Miss K and the Christmas tree

Well I had hoped to come back over last night to update you guys on our Christmas tree, but after spending half an hour fluffing up fake branches, then another ten minutes trying to figure out how to anchor the tree to the wall (Miss K is too likely to pull the whole thing onto herself in five minutes flat if we let her) and another twenty minutes helping mum put the lights on the tree, I was all out of energy and motivation, so you guys had to wait.

Now it may surprise you (or it may not, I could be wrong) to discover that our Christmas tree this year is actually pretty bare. We rushed to get the lights on before Miss K went to bed, so we could show her really the most exciting part of a tree, but once we plugged them in and turned them on, we discovered that the effects of the lights on a bare white tree were so stunning, we have decided to leave the tree ornament free this year. (Whether or not this actually stays the case I'm not sure, mum tends to have a lot of changes of mind, so we could be back tomorrow covering the tree with every ornament we have to hand.) Normally we have what we call the Santa vomit effect, where every last square inch of tree is covered in ornaments and tinsel, till it looks like something that Santa would regurgitate after too many plates of cookies and glasses of milk. But for now I am loving the simplicity of our tree, as well as the added bonus that there is nothing small for Miss K to pull off and break or choke on.

Given that by the time we were finished last night, it was after 8 o'clock, it was pretty dark outside, but still too hot to pull our blinds down and block out the only source of cool air we have, so I actually got to test out one of the most popular Christmas themed photos at the moment...

(Source)

Now of course given that Miss K wasn't going to be wrapped in the lights (well not yet anyway) and I didn't have a proper source of natural lights, my picture was bound to come up a lot different to this one here, but it still makes me smile every time I look at it.

My big sister and I are planning to do the proper Christmas light photo at another time, but for now I'm happy with my efforts.

Well that's all for now, Miss K and her cousin are currently trying to swap sippy cups so I need to go and separate them yet again. I'll be back again soon with more Christmas fun.

Guess what we're doing tonight

Can you guess what's on my list for tonight??

That's right, we're decorating our Christmas tree tonight. (Or as we call it with Miss K our Santa tree because every time she looks at it she yells out "HO HO HO!!!")

So I've got our Michael Buble Christmas CD pumping and Miss K and I have been given the job of spreading out all the branches while mum runs down the street to buy some coloured Christmas lights because we only have white ones and we want different ones this  year.

I shall be back later on with photos of the finished product. 

And to explain why Miss K is doing her decorating wearing only a nappy, the barometer has spiked at 38 degrees here today, and barely dropped at all, despite the fact that the sun is as we speak on it's way out. So in the name of comfort Miss K has been stripped down to the bare minimum. Oh to be one again.

The begrudging model

Well I promised I would be back today with photos of Miss K modelling her brand new kimono top, but I forgot that I would have to contend with the model herself and her ever changing and fickle moods. Well it took both me and my baby sister ten minutes of begging, coaxing, persuading, distracting and bribing of Miss K to finally get some decent pictures. Unfortunately they are all on my baby sister's phone, so I only have one to share with you now, which is the one she posted on Facebook for me today.

I will be cornering my sister the next time she comes home and insisting that she uploads the rest of the photos onto my computer straight away, because there are some absolutely beautiful ones there, which put my attempts to take her photo to shame. 

Of course my photos don't come with the lovely filters and effects that only come from Instagram. But I can't complain too much because at the end of the day Miss K really did love her new top (she actually kissed it when I brought it out to show her) and I did get some pretty pictures of her wearing it too, so all in all I guess it was a success.

Well that's all from me for now, it is CSI Saturday here right now and I don't want to miss any more of my stories. 

Guess what I've been doing

Can you guys guess what I have spent the past two evenings doing?? I'll give you a hint...

No I have not spent the last two nights staring at a t-shirt hanging on my door handle (on a truly horrible and old fashioned crocheted clothes hanger too) I have actually spent the last two evenings making this lovely kimono top. This was actually the hardest sewing project I have undertaken to date, for several reasons, first of all it wasn't just squares of fabric of different sizes sewn together, and secondly that bright green strip you see running across the top of the shirt is actually bias tape, and something I have avoided at all costs before now, with good reasons too. I always knew the first time I sewed with bias would be horrible, and I wasn't disappointed. The biggest problem I came across with the bias is that I actually bought tape that was too small for what I needed, meaning that I had to do a lot of fiddly messing around with the tape to make sure it fit on the top properly and didn't look ridiculous either. That took me three hours to do. Three very long and frustrating hours. So the next time I do this top, I will be making sure I use thicker bias tape which hopefully will make everything go a lot smoother.

Yes you heard me correctly then, this is only the first of hopefully many kimono tops I will be making. This was really just a practise run to make sure I could actually follow the pattern and have it resemble a piece of clothing at the end. Because of this the fabric I used here was a very cheap and thin cotton (that I found for $5 at our local Spotlight store, can anyone else say bargain??) which as my little sister told me made this top look like it is meant to be hospital scrubs and not a gorgeous Japanese inspired piece of clothing. But I'm not too worried because the next time I attempt this it will be in a softer, possibly more stretchy fabric. And because I made plenty of mistakes this time around, I have learned what not to do next time so I should get it done a lot quicker too. And the first thing I will be doing next time is making sure I don't have the iron on too hot when I press the fabric because the very first thing I did was melt one of my cut out pieces of material while trying to iron out the creases made while the material was stored in its shopping bag. Luckily I hadn't even pinned the pieces together yet so I didn't have any unpicking to do as I had to scrap that piece and cut out a new one. Luckily I bought way too much material for this project, so I still had more than enough left over to cut another piece out. But it does mean I now don't have enough to make a matching pair of pants to go with this top. 

Hopefully I can return tomorrow with photos of it being worn by Miss K. Sadly by the time I had made the final finishing touches on it tonight, she had been in bed for 3 hours and I couldn't bring myself to wake her up just to make her model her new top. But I know she will be super excited to be allowed to wear it tomorrow, as I let her try it on a few times today while I checked hem lengths and made sure it fit her properly, and every time I made her take it off again she cracked the poops at me big time. Fingers crossed I can get her to sit still long enough to get some decent pictures for you guys too, but I have a feeling I'll have to wait until she's strutted her stuff on the catwalk (our lounge room floor) several times first. 

Well until then I am super duper tired now and I need to go to bed. I will hopefully be back tomorrow with new photos, but until then stay awesome my lovely readers and for all of my American readers I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of good food and happy families.

We've got mail

So the day I have been waiting for a whole week finally arrived today, our parcel from Western Australia arrived this morning with Miss K's new hair accessories from Little Birdies. Miss K and I both had trouble containing our excitement while opening the box, and her reaction when she saw the hair clips was more than I could have hoped for. She was so impressed with them she grabbed them out of the parcel before I could even stop her and started trying to put them in her hair. Then she proceeded to strut around the lounge room like a little catwalk model while mum and I oohed and aahed over her. I even managed to get her to sit still long enough for me to take some photos to show to my friends on Facebook, including the lovely lady who made the hair clips in the first place.

The look of pure concentration on her face is thanks to Yo Gabba Gabba, which she was watching at the time.

And just because I am such a sucker for that pretty face, I couldn't resist snapping some more photos when she sat down for morning tea too.

That look is because I'm interrupting her watermelon to make her look at me. 

Well that's all for now, and I can now finally stop stalking the poor postman everytime he rides past on his motorcycle hoping he has a parcel for me. Unless any of you wonderful readers would like to start sending me gifts? I know you're all such a generous bunch... no? Alright then never mind.

Well stay awesome everyone, I'll be back again soon.

A Scrooge's Christmas planner

Hello again my lovely friends, I hope that you are all well and healthy. Don't I just sound like a sappy motivational speaker right now?? Just wait a second and I'm sure I can find more platitudes to throw at you while confusing you with my vocabulary of large words...

Or I could get right down to the heart of what I've come here to share with you wonderful people today. Now as I promised right before the batteries in my camera died, I am going to share with you all my version of a Christmas planner. But as always because money is more of a rumor than anything around here, it will all be done on a budget, using things that I already had lying around the house.

Just some of the things that go into making a Christmas planner

Now if you are like me, you obsessively stalk follow a lot of blogs. And if you're lucky like me, you'll have found some incredibly talented and disgustingly smart people out there who can make magic happen every time they put their hand to something. The lovely ladies at the blog Eighteen25 are three such ladies. So naturally when I saw that they had put together a gorgeous book for organizing all things Christmas, I had to rush over to their website and check it out. (You can do the same here.) They have even been so kind as to offer free printables for anyone who wants to make a Christmas binder in the same style as them. Now sadly as I am currently without a printer, I had to make do with admiring their binders from afar and then use whatever I had on hand to make my own instead. (Sigh) But as you will see, I have managed to create something that is entirely my own, with small touches of homage to the lovely ladies at Eighteen25 simply because some of their ideas were so great, I couldn't not include them.

I have to stop and brag for a second now, because I am pretty chuffed with the finished product here. And the cost of the whole project was pretty impressive too, as the only money I ended up spending was $2.50 on a notebook to decorate. Everything else that you see here comes from what I had in my stash of crafty supplies, making this not only a pretty way to get organised for Christmas, but also a thrifty project. It has the added bonus of making my compulsive hoarding of papers and ribbons now look like an economical plan instead of the crazy actions of someone who just loves shiny things.

The papers I have used come from various places, the red background paper was a freebie with a scrap booking magazine I bought a few Christmases ago, the green paper and the red and white striped papers are offcuts from old projects. The shape of the green paper was made by tracing around a piece of die cut chipboard and then cutting out the finished product. If you are creative enough to be able to draw things free hand (which I am not) then this should be easy enough for you to do without the chipboard, otherwise there are always things lying around the house that you can use to create shapes for your projects.

This metal plate is something I got in a goody bag a few years ago when I went to a scrap booking retreat with my sisters. I have been searching for years for a good use for it, and I am so happy that it finally has a new home. But if you are not lucky enough to have something like this, paper or cardstock is a good replacement. The flower and pearl brad again were items I picked up in bulk packs ages ago and have had sitting around just waiting for the right project. I made the title with my trusty old Dymo labeller and some green Dymo tape that is actually very hard to find these days. Now that Dymo has gone digital my old hand held labeller is looking very old fashioned, but I love the look it gives. 

This ribbon is a recent purchase that I made, it came in a pack of 20 reels of ribbon for $20, but I think I may have been a bit too mean in my cutting because there is apparently such a thing as not enough ribbon to make a bow with. So if you are going to put ribbon on your book to keep it closed, don't forget to be generous with your measurements. Or make sure you have really skinny fingers because already I can tell that bow is going to be a pain in my rear end. Ribbon is one of those wonderful things that can be found absolutely everywhere. I have lots of pieces of ribbon in my stash that were used in packaging, on clothing and even from bunches of flowers I have received over the years. My family know that they are not allowed to throw any pieces of ribbon away as I can always find a use for them.

I only did four sections in my book; to do, gifts, menu and calendar. There are any number of other sections that you can include in your own Christmas planner, like cards, traditions, travel, or anything else you can think of, but really everything you see here is all I need to worry about so I didn't think it was necessary to add anything more. Maybe one day I will have a need for extra categories in my Christmas planners, but for now I think less is more. Again the tabs were made out of card stock that I had in my stash. I made sure to use a folded piece of card stock, and stick one side of the piece on each side of the page, just to make it a little stronger and more durable. If you don't have card stock, cereal box cardboard would be a good replacement, covered with wrapping paper or anything else to make it look pretty. The shape of the card stock came from tracing around die cut chip board again, but I'm not really happy with it, so next year I may have to think of something new. The pages are blank at the moment, but I will be decorating the front page of each section with something cute. For the gifts section, it will probably be a banner with the words "making a list and checking it twice" or something equally Christmassy, and I'll think of something else for the rest of the sections soon, I just couldn't wait until It was completely done to share it with you guys.

And of course no Christmas project is complete without an elf running around and getting into everything so here is one I prepared earlier.

Geddit???

If only she got as excited about the cleaning up as she does about making the mess.

So before I go, a few tips for you guys who are looking to make some Christmas themed projects on a budget.

• Get creative with the supplies that you use. Christmas themed wrapping paper is super duper cheap and in abundance at the moment, and it can be just the thing to brighten something up
• Don't feel that you have to go out and buy exactly everything that some one else used to make something, sometimes using the things you have at hand can make a result that is just as beautiful and even more personal to you
• Always make sure you use a good quality glue though because you don't want everything falling apart before you have a chance to use it. (I recommend Tombo latex glue, because it dries pretty quickly, but not too quickly that you don't have a chance to re-position something if you didn't do it right the first time. Plus you only need to use the tiniest amount because it spreads pretty far)
• Don't forget that Christmas is not about spending money, it's about spending time with your loved ones, so don't stress too much if everything has to be done on the cheap. Just remember that it is so popular that these days it's not called being a cheap-ass, it's called thrifting. 

Well that's all from me for today, my little sister Natty has been very patiently sitting in my lounge room for two hours now waiting for me to stop being anti-social and entertain her so I'd better go look like I'm interested. I'll be back again soon with something else super thrilling I'm sure, so stay awesome till then.

*Editors note: This blog post has been linked to the following link parties;

One Project at a Time  

The Creative Spark 

Blissful and Domestic

My prima ballerina

So this is just a quick post to share some photos with you guys.

For anyone who knows our family, you would know that my baby sister owned a dance school until the middle of last year. As a result of her own 16 years of dance lessons and then owning a dance school, our house has been filled with bags and boxes and crates of old dancing costumes for years now. So today mum finally got tired of looking at the bags and boxes and crates and put all of the school's costumes in a vacuum seal bag so that they could be stored more efficiently. Well Miss K was in seventh heaven with all these pretty dresses sitting around just waiting to be touched and explored. In among all of the lycra and tulle was my baby sisters old tutu, which was one of Miss K's personal favourites. So just because I am the best mum in the world and I love making my baby smile, I helped her to pop the dress on so she could be a ballerina just like her aunty. Thankfully my sister had her phone ready because otherwise these photos wouldn't have happened. (Stupid camera batteries dying last night)

So without further ado, let me introduce you to my little ballerina.

Now ballet is not my favorite thing in the world, and up until before Miss K was born I was adamant that my little girl would not be taking dance lessons like her two auntys and one uncle did as kids. However I have been told by all of my sisters and my mum, and my little sister's former dance teacher that I have no choice, and Miss K MUST take dance lessons when she's older. I would fight this, but the sheer delight on her face in these photos is enough proof that Miss K might want this just as much as everyone else does. Luckily for us, as little as this area does have in the way of entertainment, it is absolutely filled with dance schools, so we are definitely spoilt for choice. Just as well because it looks like I've got no say in the matter.

Belated birthday revenge...

Whoops a daisy, I almost forgot the special birthday post for my little sister. I knew last night that there was something I was meant to be doing on here, but do you think I could remember what it was? Well it's probably for the best that I left it for today because I am fresh as a daisy and ready to pay back my little sister for hacking my Facebook.

But it isn't just about revenge, it's also about wishing her a happy birthday. And because she didn't have very many humiliating photos on her photo board at her 21st birthday party last year, I figured now was the time to rectify that oversight and flood my blog with as many cringe-worthy pictures as I could find.

So I guess a little bit of a back story is needed so that you guys can understand the content of the following photos. Well once upon a time many years ago (ok four years ago) Nat and I were drinking buddies. Given that by the time Natty was old enough to drink I'd been out of the pub scene for about 3 years we tended to meet up at my place to hold our shenanigans, as I preferred being able to enjoy my alcohol without the hoards of sweaty, sloppy teenagers that you tend to find in pubs and nightclubs. Now the one drawback of drinking at home is you don't have to behave yourself quite as much as you would in public, so we would get a bit messy ourselves. And for some reason we always decided to capture the messiness for future generations to admire. (I don't understand the logic there either.) But terrible photography aside, I always had fun with my drinking buddy, and we would spend lots of time laughing (and crying once the alcohol started wearing off.) It was a sad day for both of us when I realized that our days of drunken shenanigans were over now that I was going to be a mum and had to start acting like a responsible person. So in a way I'm glad that these photos exist because they are all that's left of my wild and misspent youth. Although I'm not quite sure that Nat will feel the same way about them as I do.

Careful, I think she's about to burst!

Now where did I put my cigarette then?

I said love, I said pet, I said love...

Now that is one happy camper...

Like I said, messy.

So happy birthday Fat Kat. Even though this is a day late the sentiment is still the same, I have horrible photos of you and I'm not afraid to use them. 

*Editors note, I know I promised the next blog post would be about a Christmas planning book, and the post is still coming, however the batteries in my camera died so I have to wait till they recharge to take some photos of the finished product. 

It's all over red rover

Well it is now 13 hours since I sat my exam and I am glad to be able to say I survived. At the end of the day, after the countless hours spent studying, taking notes, marking relevant sections and pulling out my hair, not to mention the sleepless nights spent worrying that I wasn't going to be ready, I got into the exam today to find exactly 21 of the most basic questions on payroll I could have asked for all staring me at the face. And the first thing I thought was "what was I so scared of?" I should have known it wouldn't be a difficult day, especially as it was an open book exam, but to find that I could have skipped the majority of the work I have spent the past month doing and spent that time eating ice cream instead was actually a relief. It meant that obviously I had done enough and that everything would be ok.

But I didn't know that this morning as I watched the clock crawl closer and closer to 12, signalling my cue to get in the car and drive to the exam. So I did what any normal person would do and distracted myself with all kinds of useless tasks. What do the rest of you do when getting ready for something important?? Well below is a list of everything I managed to fill my morning with to keep from worrying.

1. Sort my sock drawer (I couldn't find a single pair of clean socks to put on this morning so it was a logical step)
2. Trim my fringe (I actually did this two days ago but I am terrible at cutting hair so I always have to go back and re-trim spots)
3. Play hairdressers with Miss K (I actually got her hair into a really sweet hairstyle and I'm kicking myself that I didn't take photos.)
4. Drink coffee with the 5 visitors we had over the course of the morning (There are days when this place feels like the main meeting place of my family)
5. Play Farmville (of course)
6. Tidy up the lounge room.

Finally about half an hour before I was due to leave I figured I'd better mark some of the pages of my textbooks with sticky notes so that I could find the relevant information without doing that horrible loud flipping of pages you do when you're nervous, and that killed the rest of the time till I had to leave. When I finally got out the door and went to the car Miss K followed me out, and when she realized she was being left behind the look of betrayal on her face was so heart breaking I almost got back out of the car and stayed home. Luckily for me she had both mum and Natty staying with her so the minute my car was out of sight she cheered up and spent the rest of the afternoon playing. And the welcome home I got from her when I finally returned showed that she had well and truly forgiven me for abandoning her yet again.

I won't bore you with the details of the actual exam, because really there is no way even I can make an exam on payroll sound exciting, and really the most memorable part of the whole experience was the gentleman sitting right next to me who spent the whole time talking to himself. But I do know already that I got two of the questions wrong, but I also know that I'm not the only one who answered them incorrectly so I don't feel so bad. I don't know when I'll get the rest of my results, but the next time I will hear from the TAFE is in the middle of next month when I am invited to re-enroll for the rest of my subjects. But until then I am thankfully on holidays, and gearing up to start a few new projects, as well as finish a few old ones that I have been putting off for way too long now. Stay tuned to hear more shortly, as my first big project will hopefully be a Christmas organizing binder, so I'll be sharing that with you guys soon.

Well given that it is now 3:00 in the morning I should probably go to bed, I will admit I did sneak a nap in this evening once Miss K was in bed so I'm not really very tired, but given that she will probably be up again in about 4 hours I should try to get some extra sleep while I can. Stay awesome my wonderful readers and I'll be back again soon with some awesome new projects for you to admire, and even try if you're brave enough.

Let the countdown begin...

So I currently have 15 hours to go before my big exam. I thought I would be more frantic or terrified right now, but I am surprisingly calm. And what's more I have been calm all day. I actually had a lovely day today. I spent the morning dodging revision shopping with mum and Miss K, and this afternoon after Miss K's nap we avoided doing homework went and visited one of my oldest friends, who coincidentally is also an ex boyfriend of mine. It was a very relaxed afternoon, if you ignore the amount of times I had to jump out of my seat to rescue various electrical appliances or musical instruments from Miss K's grubby fingers (my friend has a collection of guitars that I am quite envious of.) And once Miss K was fed and bathed and tucked up in bed I went and laid on my bed and fell asleep did some crossword puzzles.

I guess my reasoning behind not panicking right now and spending my last few hours re-reading all of my text books is probably the fact that this is in fact an open book exam, so even if I walk in not 100% sure of an answer I'll be able to look it up in a jiffy. Which kind of defeats the purpose of an exam if you ask me. But I'm not about to protest this by refusing to bring my books and calculator into the exam, I'm not a complete idiot you know.

I think the thing I am looking forward to the most once the semester is finished is being able to spend more time with Miss K without feeling guilty that I am neglecting my studies while playing with her. Even after spending the past 6 months juggling full time parenting with part time study I haven't managed to find the balance between the two, and something is always being left to the last minute. I have a horrible feeling that next years studies will require even more effort because we will start covering serious subjects like GST, which already does my head in. So it will take a lot of careful planning to make sure nothing and no one gets left behind.

But the next time you see me I will officially be on holidays, even though it doesn't really count around here, but I'm thinking of holding my own version of schoolies in my back yard. Now all I need to do is find a group of teenagers willing to get drunk and make total fools of themselves for my own entertainment. If any of you know someone, do let me know.

Well that's all from me for now, I really should get to bed if I expect to be coherent enough tomorrow afternoon to be able to put pen to paper. Wish me luck my lovely readers and I'll be back and ready to party soon.

I am a winner!!!

So this is just a quick hello and howdy doo for all of you my lovely readers, I know that it has again been too long between posts, and I know I promised to you all in my last post here that I would hopefully be able to explain what payroll consolidation means, but when I got to reading my last chapter, I realised it was just revision of everything I was meant to have learned through the rest of the book, and either the chapter title was the most misleading title ever, or I was missing the point somehow. I was also horrified to discover I must have been asleep through most of my last fortnight of studying because as I sat there staring at the words on the pages, I still had no idea what I was meant to be doing. Luckily I tend to be better able to concentrate on things when I'm thrown in the deep end, so I learned more in that last chapter than I had while supposedly reading the rest of the book.

Ben and Tristan popped in for a quick visit this afternoon on their way to an information session for a musical that a local theatre group is doing next year, so they got to visit with Miss K, and mum and I got to give Ben some birthday money because as the title birthday money would suggest, it was Ben's birthday last week. I actually meant to write a special blog just for Ben on his birthday, but yet again it got to blogging time and I was just too tired to come up with anything so instead I'll just wish him a happy belated birthday today. (I did actually speak to him on his birthday so don't think I really did leave it a week to wish him happy birthday). Now the next birthday on my calendar is my little sister's this Friday and I promise to have a blog post dedicated to her on the day, mainly because several weeks ago she changed my birth date on Facebook and I had to explain to about twenty well meaning friends that their birthday greetings were 5 months too early and that they needed to try again in May, and now it is time for my revenge. Be afraid Natty, be very afraid.

Now on to the title of my blog today. I'm sure you're all thinking I'm just trying to be positive and think good things about myself, but today I truly am a winner. Several days ago I liked a page on Facebook called Little Birdies, which is a small business owned by an old friend of mine from my high school years. She has a daughter about one month older than Miss K and she makes gorgeous head bands and hair clips for little girls. Now I was invited by my friend to like the page, so I didn't realise it at the time, but she was holding a competition for all of her new page likers to win some of her head bands and hair clips. So imagine my surprise this evening when I got a message from her saying that my name had been picked as the winner and I had my choice of two of her lovely hair pieces. So I have chosen my prizes and they are being mailed off tomorrow from WA. Now all I have to do is wait for the mail to come and I can share pictures of them with you guys. With Miss K as the model of course.

It is ridiculous how giddy with excitement I got when I read her message, as the last time I won something it was blank video cassettes so this is so much better. And the timing is perfect as well as Miss K has suddenly become quite interested in her appearance and looking pretty. She loves wearing jewelry and hair accessories, and we can't go out until she's put perfume on. She has even started trying to put make up on, and loves watching my baby sister put her face on before going out to parties. So this prize is a welcome gift for Miss K.

Well that's me done for another day, I'm off to bed to no doubt dream about payroll tax and salary sacrificing. So until next time my wonderful readers stay awesome.

Panic stations everyone

SHHHH I'm not here. I'm sitting very quietly doing my homework and not procrastinating by writing to you guys.

I know that again I have been very quiet since my last post which was days ago, but you see I have an exam next Wednesday, and just between you, me and that creepy guy standing behind you reading over your shoulder I am quietly pooping bricks right now. As of three days ago I didn't even know if I would be able to take my exam because when I logged onto my TAFE profile for the first time in almost a month, I found a message from Monday last week advising all students that if their first assignments weren't submitted by midnight that night, then they would automatically be unenrolled from the current unit and unable to sit the exam. I also found out that I had forgotten to advise my tutor which day I wanted to sit the exam and the first one was happening at 4:00 the next day. Whoopsie. Well all I could do was shoot off a quick email to the tutor explaining that I had been unable to get online in over a week thanks to the spate of medical emergencies that had been running through our house and ask for some leniency and a chance to submit my assignments before the next exam (which was coincidentally when they were actually due according to my calendar). Luckily for me I have the nicest teacher in the world because I was given the extension and booked in for the last exam which is happening in 5 days. AARGH!!!!!!

So the past few days have been madly spent finishing off the last of the book work that I hadn't gotten around to, typing up my assignments on my sisters computer (because mine chooses now to start acting up of course) and panicking because I still don't feel ready to be taking an exam. I have even managed to strain my left wrist with all of my frantic lifting of heavy books and holding calculators I have done over the past few days. That's how hardcore I am right now, I have damaged myself.

But as my final count down begins and with less than a week to go before I have finished school for the year, I have finished almost everything I need to do in order to pass this subject. I have one more chapter to read on payroll consolidation (I have no idea what that means so don't even ask) and that's all I can do for now. Of course that doesn't mean that I won't spend the rest of the time re-reading absolutely everything I've read before Wednesday afternoon, but what else am I going to spend my time doing, cleaning?? Please.

Luckily for me I have the absolute best family in the world, because they have all come to my assistance over the past few days in order to help make sure I am ready for my final curtain. Mum has again picked up the slack of the housework for me and made sure Miss K doesn't get ignored completely while I have my head stuck in my books, my big sister watched Miss K for me today so that I could get all of my assignments typed up and pretty looking for grading, and my little sister will be helping to keep an eye on Miss K on Wednesday while I drive to the exam which will be held 3 towns away from home. Even Miss K has started having slightly longer naps in the afternoon, meaning that I have had a little extra time every day to try and squeeze more work into. I will definitely be buying chocolates for each and every one of them once all of this is finished. And then I will spend Thursday getting all kinds of drunk and messed up because I WILL HAVE FINISHED SCHOOL FOR THE WHOLE YEAR!!!! Even the year 11 students will be finishing their exams after me!

Well that's enough procrastinating for now, the next time I come back, hopefully I'll be able to tell all of you just exactly what payroll consolidation means.

Until next time my wonderful readers, stay awesome.

Turning a coat hanger into a ribbon organiser

Ok guys so as you've probably noticed, I've been a bit absent lately. Part of it is trying to keep on top of the various bugs that Miss K keeps picking up (she has a cold at the moment which is just so much fun), part of it is that exam season is coming up quickly and I am madly trying to make sure I'm ready for my one and only exam for the year, and part of it is that I am starting to feel stuck in a rut as far as this blog goes. While I am sure you guys all love hearing my various anecdotes about Miss K and the cute things she does, I get the feeling I'm becoming one of those annoying people who has nothing to talk about except for their children.

So with that in mind, I have decided to try something a bit different for the blog today. Instead of just blabbing on and on about my day (which was just so boring to live through I don't feel mean enough to make all of you go through it too) I have decided to do a quick tutorial instead. Now for anyone here who doesn't care about crafty things, I do apologize for you might find this all a bit dull. But if that is the case, feel free to skip down to the bottom of the page and drop me a line in the comments saying so. I can only guess what you guys like about my blog since you are all such a quiet bunch, so today's guess is that you want to learn how to turn an every day item like a coat hanger into a nifty way to organize your ribbons. I'm starting really simple because I am new to this whole telling people what to do thingy, and I wanted to make sure this first tutorial would be both easy to write and easy to read. So here goes.

Ooh it even comes with it's own intro picture, how exciting...

Now for any of you lovely people out there who are crafty and like scrapbooking, or card making or anything else where you use lots of ribbons, you will know how annoying it can be trying to find an effective way to store your ribbons so that they don't become tangled and messy. I know that before I stumbled on this idea I had tried several different methods. There are professionally made boxes complete with dowels and holes for you to hang and thread your ribbons through, but they usually come with a price tag that is way outside of my budget of free or cheaper, so I have always had to get creative with ways to sort and store my lovely ribbons. My first ribbon holder was a plastic bag. That was terrible. On a scale of one to ten for ease of use and neatness, a plastic bag gets a zero. So I swapped to a plastic container which was slightly better, at least now I could see all of my ribbons at a glance, but they still got tangled too much. 

See? terrible.

So when I stumbled on a picture somewhere of someone using a trouser hanger as a ribbon organiser I got super excited. Until I realised how very little the people in my town must use coat hangers because I couldn't find a multi rack coat hanger for love or money. Luckily I eventually found one at Kmart and forked out a whole $5 for it. 

Now the first thing you want to do is gather all of your supplies. (I've always wanted to start a sentence like that. It sounds so tutorial-y)And now here is the obligatory picture of all of my supplies gathered into the one space for ease of use.

Ta-daa! Look at all that gathered-ness

Now if you are super OCD like I am, you can take this time to sort your ribbons into categories. I know, who knew ribbons could have categories! 

There is a sight that just makes my compulsive side sing.

And then it is just as simple as threading the ribbon spools onto the coat hanger in any way that you please. 

It couldn't be easier if it was thought up by a one year old...

And before you know it you will have a lovely coat hanger covered in spools of ribbon that you can now hang up anywhere that you like.

See? No more tangled ribbons and it even looks pretty. 

I even have heaps of room left over just in case I decide to go out and buy more ribbons. Not bad for $5 and ten minutes of work. (It would have been quicker but I had to keep stopping to take pictures of it for you guys.) And now just to make it really look like a professional tutorial, here is a before and after shot of my ribbons. 

So there you have it, a tutorial on how to turn an ordinary every day boring coat hanger into something awesome for your crafting area. I hope that this was as enjoyable for you guys to read as it was for me to write, if it wasn't please, please, please let me know. Also feel free to tell me what you guys do want to see on here, because I can't entertain you if I don't know what you like. 

*update, this blog post has now been linked to A Bowl Full of Lemon's One project at a time link party, check it out for other awesome bloggers with even bigger and better things to share.