About time for a little update here on the dusty ole blog.
Autumn is coming in slowly here in Sydney (my very favourite). The evenings are definitely cooler even if the days are still warm enough for swimming. Daylight savings ended on the weekend so this morning felt slow and luxurious. I will be pleased to not leave for work in the pitch dark on my office days. I will also be pleased to be done with this summer's extra relentless heat and humidity.
LIFE + HOME
The house is tentatively done with lots of small jobs left and a few big ones. The IKEA bar saga came to an end today as they delivered the last two drawer fronts we needed to finish. I say 'saga' as we bought (or tried to buy) an IKEA kitchen to turn into a bar (my bright idea) back in January and have had to buy different parts piecemeal, checking in with the IKEA app multiple times a day. Not ideal but that's how they do it. I scored the last two drawer fronts on Friday at 3am and almost woke Brett just to celebrate. I felt like I had scored Taylor Swift tickets. I also got to move into my new upstairs office space over Easter - finally!
Downstairs needs some work. Painting, new beds for the kids, some re-arranging of rooms and furniture. We really hustled to get a lot of things done in time for Christmas and lost our DIY mojo after that. It's very easy to leave your messy not-quite-finished downstairs when you have a clean and shiny new upstairs to hang out in. Hopefully the cooler weather will kick us back into gear.
We are very happy with how the addition came out (if you are new here, hello!, we added a second floor onto our house last year). Everything we chose and bought just worked, even when we had to go with Plan C and D for things (powder room tiles, you nearly did me in with your 'discontinued' and your 'we have one last box but it's lost in the warehouse' shenanigans).
I took the kitchen off the whole remodel agenda early on knowing it would just be too much at once so that is one gigantic thing left on the to-do list. Hopefully we will get to that later in the year (we had termite damage a few years back so it's a necessity sadly). I did joke to Brett on the weekend that he could do it himself with IKEA...
SCRAPBOOKING
I am feeling good about my crafty projects this year.
I have two main year-long projects - Sentence-a-Day and a photo-heavy 10x8 album. Both are digital and just require a weekly sit-down to keep up to date. They will (hopefully) become printed books when done.
Sentence-a-Day is very much like memory planning with a quick caption about the day and a few tiny photos interspersed.
The 10x8 photobook is just an opportunity to use my bigger and better photos. I'm keeping this one very simple with some journaling cards and words sprinkled in.
The big giant landscape photos are what it's all about really.
There is a lot of crossover and I see them both as Project Life-ish, but I love having one place for the tiny details of life and one to showcase my photos.
I'm also trying to make regular layouts as well and have been sharing prompts on Instagram (shannan_pages) to encourage everyone to play along. The idea is to just make something about a topic in whichever way you like. Sometimes the formulaic nature of Project Life style scrapbooking gets a bit tedious, so regular layouts are always a fun addition.
Lots of digital templates have been going into my digital scrapbook shop this year. I am also working on classes which has required a lot more of me than thought. My first two will be Minimalist Memory Keeping and Digital Scrapbooking Basics. Stay tuned and thank you for your patience!
I think I will participate in Ali Edwards' Week In The Life later this month (I don't do it every year but I'm in the making mood). The key for me is to come up with a format and framework before the week starts.
COOKING
Eli is obsessed with this teriyaki beef recipe and makes it weekly (sometimes with diced chicken instead).
I made this brussels sprouts & bacon pizza on the weekend, it's a favourite. The feta is key.
These strawberry overnight oats were delicious if you love strawberries (I do).
These meatballs were great. I love how huge they are because rolling small meatballs is a drag, as is frying them (these are baked).
This grapefruit marg has been a summer staple. If you are into cocktails, I recommend watching Anders on YouTube. My almost-ready bar has me obsessed.
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Thank you for reading and being here!