Holland trip and mini EST meeting

Recently I had the supreme good fortune to travel to Holland for 10 days to stay with my best buddy Vanessa (fellow kiwi lass living with a dutchman there) ... it was much needed time out!! I want to share with you my meetings of some very special ladies from the EST (europeanstreetteam on Etsy) .. 10 days wasn't long enough in the end and I missed the chance of meeting more, but maybe we'll have a EST convention after all this year, who knows!

First of all Vanessa and I travelled to the city of Schiedam (near Rotterdam) to meet up with Liz of AgapeBridal. Liz is a super gorgeous Singaporean lady (and she is just as lovely and sweet as she appears on the thread!) married to a dutchman. Liz's husband stayed up the night before to make chocolate muffins, especially for our visit .. how sweet is that?! Dear Liz made us the yummiest shepherds pie for lunch too!

I had recently (before going) purchased a few gorgeous items from Liz's etsy shop (AgapeBridal) and I asked her to wait and give them to me on this day!! We had the honour of seeing Liz's wedding album (which is in the form of an amazing hardcover book) ... extremely beautiful photo's with touching words throughout. I'm not at all ashamed to share with you that both Vanessa and I cried over one part of the album, it was breathtaking.

This is a photo of Liz and I .. you know, I actually felt short over in Holland but I was feeling kind of tall that day when I met Liz ;)

A few days later we travelled to the city of Eindhoven to meet up with Mitsy from Artmind and and Myrte from Mirthquake and MirthQuakeClothing. Goodness me, I don't think Eindhoven has heard such laughter from a group of girls for a long time! Seriously, we met, me sat, we talked and talked and laughed and talked and giggled and talked and laughed some more!! It was the best time i'd had in such a long time ... our jaws were hurting from all the laughter! They'd (the cafe/restaurant) NEVER have believed us if we told them it was our first time meeting each other. Myrte gave us all gorgeous buttons from her shop and Mitsy had baked very special biscuits for us all .. totally yummy! Two more truly awesome, sweet, lovely and gorgeous girls from the EST team!!

These are photo's from that day .. I must just point out that in the first one I am wearing my jewellery purchases from dear nanouke. Stylish and funky stuff eh what!!

I came back feeling refreshed and was immediately swept up in masses of hugs and kisses from the kids .. nice to know I was missed!!

I've been tagged :D

I've been tagged!! Actually I've now been tagged twice but due to my super slackness (shame on me) i'm only just getting around to this. I was initially tagged by Swie (some time ago) and then recently by thespottedsparrow

So now to share with you some facts (and i'm not certain if it's 6 or 10) about me that you most likely aren't aware of :D

1) I have a lazy left eye ... therefore I can move it on it's own while my right eye remains looking forward ... great party trick!

2) I hitchhiked through the Czech Republic ... bit silly thing to do but had always wanted to try it ... so I did! I also camped alone through Italy ... I am somewhat independant :)

3) I am extremely clumsy .. if anyone is going to fall down, it will be me.

4) Louise is my middle name and I always used to wish that that was my first name.

5) I once had a veruca on my foot that was cut out 5 times and it kept on growing back until someone told me to put a banana skin on it for a few days .. and it disappeared :D True!!

6) I used to play kiss and catch in my primary school playground .. of course, the girls never quite made it to the tree so we were always 'caught'. Come on, we were only 6 years old!!

7) As a teenager I delivered newspapers, did a milkrun, worked in a dairy (tiny minimarket), worked in a bakery ... all in an effort to pay for a trip to Japan and to have pocketmoney. Why is it I can't save money now?? Oh, I know .. I shop too much on Etsy!!

8) I can remember when popsicles (flavoured ice blocks) cost .08cents NZD (so that's less than .04cents euro). I also remember my brother and I being sent to buy mum's weekly magazine from the shop and being allowed to 'spend the change' .. it was about 0.15 cents (NZD) so about .06 cents euro, in those days it was a fortune! A lolly mixture was a lot bigger in those days!!

9) I will be devoted to U2 until eternity. I saw them in concert in Auckland, NZ for the 'Love comes to town' tour ... but Bono was a bit deaf that night because no matter how much I shouted 'I love you Bono' he didn't hear me :(

10) I am very interested in 'the unknown' ... I've experienced some unexplainable 'things' and I love it .. and I would LOVE to be able to astral travel ... I keep trying!

I hope I haven't bored you too much ... I know i'm supposed to tag others but perhaps i'll do that another day :D

My favourite Etsy photographers

Before I found Etsy I wasn't much of an online shopper .. to be honest I had previously only brought books through Amazon while living in East Timor (ummm, there were NO bookshops there) ... and now to my absolute delight I have found these talented artists whom I can proudly say that I own one (or more) of each of their works .... well soon to, as I only just purchased one more this morning ..

enchantedpond

YannPendaries

matchstickgirl

JKphotography

gothicrow

Making a caterpillar keychain ...

Today Mr Mailman brought me a package .. a very cute package that I had bought from ArtMind ... naughty little Mitsy sent something for the kiddies along with the two gorgeous cards I had bought from her ...

First the cards ... this is one I will give to an Australian friend for the birth of her baby boy .. it's so cute and fluffy!

Baby boy greeting card




This one I'm keeping for myself ... I live in hope ;).. te he he he ...

Happily ever after greeting card



There were some surprises included in this package (this is the naughty part) .. take a peek at what Inês, Gabriel and Simone made this afternoon ... This is the part we they learnt how to make a caterpillar keychain

Firstly they had to thread everything together .. which they did extremely well at their 'work table' (you can tell, it's got permanent drawings all over it)...



Then they had to pose for mummy to take a photo of the finished caterpillars ...



Thank you so much Mitsy (aka ArtMind) .. the kids had a wonderful time making the keychains and I totally love the cards!!!

An adventure ..

It was such a beautiful Sunday here in Portugal today ... the sun was shining and not a single cloud in the sky. I packed the kids into the car and we headed off for a mini adventure!


We ended up going to a gorgeous place I know ... Buçaco ... it is an old palace (now a hotel) surrounded by a massive national park FILLED with trees from all over the world ..... even Punga trees from New Zealand, which always makes me smile ...



There were hundreds of autumn leaves around ...


... and we found this massive old Australian gum tree ...


And decided to give it a hug ...



We enjoyed it, I hope you enjoyed our mini adventure too!