The ABC's of Me!

Age: 22. (birthday in May *cough*)

Bug you hate: Most bugs I can handle (well not actally handle, but tolerate) but spiders I can not. Daddy long legs, sure. Big black ones, white-tails and giant garden spiders that hang out on our fence at night - no thanks! I have been known to scream.

Chores that you hate: All the fiddly bits like dusting and scrubbing and washing walls. Those last few days before moving house are the worst!

Dogs: Not yet, probably once we own our own home. One like this though:

Source

Essential start to your day: Coffee, with soy. It sits better in my tummy so early in the morning.

Favorite color: Teal and Lavender.

Gold or Silver: Gold.

Height: 5'6ish.

Instruments you play: Jack of all trades, master of none. Bass, drums, viola, guitar, recorder. I learn fast but lack motivation to practice.

Job title: Barista I guess, but I am 2IC at my cafe and bake, cook and serve.

Kids: Not yet.

Live: Christchurch, New Zealand. Unsure where we will settle though.

Mother’s Name: Lynne Whittington. (our middle names match - Elizabeth)

Nicknames: Dave calls me Amyliz and I get the occasional Ames. At high school I was known as A-dawg hehe.

Overnight hospital stays: Tonsils out when I was in primary school.

Pet peeves: Crass talk on the bus. I can hear you!

Quote from a movie or tv show: Teal'C from Stargate saying 'indeed' all the time it has integrated into our conversations.

P.S And I have therefore revealed my inner geek.

Source

Right or Lefty: Righty. Straight up.

Siblings: 1 younger brother, 2 older half brothers and a half sister, 1 sister-in-law :)

Time you wake up: Weekdays - 6.20 (at work by 6.50 - pretty impressive I think) Weekends - 9ish usually.

Unusual habit:I make a lot of sound effects. A lot.

Vegetable you hate: I like most vegetables. On my not-so-keen list is capsicum, raw onion, cucumber.

What makes you run late: Making sure I have everything.

X-Rays You’ve Had: Dental, Chest when I had whooping cough.

Yummy food you make: A newly discovered talent for making soup! If only Dave liked soup. Also thanks to Dave, I am awesome at cooking roasts. Oh and Cheese scones, I have a dedicated following at work that would almost kill for my cheese scones.

Zoo Animal: Lemurs. I love their long stripy tails! Just like a jungle monkey/cat.

Source

The Beginning of a Restoration - Vintage Bike

Dave and I bought a real beauty the other day from Trade Me. An old vintage bike - the brand is Armstrong.

It is a womens bike that has faded to a rusty red and starting to show her age. We have big dreams for this bike!
We are going to restore her to a functional piece of beauty.

The colour scheme is undecided at the moment. I know that the mud guards and chain guard will stay white. Maybe black with white pinstripes, or something a bit more bold. 


We will attempt to get the chrome looking brand new again, without getting it re-chromed.

Loving the branding here!

I will attach a wicker basket on the front, and maybe a swappa-crate on the back, but that might be overkill on the storage.

The front badge has been pretty well munted.

I am excited to start work on this bike, although I may not ride it until spring, it is getting pretty chilly in these parts, especially when I start work at 7! Brrr.

Anyone restored a bike before? Any tips or tricks?

A Forest Wedding

An old pallet

Ta-da! Two wedding signs

 Good friends of ours got married last weekend. They had the ceremony in a forest which I thought was really brave (what if it rained!) but awesome. I was in charge of decorations in the forest and given a bag of materials and sent on my merry way with the bride 'trusting my style'. Scary much?!

The order of service - on chalk cloth

Looking back down the aisle after the ceremony. Those rose petals? Fake. Thanks helpers for helping me pick them up!

Where the bridal party stood.

Colourful balloons showing the way through the forest.

All dressed up, no black as per the dress code - Dave found it so hard!

Loved their wedding transportation!

And with all my rushing round I totally forgot to take a photo of the bride and groom! DOH! Good thing I'm not a wedding photographer! It was such a fun wedding, it really showed their personalities through and through. I know they will make each other happy and I am super stoked for them.

An Easter Adventure

We did the Sharplin Falls Walk

Well howdy, hope you like my new bloggy layout, it means I can have extra giant pictures!

On Easter Monday Dave and I did a mission to Methven. Not too far from home, yet far enough to feel like the other side of the country. We headed about 30 min out of the sleepy town to Sharplin Falls at the base of Mt Somers.

It was a brisk morning and there was hardly anyone around. Everything was so green and beautiful.

After a lot of steps up and then back down again we reached the waterfall.

Plus we saw this awesome rock that looks like a baby bear or a hippo drinking water from the river

It was a much needed break from the daily grind.

Thank you very much Methven!

A Bookshelf Transformation

This Easter Saturday project was another garage sale find. Some people down the road are moving house so we headed on over and found this bright green bookshelf for $2. It is made of particle board and mdf so it is a pretty cheap shelf.

I had the idea of doing some sort of decoupage with some more of my music sheets which I also used on THIS project. I also still had some paint left from all of our other shabby chic projects so I was all set. 

I put two coats of paint on the shelf to cover that hideous green and let it dry in the sun. Next I watered down some PVA glue. Then I ripped up a few pages of music score and glued them on the top and shelves. 

Right now it is drying in the sun but before it is totally finished I will give it a few coats of clear spraypaint to seal it.

Just about to start the third surface

Pretty neat little shelf.
I think I might sell this though. Maybe to the highest offer?

Otherwise it can add to my shabby chic sewing room/man cave.

Happy Easter everyone!

Unpacking...a year later

We have a couple of old suitcases that hang out on top of our wall unit and for ages I have been thinking they were empty until I pulled one down tonight and found a bunch of stuff we carefully packed away when we moved nearly a year ago. I assumed this stuff was hidden in the depths of the garage but it was hiding in front of my nose the whole time!
In the suitcase...

• An epic mirror
• Our favourite wedding photo
• An old oak frame that Dave made brass corners for
• Some old timey photos we got taken in the Gold Coast
• A bunch of paintings Dave and I did a whole bunch of years ago that I forget existed

Yay for re-finding old stuff!

Quilt Update

Oh my goodness, April already! This year is flying by! I like April. So many holidays :)

If you remember with me back to THIS post, you may remember I had started making a quilt. Now don't go getting too excited, it isn't finished yet, but it has progressed rapidly (well it has been a month so I shouldn't use the word rapid, but oh well).

I hit a bit of a snag in a few places, firstly by not having enough fabric. My favourite fabric I had was only a pillowcase worth. Silly me. So I had to think of more ways of extending the quilt using the remaining fabrics. It mostly worked except it will be a small quilt. Just big enough for two laps. Or a nice fluffy winter quilt for a cot in the future. I like the idea of quilts and blankets running through the generations.

The second snag I hit was that I decided to cheat and buy something cheaper than batting. (That stuff is expensive!) I went along to the warehouse and bought a queensize duvet inner for $15. Way more than I need but hey, $15!
Sadly I misread the label and it is a big puffy winter inner. My sewing machine doesn't like that very much. It kept puckering the back fabric and it is a mission to sew by machine. I tried hand quilting by my stitches weren't even on the back and it just looked silly.

So, after some advice, I decided to get a bunch of safety pins and pin all the junctions I want to quilt and I will just do a couple of stitches in each once it has all been pinned. Then I shall re-asses and either tackle it with the machine again or leave it as is.

Lesson learnt. Don't get too adventurous Amy. Small steps first. Also don't cheat the system. It is there for a reason. Or just read the label first.