bought/gift/made /12

A (super late!) Christmas edition of bought/gift/made today!

First up, some vegan vanilla slice I made for Christmas. You can find the recipe here but a word of warning, there's lots and lots of sugar in these! One square was definitely too much for me!

In the bought category, a hand printed handkerchief by Japanese artist Kacoca. I bought this for my morning walks because the sun always beats down harshly onto my neck, so far, a worthy purchase :)

A super lovely card in the mail for Christmas, from my blog pals, the cat you and us!

And a close up of the cute printed gulls. 

 On a side note, when I went to search for the link to the scarf, I typed 'hankerchief' into Google. I feel a little silly admitting but I honestly never knew it was 'HANDkerchief'

Am I alone here?! :p oops!

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Snail Mail /10

So this utterly amazing parcel appeared in my mailbox the other week. It had traveled all the way from Spain, sent from the lovely Damaris who blogs at The Cat you and Us! You already know that she is one of my favourite blog gals and I'm sure we would be ultra friends in real life too :) Her parcel was so so special and everything in it made me do huge big smiles!!!

When you first find a Gachapon capsule, pastel pink and twine you know things are going to be wonderful :)

I made sure (before diving in) to appreciate all the pretty tape she had used on all the little parcels!

Wowsers! Blown away + cheeks hurting from smiling so much! I have to mention that adorable cat purse because I don't think I got a good close up photo of it. Damaris was also very smart to include the little info card inside to know it's by Kishboo! They make such pretty bags and jewellery!

Check out that adorable Christmas card, I can't imagine a card more perfect and yup it definitely matches our pink tree! On a side note we thought we might have issues this year with Peachy and the tree but she was happy just to munch on the bottom non-breakable ornaments :) OH OH and Japnese kit Kat!!!!

On an extra side note, it's been a really intense last week with Peachy suffering a brown snake bite.  Peachy is a warrior princess though and despite being still really sick, I have lots of faith in her full recovery :)  I might blog a bit more about it all but she's still in the thick of it so it's nice for me at the moment to distract myself with super happy things like snail mail!!! 99% of the other time I'm giving Peachy gentle pats and telling her how pretty she is :) :)

How frighten cute is that patch and sticker by Pony People, Ben remarked afterwards that I pretty much have to make that planter now - eep, we'll see might be a big challenge!!

The Japanese candies were so perfect, we both got to travel to Japan last year (separately *sad face*) and Damaris and Dani are still blogging their awesome adventures of Japan over on their blog at the moment.  They take such amazing photos you definitely need to have a peep!

Ariel biscuit! oh my gosh, how cute is that and I can personally say the apple crackers were one of the best things I've eaten :)

And then an actual Ariel pin from their trip To Disney Sea! *gasp* it's now one of the most special things I own, it's glittery and pretty and the clasp on the back is shaped as Mickey! How cool is that! I wore it out the other day and was super worried about losing it but it seems to secure really well so I probably should get over that paranoia! Oh and the Gachapon had Sailor Uranus!! Eep, so so wonderful and I feel so lucky to have received everything inside :) :) So much thanks, special lady!

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An Extra Christmas Surprise!

I'm so excited to share an (extra!) Christmas surprise that arrived in the mail. Australia Post is notorious for being super slack and not delivering on time, so I wasn't surprised this came post Christmas but it turned out to be amazing timing anyway (I'll explain in a second!)

Spotty envelope love!

I got super excited to see Gremlin got his very own letter from Juno! How super sweet is that!!

I may of harassed him lots with it :)

He he he!

But he came around :) Or perhaps he is giving me those suspicious "are you using me again for a blog post?" eyes!

Inside the package was a card for Ben and I, a card for Gremlin and a tree ornament which is so super sweet and super fee amazing appropriate!!!

So much love!

The Merry Catmas card for Gremlin had a reference to the Three Kings Holidays which happens on the 6th of January in Spain. The card was super sweet and inside was written that Juno had the super smarts to send this card just in case the parcel didn't arrive in time for Christmas but could still arrive in time for the Three Kings and guess what...it arrived one day beforehand!! Amazing timing!

Even though I've taken all my Christmas decorations down, I've making sure that these guys get to hang around for an extra month longer!

Thanks to The Cat You and Us for making our family super smile with all your thoughtfulness!!!

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Mermaids are Real!

So my ocean themed week starts off with the sweetest Birthday Present from The Cat you and Us. 

When the package arrived, waiting for me, after my Melbourne trip I was so confused as to what I had bought and so curious to peak inside!

*GASP* so so amazing to open the present and find these goodies inside that, yup, I got a little misty eyed! I then slowly unwrapped the last little gift to find, this home made present below...

How perfect is she! I still can't believe Damaris made that for me, so perfect and thoughtful in everyway! (I'm not even sorry for saying perfect so many times :P)

There was so many cute inclusion in the package too and how about that amazing tee, it's the softest shirt I own (and if you know me, you know my wardrobe is 50% tees). I've always held mermaids close to my heart and now I literally get to via this shirt with it's super sweet embroidery. I feel super pretty wearing it and super lucky to have amazing/thoughtful/sweet people in my life :)

Ben and I went down to the beach for a little mermaid photoshoot (Spoiler alert: the tee above makes an appearance!). It was my first time doing a photoshoot so I was a bit apprehensive. It's funny because I like taking photos of others yet I'm never really in them myself as you guys probably know! BUT - I had lots of fun and Ben was a good sport to play along too :) So expect to see photos of me soon!

BIG HUGS TO DANI, DAMARIS And JUNO xoxoxoxo

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More presents - happy shock!

I had a mail slip to pick up the other week which got me excited. Normally I'm pretty clued on to what I'm expecting but this time I was blanking out to what I had bought. My curiosity turned to shocked surprise when I ended up opening this amazing parcel from my lovely peeps (Damaris, Dani and Juno) who blog over at The Cat you and Us. It was beyond thoughtful and I honestly sat on my bedroom floor wiping back the tears as I went through all the little packages, so beautifully presented :)

They'd recently blogged about their adventures at the We Love Cats Market so I was tickled pink to get my very own tote! The other goodies in the parcel were so thoughtful and nobody got left out. Perhaps the happiest receiver was Gremlin who went super crazy when I showed him his snake toy from Santa Juno (Juno being Damaris and Dani's adorable cat)

Gremlin was so in love he even sampled a small bite - oops :P

Look at how sweet everything was presented!!! *squeals with delight*

(Thanks for posing gremlin!)

In the parcel was also this mega pretty bracelet from Polarite, which has become my new lucky charm and hasn't left my wrist since receiving :)

Ben was also included and now we both have the cutest Mr. Wonderful matching keychain set for our collections. Can you guess which keychain Ben picked - toast or jam?

There are a million gushing things I could say but I'll keep my ranting and gushing down and just say a HUGE thanks to Damaris, Dani and Juno.  You guys made our day, week, year!!!

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Snail Mail /3

I'm always so lucky with the magical parcels I find in my mailbox.

The one I'm posting today is from the lovely duo who blog over at The cat you and us
(who I'm sure, you know I love so much!).

 

It was honestly filled to the brim with the most amazing things!

Stickers and postcards and temporary tattoos!!!

And the two most amazing prints, Dani and Damaris are super awesome photographers and I always admire their photos the take. The black and white one even included one of all my all time favourite quotes "trust your struggle" which I've proudly got hanging on my wall as a lovely reminder :)

Eep!

I honestly still get giddy seeing all the goodies

Even the envelope was amazingly decorated (love Gemma Correll and her illustrations)

Another magical thing were these matchstick flowers

I've since started growing one

It was looking super promising with a cute little green sprout but before I could take an update photo and show off how well my little dude was growing his health took a tragic turn for the worst. I'm not sure what happened but I think perhaps he got too much sun one day? I've been meaning to start over but I'm so scared and not knowing why he died makes it even worse. 

Anyone have any experience growing sweet alyssum? I had him on my window sill which receives quite a bit of light and I was giving him a good squirt of my water bottle everyday and keeping him moist.I'm going to go with over exposure to sun and make sure the next one is a little back from the window sill - it's not fun to kill things...wish me luck!

Tomorrow I've got more mail to show off as I'm posting a lovely letter I got from my pal Sara!

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Pikmin Cat DIY

Today I get to share a fun DIY attempt. Damaris and Dani posted the cutest Pikmin Cat Costume over on their blog The cat, you and us. I first found out about Pikmin in a rather weird way, I bought a box of little character toys when I lived in Japan, it wasn't (shamefully) until early this year whilst playing the wii I released my little toys were from a Nintendo game called Pikmin. Just like the characters, the game is also super cute :) 

I must admit I made a few errors in my diy (even though it's super easy to follow) my first big blunder was going with some flimsy felt. I ended up making two layers of felt in each step to compensate.  The next mistake I made was not measuring gremlin's tummy - oops (tuns out he is fatter than I thought) so I had to sew on a little expander piece :p Other than that it was really easy and took me less than 30 minutes. 

After I made it I was worried that getting a photo or even getting Gremlin to wear it might be super tricky. I'd only ever dressed him in a waistcoat for my party so I was biting my nails! Turns out he was totally chillaxed and at the end even went to sleep with it on :) I did make the mistake of putting it on him when he was in feisty play mode and he did take a few chews of the leaf - the design though is super cat friendly so you don't need to worry about any danger! Learn from me though, if you make this for your cat put it on them just before nap time when they're more docile!

Gremlin checking it out! Actually please don't check out my stitching too much, I'm no seamstress :p

I ended up sewing the stem onto the band because my whole diy was a tad flimsy due to my poor felt choices!

Play toy!

A sneak peak at where I take my photos in my room :)

*chomp*

Thanks Damaris and Dani for a super cute DIY. If you have a cat yourself you should definitely turn them into a Pikmin. The materials are super cheap and it doesn't take long - perhaps the only tricky bit is getting a photo :p

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