Thursday, October 27, 2011

Pretty Gift Boxes

If you follow me on Pinterest you will probably know that I have a thing for gift wrapping. I absolutely love it.

The problem is (with the exception of Christmas), I'm normally so disorganised that at the last minute I throw my presents into gift bags and promise myself that next time I will go to more effort.

Well, with my nieces birthday and one of my friends having her first baby, I finally got around to putting that effort in.

Ages back I had pinned some gorgeous crepe paper flowers, and I decided to give them a go.

Turns out they were super easy.

I made this pale pink and gold one for Emmy's birthday present, and the pink and red one for Cat's baby present (the pink and red was a bit hard to photograph though, I think it looked better in real life).  I also wrapped the boxes rather than buying ones in the colours I wanted, I prefer the way the look when they have been wrapped.





 


If you want to give them a go yourself here's the tutorial I followed. If you do make sure you let me know how they turned out!









Wednesday, October 26, 2011

My Littliest Niece

Last weekend, my baby niece turned one. I know it's a cliche, but seriously where does the time go!?



Her birthday was on the weekend, so Sean, Max and I headed up the coast to help her celebrate.

My sister threw a small barbeque for family and a handful of friends. It was a perfect day and such a sweet way to celebrate Em's birthday.

My favourite part of the birthday celebrations? The wheat and processed sugar free cake that my sister Jenny made. It was divine! It was also the first cake that Emmy had ever eaten. She loved it!!



I will be back later on today to share the gift box I did for Emily's birthday present. It turned out really well!


Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Baby Love

Thanks for your sweet messages folks, I'm feeling a whole lot better now.

Seeing as I have missed a couple of weeks I have a few catch up posts that I want to do. The first one is from the weekend before last, when Max had a play date with the daughter of one of my close friends.

Max and Kate were born 5 weeks apart, but seeing as Nat and her husband live 3 hours from us we've only had a handful of play dates over the last two years. On most of those catch ups, they took turns alternating between ignoring each other or making each other cry. Cute, but not so much fun.

This time was completely different. For the first time they actually played together. It was adorable!! Here's some photos Nat and I managed to snap of them...

Max fell over and started to cry, so Kate gave him a hug. I think my heart may have burst!

Having an afternoon snack together.




Max absolutely loved Kate's swing and slide set.
While they were on this swing Kate leaned in and tried to give Max a kiss. So cute!



Hanging out with Nat, Phil and Kate has got me looking forward to Christmas sooooo much. Hopefully there will be loads of play dates :)





Thursday, October 20, 2011

Blogging From Bed

I'm just checking in quickly to explain my lack of posting this week. I'm sick. Again.

I've recently been diagnosed with an auto-immune disease (more on that when I'm ready to talk about it) and it has left me a bit run down. I seem to pick up every bug that comes my way at the moment.

We're waiting on tests to come back to see if I have glandular fever, but I'm fairly confident I don't have it. The antibiotics finally seem to be doing their thing.

I have so many posts to share from the past week. Fingers crossed I will be better soon!

x Tamsyn


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

More Baby Shower Goodies

As promised, here are another couple of things I've been working on for Erin's baby shower...

It's been ages since I planned a party and I am having so much fun :)



I can't wait until it's time to head down to Adelaide and pull it all together. Less than three weeks to go!!



Tuesday, October 11, 2011

DIY: Billy Buttons

I mentioned the other day that I've been gearing up to get my craft on for Erin's baby shower... I finally have something to share with you!

I absolutely love the look of Billy Buttons, so I decided to make some to use as decoration at the shower. They're super adorable and fit in perfectly with the yellow, grey and white theme I'm planning.

A while back I found this tutorial and saved it to pinterest. It really is a great tutorial, so easy to follow. And she even has a follow up post with some trouble shooting ideas.



My first one took me about half an hour - I made it way too small and spent ages slowly adding more felt to it. After that though it only took me about an hour to make all twelve.

Here's how they turned out...







I've also been working on another couple of cute things for the shower. I'll share them soon!


Friday, October 7, 2011

Loving: Instagram

I know I am a little late to the Instagram party, but seriously how awesome is it!!

Like with all new things I am completely addicted to it at the moment. Here's a couple of pictures I've taken recently...




So tell me. Are you on instagram? If you are, make sure to leave me a comment with your username so that I can check out your feed!

My username is Tamsyn_riley

Happy Friday!


Thursday, October 6, 2011

Erin's Baby Shower

I mentioned yesterday that I am planning a baby shower for my BFF (Erin). I am beyond excited!!

We've decided to go with a fun yellow, grey and white colour scheme. I'm aiming for it to be a 'grown-up' baby shower. Less games, more good food and company. Fingers crossed :)

Before I got sick Sean helped me create the invites in Fireworks, and I finally sent them out yesterday (with three short weeks to spare!).


I've started an inspiration board on pinterest (here) and I have so many fun ideas swirling around in my head! I did pick up some paper mache letters, twine and felting wool at spotlight today. So hopefully I will have a baby shower related DIY for you tomorrow.

In the meantime here's some of the images that are inspiring me (all can be found on my pinterest board). Enjoy!!





 If you have any ideas, or images that you think will help inspire me, please share!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Lumbar Punctures Can Bite Me

Last Wednesday I went in to the hospital for a scheduled lumbar puncture. My doctor said it really wasn't going to be a big deal, worse case I might get a headache... Either she was lying or has no idea.


The evening I got home from having the procedure I started getting a spinal headache (caused by a change in the pressure in my brain due to slow leaking spinal fluid). I could make it go away by lying down, so I spent that night and most of Thursday sleeping in bed (and snuggling with my puppy).



By Friday the headache was horrific when I stood or sat up, so I called the hospital and asked if I could come in for a blood patch (a follow up procedure where your own blood is injected into the epidural space around your spine - with the aim to seal up the leak and fix the spinal headache). Because I wasn't able to sit up without severe pain they hospital asked me to come in by ambulance through emergency.

When I was lying down I felt perfectly good, so whist we were waiting for the ambulance my sister helped me do my hair and make-up. Apart from the spinal headache I was a-ok.

Once I got to hospital they put a drip in for dehydration and then went about testing me for other things before agreeing that I had a spinal headache and doing the blood patch.



My Mum arrived just after the patch, which was a good thing because I was really emotional by then and struggling to hold back the tears. The original lumbar puncture hadn't hurt at all, but the patch felt a bit more painful.

We were in good spirits though, because the doctors were sure that the patch had worked. I spent the next four hours in the hospital lying flat in my bed, chatting with my Mum and playing hangman with my sister (via the internet).

After 4 hours was up they gave me some sandwiches to eat and I then was allowed to get up and go to the bathroom. I felt dizzy and nauseous, but I figured it was just because I had been lying down for the last 36 hours. The doctor came by and decided to keep me overnight for observation, but after running through my insurance card we found out that it wouldn't be covered (I was at a private hospital and I have only just re-joined my health-fund). The doctor (who was the nicest man on the planet) assured me that he was just keeping me in as a precaution so we decided to go home rather than pay the $2000 for an overnight stay.

While I was waiting for Mum to bring the car around I started to get really, really dizzy and nauseous. I ducked back in to the nurses station to triple check with them if I should be going home and they said I would be fine. The loaded me up with anti-nausea wafers and half a dozen sick bags and sent me on my way.

The ride home from the hospital was horrific. I was lying flat in the front passenger seat, to try and stop the headache that had come back, but was also fighting off wave after wave of nausea. We made it about halfway home before I started throwing up. It wasn't pretty. I actually threw up so hard that I wet my pants (bet you really wanted to know that huh!). It also triggered even more headaches, at the time I thought I had pulled something in my neck, but later a doctor explained that the throwing up would have messed further with the pressure in my brain. Mum and I decided to keep going home and get me into bed. It would have been a horrible car ride for my Mum, the car smelt like vomit and I was sobbing for most of the way home.

I took the painkillers and nausea wafers that the hospital had given me when I got home and thankfully slept through the night.

The next day I was still in a really bad way so about lunchtime we decided to call for another ambulance (I still couldn't sit up) and go back to the hospital. Only this time we went to a public hospital in case I needed to be admitted (ha - in Queensland, shows how delirious I was - our public health system is in seriously bad shape!!)

The beauty of going there by ambulance meant that I was seen immediately. They put me back on a drip and dosed me up on Maxalon (for the nausea), something else for the dizziness and morphine for the intense head pain. After about half an hour I was moved to my own room and I managed to have the best 15 minute sleep I have ever had in my life.

A couple of doctors came in and offered their thoughts. Originally the wanted to send me back to Holy Spirit, but I explained that I was still within insurance waiting periods and I vetoed that idea. They then sent down an anesthetist who wanted to do another blood patch, but I really wasn't keen on another spinal procedure.

In the end they dosed me up on more pain killers, gave me a few days worth to take with me and sent me home. I pushed hard for them to admit me, but the doctor said that they didn't have enough beds to take patients that weren't critical. I totally get that, but it made me wish like crazy I had already served the waiting periods on my private insurance. I was so frightened about getting back in the car to go home and going through the same thing that I had the previous night.

In the end (thanks to the pain killers, anti-nausea meds and being re-hydrated I was fine in the car.

I spent the next couple of days dosed up and in bed recovering. And now today, I am finally out of bed, walking around, eating like a normal person and feeling human again.

It was quite the ordeal and I am so happy to be out the other side of it.

I have to say an absolute huge thank you to my family. My sister spent five days (including her birthday) looking after me, as well as Max and her two girls. My Mum, who kept my house clean, sat with me for hours on end in the  hospital, looked after Max and me and didn't blink when I threw up in her car. Sean, who was working through a brand launch at work, yet still came and sat with me at the hospital and gave me the love and support I needed. My Dad, for dropping around and visiting me as often as he could. Aggie, my Mother-in-Law for taking a few days away from her business and looking after Max and I once everyone else had gone home. A big thank you to my work as well, for sending me the most beautiful bunch of flowers.


Hopefully everything is back to normal now. I have a big few weeks coming up. I'm planning a baby shower for my BFF, my niece is turning one and I am planning on stenciling the pantry.

Stay tuned!