K just seems to love being outside! This house allows for that with lockable fences and gates and a fenced off area thats safe. Our last house did have some of this but it wasn’t quite as well suited for a toddler. Last week she had some fun with Nanna and Grandad outside as Mum bought her a little kids gardening set and a bucket.

She and Grandad even managed to find a worm in the dirt and she squealed with delight when she held it. She has no fear of anything and seemed to really like it. She cleverly put it on her shovel and we told her to give it to Nanna. Nanna of course appreciated that immensely (te he he).

Its been raining a bit here at the moment so we haven’t been outside so much. I don’t mind her getting dirty at all (and neither does she) although lately she has a new obsession – washing her hands. I think this is because she can reach the taps in the new bathroom. Everything is an excuse to ‘wash ands’ for her!! Hopefully the novelty will wear off soon.

I took some photos this morning of the hand stitching I’ve done in between everything else lately. I haven’t been listing anything in my shops over the last month and I have no idea as yet what I will do with these. With only a couple of days left of June, I still haven’t sold enough to buy 6 bikes for the Pastors in Ghana, my total still sits at five and a half. Thank you Stacey for your offer in the comments of the last post (I’ll be in contact!).

Anyway, here are the little things I’ve been hand stitching. The denim ones will eventually go into the shop.

And the Work In Progress:

Well, if all goes ‘to plan’ I have just 19 days left until we welcome our new little one into the world. Officially I am about 36 and a half weeks along but it feels like I’m full term. I’ve had enough, my back and hips ache and my tummy is enormous! People keep telling me that its better when you’re pregnant than afterwards, especially with a toddler but this pregnancy has been troublesome for me so I’d prefer it to be over.

I’m at that ‘hard to roll over, not sleeping much’ stage which is no fun when we still haven’t had enough time to fully unpack our new house at all. I’m usually one of those go go go type people so its quite frustrating to find myself so debilitated all the time. Creatively I have been trying to do the odd bit of stitching when I have a half an hour in front of the TV and I even got out some clay this week to have a play. Nothing will be actually created to finished stage though for a while, its more about keeping my creative hand in than anything. Anyway, thanks for following me along on here.

No piccies of me by the way, personal policy of not having my full picture taken while pregnant!! Here’s one of Kezi and my Mum having a great time cooking instead!

On April 6th I did a post called ‘600 hearts‘ in which I said that 600 people have marked my Etsy shop as a favourite. A week or two ago I made it to the 700 mark. Its nice to know that people are still marking my shop, its a way to keep track of the progress regardless of sales.

The money from all my sales is still going to the work of SIM each month. As I’ve mentioned before, the money for the months of May and June goes towards Bikes for Pastors in Ghana, Africa.. With just a couple of weeks left in June I thought I would mention this again.

I fully believe that God is in control of my sales and interestingly I had more sales in May than I have ever had before followed by a total of zero sales in June. The timing of this is amazing as June has been crazily busy with moving house and trying to prepare for our new baby.

The last sale I had was May 30th, we moved June 2nd. Interesting.

The total of sales so far for these two months is $US331.50. If I do sell anything over the next week and a half I have managed to find places for my creations and also the packaging I would need to post them so it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle. Custom orders however won’t be accepted for quite a while.

So, what does $331.50 buy for the Pastors in Ghana? It buys 5 and a half bikes for them!! Wouldn’t it be great to make it to a total of 6 bikes? If you are intending to purchase anything from one of my online shops, now is the time! Just $30US more in sales will complete the aim.

As a tempter, here’s a couple of the items found in my Etsy shop:

Keziah and I had a bit of time this last week to go outside and enjoy the sunshine. Kez loves being outside and it was fun to let her play. Our new front yard is fenced and it was safe to just let her have free rein.

The other thing I’ve been enjoying is God’s amazing creation. He’s so very clever!

Magnolia

Passionfruit Vine

Gum Tree

Oh and here I am!

One of my habits, which I enjoy is to sketch during the message on Sunday’s at church. I’m sure some people would frown about this but I find that I remember much more of what is said if I’m sketching at the time, something about association of images and words (someone told me once). Anyway, I do some of my best sketches while I’m only semi concentrating on what I’m doing for some reason, maybe they come out looking less ‘try-hard’ or something like that.

Last Sunday my hubby spoke from the first chapter of the book of Ezra and here’s the sketches I did while he was speaking:

At the end of last month I entered an online competition at the site ‘MadeIt’. The theme was anything to do with the letter ‘M’. My entry is entitled ‘My Mischief’ after Keziah. Voting has opened on the MadeIt blog, just click here to go and vote. Here’s my entry in full:

The last few days have involved a lot of unpacking, sorting and tea drinking! My parents have been helping me unpack which has been really great. Each day I think we get a little bit further through the boxes but its hard to feel settled in any way until the baby’s room is cleared and set up. Officially we have 5 weeks to go until the C Section date (from yesterday) which feels like a very long time away for me. I’m extremely uncomfortable and as big as a house! Here’s some fun shots from the last few days:

Fun in the garden

Fun with Grandad

Fun with Dress Ups

Me and the other end of the shredded paper!

Kez having fun in the paper

Oh what a pile!

As a break from all the posts about moving house I thought I’d get a new screen cap of some of my work for sale in my Etsy store. I had a little fun with it and did an in shop search under the theme ‘funky’. Here are some of the items that have the word funky either in their descriptions, titles or tags:

I then did a search using the theme ‘tiger’ as I know I’ve got a handful of tiger stripe themed items for sale. They look interesting all bunched together I think:

The profits are still going to the work of SIM, go ahead and have a little browse in store, you never know what you might find!