fragments...

This weekend has been all about just slowing down and enjoying my couple of days off..

Some good things...
* lovely mail on Friday kicked the weekend off; a book from Amazon, a Cath Kidson catalogue and a postcard from a friend
* chilling with a glass of something and some nibbles,(the nibbles are most important!) listening to this...
* i downloaded this app which works a treat to chill out to...
* a photoshoot in the park with a lovely couple and some sunshine
* chocolate croissants for a lazy Sunday breakfast - bliss!

Oh how I love weekends! I'm already counting the days to the next one...

the kindness of strangers...

Although last week was, 'one of those weeks' when quite a bit went wrong, (did I mention that I also managed to get a dvd stuck in my imac for 4 days?) there was some good stuff also.
A couple of weeks ago on this post i said how much I wanted this gorgeous book. A day or two after the post, I got an email from a lovely swedish blogger called Maria, who said she could make me happy, as she had this book but as she had so many books she would be glad to send it to me. Wow! Such generosity from someone who doesn't even really know me.


I emailed back to say 'thank you' but as I expected the postage would be expensive, (it's a hardback book) I asked Maria if she fancied doing a swap and I would send her some crafty goodies. She thought this would be lovely but put in her email that she hadn't expected anything in return.



So this is how this lovely book ended up in my mail this week and it couldn't have come at a better time as i've spent most of the week in bed with a sore back. Oh and what a book it is, such wonderful writing and the recipes look so delicious.

So thank you Maria for your kindness and your lovely postcard that came with the book.Oh and if you're reading this, your goodies are on their way...

so i should have stayed in bed...

So I had a lovely weekend. I chilled out and listened to this new cd that has just come out, pottered about, read through an old cookbook for inspiration and had a nice meal on Sunday.



Today is a different matter, I knew when the alarm went off this morning I should have rolled over and gone back to sleep. Firstly we had snowy and icy weather which meant it took me two hours to get to work, an extra half an hour. Then because I was in a rush, I ran down the escalator for my metro, only to slip on the last flat bit and fall over. I scraped my hand and knee and there's a bit of swelling, though possibly my pride was the worst thing hit! Then this afternoon I managed to cut open my knuckle on a tin can that I was kindly washing out for someone else at work - grrr.
So I went home tonight, decidedly more battered and bruised than I started out this morning...


Tonight I'm going to take it easy and do nothing - well nothing that might involve any clumsy behaviour on my part; I have an ice pack, a magazine and the new Toast catalogue...Tomorrow is another day, right?

the gift of jewels...

A short while ago, the lovely Se'lah of Necessary Room organised the 'gift of jewels' swap, where those who participated sent a little token of love in the form of a letter, postcard, poem etc out into the world to their swap partner. I was so excited when I got back from manchester to find mine waiting for me...

The only problem, is that I'm not sure who it came from, so that I can thank them, especially as it had all of my favourite things on it. So if you happen to read this ' thank you!'.

Also thank you Se'lah for organising this swap!

fragments of the weekend...

* a snowy walk in the woods * finding a frozen lake which I really really wanted to walk on but didn't * teatime with cake and magazines * realising my roses had faded but still liking how they looked * a brunch with the Sunday papers * a little creative planning...

This is pretty much how it went... how was your weekend?

sore throats and lovely delights...

At the moment I'm stuck in bed with a scratchy sore throat and runny nose and a little fed up but to cheer myself up, I thought I would share with you the lovely mail i've had this past week.

I meant to do this earlier in the week but felt so rough I didn't get around to it. I came home from work one evening to find a box from a swap I joined on Sofia's blog. (Go check out her delightful blog!) The idea was to send some Autumn comfort out and Sofia would assign swap partners. So the person you sent to wouldn't be the person you received from.

I put my parcel on the table upside down, (didn't realise as there was a label both sides lol!) then when I eventually turned it over to open - what a squeal of delight when I saw the sticker on the box which read Lobster and Swan.

Now if any of you don't know, Jeska has this beautiful blog which I've often looked at. So you can see why I was delighted, even before I opened the box and I wasn't disappointed.

Such lovely treasures

One of Jeska's beautiful garlands, (not sure my photo does it justice)

These are just some of the lovely things she sent, along with a book which is coming in very useful now I'm stuck in bed! Thanks Jeska!

Go check out Jeska's blog and Etsy shop, I promise you'll be swooning...

pretty orange delights...

A little while ago I did a swap with Sally which was fantastic. So much so that we decided to do another. This time Sally came up with the brilliant idea of having a theme which was '5 things Orange' as we are now in Autumn and we both felt this is a time of year when things are a little dull and we needed some cheer.

So, I was seriously excited when I got home from work a couple of days ago to find a nice Postman called Neil had left a little note for me, saying he had left a parcel in my shed...

Meet Nadine the goat!!

Sally chose such perfect gifts, apart from Nadine, She also sent me one of Amy Blackwell's fox prints - lucky me! and a quirky zine from Anthony Zinonos, a cd and a fantastic vintage penguin copy of Evelyn Waugh - A Handful of Dust which I can't wait to start reading...Thanks Sally!

giving and receiving...

Today was a lovely mail day - the postman, (his name is Ivan) brought me a lovely parcel from Sally, who is one of my flickr contacts. We decided to do a swap which was really fun as I've never done a swap before.

the ones I sent...

the ones I received...

look at the gorgeous packaging and the vintage childrens playing card is so sweet!

I was super excited to get some of Sally's chillies - yay!

This really cheered me up today, there's nothing like lovely snail mail - thank you Sally!

a little bit of happiness and a winner!

Hello and happy Monday! It's been a busy week and sadly the sun has stopped shining but still things could be worse!


If you're interested in a little happiness at the beginning of the week, why not head over to Soul Aperture a lovely blog that I've come across recently, belonging to the lovely Christina. Tomorrow for no reason at all, (10th June) she wants us to celebrate the things that make us happy and post them on our blogs. I know I'm in, are you?
Talking of being happy remember this post when I promised i would do a giveaway if you left me a comment. In the interest of fairness if you left more than one comment, you still only went into the draw once, (lol! but I admire your trying!) also, even though I myself left a comment, I didn't enter my own name, (though I was tempted ;)


I was going to get Sparky to draw out a name but A. as you can see, he wasn't that interested and B. his paws are a bit too furry so in the end I got M to do it. I was going to do the whole random number generator thing but I prefer the low key version myself! Drumroll please...and the winner is Hanna - yay!


So Hanna if you email me your address, I'll send you a little gift in the next week!
Oh...and an update on my Etsy shop, I've only got one thing in there at the moment, (lol!) as it has taken me so long to sort the pics of the pouches as Etsy keeps desaturating my photos when I upload -grrr so I'm trying to get a handle on that. I should finish uploading the rest of my pouches tomorrow! Here's a little sneak peek of my first item! In there as we speak!

so this is what I've been making and an announcement...

So back from being away with work and I promised I'd show you what I'd been up to on the crafty front... I'm pleased to say that everyone I sent a pay it forward gift to, has now received it - yay! and so I can show you what I sent out.


the little butterflies are from my packaging

I've been making little pouches to use for money, ipod, lipstick or whatever, (Martina says her camera fits in perfectly the one I sent her).



I then did freehand embroidery on each of them, (remember these) and all I can say is how much fun I had! Each person got a little pouch and a small photo print from me.



So... because I've enjoying making these so much, (and also because I have become obsessed with pouch making,and embroidery in particular and you can only use so many pouches or give them as gifts!) I have decide that as of the 1st June there will be an Etsy shop!


I am super excited, as it means I can carry on playing - hooray! I'm thinking of making two sizes, the small ones and a bigger size to use as a make up bag. If anyone has any thoughts on this, regarding useful sizes or just a comment in general, leave a comment in this post and I'll pick one at random by the 1st June and do a giveaway of some handmade lovliness! (oh and did I say I'm also thinking of doing photo prints as well!).

so we didn't go away...

We were meant to be going to stay with relatives this weekend but Sparky (our dog) has had a sore knee joint and ended up having to go for an x-ray on Friday.



By the time we got him back from the vet it was late afternoon and so wasn't worth doing a 4 and a half hour drive to get there, especially as Sparky is on short rations, as far as walks are concerned. Try telling that to a Collie - especially as he isn't bothered in the least by his leg! He also has to take medication for the next 10 days to try and settle things, as the vet doesn't know the cause of the problem. It happened after he had been on a 4 hour walk in the woods, so hopefully it's down to injury or an infection in the joint, though the vet said there is a slim possibility it could be some kind of tumour, although this is the least likely cause.

So, no long walks this weekend which was a shame as there were blue skies amongst the clouds.



Instead it was a catching up kind of weekend. Making bread, doing washing, (getting the benefit of those blue skies!) and getting nice mail. Some fat quarters arrived which I've been waiting for from Etsy and also some skincare from Korres. The smell of their stuff is gorgeous and also good for your skin as they use a lot of organic and natural ingredients. I try mostly to buy skincare that is natural and I also needed a new cleanser so thought I would try a brand called 'Yes To Carrots' which has organic carrot juice and pumpkin, sweet potato and Dead Sea Minerals in it. M was rather confused as he thought it was a brand especially for redheads and that's why I had bought it!



I hope you've all had a lovely weekend whatever you've been up to...

nerdy thursday...

Ok, call me a nerd but I have big style love for my new Ram. Who knew that 2 little chips could be so life changing. In fact I feel as if I should be on one of those commercials...ladies want to change your life? Then look no further...



Basically my laptop which I've had for about a year and a half had got sooooooooo slow. Now I confess this could be something to do with a. having Vista and b. the fact that I have about a zillion photos on there and don't back them up onto my external drive often enough but hey... So I finally upgraded my Ram from a 1GB to 4GB. It arrived today and I installed it and whoa! my laptop is like a new machine; everything works so quickly, my photos pop up onto the screen super fast and ladies I confess I have laptop love again. I want to trawl through the photos I've taken this year, (there are about 8 thousand of them lol!) and play again...

Apart from this I'm just enjoying May. M came back from dogwalking the other night and brought me a little posy of wildflowers from the bottom of our lane. So pretty and I love forget-me-nots, especially the way they glow in the evening.





I'm off to stay with some relatives tomorrow for the weekend, so I'm taking my camera and my (super fast lol!) laptop and going to have play. I also had a nice email from Rachel today to say she received her 'pay it forward' gift so I'll update the photos of what I've been up to on the crafty front next week sometime. Have a lovely weekend everyone whatever you're up to...

a bit of friday happiness...

Yay! It's Friday again and here in the UK it's the beginning of a bank holiday weekend which means no work Monday. Typically though it's raining here which is usual for a bank holiday but still, I'm sending out positive vibes so the sun might at least make an appearance, even if it doesn't stay long...

I've also managed to 'finally' get to the post office today and so all you lovely ladies who joined in with me for my 'pay it forward' give away - your gifts are in the post! Hopefully good mail might bring a little sunshine your way soon...

good mail and a give away...

I so love receiving lovely mail and today was a good mail day. Not that it wasn't expected you realise but still... I'm trying to get organised and make more time for craftyness and so to help me on my way I bought some embroidery threads from ebay. I love a bargain and a crafty bargain is even better. I found 100 Anchor embroidery threads for £14.99 - yep you heard me right £14.99!! I have a limited collection already but they cost me about £1.25 each so to get 100 for £14.99 had me swooning, so of course I had to purchase, it's only economic sense right?!



Today when they arrived I was so excited and I confess a little dubious to see whether I had been duped by some clever wording but nope; they were all perfect and lovely in their colours.



In fact I could have spent far too long just playing with them and arranging into colour combos but instead I started to play...A little sneak peek of the beginning of my little makes...



Check out this post of mine to find out how you can join in with a crafty giveaway from me.

pay it forward giveaway...

Hope you all had a lovely Easter out there in Blogland. The Easter break brought sunshine which was an unexpected surprise as the weather was forecast for rain...so cue lots of lazing about in the garden pretending that this was summer. A tease considering today is dull and overcast!


Just before the Easter break I received some lovely goodness in the mail thanks to Jodie from Appreciating Light as part of the idea of 'Paying it Forward'. If you haven't heard of the concept then check out this site which explains it in a lot more detail. Basically the idea is, that if you benefit from something, (a favour, gift, loan etc) instead of paying back the person who made your life easier etc you then in turn do something for others. Jodie sent me a little handmade gift, (which my photo doesn't do justice by the way - the badges are so sweet!) so I now in turn will send a handmade gift out to 5 others who in turn will then send a handmade gift to 5...


I love the idea of sending out a little piece of handmade goodness into the world, so if there are 5 of you out there who would like to receive a handmade gift from me and then in turn send a little handmade gift onto 5 others, then leave me a comment. If there are more than 5 of you I will draw the names. (I figure I will give it a week and then draw the names out next Tuesday 21st) As soon as I have the names I'll then email you for your details and send you a little gift in the next couple of weeks. It's up to you how you do it after that, I'm sending out my gifts quickly but I know others who say they will send out gifts to their chosen 5 sometime in the next 6 months, (could be nice if a gift landed on your doormat that you'd forgotten you were getting but there is always the danger I might forget - hence the sending out quickly!!).