Pool next to the deck!

I finally got to use a pool next to our new deck, well paddling pool at least!

Today it was finally hot in Melbourne, the first really hot day since we have had our wrap around deck put in, so we finally got to use the deck in the way I imagined.

 

These photos were taken around 12ish when the Maple in the middle of our garden was giving good shade. A little later in the day the extension gives the shade to this area, so perfect place to set up a pool.

Our deck was finished in May this year when Winter had already set in, so all these months later we are now finally getting the chance to use it in so many different ways.

Tomorrow I plan to plant my new Olive tree you can see on top of the wine barrel here. I will share more photos in my Friday food and flower post.

Making paper lanterns and more

I love this time of year with all the festivities, and I have decided that this year, I am going to try and make paper decorations and more. Now it will all be easy to make things that I can do with the kids.

So as Halloween is only two days away we just made paper lanterns, treat bags and ghost lollipops.

Instructions on how to make both the lanterns and ghost lollipops can be found on kidspot.com.au 

 The treat bags were my daughters invention which she just made with an A4 piece of paper folded in half width ways and sticky taped together. She then put her little trick or treat message inside along with a lollipop and presented it to me, her brother and Dad. She is our creative child and I love her gifts, they always make me smile.

As you can also see by these photos I have been playing around with Instagram today. I am a complete novice at this point. If you are on Instagram look out for me @georgygdesign.

Colour inspiration

I often find inspiration from walking past cafes and this is no exception. Love the colour pop and at the moment I am trying to introduce yellow, red and orange into my home and garden. I will share photos soon.

Food and flowers - basil, lemons and red

'Go on it's the weekend so get your hands dirty.'

Ok this is my Friday food and flowers post a day late but what a hectic week it has been.

My first week of not doing paid office work and it has flown. I thought I would have all this spare time but no, with a list a mile long of things I wanted to get done and with my daughter home from school for two days (she strained her quad muscle playing basketball, a big deal for a six year old), I didn't get to the blog much at all.

I did however manage to pot some basil and flowers plus mulch my lemon tree. I am looking forward to using the basil in summer salads, pasta, and on pizza.

 

It is obviously going to be a while before I get lemons and I plan to pot at least one other lemon tree, as there are so many things I love to make with lemon in.

 Mmmm, Lemoncello!

Decorating for Halloween - Blogtoberfest day 23

I love this time of year where I get to decorate the house for various festivities, Halloween being the first cab of the rank. I must admit though with Halloween I not a big fan of some the decorations (thinking skull and crossbones) but love the pumpkins and the burst of orange they provide to the house.

These pumpkin candles go so well with the tulips Hubby bought me for finishing work last week. Only thing is I don't think these tulips will survive to Halloween so might have to get some more!

The kids are getting so excited about next week and I am sure there will be a few more photos to share then, especially as we are going to try and make some Halloween decorations and treats ourselves.

Do you need a project?

Are you one of those people who always needs a project of some sort to focus on?

Well I certainly am and after finishing my job last week and already thinking what next? I have had a few people say just relax for a few weeks, take some time out for yourself while the kids are at school and kinder. Good advice but find this a very hard thing to do.

I started off well this morning going to the gym and then to one of my favourite places, Bunnings but now at home and looking around at all that needs to be done and just feel I should get started on organising the study, cleaning out cupboards, weeding, painting and oh so much more that I have been putting off. Sigh!

It is however a beautiful day outside and I am kid free, so maybe I should go out for a coffee and read a mag, oh and maybe visit Spotlight! Even if I do manage to do this I know later tonight once the kids are in bed I will start writing a plan for what to tackle over the next few months. I just can't help myself!

What about you, do you find it easy to relax or are you a plan and project person like me?

Gardening and nature great for frustration

'Cleaning a house with young children at home is like eating a chocolate biscuit while brushing your teeth!'

This statement felt like it was written for me today. Oh the frustration! So instead of getting too annoyed I got the kids out of the house.

Firstly tried the garden and while they jumped on the trampoline and ran around, I weeded. This lasted well for an hour but then they started tipping cat food out on the deck and more.

So next we went for a picnic in a beautiful nearby park. Played hide and seek in the maze and went exploring in the gardens. Lots of fun, got rid of some energy and while they had a rest back at home I felt revived. Getting out in nature is the perfect therapy.

Now I feel more relaxed to head into my last two days of work - see yesterday's post.

My last week - Blogtoberfest day 15

One thing Blogtoberfest provides is a commitment to posting every day in October and so setting aside time to be creative, this I love. However the last few days I have slipped a little as I am distracted with the fact this is my last week of work for a while.

I have been in my current job at an environmental organisation working in public relations, marketing, communications for 10 years now. The organisation has just gone through a restructure and down sized and it has become time for me to move on.

I am excited in many ways as hopefully head in a slightly new direction, something where I can be a little more creative again, but in the mean time I will have a break and have more time to focus on the family, me and the house for a while. Something I have been hanging out to do.

So even though I am excited I am also a little sad and very distracted this week, which means my writing flow is not as good as it normally is. I will still post but maybe not every day at least until this week is over.

Have a good week all.

Gx

Food and flowers - Blogtberfest day 13

The weather this week in Melbourne has been cold and miserable, so time to add some Spring colour to the house. So a trip to Bunnings where I bought both food and flowers.

I love Rosemary, both the look in a pot and smell and taste in cooking. I use this herb a lot with a favourite dish of mine being crunchy roast potato with Rosemary and sea salt. Mmm, my mouth is just watering thinking about it.

The rosemary also looks great next to a pot of these bright red geraniums.

The second born photo problem - Blogtoberfest day 11

I have recently realised that my beautiful boy, my second born has no wonderfully bound photo books of his first few years, though his older sister does. I have certainly taken plenty pictures of my now four year old but haven't put them together in anything with words.

I know my younger sister always complained there are a lot less photos of her and I think this happens a lot with the second child. I always swore I wouldn't do this with mine and I haven't in the extent that there are lots of photos of my boy, it is just I haven't seemed to find the time to order them and write captions like I did for the first couple of years of my daughters life. I think I will get onto fixing this very soon!

Storage solutions - Blogtoberfest day 10

Now in the middle of Spring (though with the weather in Melbourne you wouldn't know it), I have decided it is time to get a little organised and do a Spring clean. So been busy looking for some storage ideas for different areas of my home.

 

Source

Source- Love that these are old wine crates.

 

Source

The three photos below I love for toy storage ideas. Especially a fan of the magnetic strip for cars as my four year old boy has so many Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars and they just seem to keep multiplying. These photos have all come from the same place - source 








So another use for these plastic shoe holders. I think this would also work well for my daughters Barbies.

Has Halloween fever hit your area? - Blogtoberfest Day 9

 

It seems that Halloween has become very popular in our area of Melbourne. It was only a few years ago that it was hardly thought of but this year we have already received a couple of party invites. Plus as soon as it hit October 1 people started decorating in preparation. I must say I am a little excited about it.

The one thing though I am not so sure of is a notice I got in the letterbox the other day saying I have to put my kids names on a list if they want to go 'Trick or Treating'. On top of which they have to go between 6pm and 7pm and only in certain streets. This does seem a little over the top to me, especially as we won't even be home from work until 6.30 but my kids would love to go. If we start at 7pm does that mean people won't open their doors? I personally am happy to have people come later, especially older children who I imagine would like to go when it is dark.

Last year I actually had some people rock up at our door at 8pm and when I opened it the first thing the mother did was apologise saying "I know, I know, we are not on the list.' I didn't know what she was talking about and was quite happy just to have 'Trick or Treaters,' but now I know why she was concerned as apparently some of the neighbours like the strict organisation, and she was told off! Mmm I suppose I better not miss the curfew then as much as I would like too!

Is Halloween big in your area and if so is it this organised?

Do entertaining and young children mix? - Blogtoberfest day 8

I love to entertain and when we designed our extension and new deck I kept this very much in mind, the only thing is I also love to present a tidy and clean house, have it looking its best when people come over.

Now since having kids I have had to try and not worry about the high cleanliness standards I have set myself and managed to do this in the 'old house' (not easy for me). But when showing the renovated house to people who haven't been over for a while I have slipped, it has brought out the clean perfectionist in me again.

As many of you would know with a six and four year old around things don't stay tidy for long and I have found myself in the past week in this constant state of rushing around after them cleaning as I have tried to catch up with friends I haven't seen in ages. Now this is a recipe for stress and exhaustion as I have discovered with my focus on getting the house ready the kids have reacted as kids do.

So in one day last week 15 minutes before my morning visitors I came out of the shower to find the kids had got all the DVDs out and placed them all around the lounge. Then half an hour before my afternoon visitors I went outside for five minutes to tidy the back garden and came back in to find my four year old had thrown soggy toilet paper all over the bathroom! Now I am smiling while I write this, but I certainly wasn't too happy when these episodes happened.

So what is the lesson for me, entertain less to stop these stress causing episodes or somehow just relax? What about you, do you go into a flurry of cleaning before people come over?

I must say that I do have a couple of friends that come over regularly and with them I am quite relaxed about the state of the house. How do I get like this with others?
 

Outdoor decoration and table - Blogtoberfest day 7

In my post yesterday I mentioned that Daylesford has great homewares stores, especially if you love the rustic look. So following on from yesterday I thought I would share pictures of what I think are great buys from a store in the main street of Daylesford.

I had been looking for things to not only decorate our new deck with for ages but also a simple rustic inexpensive table that would go with the chairs I bought from Bed Bath and Table. I thought this table at $70 was a bargain!

 

 

I am now hoping to soon pot some herbs like Basil to go on the deck, maybe by next weeks Friday food and flower post. Hope you all had a great weekend.

Daylesford Weekend design inspiration - Blogtoberfest day 6

As those who have followed my blog for a while would know I often get inspiration for both house and garden design from what I see when out and about around Melbourne.

The other weekend I spent time in Daylesford and surrounds about an hour and a half outside Melbourne. Firstly a stunning area, spa country, rolling green hills, old stone buildings with plenty of homeware and antique stores which I just can't help visiting (and this trip bought a few outdoor pieces which I will show in my next post).

My main inspiration this time though came from a Lavendula, Swiss Italian Farm where I couldn't stop taking photos.

I love the rustic, country style and as always a big fan of Olive Trees in terracotta pots. Being at Lavendula took my mind back to Tuscany which I absolutely love. Unfortunately the Lavender wasn't in bloom but love the Rosemary.

Friday food and flowers

'Go on it's the weekend so get your hands dirty' - Real Living magazine

I love this quote near the end of every Real Living magazine, just before they have their gardening section. And so like this mag and many others which focus on food and gardening at the back of the mag, thought every Friday being the end of the week I would focus on food and flowers, friends or I are growing in our gardens.

With the food we are growing I hope to then use in cooking and flowers to decorate the table or house. Mind you sometimes the food itself, I'm thinking fruit and herbs particularly make good table decoration too.

So for my very first food and flower post my little vegetable and flower patch....

 

We have a whole lot of old red bricks from a wall that was knocked down and so now recycling and using them in the garden, love the rustic look they provide.

 As you can the lettuce is doing well and will pick some for salad this weekend.

 I have just planted cherry tomatoes so they have a long way to go!

 

Just behind my vegetable patch is an apple tree just starting to blossom and nearby my pot of Lavender.

 

 I love to bring Lavender and blossom inside to decorate and add a great smell.

What are you growing in your garden, planted anything recently in hope of a good food crop?