Birthday week

Hi everyone - it was my birthday mid-June and I definitely felt the love from family and friends with lots of lovely messages, outings, and gifts that show how much they know and care for me. I thought I'd share the creative ones and you might get to know me a bit better too.
I've had in mind for a while that I would like to do another hand embroidery project. When I stitch, it's mainly by machine, but I did love when I made this Sari Ribbon project completed back in 2012 (I can't believe it was that long ago!)

In 2013 I felted this piece

Those projects were in my mind when I talked to my husband about this craftsy class by Sue Spargo which I received as part of my birthday present. I've watched a few of the lessons and it looks great. Sue talks about backgrounds, needles, threads, and you get to see her demonstrating various embroidery stitches and can watch over and over again - now I just need to start!

On my actual birthday, my eldest was home sick, so we weren't able to go out and celebrate as expected. Happily I had started a quilt on the weekend before, and while his Dad took him to the Dr and to collect takeaways for an evening in, I was able to finish piecing my 9 patch blocks

and then to slice and have first go at rearranging them 

This pattern is called Disappearing Nine Patch and it was the perfect way to spend a couple of hours on my birthday.
My celebrations continued through the week with a lovely dinner out with friends, and then a play day with other creative friends on the weekend. Some joked that they could give me lovely wrapping paper and forget the presents since I enjoy keeping the packaging for later use...who wouldn't want to use all this loveliness?

Some even buy packaging (and ribbon and reusable tape) with my art habit in mind - the feathers above are actually a fat quarter of fabric.... love that. So I began my page with some lovely birthday paper - hello letter box surprise :-) Favourite colours and shapes - they look like little explosions of happiness ♥ 

The journal spread contains memories from the birthday Tuesday through to the Friday and as well as including pieces of that gorgeous paper, I decided to include my favourite arty cards and the # Best Mum Ever assigned by my youngest on my card envelope ;-)

I have fabulous girlfriends who know how to treat a girl who has an addiction to hearts and butterflies

The candles in the wee receycled teacups are handmade natural soy and divinely scented. The beautiful stitched butterfly is a lavender pillow which rests beside my bed and helps me sleep. Another friend made a hand stamped envelope which I was able to pull apart and utilise as the base of my next journal page.

It makes me happy to have this in my background. She also bought me this set of 3 mini gelli printing plates

I have so many ideas about how these can be used....enough for a full separate blog post!
This page contains my memories of the weekend - it's funny how some pages contain a whole week and others just a day! I'll share the rest of this journal spread when the second page is done

If you missed my blog post about making those crepe paper flowers, you can see it HERE.

And you can see my Flickr album with all my daily journaling spreads from the year HERE. Happy weekend to you.