The Best Winter School Holidays Kids Activity

Happy Good Morning Peeps!!

It's a gorgeous crisp sunny morning in Melbourne, the best winter kind I think. There is nothing like going for a walk all rugged up in the morning when its freezing cold with just the hint of sun to warm your soul.

If I could pry these kids out of this warm house, I would, as I am normally heading for gym shortly but with the kids home I will have to find an alternate way of making sure I get my fitness in so I stay sane and patient throughout the holidays.

Speaking of holidays just popping in to remind you of our fabulous card kits a stocked up and ready to be sent directly to you. These are great to keep the kids busy even if you are going away you can transport them with you. It all comes in a clear cello bag you just need to add adhesive and scissors which may be an issue if you are heading off on a plane, but I am sure scissors are readily available for purchase wherever you go. Need a reminder of what they look see picture above. Now if you want a little extra added to your kit, you have to do two things. Head over to my fan page on facebook and add yourself by clicking the like button, you will find the link in the sidebar on your screen to take you straight there. Then read the special offer I have if you mention that you are a facebook fan on my wall. Easy Peasy!!

Catch you later!

Anna

Focused Friday - New Arrivals

This week has just flown by. I can't believe its Friday already and I didn't really manage to get everything done that I would have liked. Oh well... no time to dwell, I am just getting on with it today and doing everything I can before pick up time.

Since today is the final day of term and an early finish day and its also a Friday. Yes of course you know its a Friday but I have now taken to Sunny Mummy's little jingle for each day of the week. So every Friday is actually Focused Friday. Stacey's advice is to log off on a Friday and get everything you need to get done so that you can spend the weekend relaxed and enjoying your family time and chill out time for yourself. Makes absolute sense I think. For me it may not necessarily mean logging off, but just ploughing through my list with clarity and focus as much as I can and trying to stay on track doing one thing at a time and then finishing it rather than doing several things at once and finishing none.

Therefore this post is super quick and just to show you a couple of new stamps that have arrived that I have just loaded in store. There are also some great new papers and mini albums all found in the New Arrivals.

PS. Be sure to sign up for my Newsletter coming out in the next couple of days with a special offer you don't want to miss. Sign up on the home page.

Inkadinkado Clear Stamps

Beautiful Fairies

Inkadinkado Clear Stamps

Rock Star

Inkadinkado Mini Clear stamp

Admit One

A message from my son.....

Whoa the week has flown by quickly and am only just getting a chance to post this priceless moment that happended on Monday night. During the day my youngest Michael who is 7 was up the street at his friends house. His friend is in Grade 6.

Upon Michael's return after about an hour or so I asked him what he was playing. Well apparently he wasn't playing he was helping his friend Lochie with his homework. Oh really!! I replied and what homework was that, bearing in mind Michael is in Grade 2 helping a Grade 6. Oh I was giving him ideas on being healthy and how to live well for his homework. Oh okay, we talk a lot about being healthy at home and I go to the gym and we try and eat healthy home cooked food so I thought okay he may have had some suggestions....

a couple of hours later........ I noticed Michael on the computer typing something, as I approached Michael said to me no don't come any closer this is a surprise for you. Okay so I left it at that.

Well inspired by helping his friend he decided to continue the homework task on his own, below is the message he wrote me. To be honest I don't even really know what the homework task his friend had but I assuming it was something along these lines.

I have copied and pasted it here in its entirety, spelling mistakes and all. I have to say upon begining to read it I had tears welling up in my eyes and then when I saw some of the spelling I just thought how cute and had a little giggle. I am completely impressed and flattered and glad that he cares so much about his mummy's health. Moments with your children really are priceless, I am trying to remember that when they test my patience especially at 8am in the morning when they won't get ready for school arrrrgh!!

Anyway read and enjoy!

Anna

How to stay healthy and stay alive

Written by Michael aged 7

inspired by his friends gr 6 homework task


1. Eat healthy food and go for runs all the time everyday.
2. Eat all your breakfast and lunch and dinner and make sure it is healthy food.

3. make sure you play everyday and stay fit and healthy all the time.
4. Go to the gym everyday and do lots of exercise on the treadmill.
5. Drink lots and lots of water were ever you go even if you go to the shops.
6. Stop and think and make sure you don’t have any junk food all the time.

7. make sure you run around a lot when ever you are out side a lot.
8. make sure you play a sport other wise you won’t be healthy.
9. You shod run around a lot at school then you will be really fit.
10. Try to lose lots of wait all the time when you go for runs.
11. Eat less and exercise more everyday of your life.
12. If you exercise for a lot you will stay alive and live for a long time.

Haw to go for a run.
Make Shaw when you for a run you don’t heart your self.
When you go for a run make Shaw you bring a drink bottle with you.
Make Shaw you run prople all the time every time.
When you go for a run make Shaw you can run the distance.
Make sure you drink water on the way on your run.
Make sure you have got good runes on your feet.
When you go for a run make sure you go for a proper run.

A few New Goodies to Brag About

Good Afternoon lovely readers of my blog,

It has been the most beautiful and perfect day here in Melbourne. A nice relaxing day with the kids , long walks to the park, enjoying the sunshine and listening to kids jokes don't you just love those. Kids just say the funniest things sometimes!!

Anyway in between all the relaxing I have been loading a few new items on site and do still have a fair bit to go. I just thought I would pop in however and just do a little brag about some new products that are now available for purchase. Just a reminder that you can always find the newest supplies our in new arrivals dept.

First up we have some dual tip markers from Dovecraft in primary colours. Perfect to colouring your stamped images or just having fun using them on your pages and cards. You will find them here.

Another new addition to the site is the Scrapbook Trends Cards Magazine, you will find the latest edition May 2010 here. Full of great inspiration and cards. I am stocking this magazine because I believe the card standard in here is just stunning and my style as well. If you haven't already purchased this magazine and are an avid cardmaker, treat yourself and purchase this one you will be impressed.

Some new handmade goodness I have been busy whipping up some new cards and embellishments. These are always really popular with customers and usually some of the more popular card go quick. Some items are one offs. Here you will see some cute mini paper posies. You can order as many of these as you like. Great to add to cards, scrapbook pages, invitations, gift tags, customer orders, lolly bags, name tags, ideas are endless, plus they are soooooo adorable. You will find them here.

Also newly added are these cute as a button rub ons from October Afternoon Fly a Kite Range. These are a must have for your pages. You will find them here.

Well I could spend all day uploading all these gorgeous items on my blog but then I wouldn't have time to actually load them on my site. So if you love what you see and want more head in store now. Link is way up high where I began this post.

Enjoy what is left of the long weekend. So happy that school is back tomorrow I am gearing up for a very productive week or two before the kids are on holidays again, how quickly it rolls around, I bet the teachers don't think that though. To add to the pressure my eldest daughter has an extra week off, don't you just love private schools.!!

Oh well maybe I can get her packing orders!! somehow I don't think so....although a money bribe could do the trick. Okay enough said I am not really that evil!

See ya

Anna xx

Warning a babbling post ahead about healing, unrelated to craft!

Today has been a fairly easy and quiet day around here. No sports for any of my kids this morning, so no early morning soccer and netball meant a little sleep in. Although once again I have had sick kids this week, my son and now my daughter both have had some sort of bug. Just as well its a long weekend and with not much planned.

Usually when my kids get sick like this and its been a bit of a run of them being sick for over a month, I start questioning the reason, beyond the physical. If you know me personally, then you know I anaylse everything.... probably too much. So the first obvious thing that comes to mind when my kids are sick is that their little souls need some one on one time with Mum at home. Some down time without all the drama of everyone else being around.

Second thing I think is the house needs a really good clean out. Not just the usual clean as my house generally is pretty clean most of the time but, declutter clean. This comes from all the FENG SHUI research and reading I've done over the years. It's amazing how much crap we accumulate in a short amount of time especially with 5 of us in one house. Okay if you spoke to my hubbie he would say most of it is mine!! LOL I won't argue I just say I have an interesting and creative personality which requires lots beautiful and creative things surrounding it. Anyway the point I was trying to make is that too much clutter in our space firstly leaves no room for the new to enter our lives and secondly does not allow CHI or energy to flow which can create illness. Now I know most people don't even entertain a second thought when they feel sick other than popping some pills to get better and how soon enough will they be back to their normal routine, they don't even look within. The body is a messenger people!! Some might say it's that time of year etc etc but how do you explain why some people get colds and some never do. Actually I have a really fantastic book which I believe is really hard to find as it is several years old. The body is the barometer of the soul by Annette Noontil. My sister in law first put me onto this book it is truly amazing and has almost every illness or symptom you can think of and the metaphysical behind it in other words the thoughts and habitual patterns that lead to the physical manifestation we call dis-ease. Once you have this book you will never see illness and symptoms the same again.

To give you an example I am always getting headaches, have all my life more than I would like and I know headaches are pretty common. So you would look up headaches and the reason behind it. Now there are two categories for headaches front of head and back of head. Mine are mostly at the back of the head. So when I look up this one it says, "Pressurizing yourself through impatience that you have not done enough." As soon as I read that I know that describes ME perfectly. I am forever not satisfied with what I have acheieved and always wanting to move onto the next thing and do more, being so hard on myself. So once you armed with this knowledge, knowledge is power by the way, you can change the patterns. Okay the changing is the hard part, taking panadol is the easy way to just get through it and move on. When a condition becomes chronic enough you will make the change.

Another great book which I also live by is Heal Your Body a - z by Louise Hay. The mental causes for physical illness and the way to correct them. This book is similar to the one above. You have to keep an open mind though. I guess most people turn to this type of information when conventional medicine and doctors don't have answers. As the saying goes "When the Student is ready the teacher appears. "

If you have read to the end of this post maybe it's info you are ready for and needed to hear. By the way the information in this post is just my personal opinion based of years of reading and researching, condensed in a nutshell. Feel free to use it if it resonates with you and obviously to ignore if it doesn't

Enjoy the rest of the long weekend peeps!

Anna xx

B&M Cotton Bakers Twine In Store Now

The cotton twine arrived yesterday and so today I took the opportunity of taking some nice photos to display them on the website so you can see the colours a little more closely. The colours are super gorgeous and the twine is thick and soft being 4 ply. Each roll is 100 metres. This twine is ideal for tying party bags, cards, tags, gift wrapping, bombonierri or wedding favours, scrapbooking and many household uses. In such yummy colours how can you resist...?????

You can see the individual colours below. To purchase go here.

Lime & White

Orange & White

Yellow & White

Blue & White

Red & White

I have already starting using the lime my favourite colour to wrap in customer orders, too cute!!!!

Anna xx

Ribbons, Ribbons, Ribbons !!!

I have a confession to make. Actually I have several but not really things I can divulge on this blog.

I have a major obsession with ribbons. I justify this because I do use them all the time in my crafts and wrapping gifts etc!! Surely that's enough of a reason....isn't it.....???? If you're a woman you will understand I'm sure. I mean some people have shoe obsessions and clothes obsessions etc...

Of course you can't have all these ribbons and nowhere to store them, so to try and get some order and organisation to my ribbons I decided it was time for a ribbon rack. When one of the local scrap shops in the area closed down it was the perfect opportunity to purchase one, so along I went and purchased myself the ribbon rack you see pictured. You might also note it is already full and well not all the ribbons I own are on it yet...eeek!!

The scary part is that I have just been chatting with my sister who is returning from China for a little holiday and well guess what she has sourced for me which will be coming in the next couple of weeks, you guessed it more ribbon. Not just ribbon but some other gorgeous crochet flowers as well.

So there you have it not a major confession but nonetheless one just the same. I justify it by selling most of the ribbons pictured in my store. So if you love and use ribbon frequently you can find my little obsessive collection here, where you can also fuel your need for a new design, colour, pattern or texture of gorgeous ribbon to use on your next project.

Anna

Thursday Update

Morning Everyone,

It's bright and early on a Thursday morning (actually dark and early), so I thought I would jump online and do a little blog update. I sooooo wish especially on these cold mornings that I am one of those people that can sleep in, but for as long as I can remember I am just an early morning person. Then if I am awake I just lie in bed and think about all the things I could be doing so I just surrender and start the day.

A few annoucements. Firstly thank you to all the customers that took advantage of the 20% off stamps sale. I am glad I got in before the big Myer and DJ's stocktake sales, which was coincidental by the way. Anyway I know its a win win you get a discount and I get to clear stock. Although I know there are favourite products that customers keep buying over time, eventually because of the speed of new stock that is constantly being released in this industry, the changeover of stock needs to be reasonably fast to keep up with what's new and trendy. Who would have thought papercrafts would have become like fashion with several new lines every season. And yes I know the demand is there and that is why!!

Updating about the new Cotton Twine, this is finally in transit to me. I am eagerly awaiting to see the gorgeous colours and textures. As soon as the rolls arrive I will be moving them from preorder to in stock in our twine dept. Don't worry if you didn't place a preorder I have ordered plenty. I have also been in touch with the suppliers and suggested some colours which are not currently available, but which I have had many requests for. So hopefully there will be more colours in the range soon.

Well I think that's all I can think of right now. Once again a reminder that you can become a fan of Koko Vanilla on facebook the link is to the right of my blog. I find it quick and easy to update things on there so if you are a facebook follower come along and sign up to our facebook page.

Time to start the day I can hear kiddies rumbling! Have a great day to all

Anna xx

Stamps 20% Off Today Only

Morning Peeps,

Just popping in to say that for today only we are taking 20% off all the stamps in store.

In order to recieve your discount place the word STAMPS in the discount box during checkout and the 20% will automatically be deducted.

You may purchase any other items from throughout the whole store but only the stamps will accrue the discount.

Have fun and happy shopping and oh by the way make sure you share this sale with all your crafty friends.

Here is the link to the stamps in store - Koko Vanilla Stamps Dept

Anna