterflies (I did most of them while watching the last few eps of Master Chef!), but then I still had to assemble them, package them up with lots of foam and bubble wrap and send them off. All in between dealing with all of the voluntary work I do at my children's school and a quick trip to The Gold Coast!

So this is what I made: Red:



Pink:



Purple:



Green:



As well as an aqua one for my Mum for her Birthday!:



That's a lot of butterflies recently!!



I am also about to begin another for another blog reader!

So what's been happening around the house? I've finally made a decision I was stumped over in this post. I waited until the plantation shutters were installed and decided to go with 2 pictures.



Yay! No more completely naked walls in the lounge room! I just need to find the right frames for my bird/nests/eggs wrapping paper for beside the window, and all the family black and whites on the opposite wall....it never ends!

Last weekend we ticked several things on the 'to do' list. As well as the 2 maps in the loungroom, my Daughters chandelier was put up in her bedroom:




...and we began to complete the study nook in the family room. This area was always a bit of a shambles with my very old pine desk and chair and 'stuff' just dumped on top of it. I always had big plans for this area, and they are starting to become reality!

This was after I cleaned up the piles of papers:




...and after a shopping trip to IKEA!



Obviously, the desk will be painted white and have dark drawer pulls installed, but I haven't had a chance yet...and it's not really suitable 'standing in the garage painting for hours' kind of weather in Melbourne at the moment!!

I do love my new Barometer lamp...thanks IKEA!!!