By The Sea....

Hello my lovely ladies!! How've you been?

Much of this week has been quiet and a lot of knitting (and frogging) has gone on but yesterday I ventured out to meet up with some of my good friends that I have met through the power of the www.

I went via Ashley's from Country Rose to collect her & Rose and then we headed across to Gem's (of Treasures From The Cherry Tree fame) new house.

We were given a warm welcome with tea and homemade cake and I was finally able to give Gem the housewarming gift I had made:

One of my free motion embroidery pictures of her house.

I have these for sale in my Etsy shop - I can do custom embroideries of your house or a friend or relatives, they would make great gifts!!

After the grand tour of Gem's new home (which is EXACTLY like the kind of house I would love, complete with Downton Abbeyesque doorbell!!) we pottered along to a lovely cafe on the seafront to meet Sarah from Annaboo's House and her little daughter for lunch.

Naturally, having already had cake I fell completely off the wagon:

Mmmmm, I could just eat it again!!

After lunch we went for a wander on the beach and Rose entertained us no end by splashing in the rock pools and more than once sitting down fully clothed in them!! Luckily, Ashley had a change of clothes so it was decided to let Rose get on with it and she and little A had a whale of a time:

We posed for silly group portraits:

Could I look anymore like Lisa Riley?!!

I prefer this one which we took whilst Ashley was fishing Rose out of another rock pool (sorry, Ashley, how rubbish are we? She was sooooo funny and cute though!!):

All too soon (after more tea and cake at Gem's) it was time to come home. We had such a lovely day and promises were made to meet up again soon.

I must add that it was one of those days where one truly marvels at the power of a blog - without which I would have never met these lovely ladies that I have so much in common with....

Hugs,

S x

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Friends, Flowers and Fairy-lights....

I have a few things to witter on about today. At the weekend I made some little "lampshades" for a string of plain fairy-lights:

I was inspired by seeing them on Pinterest (I can't find them now however!! You can find a similar tutorial here though). 


The tutorials I found were using paper/plastic cups covered with paper or fabric but I thought the cups were a little too big so I used little plastic shot "glasses" which I found in Poundland. I covered them with paper (I used wallpaper and some scrapbooking papers I had).


To stick the paper to the little cups I used PVA  glue which was rubbish, the hot glue gun would've been better, although maybe it would've melted the cups. Anyway, you really need something that adheres instantly, perhaps double-sided tape would be good?

BTW I know butterflies like this are terribly un-PC but my Dad bought them for my Mum when I was a little girl and so they have sentimental value....

As I only had a pack of 40 shot glasses I did the shades on every other bulb but because the shot size is much smaller than a normal paper cup I think they would look good on every bulb (some of the larger cups make the string look crowded IMO).

Last Friday we attended our first auction (well except for a car auction where Mr G bought a duff car that refused to start the moment we handed the money over and Doncaster Bloodstock Sales where we were moments away from accidentally bidding several thousand pounds on a racehorse, that is!!) - it was held in a church hall and was full of every stereotyped wide-boy and wheeler dealer (Del Boy style) you could think of but at the same time was rather fun.

We won two vintage suitcases and a wooden tea-trolley for a grand total of £12.

One of the suitcases is fabulously battered and has the odd vintage sticker:

We didn't realise the blue one came with the brown and I think it's a perfect candidate for covering in fabric - which I saw on a blog recently and now Can't Find Either!! How v. annoying. 


Edited to add: still can'r find the original one but there is a tutorial here for covering a suitcase with fabric and it looks fabby!!

The lady in question had used vintage fabric and Mod Podge (which after using both it and cheap ol' PVA glue I still can't tell the difference) and vintage fabric to cover and line her suitcase.

Yesterday I spent a lovely afternoon with Ashley and Rose from Country Rose and I was chuffed to bits not only to see them but because she bought me not only a gorgeous Cath Kidston pencil case and a peg bag (both of which I really needed) but also these beautiful blooms:

Aren't they lovely? They make me smile every time I look at them....

Now this post is getting very long, so I think I will keep the tale of how Ashley let me play with her new baby for tomorrow....

hugs to all,

S x