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!

earth hour...

Wherever you live on the planet, Saturday 28th March at 8.30pm local time is earth hour - all you need do is vote with your light switch and turn your lights off for an hour. Not a lot really, to promote action against global warming. Check out this site for more information on the landmarks all over the world that will be switching off their lights. I for one will be flicking the switch and basking in candlelight for the hour...

spring change...

Spring is in the air. This week I've been thinking a lot about Spring and the promise of change. Lots of things are happening at the moment which will lead to changes on many levels - but that's a good thing I think. Spring is the time to evaluate and plant the tiny seeds that will blossom in the future. Me, I'm dreaming of the buds and blooms already...

cleaning vs craft...

I have so much respect for those bloggers who manage to post on a daily basis, or even every couple of days. Me; life gets hectic and somehow I just never made it to the computer this week. Our house is just about ready to go on the market and this week brought the guy to do our HIP, (home info pack) and the estate agent to do the photo, cue lots of tidying and scrubbing and hence not much time on the computer!

However I did manage to steal some crafty moments this week, just to offset all the cleaning I was doing! I made this small postcard collage...


Then during the cleaning, I found two glass frames with nothing in them, so decided to have a play. I printing words onto paper. Cut them out with my craft knife. Ripped some pages out of magazines which was very satisfying, (even though at this point I was creating more mess to tidy!) and put the pages behind the cut out stencil.

And voila! It only took about 20 minutes and was a useful distraction when I should have been dusting or whatnot!

This one went in the bathroom in case you couln't guess!

I also had in mind to do some sewing this week and decide I would brave the initiation of making something with a zip. For some reason this has seemed like a scary prospect and looked too complicated, time consuming etc etc but again it's amazing how the concept of doing something I needed to do - ie tidying the house vs playing around, won over my fear. I had these doodles in my sketch book and decided to do something very loosely based on them.

I kept this very simple because I still wasn't sure about the zip idea, so started small and decided to make a pouch which I could use as a little make up bag.

A little freezer stenciling and then with the help of this tutorial I actually managed to put in a zip - yay! and it really wasn't as bad as I thought.



I added a little bit of embroidery which was only possible because I hadn't sewn the lining up at the bottom and ordinarily I would have done this before I sewed the pouch, (as it really is so much easier than leaving it until the last minute and trying to sew through a 3 inch hole!) but I was so unsure about the zip thing that I didn't want to waste time doing the embroidery if my pouch was a disaster!

I was so pleased with myself that I didn't even stop to iron my pouch before I took a photo!
So now I have zip love and will be heading off to buy myself a bunch of zips so I can make pouches to my hearts content...

continuing the green theme...(day 5)

Today I was wondering what to do for green week when I spied this little green truck which belonged to mr Coco Sunday when he was a child.


As you can see from the scratches, it was much loved once upon a time...

It's funny the things that travel with us through life. How some things end up sticking around when others are discarded.Sometimes we don't even plan it - it just works out that way...

green glimmer...(day 4)

Today was all about the light. A dusting of snow and some early morning sunlight put a smile on my face.


This spring is arriving slowly but we're getting there...



I'd forgotten how lovely the sun is...*sigh*

Green delight (day 3)

It's snowing outside - just a light covering but still; I was hoping I might manage to get some outdoor greeness today but it was not to be. Instead i'm seeking my green fix indoors and thinking of comfort. I love Golden Syrup and especially the tin - even though the lid gets sticky and isn't practical at all, I still can't bring myself to buy it in the plastic bottle because it just wouldn't be the same.


There's something delightfully nostalgic about the design that just appeals to me. Treacle tart anyone?

More greeny goodness...(day 2)

Another busy day today, which meant that my only real chance of finding some green as part of green week was to hunt indoors again. This oil pastel was something I did about 8yrs ago when I was playing around one day and I really like the combination of colours in it, so it's been with me ever since! Every now and again I swap it around and put it somewhere new. At the moment it's sitting on a small set of drawers in my bedroom.


The drawers tend to be the place where things get swapped around, depending on my mood and available space! Tonight it's also sharing space with a scented candle and a piece of driftwood. That's the other thing I'm crazy about - quirky bits of driftwood. There's just something so lovely about finding this kind of treasure on the beach and I'm a sucker for wood anyway.



Thinking about all this green, I think it's about time to settle down with a cup of green tea, (I'm getting into the spirit of this thing now!) and go and click through all your green loveliness...

Yay for Green! (Day 1)

Oh how i love green. It reminds me so much of the promise of Spring and good things to come. This week Emily is hosting a Green Week and I'm playing! Go check the link to check out other greeny loveliness...So little time this evening but tomorrow I'll be back with another dose of all things green and beautiful...until then enjoy!

a little bit of this and that...

This week has been super busy as we've decided to put our little house on the market. At the moment we live in a rural area but are thinking of making the move back to the coast, which is where we used to live and about 30 miles from here. The housing market is very slow at the moment but we're in no hurry, so we'll see what happens...

Apart from that bit of news, this week has been a good mail week as I finally got
around to buying this lovely book.



I also bought these cute vintage buttons on ebay - partly because I liked the card they came on, so will have to think of something to do with them!




Eventually after managing to get all my ingredients together, I finally got around to making this granola which really is delicious and made such a comforting smell as it was roasted in the oven. Who knew home-made granola would be so tasty and easy to make? I am now a convert, especially as it works out cheaper and nicer than buying store bought.


Finally: I have been playing around with paper cutting, something which I've looked at before but never done. I was actually doing this whilst I waited for the estate agent to come and value the house, instead of rushing around plumping cushions and other such things you should do when someone is coming to value your home! The only problem, is that I didn't really plan what I wanted to do, so it's just happening organically which basically means I'm just merrily cutting bits out at random and hoping that it holds together! Please note the lovely paper I am cutting which is brown parcel wrapping which came folded in a pack - hence the creases! If I'd been really clever, they would have been the pieces I would have cut out- hmmm - perhaps a little planning wouldn't have gone amiss! Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

continuing the love theme...

After our low key celebrations of Valentines Day, it was time for the love theme to continue this week, as it was our wedding anniversary on the 16th. Married for 13 years now - which on one hand seems a lifetime, (in fact just a little over a third of my life) but in other ways seems a mere blink of an eye. We celebrated in our understated way, with a trip to the beach and a walk along the coast.



There's something so nice about a trip to the beach in Winter don't you think?



Especially when there are no other people about and the sun decides to come out just when you least expect it.




A lunch of fish and chips followed, with a return home to cups of tea and macarons. I finally managed to track down some macarons and was a teensy bit underwhelmed by them but I guess that's what happens when you have this idea of what they would taste like from just looking at photos! No matter, we still had a lovely day with gifts, cards and best of all, just enjoying the simple pleasures of the day...

a little love...

Back in January, (it seems so long ago now) I got a new mobile. My last one was a flip open one so the screen was protected but not this one. I meant to make/buy etc a case for it but in reality all I did was keep making sure there was something soft wrapped around it, (like a scarf *lol*) when it was in my bag, so I thought it was about time I showed it a little love...



I found myself some material that I'd never got around to using yet...



and made myself a little bird stencil from freezer paper. I've now realised how easy this is and will no doubt be making use of the freezer paper that has been sitting on my desk for the last few months! Added a little free hand embroidery and voila...



I'm sure my phone loves me more for it...



It didn't even take that long - I'm not sure why I didn't get around to doing this earlier...

Talking of love, I hope you all had a lovely Valentines Day. We don't make that big a deal of it as our wedding anniversary is on the 16th February but I did get some roses which is kind of sweet, especially as the first roses I ever got from Mr C.Sunday ended up going in the bin, as we met someplace - he turned up with roses, I didn't have a bag, he did and to cut a long story short I forgot to take them home and by the time he discovered them the next day they were a little worse for wear! Still I think that's forgotten now!





But the best part of valentines day was going for a dog walk and seeing this guy...Is it just me or is love everywhere?...