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So I've had a break from the blog and a lot has happened it seems in my absence. The bushfires in Australia have been devastating. Thank goodness none of my family were affected but my heart goes out to all the families that were. If you are crafty and want to help the victims, the Toy Society are collecting handmade toys for children affected by the fires. Other donations to help aid the victims can be made here.

A thank you also to Aimee Mobley for her lovely package of handmade gifts that arrived yesterday...just in time for Valentines Day. My kids will LOVE them.

I have to tell you I have had somewhat of an epiphany during my days of non blogging. I hadn't realised quite how much time my blogging was taking up so I am determined to try and limit my blog hopping. You know ...you read someone's blog and that has a link that you follow to someone else's blog and so on and so on. I really can get lost in the blogosphere for hours. So I am going to attempt "Responsible Blogging" ...we'll see how that goes. If you see my comments all over other people's blogs you know that I haven't been very successful!

Bees Please

It's not really a New Years Resolution because I usually break those in the first week of January. But I'd like to think of it more as a good intention. This year ( amongst other things) I am intending to be a lot more frugal and where possible make my own things rather than buy them.
Last year my husband and I made our own candles which turned out to be a whole lot of fun. We tried making our own bread ( which was a little less successful but we are persistant). We had chickens laying an abundance of fresh eggs for us and of course we made some homemade Toys for the Toy Society. Last year I got out the knitting needles and made a whole slew of scarves for Christmas gifts and for my children to weather the particularly nasty winter we are experiencing in the Pacific NW this year. There is our family blanket that I knitted and my hopes are to again plant a vegetable garden come the spring.



But something else that I would love to try is making my own honey! I doubt that I will ever actually get to do it due to our suburban location and the hazards of kids with bee allergies...(I can already hear my neighbors letting out sighs of relief)....but maybe one day.



While we were on vacation we stayed with my husbands brother who kept bees and the honey they produced was magnificent.



Apart from a few bee stings here and there...(which I admit could present a few problems)...the bees seem like the perfect pets. They produce mountains of honey and once you have their hive set up they do everything else themselves. You don't even have to feed them! (My dogs who are currently fast asleep lying on my feet will have to pick their game up this year if they don't want to be replaced by bees)

Toy Society Christmas Drop

This post is a little late.
The Toy Society held a worldwide Christmas Toy Drop on the weekend before Christmas. For those of you unfamiliar the Toy Society, it..."is a small project spreading the love throughout the streets. Nothing to it really just a bunch of handmade toys looking for a nice home."
So this was a synchronized drop across the world in an effort to leave behind a little bit of anonymous Christmas spirit.
I made the toys here at home in Washington and they were packed away in my luggage and taken to Australia.



The toys accompanied my family and I to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland where with the help of my daughter and niece we found just the right place to leave them.
We left the first one in the cafe we frequented every morning for our coffee fix...Le Monde on Hastings Street, Noosa



And the last one we left tied to this hysterical looking tree at Noosa beach on the boardwalk. (I had to tie the twine...the girls thought the tree was "gross" and wouldn't touch it....sheesh!!!)


The toys were both gone when we came back a few hours later to check....I wonder where they ended up????