Happy Friday! I'm glad to see the beginning of the weekend coming, this week has been a long and hard one.

I thought I'd share a beautiful verse that the Pastor of my church is speaking over us for this year. I think it's beautiful and I love the truth in it.

Beautiful Little Owl painting by the very talented Chrissy Baker

I finally got myself a Mac! A pretty computer however needs a pretty little home to stay in when it's out and about. Enter; some pretty fabric, felt and a spare few hours.

I made this cutie with a layer of thick felt, some beautiful quilting fabric and a layer of quilting wadding popped in the middle, just for a little bit of extra padding. The three layers were just blanket stitched together.

On the back I wanted to add a little bit of personality so I appliqued a cute little bird and love, life, laugh. 

And some pretty quilting fabric inside.

Now just to get myself an iPad, so I can make a cute little cover for that too.

Like everyone on Pinterest it seems, I decided to also paint my own IKEA Egeby rug. It amazes me that for a $40 rug and a bit of time you can have something that is totally custom.

I did a lot of serching on blogs to work out what kind of paint to use. Everyone seemed to suggest latex paint, but it's not really known by that name here in Australia. I ended up settling on plain old interior low sheen wall paint and just used sample pots I had at home. Bargain! This rug is for my kitchen, so I decided on a colour scheme of grey, white and a pop of mustard yellow.

First step was to tape up the edge of my rug and paint it yellow. I just used a cheap paintbrush, and absolutely massacred it. Rather than paint straight over the rug, I kind of dabbed the paint on so it really got into the little holes. It takes a while!

Woah, that's a lot of yellow going on! Never fear. Next comes The.Slowest.Job.In.The.World. Taping out the pattern, I'm sure I could have used a vinyl template, but I find this works well, and I can just paint over the tape and not have to be exceptionally careful.

I love the herringbone pattern. I didn't want a very deep 'V' so after dividng the rug into 4 accross ways, I used 2cm wide painters tape, and measured up 8cm then taped. Each gap was then 8cm high.

Then comes the fun part. More paint! I used grey and white paint, and obviously just painted every second gap.

And voila! After the grey goes on and the tape comes off. I love it!

I was going to leave the border au natural, but a) I got a few paint marks on it (oops) and b) I don't think it looks as good with this colour scheme. So, unfortunately there was more taping as I taped the inside of the rug, and just used the same paint to cover the edge. Much better, yes?

Here it is in it's new home. I love it!

Have you guys painted a rug yourselves? I can't get over how easy it is, for so much impact.

I am so excited about Christmas this year. I've been planning my gifts, making my cards, and organising my wrapping which I'm still changing my mind on! This weekend though with the lovely Josh Groban serenading me Christmas carols, I put up my tree and decked my halls.

My tree. Gosh, i need to scour Pinterest for how to take good photos of my tree but my lounge is so cozy it's hard!

Anf some close ups of my ornaments. The birds are probably my favourite.

What's your favourite album to play when you're decorating your home for Christmas?

I've been busy making some Christmas crafts, which I can finally show you. I've wanted to do this for a couple of years and finally got around to it.

I used some twisted willow I've had sitting in the garage for about 5 years (!) and put it in a tall vase which I'd added some silver baubles to the bottom of. I needed to use floristry oasis but didn't want it right at the bottom. The baubls were a good filler. I then wrapped some hessian which I've frayed slightly, and some pink twine.

I'd originally made the little porcelain ornaments as gifts for Christmas, but I really wasn't happy enough with them to give away so used them on my little tree here. I'll show you later how I made them. What a shame when gifts don't work out and you just have to keep them for yourself... :)

Happy Monday!! I've just arrived back from two blissful weeks travelling around New Zealand's south island. This place has to be one of the most scenic in the world. I won't bore you with al the details but my friend and I hired a campervan and off we set to see a bit more of the world.

I've never seen it actually snow in my life, here it snowed on our second day in Queenstown, was just magical!

Lake Wanaka. I loved this town. Walking down the main shopping street and this is pretty much the view.

On top of the Franz Josef glacier, we were helicoptered to the top.

The breathtaking Marlborough Sounds. Words cannot exaplin how beautiful this place is, and we were blessed with the perfect weather for our day there.

And the hills outside Kaikoura. This view is all over the south island.

It was the best holiday!! And the two weeks without PInterest nearly killed me!

I've finally made my first quilt! To the joy of my mum who is a quilting queen. I just went with something very simple for the first go, but I'm so happy with it. A simple brick pattern, each square made up of six rectangles.

I agonised for months over my fabric choice, and eventually settled on pretty much the entire range of Dolce, by Tanya Whelan. It's so beautiful isn't it? I know this will probably offend real quilters who delight in picking out their fabrics, but because beautiful fabric is so expensive in Australia, I prefer to buy online and it's just easier to know everything matches!

As a little nod to my mum and her style of quilting, I included a little pink 'peeper' between the main quilt and the border. I really like how it breaks the colour up without standing out too much.

The wonderful lady who did the quilting used an aqua cotton so it can just be seen, with a lovely squiggly pattern for the edge, and a flower pattern for the main body of the quilt.

Uh oh....I think I've now got the quilting bug!