Blogger OUT!!

Im hopeless at updating this thing so I have decided to use facebook much more intensively to stay close to friends and family.
My facebook name is Cherie Naera.
I will keep this open just in case i change my mind. In the meantime, look me up on face book.
Happy new year!!
Love Cherry

The garlic harvest

Yes i am still here...just extremely busy. Girls are in Christmas show with Hastings operatic, schools are closing down for summer, vege garden is resembling day of the triffids...busy, busy, busy!!!!!
Enjoy my garlic harvest...Im a bit smug actually i didnt think Id planted all that many!

Christmas at moi house..

As each passing days goes by I sneak more and more of my Christmas decorations out!!!! Some are very new such as the tilda angel and Santa Claus in the top picture.And the Cherry Menlove Christmas stocking swag. ut then there are old favourites like the next two.
My husband keeps giving me dissaproving stares but he knows better than  to say something.!!!
 I am in the middle of a million log cabin scrappy squares right now, I am on a trip to sew all my scraps into quilts. I have been on Bonnie hunters site (she is a quilter who loves scraps). So much choice. My favourite on her site is sisiters choice, but i have already used that pattern with my last venture into "using up all my stash" I hope i get further this time!!! Theres NO room in our closet!!!(More dissaproving stares from my hubby!!)
Short and sweet, much to do, days are long and hot at the moment, kids are in the pool every night  summer is here!!!!

A little bit of this a little bit of that

Ive always said that crafting is a meditation for me. I feel that it really keeps the woves from thedoor so to speak. And so with recent ill health and Docotrs help i have been crafting like crazy. Obviously the magic time of Christmas is closing in and my Christmas spirit is raising to the fore. This is one of two Christmas puddings made. I actually bought a pudding bowl with a lid which is such a pleasant change from my normal ill wrapped abstract sided thing that i usually come out with each Christmas after wrapping in calico and boiling. Last night we ate the second one of these as I hadnt tried the recipe that came with thw bowl . It was nice, sure but i will be tweeking some changes before the next one...and yes i did say the next one. I love making these. The GHIU (gorgeous hubby in uniform loves his Christmas puddings)

 This is a origami with fabric tree. I made up all the little pieces at work but just couldnt understand how it could work out...it did!! It was my second Christmas decoration to go up..

 This was my first. An advent calender from Spotlight which really is totally unlike the sort of thing i normally buy BUT it was at the time that i really needed to sew (My meditation) It has been filled with candy canes in which only a few have disappeared!

Upcoming projects include a Santa and Angel doll doll I am making (Not without much difficulty) by designer Tone Finnanger...gorgeous gorgeous desighner Ive just ordered her Christmas book....

A scrappy log cabin quilt. I have to say IM LOVING this I just cut a million 11/2 " strips and sew them on to the centre piece cutting off the ends to fit as I go. SO easy and So relaxing.

Ive also finished a the Christmas present quilt I made for my brother. Ill post pics soon.

Weather is SO HOT. GHIU just yesterday filled up the pool and the girls have been swimming in it since. Georgia has rather an important audition this afternoon...Im hoping she doesnt cough her way through it..that water was freezing.

Talking of the girls they have just finished the Wizard of Oz production and are onto the Christmas Production at the Hastings Operatic Theatre next.. Ilove that we are back in the world of theatre!!

The vege garden has gone wild. Warm temperatures and a lot of rain has made the garden go bananas.!

Happy temperatures to yo wherever you may be

Love Cherry

A post at last...

This will just be a short post. Its been ages since I last posted but I have been in the midst of a major attack of OCD. I seriously didnt think I could get better this time and thought I would never be able to post again on here. ut time... and little yellow pills and three weeks of work and.. here I am again. One thing I do when i do get sick and am recovering (even though it feels like Im not recovering) is to craft. Its my rehailitation and my meditation, Its the feel goof factor I need if only to feel good about one thing in my life at the time. And so i present to you some of the crafts(there. First up is the Advent calender (we will now have FOUR) that i bought as a panel From Spotlight. A lot of the quilting on this i did in  my lunch hour at work. HONESTLY stitching in the breaks was the ONLY thing that keep me from major panic attacks at work.. Here is a close up below. I was happy to find candy canes had arrived at our brand new Warehouse store (Its HUGE!!) and so I could fill up the pockets. two in each for each of my girls..some have mysteriously dissappeared..

Scrapbooking has been HARD Oh so hard since Mum passed away and then a few weeks later it HIT me..but over the course of four days I managed to complete a kit I had purchase from Hastings Ruber stamps. I still find it heartbreaking to scrap Mum and Dad But I think Im slowly getting my mojo scrapbooking love back...slowly...

Arnt they gorgeous. I miss them SO much..

 And now here is a quilted origami Christmas tree. As I made this up I could not believe it was going to actually work out. To my utter amazement it did. Hurray...Im not doing another in a hurry tho..

Im also making a Kiwiana quilt for my brother for Christmas. It is completely handsewn. I took it to work as well for the brak times and it too got me through. Im at the quiltingstage and Im enjoying using a larger needle than the betweens and using a heavy thread. Its quilting up so much easier than normal.

So that is all for now. We are currently in the last week of the school term. Two weeks off.

Georgia and Alex are both in the operatic thatres production of the Wizard of Oz in the holidays. Eight weeks of rehearsal is going very fast. Maybe because I had to open my BIG mouth and offer to sew costumes..i never learn..

e happy whereever you are and if you are not then do as I am doing and reread Loise hays excellant anniversary book

Love Cherry

Life in my winter farmyard

Vege garden No 1 and 2



Urkkk a sqelch skurge here..

And a sqelch skurge there..can you see my newly potted raspberry orange canes, some new compost in the tub and two lots of hidden doggy doo compost in the tyres..

No Ginge!!! Not by the little baby brassicas..Bad boy (our neighbour who is growing tulips has had to net then as they come up she said our cat is not always welcome!!!!)

Christmas: Head chook and proud of it

The girls enjoy the old brassicas I pulled out this morning

Sad chook who is three by now enjoys some reprieve from the mud and squalor

Aforementioned mud and squalor

The GHIU (Gorgeous hubby in uniform) answer to mud and squalor...le chateau du corrugated iron..

Impossible to contain the muddy back yard with giant golden paws galloping all over it..

So that is a quick foray around the "farm'. I enjoyed taking these photos today. I sat down with the chooks for ages taking photos and talking to them. Christmas left everyones company to brood a bit in the box but it was all a SCAM as I checked after and there wasnt a egg and she was there for a good twenty minutes. The last two days have been extrodinary with five eggs each day. As most of the chooks are now over two, one or two in moult, feeling the cold etc etc we have been well down, so ten eggs in two days is fantastic. here comes some more bacon and egg pie methinks! The farm is just so muddy and sqelchy and gumboot only territory. I look at it this time of the year and despair a bit but then i think of all the things that await in the next few months. Im not sure if we will see this summer here as we are hot on the trail for a property and have decided that if we have to go up country then we will down grade the car to a cheap 1.5 or so and learn to live within our petrol means. The GHIU has a company car as he can have callouts and odd things and so it will be running only one car.
Last weekend I thought Id found the property. it was 2 acres on a napier road, and had pig pens (On concrete) 1/4 acre of not bothered about asparagus, two pet ducks(who lay), a pet goat(Not a nanny unfortunately) , a huge chook area and shed, and enough room for this bloke to bring on some calves each season. GHIU would not even comprimise as it was on a very busy road (The main Napier/taupo road at the begiining and the traffic and trucks would drive him mad) I thought we could comprimise for now as it was AFFORDABLE...but no. He promised me that he knows there is the perfect property for us and I have to trust him as he has uncanny and excellant esp skills..or what i call his woo woo abilities.
So while we are here I am thinking of the potato plots i have been working on, the strawberries i have just planted out the front, the lettuce garden I will plant out in the wine barrel full of delicious compost and also some more fencing to protect this all from the marauding chooks when i free range the,. Despite my elaborate fencing system they still managed to get into the vege garden the other day. Hokey is the worst. She is one of our young ones and she stalks the fence lines forever looking for a place to make her escape..including into the neighbours. Her "sisiter" Pokey is the sweetest little thing in comparison. Hokey will be a future leader I think if she ever gets the chance to stage a rebellion, shes just that type!

Beetroot and Schoolhouse quilts

Despite it being a very cold Winter...actaul days of frost hwere the chickens trough and parts of the swimming pool were frozen solid!! I have still had great delight in out vege garden. in our bigger garden we have a lot of brassicas: now either past their best or very young and not growing with any verve, we have some gorgeous healthy looking broad eans begiining to flower. I got a complete shock when i pulled out what i thought would be ay carrots and came away with giant monsters that had split down the middle (but very tasty they were that night our first ever carrots!!!) But the best performer in the garden has got to be our beetroot. These are only some I pulled (the rest still in the ground). I fancied a bit of bottling and found a chutney in the good ole Edmonds book. Well It is delicious...especially when eaten with bacon and egg pie.....

BEFORE:

 AFTER:

Im thinking of making some more (I do love seeing all the produce bottled and ready for use over winter)

So I finally gor some of my quilting Mojo back. In amidst the frenzy of scrapbooking I really suddenly felt like just stitching away at something. I soon found a schhol house block quilt I hadnt finished and with only one trip to Spotlight (!) I have just completed it. I am quite please with it if i do say so myself!! 

I am currently cleaning out my closet in time for our "move" (SO close to finding somewhere now!) and have so far come across six pieced tops to quilt.....I actually desire to quilt the school house blocks, but need in the closet jumble to find my quilting hoop. After all it IS winter and what better way to spend inside than with a quilt.

It is the school holidays and I was so ready for the break. I love having the girls at home and just doing what we ant. We went to see harry Potter today at the movies. Actually I thought it would be heaps more expensive than it was. I enjoyed it but almost went to sleep..darkened room, warmth, my girls by me but quiet...the conditions were just right!!!!

As I write it is raining rather biblically...my poor chooks..I do feel sorry for them in this weather.however the ghiu made them a lean too and they go under there and see even today that they had made a dust bath in the corner!!

Ive also been watching reruns of the GOOD life that programme never fails me..I laugh, get inspired, the girls love it as much as I...why isnt ther anything on like that now.Right now the way things are going back to basics would be a great time to have a sitcom about self sufficiency..well I think so anyway.

Love to you all Keep warm and dry

Love Cherry

Beautiful Bo Bunny

I havent done much of anything since my Mum died.  Ive been sorting out photos and have been given some gorgeous shots from her childhood that I had never seen before. So Ive had quite a few reprints done before giving back the originals. Lately I have felt quite justifies and it certainly has been good for the soul to capture these memories in scrapbooking. i have been quite free and easy with the spending infact! One of the most gorgeous things Ive seen of late is this Bo Bunny mini album. I  have put all the photos in it of Mum and her two next eldest at school age siblings in it and it is by no means finished as althought my local store sold this album it doesnt store Bo Bunny...so..I travelled to the next scrapping stoe  but it onlu had a few matching Bo Bunny (Timepiece ) pieces. I have embellished as far as I can go with what i could find and what i could make. But now Im on the lookout for further embellishments that will go with this album. I just love these photos. Mum was born in 1931 just prior to the big earthquake and so these photos are mid thirties. My poor nana had already lost one child to a epidemic and as well as these three eldest was yet to have or had as babies three more children..and before her eldest (muy Mum) was seventeen she would lose her husband.. It never fails to impress me the hardships and the way that she and her young family dealt with them back then.

Any ideas on other embellishments let me know. Other things Ive been doing are: knitted two "gumnut" hats, pulled out a unfinished quilt top of "school houses " to finish and watching several re runs of the Good life and wishing I  was Barbara Good!!  Its gotten very cold here. It is the greatest sinful pleasure to forgo any housework and curl up infront of the fire each night. 

We helped my elderly friends from their "paradise  on earth" farm , who were moving and came away with a few things they didnt want to take to their retirement house with them. I have got the most gorgeous treasures...one of which is a cedar chest that I am sanding back and with redo. I cant wait for it to be finished and will post pictures next time.

Happy memories wherever you are tonight
love Cherry

For my Mum

Who left this earth at 1.00pm 23 may 2011.

In the middle of all the grief and all the preparations I stayed up late that first night doing (who can sleep anyway), I set up some paper and a favourite photo to scrap. This was the end result. I used kaiser Chanteuse paper, homemade calico flowers and homemade stamped butterflies on transparency and some bought paper roses. This layout sat along with one other that i had done at a class awhile ago with Mum at the funeral home and on her coffin during the service. I have no hesitation in saying she has gone on to a better life but I do hope she popped in to see the layout. I made it with so much LOVE !

I dont feel like doing much of anything, but have gone back to work .  During the service we ran a photo slide show from Mums life. Right from baby to her last days. It was so beautiful but it SLAYED me. Totally along with the most beautiful music.

Wiahing you all love and happiness with your dearest

Cherry

doggy compost and other interests..

I am interspersing this post today with several pictures of recenet scrapbooking endeavours. I had to improvise for the royal weddingone as I could find no union jack or royal m,emorabalia to make some pages up...

I really love Becky Higgins Project life however I cannot get it at the moment in NZ. So I found these pages at the scrapping shop and have bought a few. They are great and its means I can catch up on my scrapbooking AND keep things in chronological order. This is my first one....

 And the other side..... With these you can be creative or as boring as you want. And the varieties of photo sleeve types are many..

Here is double lO I did at scrapping class the other night...

Then we finished early so our lovely tutors ran around and at no further cost put togehter another few bits for us to do this simple but effectiove LO....Another few photos from this year put away now and I feel SO on top of things.!

 From the beginning of the school year another WR Memory Keepers photo sleeve completed.:

 I need some smaller photo sleeves to store these wonderful treasure handed to me today after school:

Ill buy some tomorrow when I attend a four hour layout class. Four pages in four hours..:) Four baby pages..just what I need for the as yet unscrapped million and one baby photos.

And on to news from the Urban farm. The chooks are laying about four to five eggs a day. There is a bit of moulting going on although sad chook is now growing back lovely silky  feathers and looking years younger than her two and a half years!! This is CHristmas, leadre and general pretty girl showing me how sick she is of the murky muddy chook yard. I managed  to put a bit of sawdust and hay down inbetween rain showers but there is still plenty of mud to cover up.

And the broad beans are bolting...

The beetroot and Rhurbarb are running...

The brassicas are blooming...

 I know I post a lot of my hobbies here ut this blog is also meant to be about our ongoing challenge to find more ways to be frugal, eco friendly and self sufficient as we can. And on that note i introduce this new consept to my blog....



 I have a giant labrodor..and for the past five years of hios life I have been cleaning up after him....ugh..hate that job!!! Anyway normally i have to dispose of this at the dump..and its a hassel anyway i do it. Plus its really unenvironmentally friendly what with the leechlates and the plastic bags and the whole landfill issue...and its a hassell. But recently i read about making a doggy toilet by adding septic starter to a barrel especially for the purpose. When I looked at this further i discovered that some people actually make compost with the doggy doo. NOW this is a pretty funny subject. Some people rave about this and some people DONT!! I fugured I would give it a try. NOTE this compost is not for the edible garden!! Anyway the idea is to only put the doggy doo in and add earthworms. I have been doing this and adding both red wrigglers and earthworms, aies and giants...we have plenty of both. The first lot of tyres was full, so I covered it over and began another. The other day after only a week unattended and covered I pulled ack the cover and the heap was HEAVING with worms, who all dissappeared under the surface at the sunshine. I cannot tell yo how happy this made me. IT. IS. WORKING. Woo Hoo!!!! I hope I havent made any one sick!!
Ill now post a pretty picture to make things all better..

Anyway take care.

The first game of the netball season is on tomorrow morning (before scrapping course) but rain and not just any rain but heavy rain is forecast.

Whatever the weather have a happy weekend

Love and happy gardening

fom Cherry

The School holidays

Its the School holidays her in NZ. Two weeks of fun with the kids. Pjs til lunchtime, sleeping in...bliss. The thing is every holidays I vow to clean up, find lost library books (so far found1/3!!) and keep ahead of my girls and thier messes/ playchaos. Again I appear to be failing..... I also cant seem to get my act into gear to finish off Georgias PJ pants. I have sewn her top and she loves it and wears it with some old ottoms, and youd think that would motivate me wouldnt you?? ut no..Ive cut out one and cleared a space on the kitchen/craft table and cant seem to take the next step. However I have begun walking again. Boy am I knackered!!! My shoes are rubbish and I feel as if all my toes have been hammered tonight. Honestly I can hardly walk! I really need to svae and buy some decent Nikes (they fit my hooves well last time)

I am trying to get all my wedding photos scrapped. Gets a bit tedious. Their is no journalling or not much. Not really a lot I can say and so its just coming up with different artwork for the photos. Sometimes it all comes together and Im really happy with the result others Im not so happy  with and I keep thinking i should have used the same colours or papers throughout...but it is what it is and if in the furure some grear great grandspring enjoys them then my work is done!!!!

So this one I have actually written in white pen the guests pictured here..Im semi-happy with this one..  kaiser paper La di dah collection..

This one I started to pull apart and rearrange half way through still not sure what I think. I used kaiser love Notes (lots of Kaiser in Spotlight at the moment!) I also bought  a new bottle of gloss for the embellishments and have gone a bit crazy...youll see lots of glossy accents from here on in..

I used some stazon ink and acetate for the butterflies. First time Ive used this medium. The papers were free with a magazine and I pretty much copied thier layout they had used as an example inside...lazy huh?

More free papers, a copied layout and glossy accents going on here.......

More of the same here........

ANd this one I got from this site. Loved the sketch and practically used it exactly as it was drawn. I have so many gorgeous photos of the ballet days with Alex and am sad they are over. But now we are going to riding lessons so onwards and into new directions.

I have good news from the chook pen. My concerns over Sad chook not being well were quite true. SHe became jittery and upset and I couldnt get near her. Then I read that often chooks heavily in the moult can be paranoid. Now that a few new feathers are coming forth she has calmed down a lot more and with the new glossy feathers I keep telling her thats she going to be gorgeous!!
I do love my chooks. Everybody knows it!
Im sore and tired and Sons of Anarchy has begun so I bid you happy scrapping and happy chook keeping, until next time
Love Cherry