Two of my favourite things!

Yes - I know - it's been a while!!  In a previous post I mentioned our plan for this year is to knock down our house and build our dream home.  Well the adventure has finally begun but not without it's hiccups.  Over the last few weeks Mr J and the kids came down with the chicken pox, we packed up our belongings and moved to a rental house, we sold possessions on EBay, we had a pre-demolition sale and watched on as bits and pieces of our house were removed and recycled amongst the neighbours and - if you can imagine - we lived without the Internet for nearly 2 whole weeks!!  To say there's been a lot going on lately is a bit of an understatement.  Yes it's been busy and yes it's been stressful but rest assured I do know that in this game of life there are worse things to endure - I'm just trying to make you smile!

So . . . when I finally regained access to the online world I was delighted to discover two of my favourite things mentioned in the one sentence!  Those who know me well are only too familiar with my love of particular shades of blue and of my efforts to incorporate them into my home or my wardrobe as regularly as possible.  I'm also a huge fan of the Canadian interior designer Sarah Richardson.  So it was lovely to read that one of my favourite bloggers, Erin from House of Turquoise, is a huge fan of Sarah's too - you can read Erin's post and check out her gorgeous blog here if you are as keen on turquoise, teal, robin's egg blue, aqua and other particular shades of blue as I am.  Enjoy!

Dining Room by Sarah Richardson

A New Look and a New Year!

Yay - I've had a makeover! Well not me exactly - although I wouldn't say no if Trinny & Susannah knocked at my door!  No I mean here in my little corner of the craft world.

The lovely folks at Shabby Blogs (who very generously provide fantastic free designs for bloggers) recently updated their server and decided to retire some of their older designs - one of which was mine. So rather than feel mortally wounded that my design was clearly considered "so last year!!" I've decided to embrace this as an opportunity to give my blog a new look as I look forward to an exciting new year. Oh that reminds me - Happy New Year everyone - I'm a bit late I know but it's taken me a while to fit back into my craft hat after the Christmas holidays!

Anyway, I love the new design and had a lot of fun playing around with it - there's so many other little features to muck around with too so I'm looking forward to adding a few more accessories over the coming weeks - sorry I couldn't resist one last makeover pun!

Hope you're all having a great day - I'll talk to you soon!

Where did the year go?

Do you remember when you were little and time seemed to go so slowly?  Oh how I miss those days!

This year has flown by too quickly but it's been a great year nonetheless.  Miss 5 started school and had a fantastic year - she settled in beautifully, made lots of new friends and learnt to read - something she is very proud of (as are we).  Master 9 had a good year too.  He says he enjoyed Year 3 because his teacher "had a sense of humour" - a handy thing to have when dealing with a bunch of 8 and 9 year olds!

For me the year was filled with the juggle of looking after things at home, driving the kids to school, dancing, music, swimming, soccer and birthday parties, finding time for friends and family, late night crafting, doing the Hide & Seek Market and taking on a part time job so that next year we can build this!

Phew - I think I need a holiday!  I'll be taking a little break from my blog and my Etsy store for a while but I'll look forward to getting back into it all in the new year.

So ... to the lovely people who have taken the time to visit my little corner in the world I'd like to say thank you and wish you a Merry Christmas and a safe, healthy and happy New Year.

Take care of yourselves.
Love Jenine xx

PS: Had a bit of a Martha Stewart moment with the kids the other day - here's the result!


Gingerbread Christmas Cookies



New stuff on it's way!

Today my little Miss 5 and I had a lovely time wandering around the St Ives Heritage Craft Fair.  This monthly market is held not too far from where we live here in Sydney - how lucky are we?  After such a busy few weeks it was so nice to relax and take some time to check out the handcrafted goodies - the weather was gorgeous too - sunshine at last!  We even caught up with the lovely ladies from Applecart Co - they had the stall next to mine at last month's Hide & Seek Market - you can check out their "Handmade Lovelies for the Littlies" for yourself here.  Anyway I got all inspired and rushed home to take some long overdue photos of my Altered Clipboards and my NEW Altered Magazine Files.  I'm hoping to list lots of items on my Etsy Store this week - well that's the plan anyway.  In the meantime here's a little peak at what's coming!



Some cool stuff for boys!



It can't rain on our parade!

Thank you to all the lovely customers who visited the Hide & Seek Market on Sunday.  Despite the miserable weather it was still a great day and I'm happy to say that lots of my memory boards did indeed find homes as I hoped they would!   I was only left with two to list in the SALE Items section at Made by Jenine - so hop on over to grab yourself a bargain!

I'm hoping to list lots of new items in the coming weeks so stay tuned for more Party Packages, more Altered Clipboards and with Christmas just around the corner - some new stuff too!!

It's market time again

This week I'm looking forward to the Hide & Seek Market on Sunday (24 Oct).  Lots of new stallholders have joined in the fun and there's now 3 rooms full of unique handcrafted goodies to check out.  It promises to be a lovely day.

During the recent school holidays I was finally able to clean up my craft space and take a good look at my inventory.  In order to make some room for new items to come to life I've decided to drastically reduce the price of my memory boards.  So .... anything not sold on Sunday will be listed on my Etsy Shop under SALE Items - although I'm secretly hoping they will all find happy homes with Hide & Seek customers!




Unfortunately, Tracey isn't able to join me at this month's market - she has a good reason though - it's something to do with family, cake and hopefully presents!  Happy Birthday Trace x

My Monday Must See

In a previous post I mentioned that I was very excited to receive a custom order via the Hide & Seek Market.  This particular request was for some bunting and 2 dozen cupcake toppers for a baby girl's Christening.  I was thrilled to receive some photos from the family's special day and thought I'd share them with you.  By the way - this gorgeous little girl has 4 big brothers!  I think you'll agree her lovely Mum did a fabulous job with the dessert table.  Take a closer look at the cake - it's pretty special too!