Some deep thinking... o.O

Over the last little while I have been thinking, if I wasn't a nurse, what would I be doing? I have joked about running away to join the circus... I mean, how awesome would it be to be able to do aerial ninja-ing like Sarah of the Weird Sisters? Or would I be like my mum and teach littlies? Or would I be completely clueless and not know what I wanted to do? I really haven't a clue. I do know that what ever I decided to do, I would want to be happy doing it.

I want to be a good wife. A good friend. When the time comes I want to be a good mum too. Scratch that, I want to be awesome at all of those.

Sometimes I don't feel like I'm doing a good job of either being a wife or a friend. I feel like I don't see my friends enough, and aren't available enough. But how do you quantify that? I always want to do better, and they say (don't you love They?) that there is always room for improvement, always room for better.

At the moment I am striving for better, in that I am trying to take better care of myself, get myself enough sleep, eat the foods that agree with me and avoid the ones that don't (sadly that seems like a big list at times).
I also want to have more gratitude. I take so much for granted.

What are you aiming for? Are you who you want to be? What's holding you back?

<3 Anita

Pinterest Challenge and a Ramble!!

I know we don't yet have many people following our little blog here, but maybe there are more lurking than I know about.
I do want to start doing a little challenge. The Pinterest Challenge set by the lovely Katie at Bower Power one of the great, inspiring blogs I follow. 

To be honest, I have had myself wondering who is going to read this. Who really wants to know all the nutso things that cross the mind of one person with no qualifications other than a Bachelor of Nursing? No photography quals, or a job as a make-up artist, hair stylist, interior designer. Not a mum, or a pet owner/lover. Just a young adult, newly married, with a few OCD tendencies, a knack for buying pretty things, a obsession with shoes and handbags. A girl who starts projects that seem like a great idea... but don't always finish them (read often not finished much to the dismay of her loved ones) A big user and lover of the internet and all the awesome it has to offer. So that has me wondering what to blog about. Sometimes I have ideas, then think that people don't want to read about that, or that another blog has done so much of a better job of it. Or what I have done isn't as big an flash as what other internetters have shown off. But now is the start of me not worrying (or rather trying not to) as this is my blog, my place to say my thing about anything. So that's what is coming up. Me. Rambling. Hehe.

To be honest, there are some exciting things coming up in the life of Anita. I am going on a big trip to Europe with Simon (that's my awesome husband), and that adventure will be blogged. I will give you photos, thoughts, and awesome tidbits of that joyride. Before that I will be attempting to get to know my beautiful camera intimately, so that I can be more confident with my photo snapping while we adventure. Plus so much more.

The shop over on Felt is an exciting thing too for me, and the friends I share that with. While as  yet I haven't sold anything I have crafted through that site, I wait hopeful that it will start to take off a little. I plan to (and really better) add more items to the store to entice people to peruse. 

I guess for now, this is a way to save Simon a little from my rambling, but a chance to challenge myself to do something new, try new thing... like the Pinterest Challenge, and keep a record of what is going on in my life. I never was too good at the diary idea, but I think that this is much more like me rambling to a friend (sometimes people reply!).

Hope a few people will join me along the way :D

For now I will be sharing things I have created, big and small, inspired or not by things seen, or pinned on Pinterest, or just by crazy ideas I've dreamed up. I'll share with you any major revelations about photography I learn. Whatever takes my fancy really. I will not always post pictures, I know they make posts more enticing for me to read, but not always. 

So this is what I am doing:

from the Bower Power Blog

Yeah, I know it's not winter here, but we will forgive those who live in the other hemisphere.

<3 Anita

Rainy Days

I LOVE rainy days! Even more when I am not working. Today is one of those glorious days. 

Don't read that wrong, I'm not particularly fond of being either wet or cold, and a really dislike a day that taunts me with drizzle (that's not at all fair to my hair). What do I love about a rainy, grey day? This:

Tights

Boots

The whole ensemble

Just delightful. I love this style.

<3 Anita

All photos sourced from Pinterest

One Year On

Wow. What a year. 

My home, my Christchurch has had such a year.
This day, last year, at 12.51pm, everything changed forever. 

Today my thoughts are with those who lost their family, their friends, their lives as they knew it, their homes, their jobs. So much changed, so much was lost. But so much is being gained, so much good is happening. 

 If you want to know more, there is a whole Stuff Section covering the stories of that day, and this year. Some will make you cry. Some will make you smile. 

God Bless Christchurch.

<3 Anita

How to: Make an awesome piece of art

Step 1: Grab whichever canvas tells you to prettify it. 
Step 2: Pick a colour, today is blue. 
Step 3: Doodle on the canvas. I picked hearts (it is for the Valentine's Day giveaway after all) 

Doodling with a Blue Sharpie

Step 4: Rummage through your crafty supplies, and pick out some things in the colour you like, think different textures, and media. I picked out a blue Sharpie, light blue tissue paper and grey/blue glitter stock card. 

Glitter card stock

Step 5: Play with it all. Layer the items you have picked. Change it round. Decide an idea. Go with it. 
Step 6: Use Mod Podge. 

After a layer of Mod Podge and Tissue Paper

Step 7: Take photos of some stages, not others. Mod Podge dries too quickly for action shots. 

All done!

Step 8: Love what you have created! 

Bonus gift, one of my Dry Erase boards from our Shop

 Step 9: If you are giving your creation away, wrap it up and make it look awesome. Lacking ideas of how to make a gift look exciting, check out How to Wrap your Crap for some clever ideas.

All wrapped up

P.S for ease of Mod Podging tissue paper, wear jeans that aren't your favourite. They will get glue on them. Crafting is messy business.
Part 3 of the gift lacked photos in progress, but it is the little round mystery on top there. A jar with a Mod Podge and Washi Tape lid, with a pair of earrings made my the beautiful Alexia inside.

<3 Anita

Valentine's Day Giveaway

Wahoo!

We had a prize draw for, available for the lovely people who like The Foxes' Forge page on Facebook. We said we needed 50 likes, and we got 55, then I removed admins and my husband from the list, then thanks to Random.org.... we have a winner!

Number 32 on the list, Stephanie McRae!

We will send out the prize, and then we will share with you all what the prize was... we are keeping it a secret until received. 

<3 Anita

Failcakes

Today, I attempted to make gluten/wheat free cupcakes from This recipe. To be honest, when I first read it I did think that it couldn't possibly work. Would you like to see a photo of what happened?Of course it didn't work. I like to say the recipe was a flop. Literally.
Bahahaha.
Good thing I had thought ahead and I had made chocolate truffles (thanks Kristy) :D They were delicious. Next time I think I will double the recipe.

Oh well. I think I'll try a different recipe next time. Hopefully I will start knowing some good low wheat, low lactose recipes soon. I miss baking.

Anita xoxo

Beautiful paper crafts

The Scrap Shoppe Blog

I'm an addict. Yup. I said it. I'm addicted to Pinterest. Completely. I have always been a real internet browser... I love to browse. It gives me ideas, it makes me happy. I see so many things that are pretty, or affordable while being awesome, or funny, or useful. Some of my best meal ideas have come from the internet. (A seriously good thing, as I'm not exactly the world's greatest chef). But Pinterest, it's new, it's awesome. It's not a totally new idea, similar to several other sites, but it's clean, it's simple to use, and I love it. Facebook is now way down my list of time absorbers.

Nature of Crafty Things

I love to browse the latest pins, and pin things I come across that I find in the blogs I read, or from FB posts. Or more often than not, I pin the things I have discovered by following links from the blogs I follow, and come across some really awesome stuff.
I used to get a bit sad though, as I there wasn't an awesome way to record where I found the awesome things. 

Bride Goggles

I used to bookmark them, or save the pictures. Saving the pictures was great as a visual thing (I'm a very visual person), but I couldn't go back to a tutorial, or check out other stuff from the same blog or site.
Bookmarking was great, that gave me the link, but often I couldn't find the one page I wanted, or I couldn't remember what I had bookmarked, as it wasn't easy to see.

Twigg Studios

So that's one big reason I love.
Pinterest. I can go back and look at the beautiful things. I can also keep up with all the new cool stuff on the internet!
Here are a few things I have pinned, that I love, that you might too. Beautiful things to do with paper. (and cardboard). I love paper as a medium to work with, there are so many awesome papers available. You can buy endless types of paper, you can make your own, something I remember being really fun, but that was years ago. I should do that again.

Road Kill Rescue

Anita  xoxo

Crafty and organised :o

Right, so getting started on my task list, and I've ticked off a few things! Still plenty to go, but these aren't all to be done in one day, thank goodness.

I've been in to the bank and changed over to my married name, hurrah. The last of the more important name changes to be done.
I have set myself some aims as well, look at me go! I aim to do some study days for work, I'm waiting to hear back from my applications now. I think they will all give me some valuable information. I also aim to complete the next level of professional development, that involves a bit of work, plenty of paperwork, and in the end having an updated portfolio, and as a bonus, a pay increase.
I also aim to give my creativity an outlet, not just toy with my imagination. I will create one mixed media painting a month to put in my Felt store, plus 10 sewn items, and 10 other little treats. Start small and work my way up. I also want to let myself make stuff for me, that's right. I so often make things for other people, and forget to keep some for me, and then I can't show people the sorts of things I make. I am also working on a cross stitch for my awesome little nephew, of Noah's Ark. I started off by looking around to see if I could find a pattern for one that I liked... but to no avail. I checked all the craft stores I could think of in the city, and also online. None where quite what I had in mind. That's when a little light bulb went on, and I thought if I could find a picture I liked and made my own pattern, I might have better luck. I did! Google is definitely my friend. However I have set myself a rather mammoth task with this one, it's A3 sized! So I'm now aiming to have this finished for his 5th birthday, that's just under 4 years away.

Also, Yay!! I have a tidy house. Well, half of one. Over the weekend the husband and I organised and cleaned our way through the kitchen, dining area and living area. That's our whole upstairs area, and where we spend most of our time. 

We started in the kitchen by clearing off the bench, filling the dishwasher and washing the odd bits that had accumulated. Also did a nice hot water and baking soda clean out of the thermos, no faint, strange smells now.

We moved onto clearing out the fridge of UFO (unidentified fridge objects), such as the other half of the sweetened condensed milk that I hadn't dated, but didn't seem off. I just couldn't remember when I put it there.
We then organised the cupboards and pantry, identifying what we use frequently, and what we don't. Those that are less frequently used remain in our teeny tiny kitchen, but are instead on top of the pantry unit, rather than stealing our precious limited shelf space.
Then we arranged things to make things more accessible, and less frequently used items further back, or lower down.
In the dining area we cleared the table (we often use this as extra bench space as our bench gives us enough room for one chopping board... and that's it. Silly little kitchen. Then we cleared the floor. There was a crockpot still in the box, that is now above the pantry, (we have 2)
We also finally put up photo frames and art work! It looks like a home now. I had been apprehensive about hanging them due to quakes, but we will see how they fare.

As for now, time to hang out with the lovely Alexia!

Ciao, Anita

How-to: Make an Organised Anita

Hello again!
So, in my last post I said I wanted to be more organised this year... and I've mentioned that to friends and family. Also asked Simon to help me out with this. Most of my friends have laughed, and said that it won't last long. They do know me well. But I am determined to be more organised and less scatterbrained. I imagine that if I have things organised things will have a home, and therefore I will know where things are, giving the appearance of a less scatterbrained Anita.

I know that organisation is an important thing, and something I am capable of... I'm VERY organised at work. I make a time planner every shift, and extra tasks are written down. I have tick boxes and at the end of the shift I feel as though I have achieved something. I can also check to see what's next, especially if I'm starting to feel a little overwhelmed.
I have started off by looking at a few organising books, thanks Martha Stewart, and the Christchurch City Libraries. I also follow iHeart Organizing who shares different tips, and organisation projects that she and other people have done in their home. There are so many great ideas. I also stumbled on an Declutter Calendar from My Simpler Life which is a great idea, but isn't quite right for me. So, I have made my own!
I am a great fan of Google products, and own a Google Android smartphone, use Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, Google Documents and Google Maps. They are all so easy to use, aesthetically clean, and fantastic for my OCD tendencies! So in trying to figure out how I wanted to do my own decluttering I realised I didn't want to have events in my calendar, with strict times for me to complete my tasks only for them to sail past and then have me feel like I've failed. Being a shift worker, setting daily tasks isn't always possible, and I really don't like knowing I should have done something that I haven't yet achieved... even though I set the task myself. That had an idea spark... Google has a task feature in Gmail! So there it is now looking at me everyday when I check my emails is my task list. Even more fantastic, I can access this on my phone.

So I am starting off by continuing to have my shifts recorded in a little diary that is always with me, on my Google Calendar, and also on the weekly planner we have on the fridge.
This weekly planner is now expanding to be a meal planner too... tonight we had homemade pita pocket pizzas... yum! (see the last post about wanting to eat healthy and cook more... this is how I'm doing it)

One of the next on the list is to learn how to use my camera well! But for now I'm off to work for a night shift.

<3 Anita