Happy New Year!!!

Sorry I haven't posted in ages. But just wanted to wish you all a very blessed New Year!

Still working on cleaning up our house and getting it all nice. Our house goes up for sale next week, and I am nervous and excited, and really hoping we can get everything done before then. But it's all happening finally. And at the end of January we move back down to Tasmania. We can hardly wait.

Obviously I haven't made anything new for my shop, but hopefully once we get moved into a new house, I can get back into the swing of things. I just don't know when that will be yet.

Anyway, til next time......

An owl-rific challenge

Robyn, over at Daisy Quilts put up a challenge for her viewers to take part in. She posted a photo of a cute little owl, named Otto, that she made, and we have to make up our own version of it. I couldn't resist, so I made one for the challenge. So, here is my Lil Otto. He's a funny little guy, so feel free to laugh. :-) Not that great of photos, just so you know. If I can get better ones, I'll put them up here.





Hope you like him. :-) And thanks, Robyn, for a fun challenge.

Another swap received

This came a few days ago, along with a handmade card. It's from Narelle over at Nell's Notions. A cute little snowman ornie! Can't wait to hang it on our tree when we put it up, probably on Tuesday. My kids are eager to put it up! Thank you for this sweet ornament, Narelle!!

Received another swap

This is actually from a secret swap I participated in, in a forum called Crow's Creek Primitives Gathering Forum - we didn't know who would send us an ornament. Well, this one is from Deb, and her website is Crow's Creek Primitives. I was just in awe when I opened this up, because it's quite a nice size, and the snowflakes are made from wax and smell devine. I was actually surprised this got through Customs/Quarrantine, because it has dried plant material in it. Thankfully it did though. Anyway, here it is...



Thank you so much, Deb! It's beautiful!

Next ornie swap received

YAY! I received my next ornie swap. This one comes all the way from Hawaii, from Kathleen over at Just Charming. Isnt't this a cute little sheep!!!! Thank you Kathleen! I love it!

Got a card made

Well, I got a Christmas card made. It's not prim, just something nice. I won't put a photo of it on here yet until after I send my swap off and my swap partner receives it. Don't want to spoil anything incase she just happens to look here. :-)

Thanks to those of you who left comments on my card post with ideas for me. :-)

Need to make a handmade Christmas card

For a ornie swap I am doing, I am supposed to make a handmade Christmas card to go along with it. Eeeeek! I have never done anything like that before, and don't even have anything to make a card with. It's quite daunting to me, because I have no idea what I am going to make. Anyone have any nice and simple ideas?

No more ornie swap sign-ups.

Thank you to those of you who have contacted me about doing an ornie swap! I've contacted everyone who has wanted to swap with me, and still waiting to hear back from one more person, as I only just saw her request. :-)

I'd love to take more people, but due to the fact we are trying to get our house ready to sell around the end of this month, I'm going to be busy with that, plus getting the rest of these ornies finished.

Thank you again, everyone! I am really looking forward to receiving your ornies! My tree will be extra special this year! :-)

The first of my ornie swaps

Yesterday I received the first of my Christmas ornie swaps. This is from Loretta, over at Under the Wild Cherry Trees.






Aren't these little guys just the cutest? I absolutely LOVE them. I'm such a sucker for snowmen!!!! Thank you so much, Loretta, for these sweeties! You did a fantastic job on them, and I can't wait til we get our tree up and I can hang these up!

Still here

Sorry I haven't posted for a while. I've been so busy with house stuff, and I haven't made a single craft item. Plus my hubby has been home the past few weeks so we can get some things done around the house before he goes back to work. So nothing is new in my shop right now. I hope I can get around to making something soon.

Added a new item to my selling blog

I added a cute little redwork wall hanging to my selling blog. Be sure to check it out. Link is over on the right. :-)

Slowing down, and moving

My crafting is going to start slowing down a bit for a while. We are going to be moving around the end of Janurary, and we have a LOT to do between now and then. We need to get one of the side fences fixed, fly screens put in on all windows (I think that is what hubby said), the roof fixed because there are some cracked tiles and it causes the ceiling to leak in a few places, fix a few holes in the ceilings from where it leaks, insulation put up in the roof, a new a/c put in, LOTS of yardwork to do, and not sure what else. And we need to do as much of that as we can before we put our house up for sale. And hubby wants to try and do that in a months time. Eeek! So we are going to be pretty busy.

We're excited though. We are going to move back down to Tasmania, which is where we lived before moving here to Queensland in 2006. It's really an answer to prayer!

But I will try hard and get things added to my selling blog when/if I can get the chance. And I am still trying to finish up a few ornies for some swaps I am doing. :-)

6 ornies left to swap

I have 6 ornies left to swap! If anyone is interested in doing an ornie swap with me, please let me know, and I will get back to you. You will be sending to Australia. All you have to do is swap with me one handmade ornie. That's it! And you can send it anytime before the end of November. I'm still working on finishing mine up. :-)

Ornie swap anyone?

OK, so I guess I will be doing an ornie swap through the forum, and another one that Pam from Cloth to Creation passed onto me. Thanks Pam!

So that leaves me with 7 ornies left. Would anyone be interested in doing a one on one swap with me? All you would have to do is send one handmade ornie to me (here in Australia) along with a Christmas card ( :-) ), and send around the last week of November.That gives us plenty of time to make something. If anyone is interested, let me know and I will get back to you.

Awww, the swap's cancelled

The swap I was talking about was cancelled. Well, not totally, just changed to a one on one swap, because not too many people joined up. That's so disappointing. I was trying to get a head start, and have been working on 9 ornies to start with, now I don't know what I will do with these.

I was really looking forward to doing this swap, because I haven't done one before. I'll finish these 9 ornies, but not sure what I will do with them.

I'll hold onto them incase they get a few more people to join.

Ornie swap question

I'm a member of the Crow's Creet Primitive Gatherings forum and they are going to be doing a Christmas ornie swap. I really hope a lot of people join as I have never done a swap before, and I think it would be a lot of fun.

Now, I have a silly question. For those of you who have done ornie swaps before, is it ok to sign the ornies you make? You know, so the receiver will know who made that particular ornie?

Happy October 1st to you all

Hope the month has started out well for you! Can't believe how this year has gone by so fast, especially the last couple of months! My folks came to visit us in August and stayed for 6 weeks - they left 2 weeks ago, and it's been sad not having them here.

Found some safety pins!

I never did find the safety pins I was wanting. But I happened upon a bag of ones I can rust up. But for some reason I am having a heck of a time trying to get them to rust. Not sure what I am doing wrong. I will persist!

Also, thank you all for checking out my selling blog. I do appreciate it as well as the kind comments! :-)

It's opening time!!!

Well, I think I am pretty much ready to open now. I have added everything that is ready to sell, and am happy with how everything looks. I hope you will come on over and check everything out.

Roundabout Primitives

Thanks for looking! :-)

Bowl fillers or tucks???

What is the difference between a bowl filler and a tuck? That has me really confused.

Missing craft supplies

I think I am going to go crazy! I've been trying all day long to find some rusty safety pins that I had in a bag, and I can't find them anywhere. I took all my craft supplies out of the cupboard where I keep it all, went through everything, and I can't find them. I know I could make up some more if I had some to rust up, but I don't have any, and I really need the pins now. I can't imagine I would have thrown them out. It just makes me mad that I can't find them.

On the good side though, I found some things I had made a while back that I had forgotten about.

I am very close to opening my selling blog. I just need to finish one more lot - a set of ornies, then take photos of everything, get those photos and descriptions added, then I think I am all set. I don't do fancy photos, as they tend to be pretty plain.

Don't you just hate it...

When you go to the store to buy specific craft items, and then you forget to get everything you needed. Well that happened today. I went to buy some raffia, because I couldn't get it at a huge craft store here, and then went to another store to buy stuffing which I completely forgot to do. Stuffing is such a necessary craft item. Hopefully we can head out again tomorrow and buy some since I am just about out.

It's hard finding specific craft items here such as spanish moss, pip berries, those little christmas tree branches whatever they are called that a lot of people use in their Christmas crafts, and just other things. I certainly have never found anything like that in the craft stores here.

Dust storm a few days ago

On Wednesday, down in Sydney they had a really bad dust storm. Well that day, we had strong winds here in Queensland, and the dust storm came up this way. It was amazing how it all happened so quickly. I took a few photos of it until the batteries in my camera died. But here are a few I did take as happened.


This was taking kind of near the start of it all, although the dust storm was worse down in the city which is south of us.


This I took standing in our driveway looking down the street. Starting to look orangey now.


This is looking out our bedroom window. The hill in the background is just starting to slowly disappear from view.


Taken out the same window just a while later. You can certainly see the change between the 2.


I took this photo a moment ago so you could see what the view is supposed to look like.

They say we are supposed to have another dust storm over the weekend, so we'll see.

A good day

I've been working on some more crafts today, which are just about finished. And I have been having some custom work done on my selling blog, which I am just thrilled with. It's my first time ever having something like that done. Even when I had my own website, I never had custom work done, although I did purchase graphics, and had to do everything myself. But it's coming along nicely.

I'm really excited about getting back into making crafts, and back in the prim world. I'm kind of out of touch with everything. I'm looking forward to meeting a lot of you through your blogs. :-)

New items coming soon

I am currently in the process of making Halloween/Autumn type crafts for my selling blog before I open it. Hopefully won't be too much longer for that.

Hello, and welcome!

Hello prim lovers! Welcome to Roundabout Primitives. I'm Andrea. Some of you may remember me from my old site - Bracken Ridge Primitives. Wel,l I am back, starting out fresh and new, and getting ready to open up a selling blog shortly. So stay tuned for that.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm 39, an American living in Australia and have been here 13 1/2 years. I met my hubby through the internet and we have 3 children - 2 boys ages 11 and 12, and 1 daughter who is almost 3 1/2.

I love primitives - extreme prim, cats, dolls, ornies, etc, you name it! I have been making prims since early 2004.

I do hope you will join me on my new adventure with Roundabout Primitives.