Adventures in Decoupage

For some time I've wanted to try decoupage - I always thought it couldn't be too hard, you know, stick paper to something and then cover it in mod podge and done!

So for my mum's birthday present I decided to make her a decoupage gift - I came up with this jewellery stand.

Which I am pretty happy with - even if it meant mum had a pretty late birthday present this year as it took SO long to dry.

Extreme Halloween Cake - Part 1 - Zombie Doll

My friend Grace and her flatmates are going to be having a Halloween party shortly - but the actual party won't be taking place on 31 October as one of Grace's flatmates will be away.

Instead we are all waiting until 8 November (yes - election night) for Grace's Halloween party.
But I'm actually pretty ok with that as I told Grace I would make her a "Zombie" cake for her party and now I have more time to get together my supplies.

The first and most important step for the zombie cake is of course the zombie! For my zombie, I customised a sweet innocent little doll from the $2 shop into one of the undead.

This is the doll that I began with - to be honest - she couldn't be more wholesome.


This is what she became with paint, sharpie's, glitter and some fabric, skulls and jewellery findings. I am pretty happy with my efforts - let's hope the rest of the zombie cake turns out as good as this zombie doll.

Another day in paradise

Today was Labour day and after a really wet, cold and miserable weekend the weather today was really fantastic for our extra day off (and last public holiday until Christmas **sigh**).

Anyway, one of the reason I wanted our flat when we first came to check it out was because of the amazing deck. But it doesn't seem that we have gotten to use it much - but earlier today we were able to drag the table and chairs out to the deck and Ross and Shelly came buy for drinks and snacks in the shade which was a pretty good way to spend an afternoon off.Who wouldn't love the view from our deck on a beautiful Wellington day.

Earlier on in the day Rich and I went to soak up some sun at the Wellington Botanical Gardens (we have been making pretty good use of the gardens recently) and here's some photo's of the sunshine.

Long Weekend Jewellery Making

So in between garden parties, nutriemetics parties and hanging out with friends and having cups of tea over the long weekend I decided to do some more jewellery making (although this may be the last of it until payday as I need more findings now).

So here's one pair of "space boot" earrings, a few necklaces and one rather cool shoe charm bracelet which I am pretty happy with.

Roller Skate Earrings

Given my new obsession is roller derby - it seemed only right to buy these roller skate charms when I came across them on Esty and turn them into earrings.

So now I have two pairs of roller skate earrings - the orange ones I am wearing today and I am still considering the future of the green ones...

Shall they stay or shall they go?

Doll of my dreams

So yesterday I returned to work with a whole bunch of e-mails to clear, which is the norm when I have been away.

However in amongst everything else was an e-mail from my friend Kat with a link to thinkgeek for the most awesome zombie doll ever!

All his limbs are removable - and his head! Plus they even made a little movie involving the zombie dolls which is hilarious (well maybe only for zombie movie geeks for me).

I'm adding this little guy to my Christmas wish list or maybe he can just be my Christmas present to myself.

Congrats to Mr Craig!!

So a couple of days ago I recieved an e-mail from one of my oldest friends Craig to let me know that he and his girlfriend Nerida are engaged.

So it's been quite a big year for him - building a house and getting engaged! I'm looking forward to catching up with both Craig and Nerida (the bride to be) around Christmas/New Years when we do our annual trip to the upper North Island for Christmas stuff.

All Craig has asked is for us not to ask when the wedding will be - but of course Conor raised the question anyways, he's a cheeky monkey! I can call him a cheeky monkey as he referred to himself as being something much worse.

Crusing some craft blogs

So, after telling my friend Jaimee at roller derby practice last week that I haven't been sick for nearly all of winter - guess what happened? I woke up on Monday feeling not too flash...then yesterday I felt more dodgy and came home from work at lunch and today I am well and truely unwell. It's nothing major - just a bit of a cold with aches and pains and what not but very annoying.

But in between napping and getting lots of fluid and all that kind of stuff you need to do when you are unwell I managed to come across some fun craft stuff on the interweb.

Firstly is the Lilysmakebelieve blog at - http://lilysmakebelieve.blogspot.com/ - these are the lovely folks that made the super cute owl necklace I bought from Swonderful recently. The site even has a link to their esty shop where they sell all kinds of wee owl necklaces and also hedgehog necklaces. Cute.

The only other thing I did today in my house bound state was buy a felting kit - this felting kit to be particular.



I've been wanting to learn to needle felt for a while and I have searched both Trade Me and Spotlight for kits but the end product was always SO naff - whereas this little guy is adorable and he is a beginners kit!

If I like felting this guy I may pick up another kit - both the owl kit and the panda kit were very tempting but they were both for the experienced needle felter. So one step at a time - start with the little penguin guy and move upwards and onwards from there.

Rich's Birthday Holiday - Greymouth, Tranzalpine & Christchurch

We arrived in Greymouth about 45 minutes after leaving Punakaiki and it felt like we were arriving back into civilisation again.

After checking in our bags we only had about half an hour to look around town - still I can now officially say I have been to Greymouth.

However, it was soon time to leave so we all jumped on board the Tranz Alpine to make the journey towards Christchurch.


We decided that after a while - we should go and check out the view from the trains outdoor viewing platform.








Then it was off to see more of that amazing west coast scenery....




Part way through the journey we made a very brief stop at Arther's Pass which was a chance to get out of the train and get a (cold) fresh breath of air.







After our stop at Arther's pass it was time to return to the train again and soak up some more of that view!








Then it was time to relax with some wine...


...and check out more of the amazing scenery, including the pretty yellow flowers as we got closer to Christchurch.







It's amazing how quickly a 5 hour train trip can go when you're having a great time, because before we knew it we were in Christchurch and checking into our brand new but delightfully tacky hotel - "Hotel SO". If you love kitsch you'll love this place - it has a real 2001:Space Odyssey feel to it.

We spent the final day of our holiday soaking up the sights and sounds of Christchurch on a beautiful spring day.