Hibernation....

January is the month I like least (isn't it the month that most of us like the least?) - Christmas is over; it's the middle of winter; the weather is rubbish; pay day is a long time coming due to being paid early in December and we're skint!!

So I'm still in hibernation mode and haven't seen any friends (except one, more about that later) and am just enjoying our little house.

After clearing away the Christmas deccies I managed to hang onto all the fairy lights!! (Have you spotted #1StroppyTeen in the background?!!)

I've been baking cakes at Mr G's request:

And crafting - a couple of cushions:

An embroidery sampler:

And I made myself a nightie out of an old sheet by copying a nightie I have from M&S:

It was perfect to take away with me because in the middle of the month myself and my Mum went to Ireland for a long weekend to visit my BFF and meet her new baby. I think the trip deserves a post of its own so I'll share the pics with you next time.

This week I treated myself to the first daffies of the year (I love spring flowers!!) and added a little doily I found in my vintage linen stash:

It'll be spring before we know it....

Thanks (as always) for reading, my lovelies.

Hugs,

S x

 

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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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A Crafty Catch Up....

As I have managed to drag the tale of my birthday weekend out over three weeks I have missed out on showing you the latest things I have been creating and so I thought a catch post was in order!!

After having the frames for ages, I got around to displaying the boys very first baby grows:

I can't hardly believe they were ever that small!!

I also framed the embroidery I did whilst we were in Zakynthos this summer:

One afternoon I made a little sign using my Annie Sloan paints and a quote from our wedding song (which was "Endless Love"):

With some of my birthday money I bought two lovely lamps for the bedroom, but they came with really dull shades and so I made some patchwork fabric to cover them then I added some crochet trim:

A little fabric bird:

A little machine embroidery for the kitchen:

And a little birds nest made with beads and silver wire:

You may wonder how I get the time for all this crafting it I am very lucky in that I don't work and H and W are usually glued to their various electronic devices when they get home from school!! So that means in an afternoon, when all the chores and errands are done I often retreat into my girl cave to play for a couple of hours....

I'm off tomorrow to The Knit and Stitch Show at Ally Pally so I hoping next week I will have some bargains to show you!!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend....

Hugs,

S x

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A Bit of TLC For The Kitchen

Hello my lovelies!! How're you doing?

This past week we gave our kitchen work tops a bit of a overhaul. We had the kitchen in nearly five years ago now and I still love it, but the oak butchers block work tops were looking sorry for themselves.

Getting them oiled was all a bit of a rush before they were installed and so they weren't as water resistant as they should have been and had gone all black and mouldy looking round the taps and sink area. No amount of scrubbing would make them look better and it made me dislike the whole kitchen.


I got a quote to have them replaced with some engineered stone or granite -£1800!! The whole kitchen only cost £3500 in the first place.

I lay in bed and suddenly had the idea that perhaps if we sanded them, stained them and varnished them it would hide the damage (I don't know about you but I often have fantastical ideas as I am falling asleep but 9 times out of 10 they are ridiculous in the light of day - this was one of the rare good ideas!!)

I emailed Ronseal and to ask if any of their products would be food safe and they advised me to use their Colron Refined Wood Stain and either Quick Drying or Diamond Hard Varnish.

Once we got to Homebase we saw the sample of the shades and realised that we could perhaps skip the staining part as the varnish came coloured and the Dark Oak in the satin finish (so not too shiny) looked perfect.

We gave the tops a quick sand with 80 grit sandpaper using an orbital sander then went down to 180 grit to give a smooth finish and then slapped on the varnish. We chose the Quick Drying and I'm pleased to report it had virtually no smell and was touch dry in 20 minutes. Two coats was all in took:

How good do they look? I wish had a close up before to show you - you can see it if you zoom in on the pics in this post - not only has it hidden the horrid mouldy looking bits, but the whole surface just looks better, a nicer colour and more nourished (despite oiling it always looked "dry"):

As you can see in the above pic I've been making bunting again!! Mr G is not impressed, but I love it!!:

I used some scraps of Cath Kidston Fabric and sewed it onto the lovely Sass and Belle ribbon the boys bought me for Mothers Day.

Now Mr G and I keep walking in and saying "I can't believe how much better it looks" and "Why didn't we do it before?"!!

In other news I've been feeling a bit under the weather the past couple of weeks or so - I managed to crack my tooth clean in half and had to make a dash to the dentist. She thought she could save it and so filled it with some semi permanent stuff but it has been giving me trouble - feeling ouchy when I eat and I've been having headaches which set my health anxiety off a treat.

It's still not great, I'm going back this week and I think I'll just ask her to whip it out!!

Also, I've finished my first ever crochet blanket and will ta dah it next time!!

Hugs,

S x

 

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Birthday Boy....

Hello all!!

This weekend has been H's birthday - as we are off on holiday soon and we have W's birthday next week we had to think of an inexpensive treat and so it was that we had not one, but four teenage boys on Saturday night:

Aren't they just so BIG?!! 

It seems impossible that just 14 short years ago H looked like this:

Look at all of Mr G's hair!!

In both of the above pics H was still in hospital - there was a bit of hoopla when he was born, after a 23 1/2 hour labour & forceps delivery it was discovered that H had an abnormal red eye reflex and we had to wait 24 hours to be sent to another hospital for the eye specialist to tell us if the problem was just confined to the eye or was indeed more serious (rubella or toxaplasmosis during my pregnancy being possible).

It was the longest 24 hours, but luckily it turned out to be cysts on H's pupils which gave him no trouble and he grew out of. The next day we took our baby home but two days later we had to return as H was very poorly with what turned out to be a urine infection and jaundice. He was in hospital a week and the pictures were taken in the newborn unit as H got better.

Of course now he is a strapping lad, taller than me and eating us out of house and home:

H and his friends were very good - we thought we were going to be in for a long night but despite playing xBox & PC all night (fortified by pop, Haribo and Pringles) they were very quiet. We moved the computer and console into the boys room for a treat - we normally insist on having all those things downstairs so we can keep an eye on what they are up to.

On the craft front, I've finished a few things this week:

Embroidered cardi shamlessly copied inspired by the lovely Cuckoo

Funny looking terrier made from a vintage pattern and my old jeans....

Machine & hand embroidery of our house....

Travel wallet for our hols (I did rotate this but Blogger doesn't want to play)....

So that's all I have to report this week - next weekend it's W's birthday and so we have more boys for a sleepover, presents and cakes to make (W has requested a chocolate hedgehog again!!)

I've realised I am only managing a blog post a week at the moment, which is a bit rubbish - it's not so easy to blog now I have an iPad - my laptop is painfully slow and so I have to wait for Mr G to let me borrow his laptop.


Does anyone else blog on an iPad? I have used the Blogsy app but am not very impressed with it - any other suggestions would be gratefully received....


hugs,


S x


BTW thanks for all the lovely comments about my sewing room - you lot really are lovely!!

More Fugly-To-Fabulousness and Other Witterings....

Hello girls!! I trust you have all had a lovely weekend?

I have some more Fugly-To-Fabulous to show you today - we are frantically trying to raise money for our holiday which is only six weeks away and so I was full on with the painting on Friday.

My favourite is this gorgeous 1950's china cabinet - she had a cost of Annie Sloan "Old White":

Isn't she lovely? But gosh she was a pain to paint!! I had to stick my head right in to paint the inside and managed to get my hair covered in paint - luckily the chalk paint washes out so easily!!

There was also a vintage radiogram that we think will make a fab TV stand - this was given a couple of coats of "Old White" and inside was painted with "Duck Egg", I then used dark wax to bring out the carving:

Finally, an orange pine TV stand was given a new lease of life with a coat of "Country Grey" and and "Old White" top:

On Saturday we started the day with mini cinnamon maple whirls following a recipe Coco Rose shared on Instagram (the addiction to that continues!!):

To make them you take a pack of ready to bake croissant dough, open it out flat and crimp the perforated bits together and then give it a light roll with a rolling pin. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with a mixture of brown sugar and cinnamon. Roll up and then cut into little pinwheels.

Bake for 10 minutes and when they are still hot drizzle with a mix of icing sugar, maple syrup and a little milk.

Let me tell you they were GORGEOUS and lasted about 2 minutes after the photo was taken.

In the afternoon we had a mooch to Petersfield as I wanted to have a look at a Kobo which is WHSmiths version of the Kindle - earlier in the week (in the early hours when I couldn't sleep!!) I bought a Kindle that was offered as a Buy It Now on eBay.

I checked the sellers feedback - she had 47 giving her 100% and so went ahead thinking I had got myself a super bargain.

The following morning I got a message from eBay telling me the seller had been slung off and I was not to pay for the item - but I already had!! I emailed the seller several times - I was hoping it was eBay being over zealous and them actually being genuine which has happened to me before with a smaller item. But no reply.

So now I have to wait for Paypal to refund me - which they will in their own good time.

I want the eReader for our holidays and so after looking at the Kobo I decided to go ahead - it was reduced to £49.99 so quite a bit less than a Kindle.

Of course, when we returned home I had an email from the Kindle seller saying (in very bad English) it is on its way - I will believe it when I see it but if it does arrive I will just sell the one I like the least.

So far I am loving the Kobo - I have always been anti-ereader as I love books, one of my favourite shops in Petersfield is a smelly old bookshop that is a real rabbit warren but as we are going away for two weeks with limited baggage allowance it seemed a no brainer.

Naturally, I have made a cover for it:

Cath Kidston fabric, vintage linen and vintage glass button

One side effect of the Kobo is I am knackered today because I was up until gone 2.00am reading - I have succumbed to the hype and have downloaded Fifty Shades Of Grey - ahem...... 

Hope you all have a lovely week....

hugs,

S x

Monday Mutterings (with a Ta Dah!!)....

Hello my lovelies!! Are you all wet and windswept?

It's very soggy indeed here in Hampshire this morning, the showers have set in and become a permanent torrential downpour. I have a little set of nested tables waiting to be sanded but its a no go this weather!!

So, what have I been up to? On Friday I stopped by the market to treat myself to some fresh flowers:

My Nanna used to buy herself flowers every Friday from Doncaster market, she'd shop the old-fashioned way going to one stall for cheese, one for bread, another for eggs - *sigh* I absolutely l-o-v-e-d staying with her and my beloved Granddad....

They began to open and revealed the daffs to be gorgeous frilly affairs:

I then made a trip to Hobbycraft as I was inspired by a lady I am following on Instagram (she has a blog - My Three Of Hearts) to buy some of these smashing markers:

They are currently half price so a bargain too!! 

I couldn't resist this Kilner type jar to hold my modest collection of vintage threads, when I got home I added the rose decal:

Friday afternoon was spent playing with my new pens, I'm rubbish at drawing but had seen someone do some lovely childlike sketches of houses so had a go doing our house:

I'd like to turn it into a free motion embroidery....

Over the weekend I finished Little E's birthday present, so this is the official Ta Dah!!:

 I painted this vintage crib for her and made the bedding....

Mum crocheted a blanket for it and I made the quilt using this pattern - although I ended up making the squares a bit bigger as I just couldn't get the tiny ones to line up!!:

The pillow is a funny square "doily" that I put a backing on and stuffed, the sheet is a vintage traycloth....

The quilt has little sleepy animals embroidered on it:

It's Little E's birthday on Wednesday - she'll be 6, so I hope she likes it....

For the first time in ages I have nothing to sew for anybody and can make something for myself - recently I've been sewing for Mother's Day, Mum's b'day and Little E's - I've cut out a pattern I have for a dress but I'm not too confident with clothes as I've too often spent ages on things only to try them on and discover they make me look like a "bag of sh*t tied up" as my lovely Yorkshire Mum would say!!

Until next time....

hugs,

S x