A New Rug...

I'm a very very very happy girl indeed as yesterday my lovely man bought for me this lovely rug...
It came from Habitat and I had lusted over it for quite some time, well since I was promised a new rug for our lounge at christmas time. I couldn't decide on it for a while because it was little on the expensive side, but after too many evenings of lying on the cold floorboards in an attempt to get comfortable we finally decided to get it. Johnny even had to carry it the whole way home for me!

Here is a picture of it in situ, although the light in our lounge really is terrible...

And to prove that I didn't spend all day admiring my new rug here are some pictures of the little embroidery sampler you can see down there...

I've just been playing around with different types of stitches, as all I ever seem to do it the regular old back stitch, and as I have a whole book full of different types I thought I'd give it a go.

Happy Weekend xxx

Spring...

So it seems that spring is really starting to try and show his face around these parts...

This lovely treasury in which I was featured turned up on the front page this morning...

Curated by LazyGiraffe you can see it in all it's glory here, lots of lovely sunny items and the majority of which are UK sellers.

The sun is shinning very brightly here today indeed and I can wait to get outside and go for a walk.

A lovely surprise of daffodils has appeared on our roof terrace and have sprouted out of the plant pots that were left here by the previous occupiers of our little house. They make me very happy and as I have to walk past the window that looks out onto them on my way to the utility room it makes doing the laundry all that much nicer.

Carrying on in the spring theme, I took to producing some springlike green items yesterday, here are some pictures for you...

xx

Stripey Buttons...

Just a quick post today, after yesterdays essay, to show off the stripey buttons I made yesterday...

As always there are available for sale in my etsy shop and will hopefully be listed in Folksy and Dawanda this afternoon.

xx

A Trip to London....

As I mentioned last week I took my niece on her first visit to the bright lights of London this weekend. She LOVED it!! And so did me and Johnny. It was the first time I had taken her away before and got to spend a whole 3 days in her company. She lives in a little town in Norfolk, so it really was quite a cultural change to what she's used to..

I could go on and on and on about what a wonderful time we all had, but I'll try not to ramble on too much! We didn't get to do all the things I had planned but we still managed to fit quite a lot in considering we were only there for 2 and a half days. I lent Bethany my old camera and I'm afraid to say that her pictures are a million times better than my own, but I don't have any copies of hers to show you, so it's my, not that great ones, I'll be sharing with you today. What particularly amazed me about the quality of Bethany's photographs is that they were all taken from the height/perspective of a 6 year old, who most of the time couldn't even see over the walls and barriers and therefore had to try and position the camera in between holes and crooks to get a good view!

So the first day we went to The Tower of London Bethany wanted to see the crown jewels and Tower Bridge. As it was half term that was lots and lots of queueing to be done but fortunately most of the queues moved along quite quickly.

A quick note...if you do plan on going when they ask you if you would like to gift aid the ticket, say yes, it only takes a few seconds and you get given a free 12 month pass!

I enjoyed it because I find it so completely amazing when you consider the age of some of the buildings and you really consider all the many many historic events that have taken place there, it was reasonably expensive, but as everything else we planned to do over the weekend was free I didn't mind paying, I think maybe if you were on your own or with older children learning more of the history would be great, but we still enjoyed it.

Johnny came down on Friday night after work, we went out for dinner and then retired to our hotel...to rest ready for our busy following day.

Saturday...

We went to The Natural History Museum and the The Science Museum, both of which were two of my favourite places when I was a child and I wasn't remotely disappointed on visiting as a grown up. I really could go on forever about how wonderful both museums are, how wonderfully set out they are and how amazing all the staff were, but I'll just show you some pictures instead.

We didn't actually go and see the dinosaurs until Sunday because the queue was so so long on Saturday but we arrived at opening on Sunday and walked straight through which was great.

We also took a trip to Oxford Street and more importantly Hamleys on Saturday evening...my plan was to take Bethany to see Buckingham Palace, however Johnny didn't really want to go, so offered this choice to Bethany "would you like to go to Buckingham Palace, or would you like to go to the biggest toy shop in the world?". Well I think you can probably guess what her response was!

After Hamleys we took a stroll down Carnaby Street had dinner and went down to Piccadilly Circus to get the tube back, so although I didn't get to show Bethany Buckingham Palace, Cleopatra's Needle or the Tate Modern, we still did quite a lot and enjoyed every single second of it.

Sorry if I did end up rambling quite a lot, I just truly did have a wonderful wonderful time!

xx

Delicious new supplies...

After a horribly unsuccessful search through Cheltenham high street and supermarkets for some lovely new cake decorating supplies I was about to give up all hope when Waitrose called out to me on my lunch break yesterday. I made quite a trek up there but was not to be disappointed and managed to pick up all these lovelies...

And not only that, but also waiting for me when I returned home from my proper last day of work were these lovely tapes, from crafting bug...

All of which, an upcoming baking marathon and a weekend away, are making me a very very happy girl this Wednesday. xx

Happy Valentines...

These little ninjas have a little message for you...

I made this lot up yesterday, I've been meaning to make more ninjas of differing colours for some time, and my plan is to make batches of each colour individually, so with valentines lingering I went for red first! Not sure what today's colour will be....will let you know tomorrow!!

For now here are some more pictures of the luscious red companions.

As always they will be for sale in all three of my shops (etsy folksy dawanda) at some point today.

Happy Valentines xxx

Oz Bushfire Appeal...

I just wanted to share with you this shop that has been set up over on etsy to raise money for the Australian Red Cross in order to help with the bush fire tragedies. Many many esty sellers have donated items, all of which have free shipping anywhere in the world. New items seem to be added constantly, but by the looks of it they don't last too long, so you better get over there and have a look!! I've donated a Ninja Keyring, which hasn't been listed yet (I don't think anyway), but have yet to buy anything, I can't decide what to buy!!

So here are a few of my favourites..

LET'S PLAY Zippered Pencil Case

By Rabbit and the Duck

Button flower bouquet - sherbet brights
By Button Bower Bird

Magic Jellies and Gone to Earth.

By Magic Jelly

Like I say there are plenty more wonderful things on there and it gets updated really regularly, so you should go on over and take a peek.

Happy Friday xxx

9 Weeks to go!!!

Yep that's right I became 31 weeks pregnant yesterday!!! Who'd of thought it...and everyone tells you "oh it flies by"....it doesn't! It has been a long old 31 weeks that's for sure, but now I'm down to single figures to go, it seems that it might actually be achievable! And I'm getting increasingly worried about not being even remotely ready for another person to come live in this house with us! My sister asked me if I had packed my hospital bag yesterday, when my answer was "I don't even have a bag to use yet let alone any thing to put in it" she gently reminded me that she went into labour at 32 weeks with her first! So off to the shops I go today, but before I do I would like to share a few pictures with you....

Here I am, bump in all it's squirming wiggling glory...

And some pictures of the very first quilt my Mum has ever made, as a gift for her very first Grandson, the brief that Johnny has for the baby's room is colourful, so she stuck to the rules...

I love it very much indeed and absolutely cannot wait for it to be proudly shown off in the baby's room, when we get round to creating this room! On that note I best get on with preparations. Happy Thursday xxx

New Ninjas...

I was pretty lazy most of yesterday, I did venture out into the very soggy, wet slush, to purchase some craft supplies and a few baby bits from charity shops, but after that I mostly did nothing!! So by the evening I was feeling pretty guilty and set my mind on some new ninjas for the shops.

I made a ninja keyring a while back, and it sold pretty quickly, then the customer who bought the first asked me to make her another for a friend, so I thought it was about time I made up some more.

Here they are...

And then something completely new that I've never made (well not with ninjas anyway).

Earrings...

They'll be for sale in all three of my shops later on today and hope to make some more ninjas of varying types later on today. xx

New Buttons...

I spent most of yesterday rephotographing and restitching buttons to cards, but I did manage to make a few new buttons, which are available in all three of my shops now (etsy Dawanda and Folksy).

Valentine inspired love heart buttons (bit late I know!)

And...Giant bright coloured buttons (these are my favourite thing I've made in a while)

It snowed here again last night (when will it end!) but the sun is shining now so hopefully it will clear up soon so that I am no longer a prisoner in my home! xx

Baking...

So I did have a go at making macarons...it was not very successful. After reading up about them I never thought it was the kind of thing you make incredibly well on your first go...but still mine really were a big old disaster. I wasn't going to show pictures as I was so embarrassed by their outcome, but what the hell...you can all laugh at my failure!

They were pretty simple flavourwise, as it was my first go and all, just vanilla with vanilla butter cream, using fresh vanilla.Having spent most of yesterday afternoon researching these little things, I can tell you there are not even close to being a beautiful as any you might bring up on a quick internet search!!! But are they edible? Well they're not entirely inedible! If anything they are a little too sweet, but on the plus side they are not chewy like you might imagine failed macarons to be!

I may give them a try again in a few days/weeks after the misery of my failure has dimmed into a distant memory!

So I had a whole load of vanilla butter cream to use up and a need to re-establish to myself that I could bake (even if only a little) so I whipped up some vanilla cupcakes.They were delicious and perfect...as a result there were very few left to photograph in the daylight of this morning!

Other lazy Sunday activities included indulging in my favourite T.V. guilty pleasure of the moment Lark Rise to Candleford. It is very much perfect Sunday afternoon comfort viewing. Johnny insists he hates it, but spent the whole episode carefully poised between the kitchen and the lounge so he could keep an eye on the dinner and the T.V!

So Monday activities mostly include, sorting through my stock and rephotographing everything!! Quite a task, but compared to making macarons, an easy one! xx

Snow...

As anyone in Britain will know...we had a little bit of snow this week. Although it was quite a lot for us it really wasn't all that much, but did cause quite a lot of chaos, as it always does.

I still had to trudge to work in the slushy icy mess everyday, which wasn't much fun, but wasn't the end of the world. I did fall over on Friday, which was a bit rubbish....I got very very wet and had to trudge back home to get changed! But the most important thing is that the baby seems perfectly happy despite being knocked about once again (think he may be born with bruises!)

Unfortunately I made the mistake most mornings of thinking "I'll take photos on my lunch break" well there never was any snow left by lunchtime, certainly not any you'd really want to take photos of. As a result my photos are pretty boring shots of my journey to work on Friday (before I fell over that is!), but I thought I'd share them none the less.

Happy Sunday...I think I'm going to have a go at making some of these lovelies today...wish me luck!!! xx

Back Again....

After another unexpected absence (well longer than intended anyway) I am back, and I have now finished work and gone on my maternity leave so fully intend to be a good girl and post everyday!

I had a lovely time in Portugal with my family, it was great to spend some time with my nieces before I get too big fat or distracted with my own baby to play so much.

The weather wasn't fantastic, it rained quite a lot, but although it wasn't all that warm either it was a whole lot warmer than it is back here!!!

As you can see above the lemon tree in my Dads garden grows the most amazingly over sized lemons!!

Although to be completely honest most of where we stayed and what we saw was very much orientated towards British tourists, we did go to a couple of a beautiful more typically Portuguese towns.

Oh and we went to the Marine Zoo which was great...partly because there were hardly any other people there at all!!

My favourite of all, the manatee.

It was lovely to have a break, but returning to none so lovely British weather of the last few days was quite a contrast!!

Happy Saturday all xxx