farewell 2010..

year in review in no particular order.. zaccy started walking.. fell in love with blogging.. trip to melbourne.. launch of kasiabear.. hunky spunky turned one.. lelly lou started fairy dancing.. a number of hospital visits and stays in hospital with zaccy.. lelly lou turned three.. big boy designed the second largest aquarium in south aus.. zaccy got his first set of stitches.. lelly learned to write her name.. kasiabear was featured in a number of treasuries.. zaccy started talking.. lell got married to her boyfriend at kindy.. realized our perfectly ordinary days are what matters.. got a push-mower.. lell fell in love with bindy.. zaccy started singing.. enjoyed hours of craft with the kiddos.. studied screen printing.. kasiabear was published in handmade living.. said farewell to some amazing mums group girls.. was constantly amazed at how lucky i am.. found out i was anemic.. lell got over her fear of dogs.. zaccy got his first bee sting.. was vomited on hundreds of times.. fell in love with hipstamatic.. got back into photography.. had a happy santa visit.. started a dressmaking course.. blew dandelions.. found myself again.. got an overlocker.. submersed myself in my family and fell in love with my perfectly ordinary days.. and so much much more..

but most importantly.. we laughed.. we smiled and we had a whole lot of fun..

looking forward to see what 2011 has on offer..

happy new year to each and everyone of you!!

contact me..

hey.. so glad you're here..

my email is kasiabeardesign@optusnet.com.au

feel free to drop me a line anytime... whether it be a question, wholesale enquiry, a press release {especially for any handmade goodies you make}, a product you would like me to review & emails to just say hi..

i'm a big supporter of handmade so feel free to email me links to new products you've made.. and i love testing out new products {particularly art supplies}, but seeing i have two kiddos (boy & girl).. a husband.. a house.. a garden.. i'm a tech junkie and a huge applemac fan - i'll happily review other products too. if you're interested in giving up any of your goodies for a competition on the kasiabear blog please drop me a line.

due to the amount of emails that hit my inbox, it sometimes takes me a little while to get back to everyone.. but i do as soon as i'm able...

i love getting good old fashioned snail-mail! you can post lovely things, postcards or even a handwritten hello to:

kasiabear designs
po box 171
holden hill sa 5088
australia

have a beautiful day!!
kasia xx

wishing you peace, love and laughter..

i just wanted to quickly stop in and wish you all a magical christmas

wordless wednesday.. a trip to the brewery christmas display..

here is the last wordless wednesday post from me for this year

thank you so much to

Faith Hope and a whole Lotta Love

for hosting this wonderful linkup!

{kiddy art..} festive crafting with the kiddos..

Almost all the pressies are now wrapped and sitting on top of the bookshelf (safe zone).. We just had to think of something for Ella's and Zaccy's friends at kindy.. so with the inspiration from Emma over at Frog Goose and Bear, we made little bags of Magic Reindeer Food. Oh my goodness... so easy and so much fun.. Here are a few snaps..

ella was such a great little helper!!

these are the little cards i printed off and cut to size.. 

ella counting the little bags to make sure there is enough for everyone..  

basket full and ready to take in to kindy tomorrow.. 

my proud lil cherub.. 

ps.. i've decided to pull the {kiddy art..} linky and just do my kiddy art.. posts as we do art with the kiddos.. feel free to leave any links in the comments section, I'd still love to see what everyone is up to!!

xx
kasia

cracker of a year..

week-a-boo.. a sneak peak into our weekend

Before I get into my weekend post, I just wanted to say a huge 

THANK YOU to:

Claire from Scissors Paper Rock for hosting {week-a-boo}

Chantelle from Fat Mum Slim for hosting {point+shoot}

you girls have made me stop and soak up my weekends, enjoy my family a lot more and carry a camera around again.. it's been so lovely to reflect on the weekend that has passed and pick out my fave pics to share with the world... thank you!!

and

Maxabella Loves for hosting {grateful saturday}

you make me stop and appreciate all those little and not so little things that make me smile, that make me feel warm inside and that i am truly blessed with each and every week.. thank you!!

now onto our weekend.. 

All systems go around our place over the weekend with the lead up to christmas.. We had a fab weekend!! We got a lot achieved, the house got blitzed and everything is in its spot and everything we no longer need is out of the house.. woo hoo!! We snuck in a  dinner over at a friends place, we snuck in a trip to the brewery lights again and we hung out on Sunday getting the house ship shape..

I have been meaning to do this for a while and the time seemed right this weekend. I sat down with Ella and explained to her that although we don't have a lot of money and we can't buy everything we want, we are very very lucky to have all the things we do. I explained to her that there are kids out there that miss out on a lot of things, don't have a lot of toys etc.. It was a simple explanation as I wanted her to just start getting the concept of it all and she did.. We cleaned out both the kids rooms and got a big bag for all the toys they no longer use.

I am going to go through it today and pick out the toys in really good shape and donate them to our local Salvation Army and the slightly run down stuff goes to the kids child care centre so they can get a little bit of joy out of the toys before they hit the trash..

Here are a few snaps from our weekend.. hope you had a great one too!!

here are a few pics by ella.. omg.. i so love these pics!!

playing along with

Scissors Paper Rock

Fat Mum Slim

this week i'm grateful for.. my neighbours

This week was one of those mad ones that dashes past, a lot is achieved and you can see the results (thank goodness) but it just went and now there is only one little week left till the fat man comes and pays us a visit (i hope). On Thursday I did a post on "What I would like an infinite amount of..", which kinda helped me out when in the afternoon I was about to head out the door to pick Ella up from kindy. I did the norm of checking that I had my purse, phone and keys.. hold on.. where are my KEYS??? I choose to look at this moment in time as something to tell the kids when they get older and laugh about.. yea it was frustrating but hey.. it was funny too..

After an hour and a half of searching the house and going out of my mind, it was crunch time... I needed to leave NOW or kindy would be closing and Ella would start freaking out. The big boy was on the other side of town and couldn't get to her either. I then wondered over to our next door neighbours and asked if there was any way they could go and get Ella for me... and of course they did. The mum and the girls hopped into the car and came back shortly with a very excited little Ella.

Oh.. our beautiful neighbours!! We truly are fortunate to have such lovely people living right next door to us! And I don't just mean just one family... we are literally surrounded by amazing neighbours. We live on a 1200sqm kite shaped block and know all our neighbours, regularly chat, share produce, look after each others pets when holidays come around. I will write an entry just about all the amazing people one days (soon).. but for today, I'm truly grateful they are all here!!

our neighbours
i love them all!!

eggs
i was lucky last week to enjoy a cooked breakfast (while it was still hot).. today i tried to have one.. what was I thinking?? a small flock of seagulls attacked it a millisecond after it hit the table.. but i'm glad my little attackers actually ate bits of the egg rather than just demolishing it..

watermelon
oh how i love you.. i don't know any kid that doesn't like watermelon.. and its just hilarious watching them eat it!!

ps.. ella found my keys the next morning in her sock drawer.. 

joining in with maxabella loves blog.. 

skywatch friday.. i can't stop looking up..

more skywatch here.. 

infinite happiness..

The other week I was asked the question.. 

"What do you wish you had an infinite amount of 

or 

What do you wish you could provide your children with an infinite amount of?" 

All the normal things naturally flooded into my head such as health and wealth, they rattled around for a little while but neither of those would bring me nor my family true happiness.

We've gone through our doses of illnesses, especially since the birth of my little man. Although these were not the super serious, life threatening type of illnesses, they were still a little tough to get through at times. Rushing off to hospital as my little man was gasping for air and leaving my little girl at home was tough, having to spend nights at hospital hoping my little man would recover quickly and not catch anything else was tough. Taking my little girl to hospital after over two weeks of gastro and begging the doctors to do something other than just give her gastrolite was tough.

But ultimate great health is not what I wish for.. even though all those times of ill health were tough we got through them and we still smiled and laughed.

Our family is most certainly not wealthy either. My husband runs his own business and supports our family financially while I take care of the rest. We have enough money to pay off our house, eat reasonably well and put clothes on our backs. We would love to do so many things around our house but money is the barrier, we would love to take a holiday but taking time off would mean no money coming in, so money is a barrier here as well. My hubbies van is slowly disintegrating and mine desperately needs to go to a panel beater (not all my fault.. it was the verandah pole and the big rock). A tiny hatchback is kinda squishy with two kids, a pram and grocery shopping.. but there's not enough money in the budget to get a new van or upgrade to a larger car.. money is again a barrier.

But money is not what I wish for.. even though it would make our life more cosy (with a new heater), fresher (with a new airconditioner), more functional (with an office for me and a work area for hubby), more cushy (with nice soft grass rather than neatly mowed weeds that resemble grass), less leaky (with a new roof or roof restoration), homely (with freshly baked goods in an oven.. ours has crapped itself) and more visually appealing (with a bit of landscaping).

Even though we plan to do all of the above, some sooner (the oven) than others we still have fun and laugh while we run around playing a game of family grid iron tackling each-other on the prickly poor excuse of a lawn, and we get inventive as far as dinner goes.

The two things I never seem to have enough of is energy and time. My kiddo's are shocking sleepers so that bit doesn't help either, but I just want to do so much more in a day. I want to spend more time with my family, I want to have the energy to pull an all nighter like I used to in the days of university and finish all those little silly jobs, so that I can have time to just 'be' with the kids. I want to pull an all nighter  so that I can finish all the craft, sewing and design projects that are racing through my head and filling up my 'ideas lists' but never eventuating. I want to pull an all nighter so that I can cook a week's worth of healthy, nutritious and yummy dinners so that I don't have make dinner at the end of the day when the kids are tired and have their grumpy pants on.

So really the answer is simple.. 

I wish, I wish, I wish.. 

I had an infinite amount of 

energy 

so I didn't have to sleep meaning I could spend the night doing all those boring bits and spend the days with my kiddos having fun and when they are at kindy, I could just do my stuff.. 

But you know what, it doesn't work that way.. unfortunately!! 

So I guess the second on the list of infinite amount of something is... 

 love + laughter + fun
in our ordinary life

So that's it, I think I've answered my own question in the biggest round about way I could.. I love my life, I love the fun we have and I want to just keep going. We'll work towards what we want.. slowly save money to tick those expensive things off the list and we'll support each other in whatever way we can when ill health visits us. 

I just want my life with my family to be fun and make all the every day little things that need doing or that we want to do fun, because face it.. I do need sleep and sadly I can't stay up doing all those boring bits at night.. so from this day forward I choose to have fun doing them with the kiddos even if it takes five times as long to get to the final result or if the final result isn't what I initially planned.

Have a beautiful day!!

What do you wish you had an infinite amount of?

click here for more info.. 

wordless wednesday.. a perfect birthday present..

joining in with 

faith hope and a whole lotta love.. 

a little note: 

these are pics from last wednesday..

it was my birthday and my little girl

couldn't have given me a more beautiful present

than dancing in her christmas concert..

love you my sweet ella!!

point + shoot.. {week-a-boo}

Ahhh... filled with contentment.. one of those gorgeous, perfectly balanced weekends crammed to the brim with goodness... 

Saturday involved the kids childcare centre christmas party which included face painting, hot cinnamon doughnuts in abstract shapes which were so super delish.. mmm I can smell that sugary cinnamon smell in my memory now.. The kids got to bounce on a bouncy castle, play with their friends, got a little book each from santa's helpers.. and mummy stocked up on some cakes from the cake stall..

We then headed over to a friends house who was hosting an open house for last minute body shop chrissy orders.. so mummy ordered some goodies for herself.. pure indulgence. The kids got to play with their friends and I got to have a coffee and chat.. Lovely!!

Sunday started off bright and early as we headed into the city to my favourite cafe in Adelaide for a birthday brekkie for uncleW. A HOT brekkie.. oh my!! We played for a bit in the parklands afterwards and then back home for the little mans rest..

The weekend was topped off with a visit from auntieG with Zaccy's best pal and now pal(S) Cisco and Bandit.. There is something just amazingly special about watching kids and dogs play together.. and even more heartwarming for me, is seeing my little girl no longer afraid of dogs.. I miss my big fury boy that we had to give away because of her fears, but its very comforting to know that one day we'll have a dog of our own again and both the kids will love him and he can truly be part of the family.  

Here is a few little snaps from our trip to the big smoke on sunday...

playing along with

scissors paper rock 

and 

fat mum slim

tutorial.. recycled tshirt wreath..

My inspiration for this project came from numerous visits to my local fabric store.. the constant looking and popping of wreaths into my shopping basket and then putting them back as I couldn't quite justify the $30 on a wreath that didn't really portray us as a family.. 

I remembered that my hubby had some metal rings lying around in his shed from the days he used to make dream catchers so that was it.. the cogs churned and this was the result from items we had lying around the house.. 

for this project you will need:

.. an old tshirt - colour of your choice

or any scrap fabric.. i like knit fabric as it doesn't frey, but the freying factor could add a nice shabby chic feel to the wreath

.. a circle

i used a metal one we had lying around but you can either make one up from an old coat hanger or even cut out a doughnut shape from firm card or an ice cream box lid

.. a cutting tool

either a rotary cutter and mat or plain everyday scissors will suffice

cut the fabric into strips.. i cut mine 1 inch wide

cut the fabric into lengths of approximately 7 inches

fold strips in half and loop them around the circle.. 

keep going till the circle is completely filled with fabric strips.. pack as many strips as possible in so that the circle is completely covered.. 

done.. hang your wreath on the front door or anywhere you like really.. 

feel free to use this tutorial or share it with friends.. just link back to here please.. 

xx

kasia