messyart

Paint spills and circus people

It's a long weekend this weekend. I love long weekends because i feel like i have more time to enjoy my kids. This morning the bigger kids and Adam all went for a surf. Kody wore his new wet suit, a gift from a friend, today. But he didn't end up going in the water...he just watched. Apperently it was too cold for him. I think i'd agree with him ;)

But he sure did look cute in it anyways! TJ also looked damn cute saying "bye!" to them as they left...

I had these wonderful plans for the first half of the day. Part of those plans included me actually reading the book i borrowed from the library with a nice cup of tea (if you follow me on Instagram, you would have seen me post it with ice-cream. That dream lasted as long as it took to post ;). The other part included me getting heaps of housework done, and we also had plans to meet friends at the park for a couple of hours. Instead, we had a bit of an accident with some paint. The Mr. was painting the outside of  TJ's windows, when he accidently tipped the paint all down the roof and all through the gutters (it was a BIG tin of paint). He started to hose it and it proceeded to spread all down the house and onto the backyard pavers.....such a MESS! That lost us alot of time and by this stage i hadn't done anything i'd planned and was already late to go to the park. So i got all the kids in the car and was just about to leave when i noticed white paint flooding the front of our neighbors driveway!!!! It had gone down through the drainpipes out into the gutters! Kids still in the car, the Mr. and i spent the next half hour sweeping and hosing while the kids spent it screaming "when are we GOOOOIIIINNNNNGGGGG!?!?" 

NOT the morning i had planned at all. But thank-god for good coffee at the park cafe!

Anyways....i had a big surprise planned for the kids for the rest of the day. We were driving to Brissie to watch Cirque Du Soleil in their show...OVO. But they didn't know that. When we got home from the park i told them to get cleaned up and dressed up and ready for a long car trip. They spent the first half of they car ride begging for hints as to what thier surprise was and the second half sleeping.

We woke them just as we were driving up and you could see the tops of the tents. We got out of the car and they each got an envelope with thier tickets in it as well as a small gift from me to them. I love how excited they got when they realised where we were.

The show was AMAZING! TJ was a bit afraid at first, it was just so loud! But then one of the attendants there gave us some ear plugs for him, and he was much better after that.

They each brought some of their allowence to buy a treat with. The boys fell in love with these little frog puppets. Tati bought the soundtrack from the show (which i'm listening to now), and a program.

I think i enjoyed watching my kids watch the show morw than i enjoyed the show itself! They loved every minute of it. It was so nice to see them all so happy and excited! Makes every penny spent worth while :)

Hope you have a loely long weekend!

Friends and a super-easy tute!

Today i got to catch up with a friend i haven't seen in YEARS! We met at my place. I let my kids have the day off school so they could hang out too. All together we had 9 kids running around, but they were all so good, you really wouldn't have known it!

It was such a lovely day spent catching up with friends. I wish it could happen more often.

Sadly, they all left and i'm afraid it will probably be awhile before i get to see Nic and her gorgeous family again :(

So to cheer me up here a quick and easy project i did. 

What you need: 

a cute tea-towel

a canvas about the same size as the print of your towel

a staple gun

My step-mother hjad bought me this sweet tea towel awhile ago, and i knew i liked it enough that i didn't want to actually use it as a tea towel. So for months and moths it sat in a cupboard going to waste. then one day i decided to do something with it. This project cost me .......

$0.00!

I used stuff i already had ;)

So start by ironing you tea towel so it has no creases. The get your towl and lay it on a flat surface face down. On my towel i could see the print through the back, so i just placed the canvas down where i wanted it, so the print was centred.

(this is what it looks like flipped over)

{ If yours is thicker and you cant see the print, try taping it to a sunny window so you can see through it. Then mark the back where your canvas will be placed. Once this is done you can take it down and lay it on a flat surface. Place your canvas on your marks. }

Then grab one side of the tea towel and (holding the canvas in place) pull tight  and 'wrap' your teatowel around the canvas, just as you would wrap a gift. Except as you do each side, staple gun it to the back of the canvas so it sits quite firmly against it. Take any excess and stuff it in the back of the canvas.

And there you have it, my friends! Cheap and easy kitchen decor....hoorah!

 

 

 

4 wheel driving and getting my hair done

So this weekend we were invited to stay with my brother and his wife at Bribie Island. They have one girl and one boy, and our kids all adore eachother. So they were very excited to be going up to visit. Plus my brothers the cool crazy uncle with the awesome 4WD and the boat and so many cool gadgets....whats not to love? My kids are great travelers. I found this out early on when i was teaching on a Scrapbooking tour in NZ years ago,where we drove for many many many hours from one venue to the next. So the drive up there went quickly and painlessly. I actually enjoy the long drives with my kids. (The Mr. missed out as he had a work thing on).

This is what we arrived to....

Wow.

We got settled and then all jumped in my brother 4WD and went for a drive along the beach there. The kids had a ball 4WD'n. All that bumping and sliding...so many giggles and squeals!

We drew on this log with burnt embers left behind from someones bonfire.

We played on the beach till the sun started setting and it got too cold.

(look at crazy auntie Nicole)

My brother sat in his hardcore 4WD being very un-hardcore like as he hid from the wind ;)


On Sunday we stumbled across a tiny little craft market. It was nothing much, but the kids liked it because they had a little stall where you would search for gems amoung rocks, and they got to watch the locals woodworking, wood burning and turning wool into thread to knit :)

Afterwards we took the kids down to a local park and enjoyd a picnic lunch and lots of play time.

When we got back the girls set up a hair salon in one of the bedrooms and i got my hair done....for free!

We had a nice sunset dinner before heading back home. The kids had a blast on our super quick little get-a-way. And i enjoyed the long peaceful drive home as they all slept in the car ;)

Hope you had a great weekend too!

 

 

Home Sweet Home -March 2011 (Part 1)

So in March we finally moved into our home (yeah!) and started renovations. I've never been through reno's before so this was a new experience for me. We went through with the builder exactly what we wanted and he assured us they'd be done in 2 weeks. Ha!

We moved all our stuff into one room, which became our complete and total living area. I mean it was our storage shed/kitchen/bedroom/loungeroom all in one! This is what it looked like ...but only for a week. Then we emptied our storage shed and filled up most of the spare space in the room. Plus, renos started, so we had builders going in and out constantly, dragging equipment and sooooo much dirt through. This was as tidy as it would ever look during renos.

Mostly, it looked like this....

It was so noisy  with all the renos, we ordered TJ some child sized sound proof earmuffs.

This is where TJ had his naps...

We only had electricity on one side of the house, which included Tat's roo (which was having a wall moved so we couldn't use it anyway) the boys room, which is where we had all the kids sleeping on one bed while the rest of the room was stacked high with the rest of our furniture, the bathroom and tiolet, which had been gutted and was un-useable, and the living room which is where we all currently lived! So we had no electricity in out kitchen. Which meant i cooked for a family of 6 every night on a single camping bunsen-burner, on the DIRTY kitchen counter, in the dark. Lets just say the meals while we were renovating weren't very special at all. We would sit as a family on the floor with a towel over the dirty dirty floors (yes, we swept....but there was this never-ending cloud of reno dust/dirt that just NEVER went away! It would get on/over EVERYTHING!) and eat with our plates in our laps. There was no tiolet downstairs, so we often found ourselves out and about using public tiolets, and we had to plan our showers at mums house. Lets just say we weren't the cleanest family that month ;). I shipped the bigger kids between my mum and their dad's place as much as i could to save them from having to deal with the renos, but then it was hard not just having my family together. I felt like i missed out on so much of thier lives during this period!

So first step was to change where the stairs went, and get rid of the bar in what would be our diningroom/ sitting room.

We did keep the old bar top, and i'll show you why later.

This is what it looked like when they tore the bar out...

Then they tore out the wall (that backed onto the laundry). And then the stairs were gone all together!

The Mr and I had decided early on that we wanted to recycle and re-use as much as we could in the house. Much to the builders dismay, i made them tear out everything with care so we could re-use as much of the original wood as possible.

This is the view from the kitchen . Previously there was a wall there with the stairs on the other side.

It had looked like this (facing to the kitchen, stairs on my right). Such a waste of space!

This is the view of upstairs, which you can see as the floorings all gone!

We pulled out the stairs, keeping them in tack and re-used them, just moving them to the other side of the room, as opposed to having them sit right in the middle of the room. Alot of freinds and family questioned my decision to do this, as it was an expensive move. But if you could see what a difference it makes to that space! It allowed us to eventually fit in a dining table, which would have been difficult. Although i will post pictures, i not sure they ever really capture the what a difference the changes make!

This is the view from the other side of the room. My backs to the kitchen, stairs on my left. This is as tidy as it ever looked....it only got worse!

A couple of weeks in, they opened the roof in our kitchen. Not that we were really using the kitchen much, as there was no electricity in it, but with all the shaking from the reno's, our floor would be filled with rat and cockroach droppings from the roof. And at night you could hear the rats running around! We had traps and baits everywhere, but the house was infested when we bought it. And we were told there was no point getting a pest control till the renos were over. So we did our best to keep the pests at bay and the kitchen clean as possible, and did my best not to be grossed out every minute of every day ;P

Needless to say, i hardly ever put TJ on the ground. He had one tiny tiny little area set up with toys, and otherwise he was carried ALL DAY LONG. It was simply to unsafe to put him down. Which also meant he couldn't learn to crawl as most baby's his age did. So he was a late bloomer. And not surprisingly the first time he did crawl was on my friends very spacious, very clean floor! I became a master at doing everything and anything with only one hand, as i constantly has a baby in my arms. In fact, i remember when our floors were finished and most of the renos done, and i could finally put him down, i was AMAZED at how much easier my day was and how much more i could get done! Haha ;)

So thats Part 1 of the March installment of Home Sweet Home! 

Home Sweet Home - the beginning

OK, so it's February 2011. At this point we'd been homeless for about 6 weeks. We'd pretty much given up and decided to rent when we stumbled upon a listing that i believed had lots of potential (i am VERY good at seeing past the worst to what could be.... ;) We found the listing and with much cajoling, convinced the realestate to let us see it straight away, depsite the fact that it wasnt actually going to be on the market for another month yet, and that the owner was currently away. (we'd stumbled on an old listing, you see. It had been taken off the market and was going to be put back on).

We went in the evening, so assumed that was why the house was SO DARK. Even with all the lights on. It was like walking into another world, another time. Everything was wood....and i do mean EVERYTHING!!!! It was like being in a log cabin in switszerland, only we weren't in Switzerland, we were on the sunny Gold Coast, minutes from the beach. Even with all the lights on the house was still dark. And it was built funny. Everything felt slightly akward and in the way, as if you were always walking into something or around something. The bathroom door didn't even open all the way because it would hit the sink. And there was a massive eyesore of a god-awful sauna/shower contraption in the batrhroom that didnt really even fit in it. You kinda had tp shimmy into the bathroom if you weren't the size of a twig. Oh wait.....and peice de resistance was the wooden box aka: the tiolet. Yes, it was an outdoor dunny indoors! They had wood walls, wood floors, wood cielings, wood furniture, wood bar, wood clock...i really meant it when i said EVERYTHING was wood! 

Here, have a look for yourself...

(ps. look at the Mr's face. I think he was slightly horrified)

looking towards the kitchen

what will be my girls room

looking down the kids hallway

the tiolet

looking out to the front door (kitchens at my back)

turning back to the kitchen

this photo makes the kitchen seem bigger than it really is. It's pretty narrow.

the bar (Aka: waste of space)

Lounge room. See those stools and extended counter in the background? That was thier dining table. They actually had no where but there to eat! Guess she wasn't a fan of dinner parties ;)

the master bedroom

wardrobe

ensuite

Our bathroom opens straight into what will be TJs room.

what will be TJ's room

You can't really see in this photo but this room is wierdly laid out with a wall right in the middle of it witj a doorway , but no door, to allow you access from one room to the next. Each room on it's own is ridiculously small. One side holds a bed and a small terrible wardrobe, and the other side holds a vanity table and thats all! 

But i could see past all this. I could see the potential. I mean, just look at these cielings! And the windows! Nothing a few little renos and a bit of paint  a crazy amount of reno's and a WHOLE LOT OF paint couldn't fix!

So there you have it. This was Jan 2011, the month we finally found our new home. We put in our offer and went from there. In the end, we paid more than i wanted to, but the Mr was getting anxious, as was the rest of my family, because we'd been homeless which is not fun with 3 kids and a baby. So after much bargaining, we took an offer and made the deal. I was pretty confident we could have got it for ALOT less, as it had been on the market for almost 2 years on and off and was in bad shape, but we still got it for a really good price , so in the end it was all good. I was actually surprised at how good i was at this whole bying/selling thing, seeing as i had never done it before! I was way more fearless than i thought i would be :)

So thats the beginning! Stay tuned as i plan to do monthly updates for everymonth from when we bought it till now. I have a bit of catching up to do!

 

Instagram has made me a bad blogger

It's true! It's all instagrams fault! 

Not that i was the best blogger anyway ;) I do try to be, because i love the idea of keeping a daily record for my family / childrern /me to read back on years to come, but life just always seems to get in the way! I constantly feel sooooo busy. Too busy . My struggle for balance is a constant one. 

But thats why i LOVE instagram. It's just a matter of posting a picture. Take a pic, add a filter, and post! Maybe add a few words or a description, and your done. You've kept up with your friends and your family and a few random strangers and all is good in the world :)

For those of you who dont have an iPhone, but that love instagram....did you know you can view peoples feeds on the computer now? There are a few different site, but Gramfeed is my fave. I find it easiest to use and i love the look of it.

It allows you to look at your feed, or others feeds. You can veiw all your photos at once or one at a time. You can see whos liked your photos, and  People can comment on your photos staright from Gramfeed, as well as Pinning it, Tweeting or FB'ing it! It also allows you to download your own photos straight to your computer. My user name is zzkat, or you can follow me on messyart (i have 2 feeds....one thats got family and one that doesnt ).The zzkat feed is set to Private, but thats just a small attempt to keep any weirdos away :) 

However, i do plan on posting more regularily on this lil ol blog of mine. I tend to sit down when i have time abnd do a whole lot of posts at once, usually catching up opn the last few weeks. Not the best way to blog, i know.

Happy Tuesday Ya'll!

Life lately.... (via my iPhone)

It feels (and looks) like it's just been me and little man lately. I've been studing at night and the Mr has been pulling extra shift, and the kids are super busy with dance and sports, so it has been a bit crazy around here! The only time i can really take pics is through the day when it's just me and little man. But the rest of my family is still here, i promise! I really and truly have not killed them all and hidden them under my house ;)

* mental note: pull out iPhone during the crazy times too and snap pics 

My littlest man turned 2!!!

So we celebrated a birthday this weekend. My littlest man turned 2, which makes me happy because i love this age :) 

( i know, i say that about every age, but i guess i just love it all)

But it also makes me sad because he is growing up so fast! Too fast . *sigh* His real birthday was tuesday before the weekend. In true mumma style we celebreated from tuesday to sunday! He didn't understant at first, but very quickly realised that everyime someone sang him Happy Birthday, it was usually followed with the presentation of a gift of some sort. So then he spent the next few day singing himself Happy Birthday and then turning to us with an expectant look on his face. It was kinda super cute.

He opened his gifts from the kids in bed. They had made up thoughtful little gifts from toys and treasures from their room, and had each made him their own card. So sweet. This little man just has no idea how very loved he is .

Then we made him some blue pancakes with sprinkles on top. (The blue was an accident, the sprinkles turned them blue! ) And we blew up balloons and had them scattered over the lounge , cause he loves balloons. That was his actual Bday celebrations.

The Mr. and i had planned to have his room finished for his birthday. Somehow, things just didnt work out, but although it may not be finished, we did get alot done. We were making him a reading bed out of an old pallet, i'll share some pics of that soon. 

But heres some pillows my dear friend made for his reading bed...

And a hanging decoration she made for him last year that we only finally got to hanging up! (Just don't mind the ugly table cloth/curtain behind it. We still have no proper window fittings!)

And these are some little canvas's i made.

Today we celebrated his birthday with family and friends. 

We had lots of food and lots of fun. Although not everyone could be there, as my sister was overseas, mum was working to cover for her and my brother was fishing ( nice one, Jamil ;P ). 

This was the set up before everyone came :)

 

Can you spot the birthday boy?

 OUtdoor Daybed....where i plan to spend this evening ;)

Pinyata.

Photo Bunting. 

Mojitos....yum! 

Food

Just desserts thrown onto a table, NOT a dessert table ;)

The commotion was all just a little too much for daddy...

Happy Birthday Little man!