this morning i woke up, fished my laptop out of my bedside table, and read through my blogroll as i always do a lazy sunday morning. among the many interesting and pretty things to be found there was the very exciting news that i had won the giveaway that the lovely and talented cassia ran last week. i got to choose TWO prints from her collections, and theses are the ones that sajee and i decided would look best in our house:

cassia’s photography is so pretty, delicate, and has an almost ethereal quality to it - i’ve admired it for a long time, and i’m so happy to have some come and live with me!

thanks cassia - you are awesome!

essie xoxoxo

it’s been a while since i did some hand-quilting, but i’m back at it, and remembering how much i enjoy it!

why, yes! i do keep my quilting pins in a tea cup!

we’re not that into australia day in this house. but the one nod we’ve made to our national holiday is baking and eating lamingtons!

sajee did the baking, but i was a big help with the eating!
essie xoxoxo

left to right, top to bottom:

1// luscious herbs, found via frolic.
2// i can never, ever get enough of the cuteness at little doodles.
3// kick arse shoes found via offbeat bride.
4// further evidence of my love of flowers in bottles and jars, this time from tiny happy.
5// hand embroidered brooch, from wonderwear.
6// ceramic butterflies made of vintage saucers, from lightly (i received two of these from my birthday from people who clearly know me very well!).
7// sweet tree fabric from karaku.
8// tea-themed artwork from sweet william.
9// where better to jot your ideas than this squirrel notebook from delphine press?
10// embroidery from tiny happy.
11// this photo just fills me with happiness - it’s from la miez’s flickr.

essie xoxoxo

the other day, my gf and i went to ikea to pick up a few bits and pieces for the house. we got some cool stuff, most of it practical (plates, curtains, etc), but some less practical and more pretty. like this frame, which we both thought was super cool:

it’s pretty large (59 x 85cm), and we weren’t quite sure what to do with it - we just knew we liked it! on monday i had a brain wave, and turned the frame into a badge board:

here’s how i did it:
1. removed the glass and backing and set them aside, then used some E.S.P. to prepare the plastic surface to take paint.
2. added an undercoat to help cover the black.
3. used two coats of pretty rose-pink paint (a sample pot from the hardware store was more than enough), to make the frame the colour i wanted.
4. took the backing for the frame and used it as a template to cut out a piece of fabric that went with the pinkness of the frame, making sure i left about 1.5 inches overhang for securing it in place.
5. cut two ovals of thick soft quilt batting (i used leftovers from old quilting projects - this was good for using those bits up!), this time with no overhang.
6. laid the fabric down face down on my table, centered the two layers of batting on top of it, then centered the frame backing over this.
7. used small map pins to secure the fabric in place. these were inserted on an angle so they would be secure and wouldn’t poke through to the other side (this is also why i didn’t just use a staple gun). the fabric was pulled firmly but not stretched outrageously tight.
8. i took the whole backing-batting-fabric piece, and placed it in the frame, completing the project.

it’s now hanging on the wall in our room, looking after our many, many, many badges for us, and allowing us to admire them even when we’re not wearing them! hurray!

this project was suuuuper easy, and i think the result is quite awesome - i hope you do too!

essie xoxoxoxox

p.s. you won’t need the glass that’s left over at the end of this project, so you should either store it carefully for if you ever want to turn your badge board back into a frame, or recycle it.