nooshloves

Bwahhahahahaha!!!! 25 Christmas flavoured Dad jokes

It's always good to have a few mum/dad jokes up your sleeve to get the silly season off on the right foot... Nurture Store have given us just that with these 24 sillier than silly "bad" jokes that will have the smalls in stitches... Better yet, it's been designed for you as a free printable so you can slip them into crackers, advent calendars or just pop them on the table for Christmas lunch...

When a kids bedroom isn't a room...

What with all the pre-christmas craziness of buying far too many presents for our kids (I know I'm guilty of that one every year no matter what my intention is when I start my christmas shopping...), it's sobering to be confronted with the reality of less fortunate kids than ours and gives us cause to be so very grateful for all that we do have.

Below are two images from a photo essay by James Mollison - "When a kid's bedroom isn't a room", which shows a portrait of a child and the room where they rest. All of them are disturbing in their own way, and the stories he tells about each child's situation only add to the weight of his images.

Above: 14 year old Erien lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The baby she carries is her third pregnancy...

Above: Samantha is 9. She lives on Long Island New York. She is a black belt in karate and has already been world champion three times...

These images made me feel a combination of shock and empathy for these kids. For how bleak their possibilities are and the narrowness of their worlds. Even the "priviledged" ones seem to have been robbed of their youth in some way. Parenting is such a tough road to tread. Often we struggle to make what we hope will be the right decisions for our kids - the choices that we hope will give them the best chance down the track to achieve what they want in life. But what's best for a child is so often very subjective isn't it? Would you be happy for any of these kids to be yours?

Meet my dream house...

On the vary rare occassion I find myself with a spare bit of time on the sofa in the evening, I like to browse around Domain and dream a little. It's all in the name of aspiration.... My husband calls it self torture.

Take a look at this little beauty I found in Camberwell Victoria... It's for sale for a meagre $3.45M - and worth every penny by the looks of it. Maybe if we all chipped in? With 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and a triple garage we could almost fit!

Idyllic. Even down to the tyre swing and the perfect sweep of the jacaranda over the sandstone path... I die...

Lots to catch up on....

It feels like ages since I've slowed down to write - hence there's lots to fill you in on!

1. Noosh in the news

A big shout out to Simone over at The Daily Buzz for this lovely post about Noosh today! It never gets tired for me seeing our designs and products on blogs and websites. Massive gratification... Spread the word people! The new range is so lovely and it's selling fast!

2. Fab new app for illustration lovers and card senders!

Now even if this app weren't the brainchild of my dear friend Felicity Loughrey, I'd still be singing it's praises because it is pure genius. It's called CardLust and it enables users to send e-cards to pals for special occassions or just because... get it on iTunes for less than the price of a single greeting card and send art and love to your friends and family. There are twelve decadent designs to choose from by Brooklyn-based artist Elspeth Tremblay and 12 holiday-themed illustrations by Gold Coast-based Sara Hingle. Share your message via text, email or pin to social media. Have a thank-you note in your pocket, a pick-me-up for a pal and never miss a friend’s birthday again.

3. My favourite new bevvy is....

Hillbilly cider! It's not just Australian made - it comes directly from the wonderful Blue Mountains and it's just in time for summer! Winner of a Bronze Medal after only four months on the market! - this isn't your usual sickly sweet cider - it's got a sharpness that makes it a real thirst quencher and when served icy cold it's the bomb baby! Check out the website for stockists - not suuper widely available yet but it's only a matter of time before this puppy becomes known and is unleashed into mainstream society!

Read to me.

So turns out it isn't just my blog I've been neglecting. Let me explain...

This week I finally dragged myself along to Hugh's kindy reading groups for the first time in forever - seriously, it's been weeks (I say weeks because I feel a bit bad about it but it's probably been more like a month or so... okay two...). It had been so long that I'd forgotten the names of the groups and even some of the kids! Rude!

The glaringly obvious thing that I noticed, was how well some of the kids are suddenly reading! I chatted to a couple of mums and they mentioned that they all read with their kids every day for at least 15 minutes. Hmmmm - needless to say at this point that I don't do that. One also told me very gently that she reads with Hugh in groups and he could be doing better.... Not in a bad way - she was so PC about it. I really wasn't offended at all, just horrified. Cue competitive nature.

Now in my defense, I find he really resists doing anything schoolwork related after school - and by that time of the day I'm exhausted and a little pre-occupied trying to achieve all the things I still haven't done for the day - like dinner!

But we started last night. He was super tired and really struggled. We put the book away and did some more at breakfast this morning. A thousand times better when he was fresh! I am determined to get him back on track. Oh the pressure! If I don't put in the effort with him now and he gets left behind in kindy with his basic reading skills how will he ever go as he gets older!

Isn't it interesting how much you learn about yourself once you have kids? I was the same with my own homework when I was a kid. I'd do the barest minimum that I knew I could get away with until someone pulled me up on it. Then I'd lift my game, make an effort and do well. I don't really want to continue that pattern now - not when it's going to effect my childs future... It's time. Bad Mummy is now BANISHED... Wish me luck!

What do you do with your kiddos? Are you big readers? If they're in school do you do much homework? Please tell me there's someone out there as slack a parent as me!!!!

Here's a great little list of excellent books for reading with your wee ones. They're all classics. Notably absent is Roald Dahl though - for this age group he is THE BOMB. A fave in our house - when mummy bothers to read to them... x

Boring but necessary

Soooo.... Fb has changed the rules again! You've probably already heard - but now you need to adjust your settings as shown below to make sure you get NooshLoves posts in your feed. Then we'll all be content in the knowledge that you aren't missing one inspirational thing. x

Room crush

What a perfect balance of natural light, vintage pieces, bright palette and beach-house vibe...

love.x

Frankie in Lime - YUM!!!!

What do you think? This combination is one of my faves. It's so fresh! We put out heads together for this new range and decided to add a couple of lovely new ideas to make having Frankie at your place even better! This one's called Frankie Sets. That's a $200 saving when you buy 5 pieces! And we even throw in a couple of cushions to get the look really happening. Just hop over here and start choosing! You can pick up extra covers now too so your Frankie's won't be naked at washtime...

And check out the Joey Geo's on the wall... Don't they just look great used as a frame? I picked up an $8 atlas from the second hand book store, added a little double sided tape and VOILA!

Frankie Summer 2012/13 - SNEAK PEEK!

Well well well! Do I have something special to show you today or what?!!!!

This is a HUUUUGE part of the reason I've been a little bit MIA lately. Between curating the new season collection of Frankie fabrics (which we are beyond excited about), getting them made, shooting them, getting them up onto the website for our 2nd birthday celebrations next week... Phew! It's been a busy time! But I'm so proud to say it's nearly all done. And we couldn't be happier with the outcome! We absolutely love our new range. It's a totally new look for Frankie and we hope you will all love it as much as we do!

Take a look and see what you think. This is a snapshot of every piece available in the new collection. Don't you just want one of everything?

4 Ace Spaces - That's a full house!

In light of the break we've been having from normal programming here at NooshLoves in recent weeks, here are four spectacular Ace Spaces (to make up for the ones we missed along the way...).

They are all from a gorgeous site I just found this week called Room To Bloom.

A beautiful vintage...

Images via Pinterest & Dekolor

My "big kahuna" project...

Isn't it lovely? I've been pining for one of these for an age. You can get them on eBay in auctions starting at 1c. Yup. A cent my friends! Though they rarely go much shy of a grand in the end. Which is a smidge out of my league for a gratuitous piece of furniture that I don't really need at this stage... Which is what led me and my trusty paintbrush to pursue other options...

Much to my friends' and family's horror, I snapped this baby up for a meagre $90! It's 2m wide and even taller than that! And as big as it is - it's even uglier than it is large. Yes, I admit it. It's beyond unattractive. Worse still, it's not even timber. And even worse than that - it had LED strip lighting inside the top half of it.... Enough said. It was sold to me as timber but that little eBayer needs a short lesson in construction materials because when a surface is cold and hard like that, all the fake grain in the world isn't going to change the fact that that puppy is some kind of plastic/laminate. My dear friend lovingly named this project "the big kahuna" - and that is no understatement.

After the panic subsided, I hit the hardware and picked up a supersized tin of White Knight Grip Lock. Awesome stuff. It should be called "The Primer That Sticks To Anything!"

Two weekends later....

It's not exactly what my wee heart desires, but it's better than no storage at all. And for a $90 outlay plus the paint it's not too bad at all! I just need to put some nicer handles on it and touch up all the scrapes my lovely husband added when he was putting the doors back on...

Isn't it just amazing what a difference a coat of paint can do?

Incidently, I did remove the LED lights...;) x

Magical Watercolours

Ever since I had my boys and the nesting hormones kicked in I've become more and more obsessed with art in my home. A framed piece on the wall can add so much personality to a room. And don't be fooled into thinking an artwork has to be a painting in a frame behind glass either - it can be anything you want it to be.

I love the look of collections mounted in box frames. My husbands grandmother passed onto us some gorgeous treasures she collected throughout her life including these beautiful bone handled knives - they're way too pretty to use these days (plus I'd be terrified they'd end up in the dishwasher!) and make such a lovely reminder of her in our home.

Even ceiling roses look fantastic painted in gelato hues and hung on the wall...

Via

Something though that my interest in and love for has never waned is watercolours. Aside from being very on-trend right now, it can be a spectacular medium when used well and always provides a sense of calm. Take a look at these little lovelies I found. I'm wishing for one of them to turn up in my stocking this christmas...

Via

Wicked whites

So I'm discovering that there are one or two bad things about not blogging for a while. The first and worst thing is that now I have come back to it, I've found a gazillion pictures on my desktop that all have a vaguely familiar feeling about them. Now I'm not quite sure if they look familiar to me because I saw them somewhere, liked them and saved them to show you... or if they look familiar because I've already shown you... So with that little secret disclosed, please excuse me if you've seen these before. I thought about just deleting them all but they're just too pretty for you to miss out on simply because I'm disorganised! So here they are - possibly for the second time - a lovely little collection of kids white rooms...