Living My Real Life

Happy weekend my friend! I spent yesterday painting some chairs.  They aren’t ready to reveal yet but I’m aiming to have them ready for next week.

I have to tell you about the crazy weather we’ve had this week.  It’s been soooo cold!  Now where I live it doesn’t snow – our average winter temperature is around 10 Celsius (50F) during the day at this time of year.  We do have colder nights.  It generally rains a lot in the winter with our front yard turning into something resembling a swamp (Ok, OK, exaggeration - it’s not quite that bad!).

This week, we’ve had highs during the day of around 4-6C (39-43F).  

And that’s not the worst part – on Tuesday it snowed! It wasn’t cold enough for the snow to sit on the ground but it was falling.  The icy blast caused heaps of disruptions in travel, etc.

Not to worry, by Friday the sun was shining again and we had a balmy 12C (53F). I don’t mind it being cold when the sun is shining – how about you?

This cold snap has sent me looking for double glazing.  Did you know that most NZ houses aren’t double glazed?  Until 2008 it was law to have double glazing.  Our house has floor to ceiling windows all along the back so they let out a lot of heat.

On the Blog

Over the past couple of weeks on the blog I’ve shared a couple of projects. I also continued my five minute earring series of tutorials.

Spring Cage Earrings

I shared the quickest tutorial I’ve ever done this week – these Spring Cage earrings can be made in literally two minutes. The trick is the spring cage bead.  

Fun Ideas for the School Holidays

Do your kids get bored while they are on holiday?  I shared some ideas for things to do to keep your children busy during the winter school holidays.

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Around the Web

The 4th of July is coming up and in the US they celebrate in a very patriotic way. The number of decorating projects I seen has astounded me. Here in NZ, we really don’t show our patriotism that way.  I thought I’d share some of what I’ve seen.

4th Of July Printables

I thought these printables were a really cool fun things for the kids to do. Paula has other things on her blog that relate to the holiday so be sure to check it out.

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4th of July Food Ideas

Here’s a whole pile of great patriotic food ideas for you and the children to make.  I particularly loved these decorated pretzels.

Decorating with Flags and Flowers

If you like a more low key approach, this vignette is quite subtle but still very effective.

Clothespin Wreath

It’s probably a little late to be making this but I really liked it – maybe you could pin it for next year. You could also take the concept and make it an any time of year wreath.

That’s it for me for this week. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and I'll be back next week, hopefully to show you my chairs.

I'd love to know what you are doing to celebrate the 4th of July - or if, in fact you do. Let me know in the comments section below.

Just Before You Go

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