End of term happiness

The small people have just arrived home and their school bags have been dumped unceremoniously in the hallway ~ abandoned and not required for two and a half weeks. This can only mean one thing ~ School's out! End of term has arrived at last ~ Hooray!!

Today is the start of the Easter Holidays from school and I have to say that we are all looking forward to it immensely. We are all feeling tired and grumpy and a little bit yucky and definitely in need of a well earned break. I love the fact that school holidays allow you not to have to follow the usual routine ~ I really do appreciate that! I love not having to get up early and rush breakfast or try to nicely persuade small people in my best non shouty voice to get dressed and clean their teeth. Then there's the mad rush out the door at the last possible minute to try to get to school before the bell rings. No more of that for two whole weeks!

Being able to slowly potter around the house in the morning will be just blissful~ I'm really looking forward to that.

There is nothing planned ~ we are pretty much going to take each day as it comes and do whatever takes our fancy on that particular day.

I am really hoping that the weather will stay as lovely as it has been over the last few days ~ but as long as it stays dry and we manage to get out and about then I for one will be happy. Hopefully there will be lots of trips to the park and some long walks along the beach looking for seaside treasures.


There has not been much happening on the crafting front again this week as I have been ever so busy decluttering and listing what seemed like a million things on eBay. It's all very time consuming this eBay malarkey! Trying to take a decent photograph and then compose a lovely story about the item can actually take quite a while to do ~ BUT it is ever so exciting when someone actually makes a bid and buys one of your items. I really do get very excited when that happens.

I hope that you are all looking forward to the Easter holidays as much as I am and that you have a very enjoyable weekend :O)xx

This week..........

I have been enjoying the beautiful Mothers Day flowers that I got from my two small people ~ there were some rather delicious chocolates too, but they got eaten far too quickly to have time to photograph them! It has to be said (for the record) that I didn't eat them all by myself ~ I did have some helpers both big and small!


I have been having lots of fun cutting out some colourful felty shapes from my Egg Cosies Kit ~ I am hoping to have at least a couple of these cute cosies made by the time Easter arrives.


I have been trying desperately to knit a few more rows of my very slow socks and failing miserably to get very much further because ~


I have spent quite a lot of my time with my head in this book and have been loving every minute of it ~ this author always manages to make me laugh out loud.


I have been having a bit of a rummage around in boxes and bags that have been hiding in cupboards since we moved into this house almost a year ago ~ and I have unearthed my long lost Summer Garden Granny Squares ~ which have been a WIP for far too many summers to mention!

I am also looking forward to spending a lovely Girly day out tomorrow in the beautiful Scottish Borders with my very bestest Girly friend.

Hope you all have a very lovely weekend ~ I wonder what delights next week will bring :O)xx

Cheesy Scones

Whilst I was in the Supermarket one day last week I was hit by a sudden craving for a lovely cheesy scone, smothered in oodles of butter ~ very unhealthy I know, but to be enjoyed occasionally in moderation!

I found some in the bakery department and popped them into my basket along with the rest of my shopping. I looked forward to eating this cheese scone all the way home. Imagined myself smothering it in butter and then sitting with my feet up and enjoying it with a nice cuppa. But this particular cheese scone was a BIG disappointment! Desperately lacking in any kind of flavour, rubbery in texture and heavy enough to sink a very large battleship!

Anyway ~ this morning I took it upon myself to turn these ingredients into some lovely homemade cheesy scones. This is what you need if you decide to have a go at making them yourself ~

175g self raising flour

a pinch of salt and pepper

25g margarine

75g of grated cheese

half a teaspoon of mustard powder

1 medium egg

2 tablespoons of milk

First preheat your oven to 220 degrees or gas mark 7 and grease a baking tray ~

Mix the flour, salt and pepper and mustard powder in a bowl and then stir in the grated cheese, keeping a little aside for the top of the scone ~

Mix to a soft dough with the egg and milk, again keeping a little aside to glaze the top ~

Roll the dough out on a floured surface until it is about 1.5 cm thick and then cut into rounds or triangles ~ you should end up with about 8 scones ~

Place on your baking tray and brush with the remaining egg and milk mixture and then sprinkle on the rest of the grated cheese ~

Finally bake for about 10 to 15 minutes until your scones are lovely and golden brown ~

Smother your golden, cheesy scone in oodles of butter and enjoy with a nice cuppa ~ much nicer than any you can buy in the supermarket! :O)xx

Slow Sock Syndrome

I think I must have been hit by a very bad case of Slow Sock Syndrome! I started casting on these socks at the beginning of February and this is how they are looking so far ~

Not much progress at all!

I decided in my newly found sock knitting wisdom to knit these particular socks using the magic loop method ~ as I had wanted to try and teach myself a new knitting skill and I was feeling really rather pleased with myself when I actually managed to do it fairly easily. And to be honest with you I think that I may now actually prefer using the magic loop method over using Double pointed needles too. You may fooled into thinking that using this method is what has caused me to suffer from Slow Sock Syndrome ~ but you would be wrong. Very wrong indeed!

What has actually happened in the case of these socks ~ and bearing in mind that these are only my second pair of socks ~ is that I got WaY ahead of myself and thought that it may be quite a nice idea to add some sort of pattern onto the heel flap.

A pattern made by knitting Fair Isle or Intarsia no less!

Well that was a BIG mistake! Neither the Fair Isle pattern or the Intarsia pattern went according to plan and the heel flap has now been ripped back twice. I have now decided that these are just going to be Plain Old Pink (POP!) socks and will hopefully be on my merry way to making some progress with them sometime very soon.

Wishing you all a very happy and progressive weekend:O)x

Surprise package

Thank you all so much for all your very kind birthday wishes ~ they really do mean a lot to me. I had such a lovely day and the bargain birthday pizzas were very delicious indeed. I have to admit to eating so much that I could hardly walk away from the restaurant.

I got another wonderful and unexpected surprise on my birthday too. An email came winging it's way into my inbox to let me know that I had won a prize from a giveaway that I had entered on the very wonderful felty blog called Paper and String ~ if you haven't visited this blog before I urge you to do so. It is a lovely blog filled to the brim with lots of colourful and felty delights and there are some great tutorials too. Be warned though ~ you may just end up having to spend some money as the goodies are just too lovely to resist.

Do you want to see what I won? Of course you do!!

This lovely little Sew your Own Cute Egg Cosies Kit ~ which came in a handy plastic box and includes all the felt,trims and buttons that you need to make three cute egg cosies ~ a rabbit, a mouse and a tortoise (which is my favourite).

I can't wait to get started on these little cuties. But first I'll have to try and find a needle and thread which may prove to be more difficult than you think. The small people in my house keep borrowing all my crafty stuff and have a very naughty habit of not putting things back where they should be kept. I've thought that maybe I should hide my supplies and keep them all for myself ~ but I don't want to squash their creativity. But it is very annoying all the same when you go to get something and find it's not there!!

I'm off now to go and look for a needle which judging by the state of their bedrooms may be like looking in a proverbial haystack! What I should really be doing is cleaning and tidying and making the house look pretty ~ but I'd much rather be sewing and hooking!

Wishing you all a very lovely weekend :O)xx