A part of history....& a giveaway!

Hi ladies, how's everyone going today? Geez we've been having some HOT weather lately here and summer doesn't even officially start until December 1st! Oh how I envy those of you who are lucky enough to have a white Christmas! But I must remember that I just have to bloom where planted, and try not to wither and wilt in this heat in the mean time!

Today I would like to share with you something that I'm quite excited about. When I was a little girl growing up we had this old sewing machine in our home that belonged to my Dad's mother. I have always loved old things, particularly if they are a part of our family history. Anyway once I grew up and left home, my mum sold our family home and moved house, putting a lot of things in storage at a friend's house. I have been asking my mum about this sewing machine for years now, but for one reason or another we weren't able to get to this storage facility....until yesterday.


I'm just so happy to have this wonderful piece of our family's history back in my home! I can remember lovingly oiling this piece when I was just a wee thing, helping my mum around the house.......


Unfortunately when we rediscovered the sewing table yesterday it was in a pretty sad state and not as well cared for as I remember as a child, but to me it's still beautiful......


LuLu seems to like it too and has given her paw of approval......lol


For the last 17 yrs this sewing machine has sat just barely protected from the elements, but there wasn't a thing I could do to rescue it until yesterday. This morning we've cleaned it up as much as we can for now, but I will get stuck into it as soon as I can to really clean her up and bring her back to life!


I had always remembered this sewing machine as being a Singer, but it turns out that it's a Beale and Company brand.


I'm not too sure what this means, but I am assuming that it is the stitch sizes or something like that. A sewer I am not, so I'm guessing here.


I love this medal on the machine that has the company logo and says Advance Australia. This may sound a little silly to some, but when I read the Advance Australia part it made my heart swell a little. I love Australia and am very proud to be an Aussie girl.


So for now this lovely family piece has taken up residence in the laundryroom, until I can find a better home to display it. I'm just so thrilled to have it, to have a piece of my Grandmother really. My Nana died on the day of my 4th birthday. We went up to the hospital that morning to see her and she gave me a birthday present, Bert and Ernie hand puppets which I loved, then that afternoon we got a call to say that Nana had died of a massive heart attack. Little did we know that only 7 months later, her son, my dad, would also pass away from heart failure. Nana was 64 when she died, and my dad was 38 yrs old. My age now....


So anyway, you can see why this piece might mean so much to me. I love it, and I'm just so thankful that we were able to recover her no matter what her condition...


and now, speaking of vintage things........I was wondering if anyone might like to win these vintage Christmas baubles?


I have 2 sets to giveaway, each set containing a set of red baubles.....


and a set of yellow.......



To enter just leave a comment on this post. I'll draw the winner in a few days. Until then I wish for you a wonderfully happy week!

Love Amanda xxx

It's here!

Hi ladies! I hope you're all off to a wonderful start to the week? Just thought I'd do a quick post, before I race out the door, to show you the new light I was talking about a couple of posts ago. It arrived last Tuesday and on the weekend my handy handsome husband installed it for me. Yay!


and here it is...........


before this light was installed we just had the down lights that were already in the house when we bought it, but I have always hated them, so when this little beauty came along I thought it was perfect for Jacaranda Cottage!


I can't decide now if I want to use these black dining chairs to enhance the new chandelier or if I should go back to the white chairs from the other post. Hhhhmmmm...what's a girl to do? What do you all think?


anyhoo, no matter what chairs are there, I just LOVE our new light that I got online from buyster lighting and I hope you do too!


In my next post I have something that I am really excited about to show you! Wishing you all a terrific week ahead. Gotta run..........love Amanda xxx

LuLu's been a busy bee...

Good morning ladies! Can you believe how fast time is going?! Another week is over, and we're down to 35 days till Christmas already!

This little lady, Miss LuLu La Rue has been a very busy bee of late. There's been exploring to do, and sniffing too...


yes, LuLu has been a busy little girl.....


playing with her favourite piece of string takes a great deal of her time....


it has to be investigated anew each and every day....


quality tested......


and approved.....


then there's the really important stuff to do like catching a quick 40 winks...


but then with Christmas drawing near, it's time to get all gussied up in your Christmas finest to pose for the family Christmas card photo.....


which will then be sent to all our family, friends and acquaintance's.....


some of which are just from LuLu, like the one to our Vet......


and now after all of LuLu's hard work and a helping paw for her mummy, our family Christmas cards are all ready to send out on December 1st....


See, I told you LuLu's been a very busy bee of late. And she asked me to tell you all that she hopes you have a lovely weekend and wishes you as much fun as she has!

Ho Ho Ho........Amanda & LuLu La Rue xxx

The next generation....

Good morning ladies! I hope you're all well and having a lovely week? Today I thought I'd share with you one of the things that's been happening here at Jacaranda Cottage......

This lovely young woman is our darling daughter, our baby, our precious princess...


and right now she's doing this! Oh my!


and according to the learn to drive guide, she had better be aware of these when she's driving......lol


yes, my baby who's nearly sweet 16, will be taking her learners test in January so there's been lots of studying......


and some practical driving experience with dear ole dad......


Good ole dad......who'll guide her on her way with good advice......


and always ready to jump in with a helping hand if need be.....


cruising around and around the neighbourhood......


even if it is a little stressful.....for the instructor! Princess looks like she's having a ball, while her daddy........well let's just say he was glad when the FIRST lesson was o-v-e-r. LOL


all kidding aside though, our baby did a great job and gives us the feeling that she'll be a really good and responsible driver in the not too distant future.....


and of course, good ole dad has a motto....


"if you want to drive it, you have to wash it!"


and naturally being the loving mother that I am, I wanted to give my baby as much practice as I could, so I offered my truck up for a washing too after Princess had finished washing her daddy's car. That was good of me, wasn't it. heheheh.....



Wishing you all a wonderful day my dear friends!

Love Amanda xxx

A little gift for the cottage.......

Hi Ladies, I've missed you! I trust you've all been well and happy, and for most of you, preparing for your upcoming Thanksgiving season? Since we don't celebrate Thanksgiving here, Down Under, I have started decorating our little Jacaranda Cottage for the Christmas season. Our family loves Christmas very much, so Princess and I were delighted to drag out all the boxes from the shed last weekend and start decorating! Today I thought I'd show you just a few little areas that we've been working on........

Princess was in charge of decorating all of our Christmas trees this year. This little tree sits upon our dining table and has a pink and silver theme to it. I think my daughter did a really nice job of it too. Thank you for all your help my angelheart!


It's amazing how one thing leads to another around here and nothing ever turns out to be as simple as I first think. Since last Christmas I have collected quite a few soup tureens, which normally grace the top of the china cabinet through out the year. Now that Christmas is coming, naturally I wanted to decorate the china cabinet with a more festive look, so that meant that I had to re-house the tureens. I had the brilliant idea of putting them up on the top of the kitchen cabinets, and of course that meant a big clean out of the things that were already up there.......you get the idea. Sorting, cleaning, rearranging.....and this is what it looks like now.


All of my soup tureens couldn't quite fit in the kitchen so a couple of them had to spill over onto the hutch..........


I'm still pottering and tweaking with decorations, but this is the current look. Planning on going thrifting again soon, so this is highly likely to change, yet again, depending on what I find! lol


I took this photo of the dining area to mainly show you the lighting. I really dislike the down light above the dining table, so I have decided to treat our little Jacaranda Cottage to an early Christmas gift......


and here it is.......


this gorgeous light is just what I've been wanting for this area and I believe that it will really lift the whole area and make it more inviting. I'm not a big online shopper, but only because I am a very hands on type person and I'm always out and about poking through the stores (both new and thrift) looking for a lovely bargain for the cottage. Recently though I happened upon this online lighting store called buyster lighting and found so many beautiful lamps and lights that I was almost beside myself with excitement! After a good long look through the store, I controlled my drooling over the chandeliers, and placed an order for this little sweetie. Hopefully it will arrive asap and I will have my handy, handsome husband to install the new light. Naturally you will be the first to know when this happens my dear friends!

Anyhoo, I guess I should shake my tail feather and get hopping. Life is officially hectic here right now. Princess is just about to complete her final year of school, also she has her end of year dance concert very soon, and we're preparing for our darling little girl, our baby, to go for her........drivers license! Throw all that on top of the regular stuff life sends our way and well.........busy and stressed! Please just hang in there with me for another couple of weeks and then things should be far more settled and I'll have time for regular blogging and visiting. Until then though, just know that I am thinking of you and wishing you all the most wonderful season ahead!

Lots of love and hugs........Amanda xxx