Feather your Nest Friday, 18th March, 2016.

Last night it rained and rained and today is cool! After a really warm week this is lovely and I think that maybe that is it now for the actual heat and we will have autumn weather! Three cheers, honestly, I am sick of hot weather!

I LOVE autumn! Out comes the crochet, soups, stews, pies and so many nice things!

The ways I feathered my nest this week:

I had the family coming for dinner for Chloe's Birthday. So I got my skates on and finished the hankies and packed up the sewing machine and put all that away.
Then I finished the section I was painting and packed up all signs of that too.
And then cleaned and tidied!

As it is a significant birthday I decided to make it a bit of a party.
Firstly we saved a lot of money having this at home. Secondly it was easy to decorate as I used our outdoor area and kept it under our little gazebo. My outdoor chandelier helped set the scene.

Chloe loves blue and all things airy fairy... balloons, butterflies, sparkles...

She was just expecting to come around for a BBQ so she got a surprise!

I bought a bunch of flowers and combined them with fake ones from inside...

And had butterflies on the table settings...

Everyone loved it and I was really pleased.  It set the scene.

I made a platter of lamb and thyme, haloumi and prosciutto with sides of crusty bread, olives, hummus, greek salad and sun dried tomatoes and everyone helped themselves.

I cheated and bought the cake.

Anyway it was good and Chloe loved it which is the main thing...

Harper discovered the joy of chewing a lamb bone and everyone went home with cake and other left overs. Also, I think,  her first balloons!

Otherwise I saved money by :

Not going to a restaurant!
We had left overs for dinner the next night which were yummy.
I did my nails and toes.
I painted quite a bit more and a burst at the end to finish the hallway and entrance area.
Painted a hall stand and freshened it up.
Used a $5 store voucher for pantry stock (on half price items of course!)

We also did lots of work in the garden and things are looking nice.
There was a crack in our plasterwork out the front and I repaired that.

So that was my week.  I hope you had a good week and would love to hear how you built up your home and saved money.

Today I have a few errands to run and Andy is working tomorrow (Saturday) so I think I will be back to paining! When everyone arrived the other night I got a lot of comments about how much brighter, fresher, even bigger things seem.... so my painting is having an impact now and it's adding up! This is encouraging! I have so much more to go!

Have a lovely weekend! xxx