2012 :: my favourite blog posts

I've trawled through the Mummy Adventures 2012 archives and collated a list of my favourite blog posts from this year. I tried to pick 1 favourite post from each month like I did last year. But for most months I couldn't pick just one so there's a couple for each month. Here goes...

:: JANUARY ::

Toadstool Makeover

 

Kate Turns 30 Minibook

and

You know you're the mother of a toddler when...

:: FEBRUARY ::

Around Here Lately

 

Summer Blocks

   

Cigar Tin Mini Albums

 

Coffee Cup Cosy

:: MARCH ::

A Visit to the Buttefly Park

iPhone Tips and Tricks

:: APRIL ::

London Baby

Things I'm Loving NZ Edition

:: MAY ::

Rainbow Ripple Ta Da

UK Holiday Journal

Best of: Holiday Awards

:: JUNE ::

Kiwi As

Crochet Yoda

Jubilee Celebrations

:: JULY ::

A Kiwiana Themed Afternoon Tea

How I make monthly documenting work for me

Party Bags for 2 year olds

:: AUGUST ::

Birthday Thankyous

Mr Mischief Turns 2

:: SEPTEMBER ::

Goodbye House

Today's the Day

:: OCTOBER ::

31 Things About Me

Weekend Adventures in Wellington

:: NOVEMBER ::

Halloween Bits and Bobs

Secret Santa Ideas

:: DECEMBER ::

Advent Activities List

Teacher Gifts (with washi tape tealights)

2012 Ta Da List

It's been fun looking back at what I blogged about this year :-)

Many thanks to everyone that visits, reads and comments on my blog. I really appreciate it. 

And now I need to have a think about what direction my blog will take me in next year...

:: Wishing you all a magical 2013 ::

2012 Ta Da List

Each year for quite a few years now I have written a Ta da list at the end of the year. It's a way to look back on the year by coming up with a lists of achievements. To put the list together I look back through my diary, blog posts, photos, scrapbook albums and gratitude journal for the year.

I like taking time at the end of the year to reflect on my journey and I think this helps me say Goodbye to the current year and move onto the next.

You can see my previous lists at the following links: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 (please note 2006 - 2009 link to my old blog)

And here's this years list...

1. Discovered the Wellington farmers and food markets and did plenty of shopping
2. Embraced and fell in love with my iPhone
3. Took on the Editor role of the Palmy Parent magazine for 5 months/3 issues
4. Crocheted lots of baby hats, a coffee cup cosy, a ring pouch and Yoda
5. Became a New Zealand Citizen and learnt the NZ National Anthem
6. Read the Hunger Games trilogy and 50 Shades trilogy (which were very different but I enjoyed them both)
7. Survived long haul flights to the UK and back again with a toddler in tow
8. Documented our UK trip
9. Discovered passion fruit margaritas
10. Found an awesome childminder (then had to say Goodbye when we left Palmy)
11. Released a butterfly into the wild
12. Took Mr Mischief to London, IKEA, Beatrix Potter World, Loch Lomond, Edinburgh Zoo and a heap of other places in the UK
13. Visited Windermere and York (both for the 1st time)
14. Hosted a Kiwiana party to celebrate our citizenship
15. Celebrated the Diamond Jubilee
16. Took part in the following swaps: handmade heart, KCOS, NZ Handmade Ornament Swap, Twitter Secret Santa
17. Hosted the Christmas cracker swap
18. Spent far too much time at Doctors Surgeries and hospitals when Mr Mischief cut his head, bumped his head and broke his thumb (*not so much an achievement but more of a nod at getting through it)
19. Organised a Joint 2nd birthday for our coffee group and made cute party bags
20. Decided to shift to Wellington during a long walk and lots of talking on a Winter's Day at Wellington seafront
21. Sold our house (within a month-phew!)
22. Moved us, a child, a dog and billions of belongings from Palmy to Welly
23. Survived husband commuting 4 hours per day for a month
24. Found somewhere to live in Wellington
25. Explored our new city
26. Farewelled an employer I'd been with since 2007
27. Got a new job and started within 3 weeks of moving to Wellington
28. Settled Mr Mischief into daycare
29. watched Hungry for Change
30. Participated in Project Real Life (3 month online class)
31. Sent Change of Address cards (in a timely manner!)
32. Made Halloween decorations and got into the spirit of things
33. Visited and spent money at Craft 2.0
34. Started Pilates classes
35. Visited the dentist after years of avoiding it - had 2 major fillings and saw the dental surgeon about my wisdom teeth
36. Took part in the World Record attempt for Sandcastle building 
37. Reconnected with living by the sea
38. Enjoyed the atmosphere of the Hobbit Premiere in Wellington and had our photo taken on a skycouch with an orc!
39. Returned to Palmy for a visit
40. Went to the horse races and came home with money in my purse
41. Finally completed the toadstool makeover
42. Took Mr Mischief to Santa's Grotto and the Christmas shop at Kirk's
43. Had my Christmas Journal blog post linked to from Becky Higgins on her Facebook page!
44. Created 11 newsletters for Scrappin' Patch
45. Bought a juicer and used it regularly
46. Cultivated our own herb garden which is doing rather well
47. Blogged 107 times 
48. Took approx. 7200 photos (that'll be why my phone's out of memory!)
49. Did a pretty good job of documenting the year (up to September is complete in my Document 2012 album with October and November not far behind plus I have 12 Project Real Life layouts done as well)
50. Saw The Hobbit in 3D HFR - my 1st 3D experience at the movies! It was pretty intense but good!

What a year! And soon we will be onto the next one...

Christmas Cracker Swap Fun!

I bet given the Merry Christmas post that popped up this morning no-one was expecting to see me again this side of Christmas! But I just wanted to post about the Christmas Cracker Swap...

My partner for the Swap was Cat. 

And last week I got a lovely cracker shaped parcel from her. The cracker itself was huge and was wrapped in beautiful rainbow coloured dotty fabric! I love it and I am going to have to conquer my fear of sewing to make something nice with it! Even the ribbon tying each end was cute - you can't see it very well in the pictures but it's printed like a measuring tape!

Originally I had planned to keep the cracker for Christmas Day but it sat calling my name and I couldn't resist! I untied it and opened it up to discover all of the following lovely goodies...

Inside was the Your Home and Garden Christmas special (a great read filled with heaps of inspiration!), 2 rolls of lovely red washi tape (1 with really cute hearts!), 3 cute gingerbread men ornaments (so it was a great idea to open before Christmas as now I can enjoy them on the tree!) and some Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Sticks.

It's a lovely parcel and thank you so much to Cat for putting together a great collection of goodies for me!

Cat has blogged about the cracker I sent her here if you'd like to go visit :-)

And here's a sneak peek of what I did send....

Cat's a fan of crochet so I made her some handmade stitch markers. She loves Cath Kidston so I sent her some CK stickers and I also included some washi tape tealights. I also tried to fit some washi tape rolls in and they wouldn't fit so I wound some round some empty cotton reels instead. 

Here's a close up of the stitch markers...

And I couldn't pick just one quote so included these two...

"No act of kindness no matter how small is ever wasted" ~ Aesop

"What a wonderful thought it is that some of the best days of our lives haven't happened yet"

I decorated the cracker with lots of pink and aqua as Cat likes those colours.

It was a bit of a nightmare to post as I didn't want it to get damaged. In the end I cut a box in half to fashion a long box - it was a complete hatchet job but seemed to do the trick!

I did try to pretty the outside up with a little washi tape!

It's been a really fun swap and I'm definitely hoping to organise one next year as well. It's great seeing what everyone has been sending and receiving. You can see who else was involved in the swap here and there's also a linky so people can link up when they blog or post the pictures!

And this time, it really is Merry Christmas from me! See you on the other side :-)

Merry Christmas

Wherever you are in the world, I'd like to wish you a very safe and Merry Christmas!

Enjoy :-)

Once all the presents unwrapped, the big day is enjoyed and we've had some quality family time together I am hoping to take some time this week to work on my 2012 ta da list and also my favourite blog posts of this year. Hopefully they will be ready for me to share them with you soon!

Take care and I hope you find some magic and Christmas cheer over the next couple of days.

Remember: "The best way to spread Christmas Cheer is singing loud for all to hear!"

Quote Source.

NZ Handmade Ornament Swap

Another Christmas Swap I have taken part in this year has been the NZ Handmade Christmas Ornament Swap. This swap is great because you have 1 swap partner which you make 1 ornament and 1 card for. It's great for those short on time or just starting out to join in with swaps.

This is the 2nd year I have taken part in this swap. You can see what I sent and received here.

I really liked the yarn wrapped wreaths I made for the Kiwi Christmas Ornament Swap so decided to make one for the NZ Handmade Swap as well.

To go with the ornament I made a card in similar colours using washi tape and peel craft...

My swap partner is Sandra in Canada. And this is what she sent me in return...

A cute little stocking complete with jingle bells, a stitched Christmas tree card and a postcard of Toronto!

Another great swap :-) Thanks Sandra and thanks NZ Handmade for organising it :-)

My Creative Space: Teacher Gifts (including washi tape tealights)

Mr Mischief goes to daycare a couple of days each week. He started mid October when I got a part-time job and has settled in really well. The staff are all lovely there and I wanted to show our appreciation to each of them without having to spend a fortune or give the standard box of chocolates for them to share.

I decided to make them each a little goody bag. Luckily I had some paper bags left over from the 2nd birthday party bags I made back in July.

To begin with I cut across the top of each bag with wavy scissors. And I set about collecting some items to go in...

Here's a look at what each bag contains...

* a handcream
* 2 washi tape covered tealights
* a jingle bell
* a candy cane
* a ferrero rocher
* a milkybar and cherry ripe
* a wineglass charm

I'm hoping they see it as a little pamper type goody bag. I had thought about making some body scrub or something to go in but in the end I knew I'd run out of time with everything else going on this month.

Once the items were placed in each bag I folded the top down and used a bit of washi tape to stick it down. Then I punched two holes about 2 inches apart and threaded washi tape though to tie in a bow.

The finishing touchers were 2 scallop circles on each bag - 1 with the name of the recipient and the other saying "Thankyou and Merry Christmas from Mr Mischief"

I had a big brown bag leftover from some recent Typo purchases and decided to "upcycle" it into a gift bag to hold all the little bags. I used some scrapbooking card and peelcraft stickers to make two banners to cover the shop name on each side. I'll probably add some co-ordinating curling ribbon at the top before we take it in too! 

And here's a close-up of the washi tape covered tealights. I bought a 30 pack of berry scented tealights from KMart for $4 (they smell lovely) and had some red washi tape (that I'd got in a set with an aqua coloured one) from Typo. I wrapped the washi tape around the tealights to make them a little bit more festive. What do you think? I thought it made them look much cuter!

So here's hoping the teachers and staff like their little goody bags :-)

I'm linking up with My Creative Space today. Why not see what everyone else has been busy making too?