Around here - Images from the last 6 months & Youtube

There are so many things I used to love doing when I was a hands-on Mum, especially taking photos of our everyday life and then editing them. It was something that brought me so much joy.

At the beginning of this year, I bought myself a little Canon Powershot V1 camera designed for vlogging, which is basically filming little moments of everyday life and putting them together into videos.

My idea was to start a YouTube channel and hopefully connect with a community of like-minded people who, like me, are trying to find their new normal now that the kids have grown up.  I guess it's also about rediscovering my creative side, getting back to the things that used to bring me so much joy and finding a little bit of purpose in this next chapter of my life.

I've created my YouTube channel, although I haven't actually posted anything yet. Back in around 2017, I learnt a bit about video editing and made a few videos of our family outings, which I really enjoyed. I also remember just how much work goes into editing videos — it takes about 10 times longer than editing photos!  Below is my YouTube logo, so stay tuned! I'm not quite sure when I'll have my first video ready to share, but I'm taking baby steps at this stage and hopefully it won't be too long.

Yesterday I spent ages trying to get my laptop set up with DaVinci Resolve, the editing software I used back then. My old version was from 2016, so I had to update the software and make a few other changes to my laptop just to get the latest free version up and running. It ended up being quite a process, but I finally got there!

That being said, I haven't even uploaded any of the photos or videos I've taken over the last six months onto my laptop, which is so unlike me. I used to use Lightroom every single day, and the last time I actually used it was to edit some photos of my nephew's new baby back in April.

So much has changed with Lightroom now, especially with all the AI features, that things I used to be able to do with my eyes shut I now have to stop and think about!

I think video editing will be much the same. I'll have to get back into learning how to film, edit and put everything together so I can finally start posting videos on YouTube. It's a bit daunting when I've been out of it for so long, but I'm hoping once I get started it will all come back to me.

Also, my birthday was about a month ago and we took my annual "Birthday Photo" with the kids, however I haven't even uploaded those photos from my Canon 6D yet either!

My Birthday Tradition started back in 2006 the year Sienna was born. Every year on my birthday, I would take a photo of myself with the kids and birthday cupcakes. Most years I used a tripod because it was just me and the kids, so there was no one else to take the photo.

It's something I've managed to keep going all these years, and we've only missed one year, which was last year in 2025. I was in Italy and James was off travelling around Europe on his solo trip, so we never managed to get my birthday photo that year so I have 19 years of images of this occasion.

It's such a simple little tradition, but looking back at all those photos and seeing how the kids have grown and changed over the years makes these memories so special to me.  This is a post from my Birthday back in 2023 with the photos since 2006.

Anyway, back to my little vlogging camera and the photos I've taken over the past six months. I thought I'd share a few of them here. They're all straight out of the camera, completely unedited, but it's nice to finally share them and document these little moments rather than just leaving them sitting on my camera.

Home Grown Roma Tomatoes

 

Around Here - October 2026

It's mid October already and only 11 weeks left of 2026 and as of today that's only 80 days.  I will be coming up to my 2nd Christmas at my town house and it seems like I only moved in yesterday.

I finally got around to ordering curtains from Spotlight which will take 6-8 weeks until they are ready and I think it's been 4 weeks now so they will be in before Christmas.  The curtains are for the living/dining/kitchen area which currently have roller blinds and these will be behind the curtains. I have 3 windows on one side and a large set of sliding doors which goes out to the back courtyard.  Speaking of out the back, look how much my plants have grown in one year making it nice and green and cosy. 

                                                                This was August 2025

This is Sept 2026

Here's some more photos of what's been going on lately.

Eumundi Markets for my Birthday and I bought a new hat off this lady's stall.

At Eumundi Markets.

Can't beat having some lovely dutch pancakes also known as proffertjes.

Chickpea Coconut Curry, haven't made it for ages so it was very enjoyable.

Homemade Sourdough Bread using my new Dutch Oven from Kitchen Warehouse.

If you aren't into Sourdough but want to make bread try this recipe for No Knead Bread.

Ricky [my bird below] and my sister's bird are staying here for a couple of weeks while she is on holidays.  As my back outdoor area is small I don't have room for Ricky and his large cage so both Ricky & Charlie [my sisters Cockatiel"] live at her place but when they are away they both come here.

Teddy enjoying a cuddle.

Thought I would post a link to the Chocolate Coconut Slice blog post from 2014.  The recipe is the from The Organized House Wife.

I like to post the recipes on my blog as so often I link to a blog and then they may shut the blog down and I loose the recipe so for my own benfit here is the recipe.

CHOCOLATE COCONUT SLICE

• 150gms butter - melted & cooled
• 1 cup of brown sugar
• 1 egg lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup plain flour
• 1/3 cup self raising flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup desiccated coconut

ICING

• 1 and 1/2 cups icing sugar mixture
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 20gms butter finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons boiling water

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 160c [fan-forced]
2. Grease and line with baking paper a 20x30cm lamington pan.
3. Place butter, sugar, egg and vanilla in a bowl, stir until combined.
4. Sift flour and cocoa into the bowl.
5. Add 1/2 cup of coconut.
6. Stir until mixture has combines.
7. Spread mixture evenly onto pan.
8. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until just firm.

ICING

1. Sift icing sugar and cocoa into bowl.
2. Add butter and boiling water, stir together.
3. Spread warm slice with icing.
4. Sprinke remaining coconut over slice.
5. Leave to cool.
6. Put in fridge to firm up before slicing.

Around Here - Botanic By Night NightGlow

My friends Birthday was this week so I gifted her a ticket to the "Botanic By Night Nightglow" which was held at the Mt Coot-tha Botanical Gardens.  It's a 16 Night Season from 6.30pm to 10.00pm from 25th September, 2026 to 10th October, 2026.

It was such a beautiful event with small red lights along the pathway and soft music playing along the 837 metre stretch.  I booked us for the 8.30pm session as I figured it would be less busy at this time.  We arrived half an hour early as I wasn't sure about the parking so we entered at 8.00 pm and it was no problem to go in early.  These events have times so to spread the crowds out over the evening but very flexible.  We were there for an hour to take it all in and we loved it.  I've been to the City Botanical Gardens Lighting events but this was very different and I loved it even more.  The animals were huge and apparently made out of "Lantern" material and one of the staff told us they they came shipped fully built so you would need some big shipping containers.

The photos don't do these animals justice as the lighting was beautiful and the photos look a little dull but can highly recommend if you are local to go as it's a beautiful event.

DINGO

GREEN TREE FROG

EMU

    

BUSHTAIL POSSUM

KOALA

IBIS [AKA BIN CHICKEN AS WE CALL IT HERE]

    

ECHIDNA

KANGAROO

Around here - Sewing Diaries - Quilted Zip Pouch

Last week I found this little Quilted Zip Pouch Pattern by Rosie Caldwell on Youtube and decided to give it a go.  You can purchase the pattern from here which was $12 AUD.  Like all the other patterns I have recently purchased online you print them out at 100% on your home printer and then glue or tape them together and then cut the pattern out from there.

I cut out the two smallest ones being pattern A and pattern B.  I made the pattern B first and gave it to my friend for her early Birthday present. 

This is the finished size for these two patterns including the zip size.

        A - 12.5cm x 10cm (4.9’’ x 3.9’’)                A - 10cm (4’’) ZIP SIZE

        B - 17.5cm x 14cm (6.8’’ x 5.5’’)                B - 15cm (6’’) ZIP SIZE

Out of 10 I would say this was a 9 as my corner end away from the zip wasn't perfect but overall it turned out great.  They are pretty simple to make and following along watching her sewing video makes it easy to work through the project.  The colour of the fabric is a really lovely blue which is more like the middle picture as the lighting in the first and last image makes it look a bit dull.  

I can highly recommend her pattern and video instruction.  The pattern comes with 7 different sizes of pouches you can make from an IPad to Laptop cover.  These pouches have batting/wadding in them to give them that nice soft quilted look.  The main pattern pieces are cut out larger than the actual size, then you quilt the piece then come back and cut it once it's quilted so to allow for fabric shrinkage when quilting.  They make a great little gift and I used a plain calico for the lining but having a pretty fabric inside I think would be nice.  Like brown with poka dots on the outside and maybe pink inside would be lovely too.  There are lots of free patterns and tutorials on line however I liked her pattern and tutorial and I like supporting small business also.

The blue below is the real colour of the fabric.

#sewing #handmadegifts #simpleliving #sewingdiaries #homemade #crafts #quiltedzippouch #slowliving #downsizing

Around here - Sewing Diaries - Toddler TV Quilt & Picnic Pants Set

In this post I showed you the toddler pants and top I made for my nieces 3.5 year old and the baby shoes for the new baby.  Since I had left over fabric from the toddler picnic pants I figured why not make a little TV blanket for the 3.5 year old.  The pattern for the Picnic Pants is here.

For the Quilt I cut out 4.5 inch squares and sewed them together and then quilted either side of the seams both vertical and horizonal.  All I needed was the backing fabric which cost $4.00 and a binding fabric which cost $1.50 so not bad for $5.50 using the leftover toddler pants fabric.  The blanket ended up measuring 28 inches x 32 inches.  Anyone that does quilting or scrapbooking will know these crafts are measured in inches even though in Australia the metric system started in 1970's.

Finished Quilt 28" x 32" [71cm x 81cm]

The back of the Quilt

      

Another Picnic Pants set I made and paired it with a little

$2.25 T-shirt from Kmart which I sewed on the little heart

The butterfly Picnic Pants

#simpleliving #hobbies #handmade #sewing #crafts #janomi# #toddlerpants #homemade