Little details

Love this little doodle/colouring-in book that my Mum gave to Ashley this Christmas....Ash has a love for drawing and painting like me, so Mum was very thoughtful getting her this particular book.

Its called Secret Garden by Johanna Basford, book here and its not your average kids colouring book, infact I love it too! Really worth checking out her beautiful work.... (Anyway, Ash told me I could have any page I liked, hehe....so just to keep a little creative flow and practice to steady my hand and enjoying a little time out.)

The drawings are amazing in black and white, but was nice to see in full colour too.

Heres the end result....done with watercolour paints.

Love the drawings by Johanna Basford and of course I like to dabble in doodle art myself, some more Artworks of Johanna Basford here worth having a look at if your into this kind of art/drawing. So inspiring!

(will add Ashleys work in once she has completed a picture, if she is happy for me to share...)

till next time,

Deahne xo

Hayley- one of my fave pics (age 3)

Well, this time I am trying to get into a bit of watercolour painting. I tend to use mainly acrylic paints when I do have a go, but I have dabbled in watercolours before....I have to say I am pretty rusty! anyway, I thought I would paint one of my fave photos of Hayley that my Dad took years ago, I think it really captured her shyness at the time.

Heres my finished product, used watercolour paints, black artline pen and my fave derwent coloured pencils. Took about an hour all up, but next time I will use thicker paper as I just used normal paper so the watercolour paints ended up making the paper go a little out of shape and lumpy. I tried taking a colour copy of it hoping the bumps wouldnt be as noticable it did help a little...(note to self) anyhoo, Hayley loved it, thats the main thing! I will keep at it....

 My watercolour/coloured pencil/artline pen version:

Dads photo:

Love, love painting, definately going to try and commit more time to it. My happy place, well one of them anyway.

bye for now,

Deahne xo

Happy New Year!

2014! wow, where did 2013 go? crazy hey....

I hope to be extra creative this year and get out my paints/pencils again and get busy. Finding time for myself is not always easy, as most Mums/parents know...and then sometimes its nice to spend that precious time reading a good book or just watching mindless tv or a movie. Anyhoo, thats my intention.....we'll see how I go hehehe.

We all start the new year with the best intentions, I guess sticking to any resolutions is the hard part...

We had a great Christmas! the kiddies were spoilt rotten, Santa was very generous and so was family, lots of thoughtful, loving gifts. We are very blessed. It was a nice relaxing few days of eating, drinking and sharing time with our nearest and dearest.

All the decos are back, packed away for next Christmas. sigh. One thing I did want to add....my 10 year old daughter Hayley made some lovely decorations all on her own accord. Thought I should add them in as well, even though we have now finished Chrissy.

She had been online and next thing I know she was creating a lovely paper snowflake....it looked great! so I asked her if she would be happy to make a few more so we could hang them in the loungeroom. They turned out really well, I was very impressed with her efforts.
Here they are below. What a creative little chicky we have....

Here is Hayley making the snowflakes...step by step.

square piece of paper folded into a triangle....

Cut towards spine (fold) 3 or more times...

 folding in, without creasing and attaching with a little tape, turning paper over for each fold.

(She stuck them together with a little stickytape, this was the easiest option for her and still effective...)
Then we hung them with a little cotton, easy, but still pretty. Can try different sizes too, or any paper for that matter.

BTW while I am on the subject of my clever Hayley...check out this Christmas fascinator she made for herself....

(We got the idea from Pinterest, then Hayley went around and sourced different things/bits she could use to make herself one. She hopes to be a designer one day....I think she is off to a good start!)

Thats all for now, have a few plans on the backburner...will keep you posted.

Have a very happy new year from my family to yours!

Deahne xo

Christmas (part 4)

Our school holidays start today! yay! and the girls dont go back to school untill the 29th of Jan....so looking forward to having some quality family time with them. The years are flying by and time together is precious, they are growing up so fast! (Mind you I may feel differently by the end of the hols hehehe, then we are all usually ready to start our new school year)

Anyhoo, heres another little Christmassy something....
Ordered some mason jars online and have plenty of ideas of what I can use them for. There are ideas all over Pinterest, hundreds of uses! not just for jams and pickling/preserving anymore.

I filled them with water and placed a sprig of pine in with a floating candle, I think they look simple and pretty, especially of an evening.

I am planning on using them for drinks too, especially with a nice glass of Pimms! found this image online (sorry cant find original source), but wanted to share...

(Obviously they would have to be served with the straws, cant imagine it would be that easy drinking from a jar....)

Where I got my idea from... Mason Jar for floating candles/berrries....this one from bell'alimento blog

.....what about a snowglobe style....this is cute!
(from mother rising blog)

Below is another image found online (original source unknown...will continue my investigating and update when/if I can find). These are gorgeous!

note: I do always try to link back to original source...not always easy via Pinterest, but all these images and loads more are all on my Pinterest Christmas board here.

Anyhoo, the possibilites really are endless! but I love this look. I found my mason jars on ebay (Australia). The company is Ball and Kerr Mason Australia
A box of 12 cost me about $40....half of that was pretty much the postage, but I do love them...

Bye for now!

Must go....girls are ready for some holiday fun

Deahne xo

Christmas! (part 3)

"Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree...."

One of our fave Brigden Christmas traditions is going to a local Christmas tree farm at Luddenham and choosing our tree.
We often pass this particular farm and all year round the girls will wonder which one will be ours and even call out "hello little Christmas tree" hehehe. We literally get to watch them grow. So nice.

Here is this years tree....

And now some pics from past Christmas'.....

2012

The decorating...as I mentioned in previous Chrissy post, the girls pick out a new ornament to add to the tree each year. This year they decided on a little reindeer and a cupcake...

 a couple pics from previous years...(I get a pic of them each year)

And just a couple other extra special tree ornaments that we love.

Last year, Beaus first Christmas.

A video from 2010 to share...(still getting my legs on movie editing)

Every Christmas tree is beautiful, real or fake...

....till next Christmas post, I am pretty sure there will be at least one more.
Not long now! 15 days to go....

Deahne xo