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!

one down...

The weather was so fantastic and sunny this past weekend that all I wanted to do was lie on the grass and read and pretend that I was on my holidays. Sadly I was super busy on Saturday helping relatives move house so I had to wait until Sunday.


On Sunday the sky was sooo blue and the sun so hot that I could have been somewhere exotic, instead of in my back garden. All I did was read and laze and read and laze...and eat strawberries and cream and read a bit more.



...while explaining to Sparky that really, it was too hot to go on another dog walk and if he could read, he would understand why it wasn't wrong to be reading the same books as my 13year old niece.

So that's the first book finished and I'm already onto the second...

change of plans...

Mmmm so... the idea was to have my little Etsy shop up and running from tomorrow...but I'm still waiting for labels to go inside my pouches and some photo prints! No matter, instead of opening tomorrow I'll now open the following Monday on June the 8th! Some things are worth waiting for (lol!).



The good news, is that there's still time to leave a comment on this post to be entered into a giveaway for some handmade goodies, as instead of drawing a name tomorrow I'll do it the next Monday.

Hope you're all enjoying the sun, wherever you are! (I can't believe it's still hot here - hooray!!)

secret gardens and boats shaped like swans...

We had a lovely few days away visiting relatives down South. The sun shone, which made a nice change! My sister in law has a gorgeous garden which is really large but my favourite part reminds me of a secret garden, as you have to go through a lovely iron gate with an old fashioned bell at the side to get in.


The garden itself is so lovely, (my photo doesn't do it justice) with trees and flowers, all surrounded by an old brick wall. (My photo only shows the path down the middle of the garden but there is a path each side also.) At the very bottom it opens up into an arboretum. It's such a lovely place to wander around especially in the sun, almost like being in a story book, miles away from the real world!



Yesterday I was back home again and so went to see my sister and my lovely nieces who are 13rs and nearly 15years. Our day involved a walk in the park, a trip on a boating lake, (in a boat that was shaped like a swan!) followed by an ice cream. Then back home to theirs to play on this . Ok I confess I must be the only person in the world who hadn't played on this until yesterday - but seriously how much fun?!! Obviously helped by the fact that I managed to increase my fitness age by twenty years in the space of an hour, so I felt like i'd achieved something,(not to mention the indignity of starting with a fitness level 8 years older than I am!!) and I managed to top the leader board in a couple of things!!


I had such a lovely day full of laughter and fun and the best bit, is that I came away with these books, (thanks to my lovely niece, who has promised to give me the 4th one also!). I hear they are a little bit addictive...

this week...

There's been lots going on. Sparky went back to the vet and all is well. The vet thinks the problem with his knee joint must have come from trauma, rather than an infection. It's possible that when he was romping through the heather he ran into a rock and as he is so hardy he probably wouldn't have yelped much. So good news. He still has to go easy for the next couple of weeks when walking but he's a happy dog!



The other thing that happened this week, is that we had a viewer come to look at our house on Thursday evening, so cue lots of tidying up! It's not that we're super untidy just that we have lots of things - books, notebooks, pens, sewing stuff etc just all the things I'm using at any one time which all needed putting away!



We still haven't heard the outcome yet(and as it's a bank holiday weekend we'll probably not hear anything until next week)but on the plus side, everything is nice and tidy!

It's also rained a lot this week and one day we even had hailstones but the good side is that all the rain is good for the garden! I got some lovely lilacs from a place not far from where I live which at one time would have been a little house with a tiny garden but is now just a wild patch with no sign anyone even had a dwelling there. Funny how the reminders of the past are there in the planting...


Hope you're all having a lovely weekend, we're off to see relatives for a couple of days tomorrow. No internet access sadly but I'm taking my embroidery and my camera and apparently it's 25 celcius down there, (only 15 C here!)so I'm looking forward to some sun!!

a greeny, rainy weekend...

Hello there! This weekend was a greeny, rainy type of weekend. I really love the greeness that's around at this time of year, so new and raw in it's loveliness. No matter how many times it happens, I still can't get over the excitement when the seedlings start to shoot. ( I mean really, all this from a seed - how fantastic!). So, even though it was raining part of the time, there was planting and sowing and weeding and clearing in our little garden, (and sadly, no the peach was not from the garden but was lovely all the same!).



Somewhere along the line, I also managed to fit in... making more of this granola, seeing friends, attending a birthday party, making a vegetable curry, finishing this wonderful book, cutting material for my Etsy goodies,(shop opening 1st June!) and just generally catching up with all the things that you end up doing on a weekend...

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!).

packing...

Just a quick hello tonight as I'm busy packing to go away on a conference with work tomorrow. Unfortunately it's held on the other side of the country, so I have to fly as it only takes an hour, instead of about 7 hours. My flight leaves at 7.30am, which means I have to be at the airport at 6.30am, which means I have to leave the house at 5.40am at the very latest, which means I have to get up at...no I'm gonna stop there as it's too depressing especially as my conference doesn't start until 12.30pm, yep and I'm gonna be there at about 9am because there isn't a later flight, grrrrrrr!



The other bad thing is that I'm only away for a night so am just taking cabin luggage, so there's no space for my beloved camera to fit - double ggggrrrrr!



Check out my crazy wash bag though, I was searching like mad for a new one, (as my old one is just about dead and falling apart)and couldn't find anything that was just a plain washbag shape big enough to fit in everything. Later after coming up with zilch I went to Borders Books where they have a Paperchase and I came across this crazy bag! I guess I won't manage to leave it behind in some hotel room! Quite why they were selling wash bags is anyone's business but the size is right!

Hope you've all had a nice Monday, I'm off to bed soon lol - see you all when I get back!

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...

may day...

Seriously, I really don't know how this happened, one minute it was Christmas and the next we're in May! Yikes!



It was a bank holiday this weekend which was lovely, (no work yesterday) but typically, although the sun put in a small appearance it was still cold. Still, we visited a garden centre, cleaned our car, (only for it to promptly rain), ate some chard from the garden and some spinach. Ate strawberries and cream and pretended it was summer, watched this film, made some scones, read some books and I did a little making...and here we are and it's already the 5th...

p.s. I got a lovely email from Martina today to say her 'pay it forward' gift had arrived. I'll reveal what I sent later in the week, when I know everyone has received their gifts...

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...

this weekend...

This weekend there was crafting and sewing and playing. There was magazine reading, (oh how I love magazines...) and finally getting around to seeing Mamma Mia on dvd. There were fresh salad leaves from the garden, how I love the fact that rocket just keeps on growing year after year without needing any help from me. There was a homemade cake, (coffee in case you were wondering) which turned out a little like it had been in an accident but was delicious all the same.



Oh, and there was also sun. The kind of glowing evening sun that I'd forgotten all about but once I saw it I knew there was no going back...summer is on the way...

little bits of green and yellow...

Little bits of green and yellow have been catching my eye today. Firstly the lilies that came with these flowers finally opened today. A little shock of yellow and a hint of greenyness.


Then when out dog walking, I spotted that the flowers on the broom had opened their little petals to reveal this lovely swirl. Everything is really starting to grow, which is so lovely.


I've been meaning to make the recipe for Vanilla-coated pumpkin seeds from this cookbook which I got from the library, mainly because a.) it looked super easy and b.) pumpkin seeds have got to be healthy right?

All you need is:
1 egg white
15g (half an oz) of golden syrup
1 tsp of vanilla essence
400g (14 oz) pumpkin seeds (pepitas)

Preheat oven to 100 C (225 F/Gas 1/2)
Mix egg white with syrup and vanilla essence in a large bowl.
Add pumpkin seeds and mix well so all coated.
Spread over a baking tray lined with parchment.

Put in oven for about an hour, give them a shuffle every now and then so the seeds get a chance to dry. If they stick together this is fine, in fact a bonus!
Remove from oven when most seem dry. Let them cool as they're easier to move. Store in an airtight tin if you think you will resist the urge to gobble them all up before they get a chance to get stale! They're not as sweet as I expected but very moreish. Hence you may not need that airtight tin!

I didn't bother with baking parchment mainly because the piece I had left wasn't big enough to cover the tray, (note to self to buy more...) and they turned out fine.



Then to finish off my yellow and greeny day I was out this evening, just when the sun shines that lovely golden light and spotted these greeny leaves just glowing in the sunlight...just perfect! I'm now looking forward to the rest of the weekend...I hope you all have a good one!

and it came with flowers...

Hope you all had a lovely weekend. Mine was full of sun and lounging about in the garden,along with finally planting some seeds and eating lunches consisting of homemade bread and avocado, mashed with little flecks of chilli and silky yoghurt. There would have been a photo and I did think of going indoors to get my camera but greed won out!



The other thing that's happened over this weekend concerned our car. Remember when I told you we were having problems? Well a month without a car and a bill for £700 resulted in the car basically being useless - aaargh! The problem still couldn't be sorted and we ended up having to make the decision to get rid of it and get a new one. I've never had a brand new car before but we worked out it made more economic sense to do this as it would be covered under warranty and a whole lot cheaper than the recent bills we've been having for our other one which was only 4 years old. When M returned from the showroom he also presented me with a big bunch of flowers which the showroom gave him for me! Corny - yep, but still the flowers are lovely. Not having done this before it made me laugh, though maybe this is a standard thing!



Ive also been playing with these lovely threads over the weekend...



and another sneak peek of what I've been up to.



For those of you who were interested in the pay it forward in this post, I shall be sending out a little gift to Jessica, Rachel and Becka, (if you guys can email me your details I'll sort your gift out). I still need two more people to pay it forward to, so if you're interested email me, or I'll do another post on this in the next few months...

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!!).

back again...

So I'm back all refreshed after my break in the Lake District. We had a lovely time, did a lake cruise...



intended to do some hill walking...

but in the end opted for lazing around, just reading and eating cream tea; while looking out at the view and listening to this which was on the loop in the lounge area. Just perfect, I love a bit of Len...
Funny thing, I've only been gone a couple of days but already I can see how much everything in the garden has grown.

I love this time of year, when all the plants begin to grow and everything holds such promise. Note to self, tomorrow I need to sort out my seeds in preparation of planting...

'making mojo'...

Because of my travel problems at the moment I haven't had much time for creating, so I feel as if it's about time I got my 'making mojo' back. Luckily I have a fortnight off work - bliss, (no early travelling!) so I am hoping to use this time to recharge a little. Below is my inspiration board that I have propped up on my desk. It changes depending on my mood and the things I find inspiring at any one time.



Tomorrow I am off to the Lake District, (in a hire car!) for a couple of days, so I am going armed with my camera, notebooks, pens, crayons and books, amongst other things. I feel it's important to pack these essentials first and then see what space I have left for clothing! Hope you all have a wonderful and creative weekend!

37...

I've been so busy these last couple of weeks that I feel as if I might meet myself coming in the opposite direction. We've had car trouble which has meant having to walk ten minutes, get the bus, two trains and then another ten minute walk in order to get to work (which is about 35 miles away) and has been taking me 2 hours 30 minutes door to door in each direction - yawn! So long days and not much time for anything creative, although I did discover this site which has podcasts about craft which made my journey a little nicer.



It hasn't all been bad though; I turned 37yrs old last weekend, which is pretty scary considering I still feel as if I am about 23yrs old but I guess that's no bad thing! The sun shone for me which was rather lovely and made a change from the grey skies of late and amongst my cards and gifts, was a rather glamourous box of chocolates that put a smile on my face. I've never had such a pretty box of chocolates before and felt as if I should be recling on a chaise in some kind of silk affair eating chocolates. Needless to say this didn't actually happen but I felt like a grown up with my swanky gift!



Other good things that have happened this week include the reopening of the main library for our area which was badly damaged in floods, back in September. Did I mention how much I love books? Really really love books and can't imagine not reading? Well libraries are just one of my favourite places - all those books and for free - fantastic! (Unless of course you are like yours truly and sometimes forget to take them back and end up with fines but still...)



Well the library reopened on Monday and I managed to get there on Tuesday - firstly the place looks great as it has been completely redecorated/modernised but the best thing was the smell, the smell of all the new books. The whole of the downstairs was filled with new books never taken out. I don't know about you but I love library books when I'm the first person to take the book out! Well this was like all those great finds rolled into one as none of the books on the shelves had been taken out - such bliss, the difficult thing was the choice and the fact it was a very quick visit! Such small things can really make me happy, like this daffodil that my young neighbour left for me. I saw her walking up my lane carrying some flowers for her mum and stopped to say hello and commented on how pretty her flowers were, when I got back from dog walking I found this flower lying near my step and she'd even put the stalk in my water bowl for the birds - sweet!