Photos of the Project!

Thanks to some very sound advice (thanks Jenny!) I am making progress on adding photos to my blog more easily using my iPad ... I know it's shocking that I am this technically poor but I really am! Any ho, below are some of the house and also a map that shows our move from Auckland to the Hawkes Bay. The piece of artwork was done by Brian Looker, the artist we purchased the Orphanage from and was the piece i asked to be left behind as part of the chattels. its Autumn in New Zealand so the trees are slowly losing there leaves which is a shame because they look so pretty at the moment! Later today I will post the first of 365 Pinterest inspired projects for this year!

It's nice to be BACK

St Hilda's Orphanage

So we are back, we have moved, and we are excited to share our journey of settling into our new house and region with you here.  We have moved from one side of the North Island to the other to be closer to family.  We also had another motive and that was to work towards a better lifestyle, more time, more space, less hustle, less stress, more fun and relaxation ... We can only but try ;)

 We have been very blessed with finding the right home on the market when we were needing to buy!  It turns out it is nothing like what we intended to buy but when everybody loves it and you can't imagine another house matching it ... well ... who are we to argue with fate!  The house was originally built as an orphanage in 1894 and is nestled in a gorgeous little village.  It is known as St Hilda's and its latest reinvention was as an art gallery with a live-in artist.  Brian Looker, does gorgeous work and we made sure a piece of his art was part of the settlement so the house would continue to have a part of its most current history.

It's had a lot of love over the years and it still needs some more.  It needs completely rewiring and, thanks to toughened insurance policies, all the scrim removed.  Apart from that the rest of the house has stood the test of time and just needs modifying to meet the needs of our family.  As many of you know I live in an extended family situation with my husband Steve, two peeps Benjamin and Pollyanna, my sweet mum Dianne, and our black cat Cookie.  The peeps are home schooled and we love having family, friends, and extras to stay and this house caters for all of that and more.  It has five bedrooms, a lounge, family room, and an open plan dining and kitchen.  Did I say how grateful this house was on the market just when we needed it?!?

You can see why we need rewiring!

To make things just a little complicated, we have decided to wait to move our furniture in until all the scrim is removed, the electrics have been renewed, and the house has been carpeted.  So we are currently camping in one room of the house ... literally.  That means the early days of pinteresting this 365 days will include a lot of outdoor activities, ideas that will help our current living situation, and things that I am using with regards to the peeps education! 

There are only two photos because i am technically inept and cant figure out how to add photos and scroll from my ipad to my blog ... i will work on my ineptness over this afternoon and see if i cant figure it out for tomorrows posting so you can see the progress!! All my posts are being done on my iPad, which I don't really know how to use!  Hoping that as we gradually get all our belongings out of the storage unit, the computer will turn up sooner rather than later to making blogging SO much easier!  

Making a comeback ... A year of house renovations Pinterest style

YES!  We have sold our house, moved across country, purchased an orphanage built in 1894, and it needs major renovations!  Stay tuned, we start next week with handover date on the twelfth, this blog will be back live and daily from the fifteenth ....

For a year of Pinterest style renovations, recipes, and outdoor solutions ... CAN'T WAIT!

pallet wood art

aahh, the joy of having a pile of pallets to use on ... well ... anything!

we are totally getting into pallet wood creations in this neck of the woods.  steve and i have been thinking up all sorts of ideas and projects to make with this collection of pallets we were given by some awesome friends ... part of the deal with getting these pallets was returning some of them in the form of cape cod chairs, we will get to that i promise sue!

so many friends and family wanting steve to get busy and make some more ... hint, hint honey!

but for today we are into making some art for ben's bedroom wall with the pallets.  all you need for this project are the top slats of the pallet.  so your first job is to take them off as carefully as you can with a crowbar or similar.

next you need a thin piece of mdf the size of the artwork you are making.  this acts as the base of the project and will be what the pallet slats are glued to.  find a place to work and have your mdf laying flat then start laying the slats in rows along the mdf, making sure to fill the entire board with pallet wood.  for interest make sure you have the pallet wood at all sorts of lengths so the joins aren't symmetrical.

these stencils we made ourselves by choosing a font, printing them out on card and then using a craft knife to cut the letters out, leaving their silhouette.  we have used them heaps and they continue to do a great job.

once you have the slats where you want them go at it with some stencils and spray paint and work your magic :)  we decided to use ports around the world as ben's room has a bit of a travel thing going on and the pallet wood makes me think of big packing crates ready to ship off around the world ... remember the old tea chests, that's'a what i'm thinkin!

spraying painting over, time to tackle the overhangs with a saw and fix it down to your baseboard.

once the spray painting is complete cut any overhangs off and adhere to the mdf with liquid nails or similar.  once fixed, add some attachments to the back so you can hang your masterpiece :o)

and there it hangs ... cheap, fun pallet wood wall art :)

the edges have been sanded to add a nice finish to the piece ... best part is, ben loves it!

the best parts of pinterest 365 ...

• was the awesome t-shirts leslie from pinterest sent out to us since completing the 365 days ....  thank you so much leslie :o)

it's so nice to have handwritten mail from such a large company ;o)

• inviting blog friends to come and stay if they are visiting new zealand and then meeting them in person ;o)  hannah from young and crafty i met through her mum jenny from crafting in the country and she has been staying with us for the last week on a whirlwind holiday of new zealand. 

we had to get her making her own pizza for the pizza oven, a first for her :)

we managed to get to rotorua and see the sights but winter time isn't ideal for seeing them at their best ... the geothermal areas are still amazing though even if it pouring with rain!

we took in some of our awesome culture

we took a trip up the gondola ....

and we even made it to Hobbiton ;o) ... total highlight for me even though i don't know much about the movies!

• having the confidence to carry on and make lots of projects you never would have tried otherwise

these pallets and ...

these stencils have been made into a great project ... tutorial later this week, i promise!

we've been away ... exploring new zealand in a campervan

is there any better way to spend a winter holiday than campervaning with friends ... somewhere near ohakune

we are lucky.  but it is only we you hire a campervan and go off the main trunk lines that you realise just how lucky you are to live in this awesome country.  in fact, we had such a great time we extended our holiday by two days and carried on searching out fresh snow and incredible beaches :)  here is a quick look at some of the places we took in.

we started with the central plateau and camped by beautiful lakes ....

the peeps thought the scenery was amazing ... almost zen like ;)

spending the days exploring the geothermal areas ....

and the national parks

we then hit the snow covered volcano mt ruapehi for some serious winter fun!

pollyanna's grasp of the sledding was far better ....

than her mother ;)

it was then on to raglan where spring looked like it had arrived and we didn't want to go home so we didn't ....

instead we went up and over to the coromandel ... where it felt like summer couldn't be too far away

the views were amazing

that view above was what we had to endure during lunch ;)

cathedral cove on the coromandel peninsula

we ended the holiday at some thermal hot pools in miranda ... we still didn't want to go home ... but this time we had to :(

cheesecake, london olympics style :)

quick post with a couple of photos from our olympics activities through the first week :)  steve had to make a british cheesecake as one of his contributions to our family olympic activities.  he did a great job so i wanted to share.  inspiration for this was found on pinterest from woman and home who made a very british cheesecake in honour of the queen's jubilee.  steve did a fantastic job given it's winter here so no fresh berries around, he used frozen ones instead.  they did the trick though, maybe not as full of colour but definitely worked to make the union jack :)

the finished cheesecake, complete with hobnob biscuits from the uk :)

this was the perfect dessert to watch the new zealand black sticks with!  the live games coverage starts ~8pm at night for us, so it is making for some tired peeps but they have coped well ... maybe because of the delicious food we have been eating from our second countries!