Hi everyone and welcome to my first column for Mining Family Matters.  I am very excited to be part of such a wonderful website. 

Kathy responds to your questions: how to buy books online for overseas delivery.

A little about me; I grew up on a farm, spent some time in Adelaide, SA, after school and then ended up married to a farmer and living about 40 minutes away from where I grew up! I have four children with my youngest just started school fulltime. We had a little celebration recently as it was his first day with no tears. What a relief that he is enjoying school, as he never went to kindy and starting school was a big thing. It is so great to be waving goodbye to happy kids on their way to school.  Now for some ‘me’ time...

Living in country areas, small towns and mining towns often means we are isolated from many services that others take for granted. This feeling of isolation has led me to spend time online searching for the things I love and trying to find better deals. I used to feel like I was missing out on so much living in the country, but now I am starting to feel like I can have my cake and eat it too!  With the introduction of the World Wide Web and the general ease of internet access, the gap between country and city is getting smaller and smaller. In recent years I have started to think that being isolated is perhaps an advantage, because we have a great lifestyle out here yet can still access so much on the internet.

It can be daunting to start searching and buying online, but I say get out there and have a go! You actually don’t need to purchase anything to be inspired by what you can find on the net and the generosity of all the clever people out there who are willing to share what they know.

Fabrics are at the top of my list at the moment, in fact some people think I am bordering on addiction! There are just so many fresh and new patterns available in every colour you could think of.  Colour selection has been made so easy for us with designers bringing out ranges that are made to go together – so no more excuses about not being good at putting colours and patterns together. Fabrics are an excellent and cheap way of adding something new, trendy and colourful to your home. They can express your taste or the season instantly and be changed just as quickly for little cost.  It could be in the form of a simple cushion cover or a more detailed quilt, or maybe even just glued on a cheap canvas and hung on the wall for instant effect that can be changed anytime. 

One of my favourite designers is Amy Butler – I discovered her at 3am one morning several years ago when Oscar was a baby and wouldn’t sleep through the night.  (Oh how glad I am that stage is over). Check out Amy’s story at www.amybutlerdesign.com. She has so many fabulous and inspirational images. She also provides many free patterns that you can download off her website to get you started. The one I want to attempt next is a wall canvas (glued I think not sewn) made with her latest range of fabrics – something I figure even the most crafty challenged of us all could manage!!  

It is always good to have a look at fabrics you are interested in on several websites before you buy. I have found the colours can vary from website to website and the pattern can appear quite different depending on which piece of the pattern they photographed for their page. If you can find a bigger picture it gives you more of an idea of the whole print. 

It is an excellent time to be buying direct from the US, with our Aussie dollar up around 90 cents US, it makes the designer fabrics so much cheaper (even with the postage cost) than buying in Australia.  I have found many of the shops are really helpful and have often refunded postage costs when they have found a cheaper way to ship. Please do not think I don’t love the Australian fabric shops – there are some great ones around and some that offer free postage, which always makes you feel good!! You still can’t beat shopping for fabrics in person but sometimes it is just not possible. I will tell you some of my favourite Aussie online fabric shops in coming months.

Snapfish

Who loves photos but hates sitting at the photo booth trying to sort out what to print, with kids climbing the walls?  If you can relate to this, you might like Snapfish - my favourite website for developing photos.  It is quick and easy to upload photos to their website and you can correct and edit, or make them black and white online if necessary. Photos are stored online so you can quickly reorder at any time and if you prepay for photos you can get them for as little as 12 cents each. Your first 20 photos are free when you sign up, and this is usually followed by 50 x 1 cent prints after your next order.  I have just used some free offers (a saving of $40) and made a fantastic photo book of our last holiday for Oscar and he loves it – what a quick and easy way to make the memories last.  Just remember that if you are on a limited mb internet plan, any photos you upload count as mb towards your plan (same as uploading to Facebook if you are in to that.)  Once you sign up they are always offering great deals and specials for members.

Please send me an email if you are searching for anything in particular, or want some more information on anything and I will see if I can help you out.  Hopefully I will be able to flicker some inspiration for all of you at some stage.