Button Tree Crafts

Friendship Bracelets

2012-02-19T12:23:00.002Z

My daughter has been going to a lunch time craft club at school for the last few months ~ where she has been learning how to make Friendship Bracelets. I am always amazed at how lovely her creations are and how intricate ~ and complicated ~ some of these braided bracelets look.

Anyway, as we had a few spare hours during the half term holidays, I asked her if she would mind showing me how to make them. We gathered together a few skeins of embroidery thread and a bracelet making wheel and started braiding. It wasn't as difficult as I had imagined it would be and soon after tying a few simple knots in some embroidery thread I had something that resembled a friendship bracelet.

This first one was made by attaching six lengths of thread to the wheel and then tying a forwards knot all the way down. Somehow it produces this wonderful spirally effect which I love.

My second attempt was made by combining a forwards knot and then a backwards knot all the way down the threads. I decided to pretty this one up a bit by adding some brightly coloured beads to the ends. I really like how this one looks too.

Once we got started there was no stopping us ~ the possibilities and combinations of these simple braided bracelets are endless. You don't always have to use embroidery thread either ~ you could use any scraps of yarn that you have lurking around the house that need using up. There are also plenty of ways that you can pretty these bracelets up by adding brightly coloured buttons and beads into the mix.

We all spent a really fun afternoon making these friendship bracelets ~ even small boys can join in the fun ~ and it was a fairly cheap and cheerful way to keep the kids entertained for a few hours during the half term break too :O)xx

Blanket progress

2012-02-10T12:15:00.003Z

As promised, I'm just popping by to show you the progress that I've made so far with my Little Boy Blue Granny Stripe Blanket. Admittedly there has not been as much progress made with this blanket as I would have liked ~ but that is purely down to me doing my usual thing and letting myself be completely sidetracked with other projects such as knitting socks. Oh!! ~ and running out of a crucial component to hooking a blanket called yarn didn't help me much either!

When I first started planning to make this blanket I wasn't quite sure if I was going to just stick with using blue tones ~ I had been toying with the idea of adding red and cream into the mix. But when I tried the colours out together I wasn't completely convinced that they really worked and decided to follow my instincts and stay with my all time most favourite colour spectrum of blue. And I must say that I am very happy indeed with my final choice.

The yarn that I am using to hook this blanket is good old dependable ~ and very reasonably priced ~ Stylecraft Special Double Knitting. In the following colours :: Denim, Aster,Cloud Blue, Sherbet, Royal and Turquoise.

Each colourful blue stripe of the Little Boy Blue Blanket is made up of two rows of treble clusters, and there are 74 treble clusters in each row. At a rough guess I think that it usually takes me about 15 minutes to work one row of treble clusters, which means it takes me around half an hour to complete each blue stripe. Not too bad! I have managed to get six repeats of each colour from my first six balls of yarn.

I did think that I would manage to get seven repeats ~ but no amount of finger crossing and silent hooky praying would make the last little amount of yarn stretch to complete another stripe. Almost but not quite! I only had another few little treble clusters to go until I reached the end of the stripe! But the yarn totally refused to play ball! Still it gave me a great excuse to go online and indulge in a little bit of yarn shopping ~

Not that many of us normally need an excuse! I ordered another six balls of blue loveliness and then took the liberty of adding a few more colours to my stash for some future projects that I have already lined up in my little head!

We have now broken up for our Half Term holidays, so I am looking forward to spending a lazy week at home with my two small people. I hope that you all a lovely weekend and I'll stop by again sometime early next week :O)xx

Winter Warmer

2012-02-07T10:45:00.001Z

I think that there is nothing quite like a nice bowl of piping hot homemade soup to warm you up on a cold wintery day.

There were a few spare vegetables that had been lurking about in my fridge for a little while, so I decided to use them up and make some soup for my lunch. This isn't something that I would really call a recipe ~ as it isn't exactly rocket science to chop a few vegetables, bung them in a pan and make them into soup. But this is how I made mine today::

My ingredients were ~

5 Carrots

5 medium potatoes

2 small leeks

2 cloves of garlic

2 pints of stock

First, peel and chop your choice of vegetables ~ not rocket science!

Saute the crushed garlic and leeks in a little olive oil until softened ~

Bung the rest of the chopped vegetables into the pan ~

Cover with your choice of stock ~ I have to admit that I cheat a little bit here and always use shop bought stock ~ and then leave to simmer until the vegetables are cooked ~

You can then either serve the soup a bit lumpy and rustic looking as it is ~ or leave it to cool for a little while and then whizz it up with a blender.

I have to do this with all my homemade soups as my Miss Fussy Gussy daughter refuses to entertain the idea of eating anything that contains either onions or leeks! I have therefore done the good dutiful motherly thing today of blitzing the said soup to within an inch of it's life in order to eradicate all traces of leek! :O)xx

Successful socks

2012-02-02T09:38:00.001Z

Finally ~ after a few false starts and a couple of minor disagreements with the Double Pointed Knitting Sticks ~ I have finished my first ever pair of socks. And I can't even begin to tell you how ridiculously happy that makes me feel!

When I first embarked on my sock knitting journey I wasn't entirely sure if I would ever reach my desired destination. But arrive I did! And at the correct destination too! I am now the very proud owner of a hand knitted pair of socks ~ and not only do they actually look like a pair of socks, they also happen to fit me perfectly as well. Who would have thought it?

I don't mind admitting that I really did have the heebie jeebies quite badly when I first read the sock making pattern. But do you know what? Once I actually got started and decided to take it slowly step by step, all those sock making jargony words finally started to make a bit more sense. I now have a basic understanding about the construction of the sock ~ and all that sock talk of gussets and heel turning no longer turns me into a gibbering wreck! I still have a long way to go, but I really did enjoy my first ever sock journey.

In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I have already cast on my second pair. You might all be thinking that with all that Knitty excitement going on that I have forgotten about all my hooky trips. Definitely NOT! As you can see my Little Boy Blue blanket is still around and I promise that I will stop by and show you all the progress sometime soon.

I hope you all a have a very enjoyable weekend ~ whatever little woolly trips you may be taking :O)xx

Friday afternoon

2012-01-29T18:22:00.013Z

Every Friday afternoon I take a little trip along the coast to the little seaside village of Aberlady to take my daughter to her ballet class. Normally, I sit with her little brother and wait inside the church hall and have a chat with all the other Mums who are also dutifully waiting on their off spring. We always make ourselves very comfortable during our wait ~ we take heaters to keep cozy and flasks of hot water to make tea, coffee and hot chocolate ~ more often than not there is also home baking to be had too!

However, last Friday afternoon my very bestest friend had come up to visit, so instead of waiting indoors we decided to go for a walk along the coast as the weather was lovely. It was also an ideal opportunity to let a certain small boy run off some of his excessive boy energy too! We headed on out of the village and along to Aberlady Bay ~ which is a local nature reserve and is very popular with walkers and bird watchers.

It was a beautiful afternoon ~ a mixture of sunny, crisp, cold weather just right for walking.

The sun was low and we had great fun playing about with our shadows.

We were only out walking for just over an hour, but the change from daylight to sunset was absolutely wonderful to watch.

I hope that you all had a very lovely Friday afternoon too ~ and I look forward to catching up with you all next week :O)xx

Gruffalo Cookies

2012-01-24T10:21:00.000Z

My two small people LOVE the Gruffalo ~ in fact, to be honest with you all, I rather like the Gruffalo too!

A Gruffalo? What's a Gruffalo? For those of you who might not know ~

He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws.

He has knobbly knees, and turned out toes, and a poisonous wart at the end of his nose.

His eyes are orange, his tougue is black, and he has purple prickles all over his back.

(As described by Julia Donaldson in her book The Gruffalo).

But here in our house we think he is lovely!

At Christmas time my small people got a Gruffalo cookie kit ~ which came with a ready made cookie mix and a fabby little Gruffalo cookie cutter. They loved the whole experience of making the cookies and decorating them, and of course eating them! As they enjoyed them so much I thought that I would surprise them when they came out of school yesterday afternoon with another plate of Gruffalo cookies. It had absolutely nothing at all to do with the fact that I wanted a go at making these cookies all by myself!

This time I just made a basic shortbread biscuit ~ 250g plain flour, 175g butter and 75g caster sugar ~ then you just::

Mix the plain flour and the sugar together in a bowl and rub in the butter ~

Knead until it forms a paste ~

Roll out on a floured surface to about 1cm thick and then cut into Gruffalo shapes ~

Bake at 160 degrees/Gas mark 3 for about 20 minutes ~

Leave to cool and either leave them as they are or decorate with chocolate icing and chocolate sprinkles ~ which looks exactly like Gruffalo fur!

And then ENJOY!! :O)xx

Happy feet

2012-01-13T09:52:00.004Z

I mentioned a little while ago that this was the year that I was going to try and make myself a pair of socks. Well..........the sock journey has well and truly started!

Quite ironically, the yarn that I am using is called Happy by Wendy, in a lovely Lavender colour. However, I was anything but happy when I cast on the stitches a few days ago. This knitting with more that two needles malarkey is just not as easy as it looks and I got myself into a right old state!

Now, this is not the first time that I have knitted with Double Pointed Needles ~ I made myself a pair of mittens a few years ago, but this time it certainly seemed like it was my very first try. For some reason I just could not get to grips with it at all. I still felt like I was an octopus trying to knit, the DPN's kept trying to disappear up my sleeves at every given opportunity and they kept slipping out of my hands, resulting in dropped stitches and much shouting at said knitting! I have now cast on and ripped up the beginning of the first sock six times. I kid you not! What you see now is my seventh attempt and so far so good!

Apparently that was the easy part, because now the pattern is mentioning heel turns, gussets and toes. I'm starting to have palpitations just thinking about it! Wish me luck as I embark on the next part of my sock journey and I'll hopefully have something that resembles a sock the next time I see you.

I hope that you all have a very lovely weekend too :O)xxx

Rogues Gallery

2012-01-09T11:31:00.001Z

My two small people were very quiet on Saturday afternoon, which, believe me does not really happen that often. Normally, they are charging about the house at top speed ~ having a right old carry on and making all sorts of loud noises! We decided that we were going to make the most of the rare peace and quiet and left them to it ~ you know, let sleeping dogs lie and all that!

After a while we were eventually allowed up the stairs to see what they had been up to and this was the result ~

An absolutely fantastic art gallery!

They had taken it upon themselves to sort out all their paintings and drawings and then they had decided to use nearly a whole packet of Blue-Tak to display them in the style of an art gallery. Isn't it fantastic? I absolutely love when children use their imagination like this. In my mind it certainly beats all the computer games and electronic gadgets hands down. There honestly is no contest!

To give you all a better look at some of the pictures, I thought I would take some close up photos of a few of my favourites.

A Big Red Bus ~ complete with Edinburgh destination of Princes Street.

A portait of Winston the dog ~ I love how he is going to be having "stake" for his tea!

A beautifully coloured shiny new red car.

A rather wonderful portrait of the Gruffalo ~ I think that this one is my very favourite!

I really hope that you enjoy looking at them as much as I did :O)xx

A New Year ~ 2012

2012-01-04T13:05:00.001Z

Well, here we are, already four days in to a brand New Year. I hope that you all had a very lovely time at Christmas ~ although, I must say that Christmas seems like it was absolutely ages ago! We took all our decorations down yesterday before my lovely husband went back to work and now the house looks very bare indeed.

It was our very first Christmas in our new house and we all had a really wonderful time, despite being loudly awakened at half past two in the morning by a very bouncy and excited small boy, shouting "He's been!". Once he had opened his stocking he was more than happy enough to go back to sleep until a more reasonable hour! Thank Goodness! As usual my two Small People were well and truly spoilt! The day itself was fairly quiet ~ we had some family over for Christmas lunch and I'm pleased to report that I all my panicking over cooking Christmas lunch was a bit silly as everyone said nice things about the food and it all got eaten ~ so it can't have been that bad!!

I've enjoyed lots of very lazy days during these holidays ~ days sitting around in my pyjamas with my feet up, drinking lots of tea and consuming vast amounts of chocolate. I have also been lucky enough to have been able to spend quite a bit of time indulging in some Hooky Stuff and there has also been the sound of clicking knitting needles too.

Due to numerous factors, (but mainly because we were in the middle of moving house and everything was packed away) last year was a very unproductive year for me crochet wise so I am planning to make amends for it this year. I'd love to be able to find the time to finish all my WIP's, and maybe even produce twelve finished woolly things by the end of the year! I'd also love to have a go at knitting myself a pair of socks ~ surely it can't be that hard, can it?

I'm off now to hook a couple more rows of my blue Granny Stripe ~ there may even be a cup of tea to be had too ~ but this time there's definitely no chocolate allowed! :O)xx

2011 ~ looking back

2011-12-31T08:25:00.001Z

2011 has certainly been a busy old year for us here in our little family!

There has been so much crammed into this past year, and I thought that it would be fun to look back over the Button Tree Crafts archives and relive some of the lovely memories that 2011 has created ~

January 2011 ~ I loved this beautiful pink hyacinth which brightened up my days and my kitchen::

February 2011 ~ Banana and chocolate muffins, made from my new Nigella recipe book ~ very yummy they were too!

March 2011 ~ Brightly coloured Rico creative cotton and a lovely new needlepoint kit to keep me busy::

May 2011 ~ We revisited Disneyland in Paris and had an absolutely wonderful time::

May 2011 ~ We also had a lovely day in Paris and saw all the famous sights::

June 2011 ~ After a very long wait, we finally sold our little house and moved back to my childhood hometown near the seaside::

July 2011 ~ we had some lovely summery days and spent lots of time exploring and rediscovering our wonderful new surroundings::

September 2011 ~ I finally finished my colourful Rico stripey peg bag::

October 2011 ~ We found this fabulous Halloween decoration in a little village just along the coast::

November 2011 ~ The autumn weather was glorious and I had some lovely autumny walks amongst all the crisp piles of leaves::

December 2011 ~ I made a start on a cozy blue Granny Striped blanket for my boy::

I had such fun looking back over my little blog ~ I have never done a looking back post before and it was really lovely reliving the bits that made 2011 such a special year for me and my family. I love the fact that blogging allows me to keep all these special memories and that they are there for my children to look back on when they are older. Thank you all so much for sharing this little journey back in time with me ~ I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year when it comes ~ and I'll hopefully see you all next year :O)xx

Wishing you all ..........................

2011-12-22T09:17:00.006Z

A very Merry Christmas!

Not long to go now ~ only 3 sleeps and I think I'm getting quite excited!

I am about as prepared as I'll ever be for the BIG day ~ the tree is up and decorated, the presents have been bought and wrapped (and have also been hidden well away from little people who have been doing an awful lot of looking this year!)

The only things that I have left to do is some (a lot!) cleaning and tidying and the dreaded food shopping. It's also our first Christmas in our new home so I want it to be extra special for everyone. I'm actually cooking the Christmas dinner for the first time in ages and I think I'm starting to have a little bit of a panic about it. But I'm quite sure that it will all go well on the day ~ here's hoping!

I'm really looking forward to getting cozy and snuggling up on the sofa with the children on Christmas eve to watch some Christmassy films. We always watch the same films on Christmas eve ~ The Polar Express and A Christmas Carol ~ and it has now become a little bit of a tradition in our house. There may also be a couple of glasses of mulled wine and some Christmas chocolatey goodies thrown in for good measure too!

Then it will be time for the stockings to be hung at the bottom of the beds and a glass of milk and some mince pies will be left for Santa, along with a nice juicy carrot for Rudolph.

I hope that Santa leaves you lots of lovely presents too and that you all have a very Happy Christmas and have all your Christmas wishes come true ~ whatever they may be! :O)xx

Giveaway Winner

2011-12-08T15:43:00.001Z

Thank you all so much for the lovely comments that you sent me on my Three Years post ~ they were all very much appreciated and made me feel very happy that I am part of this lovely Bloggy World.

I must first start by saying that I am sorry that it has taken me quite this long to announce the winner, but we have had some most unwelcome visitors to stay in our house in the form of some very nasty cold bugs who have very definitely outstayed their welcome! Cold bugs, if you are listening to me ~ I think that you should pack up your little bags and go now!!

Anyway, lets get back to the Giveaway winner! As I haven't a clue how to operate one of those Random Number Generator Thingies I just put all of the names of you lovely people who were kind enough to leave me a comment into my Cath Kidston Christmas House tin, had a bit of a rummage around and picked out one little piece of paper. All very technical ~ which these days is about as technical as it get around here!!

The name on the piece of paper which was drawn out of the little Christmassy House was Victoria.

Congratulations to you Victoria ~ I will send you an e mail very soon so that I can get your posting info and I promise to try my very hardest to send your Giveaway pressie out to you in the next couple of days so that you get it before Christmas.

THANK YOU all so much again for your lovely comments ~ I only wish that I could send you all a little present.

Hope you have a lovely weekend :O)xx

Hooky Giveaway

2011-11-25T19:26:00.003Z

Just a little reminder to everyone that my Giveaway is still open for comments. One of the prizes will be a copy of the lovely hooky book ~ Cute and Easy Crochet by Nicki Trench. I really love this book and there are lots of lovely hooky projects in it. I'm quite sure that there will also be something Christmassy and something chocolatey thrown in for good measure too!

All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is to leave me a comment on either this post or my Three years post. I'll leave the Giveaway open until the end of November to give everyone plenty of time to enter. I hope that you all enjoy your weekend and I'll see you all sometime next week :O)x

Three Years

2011-11-21T11:07:00.000Z

Today it is my 3rd Blogiversary!

That's three whole years of blogging! Three whole years since I first dipped my foot tentatively into the lovely bloggy world! Who would have thought it? I didn't really think that anybody would be that interested in my witterings or my creations either, but there must be a few of you out there as I still have followers and still get left some lovely comments too.

I absolutely love being part of Blogland ~ it is a truly creative and inspirational place. I love that I can take little snippets of my daily life and that it will be there in years to come as a very special record to look back on. I love that there are like minded souls out there who like to talk about yarn and hooky stuff ~ although I have to admit that my husband thinks it's all a little bit mad! But that's men for you!

To celebrate this special day, there is of course cake in the form of some yummy cupcakes ~ made yesterday with the help of two smallish volunteers. Funnily enough they never volunteer to help with the washing up afterwards though!

Finally ~ to say a very big THANK YOU to all you lovely people who take time of out of your day to read my blog I am going to have a little Giveaway. I'm not quite sure yet what this Giveaway will be ~ and I'm not promising that it will be something handmade by me, but it will definitely be something nice and possibly hooky related. There may even be something chocolatey thrown in too!

All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is to leave me a comment on this post ~ I'll leave it open until the end of November so that it gives you all plenty time to be included.

I'm off now to put the kettle on and have myself some cake and tea ~ see you all very soon :O)xx

Remembering ~ 11.11.11

2011-11-11T08:03:00.003Z

Blue Stripes

2011-11-10T09:51:00.002Z

This week I am absolutely loving my new Blue Stripey wellies from Joules. They have Green and Blue Stripes with a jaunty little orange stripe up the back of the boot and the very delightful name of Water Fall ~ my all time favourite Watery colours.

Just right for late Autumny walks through the lovely crisp, scrunchy leaves and more than likely for stamping through puddles and trudging through snow later on in the year! This year I am determined to be prepared for the wet and wintery weather when it arrives.

Loving my Blue Stripey socks too! Just right for feet that need to stay warm and dry inside the Blue Stripey Wellies out in the cold and also for sitting cosily on the settee with a cup of tea and some hooky stripes.

Also loving my Blue Granny Stripes ~ although progress has not been as quick as I would have liked and these particular Granny Stripes are at the stage of looking very scarf like at the moment! And although a scarf would come in very handy right now, these stripes are destined to be a snuggly Blue Stripey Granny blanket just right for keeping warm and cosy on a wintery evening.

I'm off now to try and hook up a few more Blue Stripes ~ Enjoy your weekend and I'll see you all very soon :O)xx

Halloween

2011-10-31T09:54:00.001Z

Every Friday afternoon I drive to the next village along the coast to take my daughter to her dancing class. Last Friday I was driving along, with both kids in the back of the car ~ chatting/squabbling as usual ~ when all I heard was screeches of delight and excited cries of LOOK! and Pleeeeease Mum can we stop? I couldn't imagine for a minute what all the fuss was about, but I promptly did as I was told and this is what we saw...........

An absolutely fabulous Halloween decoration which was outside someone's house! Isn't it super? It must of taken ages to put it all together and all the little details are really lovely. I particularly love the stripey black and purple tights that these three lovely ladies are wearing on their dingly, dangly, witchy legs.

My kids, like most kids, love everything Halloweeny! They love all the dressing up and all the gory and yucky stuff ~ the more gory the better in their eyes!

But, we don't let them go Trick or Treating (or Trickle Treating as it is known in our house) as it's something we just don't feel comfortable with. Instead, we let them do the dressing up bit and then Daddy plays Spooky Halloween Hide and Seek with them in the house with all the lights off. We also play some of the more traditional Halloween games ~ such as dooking/bobbing for apples, which is a lot of fun and we always end up getting soaking wet too!

Later on this evening we will all get settled down in front of the telly to watch a spooky Halloween film ~ this years choice is the not so scary Disney film Spooky Buddies and as always there will be a plentiful supply of Halloween treats to tuck into whilst watching.

I hope that you all enjoy your Halloween activities ~ whatever they may be ~ and I will hopefully see you all very soon :O)x

Smiley things :O)

2011-10-13T06:06:00.007+01:00

Making me smile today is the progress that I have been making with my blue stripey blanket.

I have been whizzing back and forward along these stripey rows making lots of treble clusters of cozy blue loveliness. I love how easy this project is ~ easy, mindless crochet that can be picked up and put down without too much thinking about. And these days that's exactly the sort of crocheting that I need.

Smiley thing number two is this lovely new crochet book which just happened to pop through my door this week ~ Cute and Easy Crochet by Nicki Trench. Do you see that EASY word cropping up again? I bought this book from The Book People for just £3.99 ~ can you believe it? I had to do a double take for it to sink in. There was really no reason why I couldn't have this book ~ It just had to be mine! What an absolute bargain! This really is a super book and it is jam packed with lots of lovely projects which are just begging to be made ~ the only problem that I am going to have is deciding what to actually make first.

Also making me smile today is my pretty new year planner. I have been particularly scatterbrained over the past few weeks. Forgetting about meetings for work, missing dental appointments and my worst scatterbrained moment of all was turning up a week early for parent's night at my little boy's school!

Up until now my usual haphazzard method is to scribble things down on little pieces of paper and then end up hunting frantically for them in one of my many piles! So, in an attempt to get myself a bit more organised ~ and to save my poor children squirming with embarrassment at their mother ~ I am going to try and write down appointments as soon as I get them. This year planner is great because it has a side for me and a side for the rest of the family per page ~ there really is no excuse now is there? Wish me (and my children) luck!

I hope that you find lots to be smiley about today too! See you all soon :O)xx

Granny Stripes

2011-10-04T10:40:00.002+01:00

At last!

I have finally managed to get around to making a start on a Granny Stripe blanket. I have been wanting to crochet one of these lovelies ever since they started doing the rounds of Blogland last year, but have just never had the time up until now. But here I am jumping on the Granny Stripe bandwagon and I have to say that I am really looking forward to the ride.

The foundation chain has to be done in multiples of three ~ so I sat yesterday and crocheted a chain whilst counting 123,123,123 in my head. In the absence of a size 5 hook I remembered to crochet my chain loosely on my trusty and very favourite size 4 in order to make crocheting the first row as easy as possible.

I am making this Granny Stripe for my little boy and want it to be around about the single bed size when finished. So, I carried on counting 123, 123, 123 in my head until I thought the chain looked the right length and then ran up stairs with hook and chain in hand and measured it against the bed. That's about as technical as I get these days!

This Boy Granny Stripe is going to be made using Stylecraft Special DK in various shades of blue, with perhaps a few other colours thrown in for good measure. But I've not quite decided whether or not I'll deviate from the Blueness or not yet!

These are the colours that I have chosen so far ~

Aster ~ Royal ~ Midnight ~ Denim ~ Cloud Blue ~ Turquoise ~ Sherbet ~ Bluebell.

I am really excited about this blanket and now that I have finished the tricksy foundation row I am raring to go and can't wait to go whizzing along the rows with ease ~ making lots of lovely Blue treble clusters.

Right! I'm off now to put the kettle on for a cuppa and then get settled for a few rows of Granny Stripes :O)xx

Side View

2011-09-30T09:34:00.001+01:00

This is the view from our side gate immediately to the left our new house.

If you walk along the pathway and turn right up the adjoining field this is the view that you get! This hilly structure is North Berwick Law ~ which is a volcanic plug rising 615 feet above sea level.

Just after we moved to this beautiful town, we decided to make a day of it and climb all the way up to the top ~ we rounded up the kids and a couple extra ~ and headed off.

The climb starts of at a reasonable pace but it does become very steep indeed and as we got closer to the top I was practically crawling on my hands and knees and could have done with some extra oxygen too. I am soooooooooooo unfit! It really doesn't help when you have a small boy racing all the way up and the fact that you are trying to keep up with him in the fear that he might slip and fall all the way down! Boys!!

Here is the boy in question actually sitting still long enough to have his picture taken!

The effort of all that climbing is definitely rewarded when you get to the top as the panoramic views across East Lothian and the Firth of Forth are absolutely amazing ~ you can see for miles and miles in all directions. We are really lucky in this little part of the world as we are surrounded by countryside,the sea and some very beautiful beaches that stretch for miles along the East Lothian coast.

After a much needed rest at the top ~ for us oldies to catch our breath ~ we had a much more leisurely walk back down and then it was back home for a hard earned cup of tea and big slice of cake :O)xx

Wash Day Blues

2011-09-20T16:50:00.001+01:00

And greens ~ and pinks ~ and reds ~ and yellows and others too!

A few weeks back ~ whilst I was working my way through the usual daily mountain of washing ~ I felt that I needed something to take the dreariness out of doing the laundry.

Something to make the whole chore a little bit more pleasurable ~ so what better way to cheer myself up than a lovely new colourful crocheted peg bag.

I took some of my inspiration from Ravelry, but basically my colourful new peg bag is just a stripey rectangle shaped piece of crochet made from Rico Creative Cotton.

I have to say that I'm still not quite sure how I feel about the Rico Cotton, it can sometimes be a bit splitty to work with, and it does sort of look a little like beautifully coloured string. However ~ even after saying that ~ I do kind of quite like the overall finished effect that it gives to the crochet fabric.

Anyway ~ let's get back to the peg bag.

First of all I started by crocheting a rectangle with a hand sized slot about three quarters of the way down. I then folded the finished rectangle over and threaded a wooden hanger through one of the middle stitches at the top. All that was left for me to do after that was to crochet the sides and the bottom closed. I also decided to pretty it up a little bit by adding a bobbly edging and.........Ta Dah!

There we have it!

A colourful little crochet peg bag all ready to brighten up my Wash Day Blues and because I now have a lovely new brightly coloured peg bag I may just need to go out and buy myself to some new brightly coloured pegs to go with it! :O) xx

edited to add :: I have been asked to do a tutorial for my peg bag and I will try to do this asap for those of you that would like to give it a go :O)xx

Bloggy Break

2011-09-09T10:17:00.002+01:00

Goodness me!

That was a much longer bloggy break than even I anticipated having ~ but I'm really happy to be back in the land of Blog again. I'm hoping that I'll still have some of my lovely readers left! And although I haven't actually been blogging myself I have still been checking in regularly with everyone's blogs and have enjoyed reading about all your Summer Holiday exploits.

During the long bloggy break the BIG MOVE has finally taken place and after a very long eighteen months our little house was sold in June. We have now taken up residence in this modest three bed roomed semi detached house in my childhood hometown ~ which is by the seaside ~ and I am absolutely thrilled to be back home. Back near the beach and more importantly just a short two minute walk from my Mum's house ~ what could be better?

We have already spent a fair bit of time walking on the beach looking for treasures, paddling in the sea and taking in all the wonderful seasidey views ~ It makes me feel so lucky to be able to have my children spend some of their childhood by the seaside and experience the same pleasures that I had growing up in such a wonderful place.

As I've been so busy with the new house there hasn't been much time to spend on any hooky stuff ~ although I have been tying up some loose ends on my Rico Creative Cotton project ~ which I hope to be able to share with you sometime soon.

It really is good to be back! I'm off now to do a very quick food shop before heading off on the school run to collect a small boy. I hope that you all have a fabby weekend and I'll see you all sometime next week :O)x

France ~ Day trip to Paris

2011-07-01T17:10:00.001+01:00

Whilst we were at Disneyland, we decided that as we were so close to the centre of Paris it seemed a bit silly not to venture into the capital and see some of the sights that make this city so famous. We were not disappointed either ~ I don't think that I've ever been in such a beautiful city! It was absolutely breathtaking! You could spend a lifetime there and still not manage to see everything it has to offer!

As we had such a short time in the city we decided to go on an organised tour so that we could cram in as much sightseeing as possible. We boarded a very comfortable tour bus in the morning and were shown around the city in comfort with a very informative commentary. We drove past all the important sights ~

Up the Champs-Elysees to see the Arc de Triomphe ::

and past the Louvre where the painting of the Mona Lisa is kept ::

stopped to have our photo taken in front of the giant pyramid ::

We then changed our mode of transport for a Bateaux Parisiene for a leisurely sail up the river Seine, this time getting a different view of the landmarks as we passed by them on the water.

Notre Dame Cathedral ::

Pont Neuf ~ which is the oldest bridge in Paris ::

and of course the very famous Eiffel Tower ::

After our river trip, we disembarked and crossed over the road on foot to the Eiffel Tower. This was what we had all been waiting for! We were fast-tracked through so there was no long queue to stand in either. It was all very exciting!

This was the view we had whilst waiting for the lift ~ which was a double decker glass fronted contraption. It sort of went diagonally up the first bit and then straightened itself up to get to the first and second floors.

The views of Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower were stunning::

Once we had taken in all the views from the top of the Eiffel Tower we came down and sat in a little park at the bottom of it and had cafe au lait and ice cream which was a lovely way to finish off our day trip.

Paris truly is very beautiful and is a place which we will very definitely be revisiting again ~ hopefully sometime soon! :O)xx

France ~ Disneyland Paris

2011-06-06T11:18:00.002+01:00

We have just returned from spending a fabulous week in Disneyland Paris. The weather was absolutely glorious and we were able to wander around in shorts, t shirts and flip flops ~ a bit of a far cry from the weather that we have been experiencing here in Scotland of late!

It was lovely just to be able to relax in some sunshine and take things at our own pace. We have visited Disneyland in Paris a couple of times before so we know where everything is ~ well, when I say that what I actually mean is that my lovely husband knows where everything is because my sense of direction leaves a lot to be desired!

We went on all our favourite rides ::

Visited Phantom Manor ::

Lost our way a little bit in Alice in Wonderland's colourful maze ::

Saw a Pirate ship ~ but unfortunately there was no sign of Captain Jack ::

Took a trip on a runaway train on Big Thunder Mountain ::

And scared ourselves silly on the Tower of Terror!

After all that excitement we needed to be brought down to earth a bit ~ so we parachuted our way down into Toy Story Playland.

Do you see those brightly coloured plastic monkeys? I may be showing my age a bit now, but I remember playing with those when I was a child and it took me right back and believe me, it is quite a long way back too!

As you can probably tell we had the best time ever and we can't wait to go back again ~ hopefully sometime very soon:O)xx

Birthday Boy

2011-05-09T11:07:00.000+01:00

My little boy celebrated his ninth birthday a few days ago. I can't quite believe where those nine years have actually gone as they have whizzed by so quickly. I'm one of those mother's who loves all the cute little baby stages and I have to admit that I do sometimes struggle with the fact my babies are growing up so fast! But grow up they must do! Although, on the other hand, it is equally as exciting watching them take the next step in their little lives and develop into such lovely children.

He had a lovely day ~ there was a small pile of presents waiting for him at the end of his bed when he woke up ~ all guarded by his faithful little dog Winston ~ who is his most treasured soft toy.

Fortunately, he loved all his presents.

We spent the day down in North Berwick and had a leisurely stroll along the seafront ~ and my goodness, there was quite a sea breeze ~ I almost need my hat, scarf and gloves! The cold breeze did not put anyone of their ice creams though and we all enjoyed a delicious strawberry cone, complete with a chocolate flake.

One of the presents in his birthday pile were a couple of golf clubs so we headed off for a little practise and had a game of putting which was a lot of fun. There was also a fair amount of cheating going on too. In the end we all decided that the fairest score was a draw.

And, of course at the end of the day there was plenty of yummy chocolate cake and the obligatory blowing out of the birthday candles :O)x

Under the weather

2011-03-04T10:16:00.000Z

I've been feeling a little bit under the weather this week. Nothing too drastic you understand ~ just some nasty little bugs visiting with some coughs and sneezes and a helping of sore throats and thumping heads hidden in their horrid little suitcases. They have very definitely outstayed their welcome now and I am of the opinion that they should now pack up their little germ ridden suitcases and head on out my door.

You know that can't be bothered feeling? Well that's been following me around all week too. You know how it is ~

I can't be bothered getting out of bed
or getting washed and dressed
or cooking
or cleaning
or doing laundry
or walking to school
or dealing with squabbling kids
or anything else for that matter!

But as we all know life doesn't just stop when us girls are feeling under the weather ~ Does it? Oh No!! Things have still got to be done, families have still got to be fed and watered, household chores have unfortunately still got to be completed, albeit slightly less thoroughly than normal it has to be said.

On the plus side though, I have felt well enough to do a little crochet and to sit with my feet up and drink large volumes of tea. I always feel that's a very good remedy for almost anything!

Hope you are all feeling fine and that you all have a good weekend :O)xx

Birthday time again!

2011-02-24T16:23:00.000Z

It was my birthday yesterday ~ another year has zoomed by at a most alarming rate and here I am another year older and I'd like to think that I was another year wiser too ~ but probably not! And although I know that it's said that age is just a number I have to say that I would like that number to be ever so slightly less than what it is just now ~ but Onwards and Upwards is the only way to go!

I had a very nice day and was thoroughly spoilt by my lovely husband who took the day off work especially to wait on me hand and foot and to make sure my day was extra special. I do absolutely love him to bits ~ He is the best!!

I got lots of lovely cards and flowers and of course there was also chocolates and cakes served with large amounts of tea.

Amongst my favourite birthday things was this lovely card drawn for me by my little boy and a little stitched picture made for me by my daughter, who has obviously been watching me stitch away over the past couple of days.

And talking about stitching, here is where I'm at just now with my Quilty Hearts needlepoint ~ I'm almost finished with only a couple more hearts to stitch.

Of course when I've not been stitching I have been hooking away and making progress with my colourful Rico cotton stripes too.

Hope that you all enjoy the rest of your week ~ have a wonderful weekend and I'll see you soon :O)xxx

Valentine Hearts

2011-02-14T14:02:00.000Z

Hello ~ I hope that you are all having a very lovely and Happy Valentines Day.

I thought that today would be a very appropriate day to show you all how I am progressing with the contents of my Jolly Red Bag that I treated myself to a couple of weeks ago.

As you can see I have now completed the middle panel of Quilty Hearts and I'd love to be able to tell you that it has all been plain sailing ~ I really would! But........... unfortunately it didn't quite start out that way at the beginning!

This needlepoint malarkey might look like it would be easy ~ but to be honest, I did have one or two false starts with it and had to do quite a little bit of unpicking of stitches before I actually got into the swing of things. But now I'm happy to say that I have finally got the hang of tent stitch and am enjoying myself immensely.

This week it's half term up here in our part of the world ~ although it doesn't really seem all that long since the last school holidays. However, I'm not complaining. It will still be lovely to have the children at home and we are all looking forward to the lack of routine with some long lies and lazy days thrown into the mix. And me? Well I am also hoping to find some crafty, hooky, stitchy time in there too!

Enjoy the rest of your day and see you all soon :O) xx

Baking Day ~ Banana & Chocolate Muffins

2011-02-04T09:31:00.001Z

Yesterday was deemed a Baking Day here and I decided to bake something from my new Nigella Lawson's Kitchen book which I got as a pressie at Christmas time.

This book is huge! And very heavy!

Nearly 500 beautifully illustrated pages to drool over. But it is totally jam packed with lots of very tasty recipes ~ most of which sound very yummy and seem relatively easy to make! The recipe of choice yesterday was Chocolate Banana muffins ~ which I thought sounded just the thing to enjoy with a nice cup of tea.

Here is the recipe ~ courtesy of Nigella ::

3 very ripe bananas
125mls of vegetable oil
2 Eggs
100g of soft light brown sugar
225g of plain flour
3 tablespoons of cocoa powder
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
1 x 12 bun muffin tin

First preheat your oven to 200 degrees or gas mark 6 and line your muffin tin with papers ~ although to be honest, I don't own a muffin tin so all I did was bung some regular cake cases onto a baking tray and that worked just as well!

Next mash up the bananas ~ either with a fork or with an electric mixer, then whilst still mixing, add your vegetable oil followed by the eggs and the sugar.

In another bowl mix up the flour, cocoa powder and bicarb and add this mixture to the banana mixture whilst beating gently. Once mixed, spoon the lovely gloopy chocolatey mixture into your paper cases and bake in the oven for around 15 minutes.

Once they are done, allow to cool slightly and then enjoy with a nice cup of tea and a favourite blog or two!

Oh............ and just for the record they were very tasty ~ at their best, warm and straight from the oven. Although they would be just as yummy served warm with a dollop of creme fraiche or some good vanilla ice cream too.

I hope you all have a lovely and enjoyable weekend and I'll see you again next week :O) xx

Jolly Red ~ in the bag

2011-01-28T10:33:00.001Z

Last Saturday I headed into Edinburgh for a little bit of Girly retail therapy with my best friend and my little girl.

We had a really lovely day out. And as much as we really do love our boys it was nice to spend sometime together ~ just us girls.

We started off with a very unhealthy breakfast in McDonalds, and then at lunch time we had a very yummy lunch in a lovely little family run Italian restaurant. In between times we had plenty of time to browse around and do a lot of window shopping. As usual we didn't have much money to spend but I did have lots of Christmas vouchers instead ~ mostly for John Lewis. And we all know that the best department in John Lewis is the crafty one ~ don't we?

After taking our time to look at all the lovely things I decided to splash out on this little Jolly Red Needlepoint Kit. Back in my much younger days I used to do a lot of cross stitch, but unfortunately I've now reached that sort of dodgy age where your eyes start to go a bit funny when you are looking at things close up! And although I've never attempted to do any needlepoint before I figured that the holes on the canvas and the thicker tapestry wool should make this a little easier on my dodgy old eyes than cross stitch.

The needlepoint I chose is called Quilt Hearts by Jolly Red and it all comes packed up in this dinky little red bag.

Would you like to see what is in the bag?...........

Of course you do!

There is a colour printed canvas, lots of lovely coloured wool, charts and instructions, a needle and a needle threader ~ which may come in handy when I try to thread the needle with my dodgy old eyes!

I can't wait to get started on this and it goes without saying that I will let you see how I get on with it too.

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend ~ See you all next week :O) xx

Smiley things :O)

2011-01-24T09:47:00.001Z

Making me smile today are these gorgeous pink hyacinths that are sitting on my kitchen window sill just now ~ they were a very cheap buy from Ikea and more than worth the couple of pounds that I paid for them. They smell lovely and even standing washing the dishes doesn't seem so much of a chore when they look and smell so good! I can also see them everytime I walk up the garden path and they are a very welcoming sight indeed!

Also making me smile today is my new crochet project which I found the time to make a start on this weekend with my new stash of Rico Creative Cotton ~ I love the colours of this stuff so much ~ they are so bright and cheery and an absolute joy to work with ~ a little bit splitty sometimes but nothing too drastic! It just means that I have to be a bit more careful when I crochet along and take a little bit more care to put my hook in the exactly the right place making sure that I don't split the cotton! I have to admit that I do normally like to whizz along the rows as I crochet so it is making me stop and think about the process more than I usually do ~ but then again, that's no bad thing!!

I have had this particular project on my To Do List for ages now but I have never had the right yarn or colours to make it. As soon as I saw this yarn I thought to myself this is the one! And I can tell you that Rico Creative Cotton is very definitely the right yarn for the project ~ and although I'm not going to tell you what it is yet I'll leave you with a sneaky peek for the time being.

I hope you all have a lovely day and find plenty to make you smile too...........see you soon :O) xx

New Year ~ New Yarn

2011-01-06T12:03:00.002Z

Is it really the 6th of January already? Where on earth does the time go to? As usual, I am a lot later than most of you in making an appearance in blogland this year ~ but none the less I'm here now to wish you all a very Happy New Year ~ I hope that 2011 is a good one for you :O)

I don't usually tend to make myself New Year resolutions because being the terribly unorganised person that I am I never, ever stick to them ~ so really there is no point! However, I have been looking back over my little bloggy space for last year and noticed a distinct lack of posts!! Only 24 posts in a whole year!! How rubbish is that?? It really is a wonder that I have any of you lovely readers left!! So ...........what I am actually trying to say is that I WILL try harder to post a bit more often this year, and more importantly, I WILL try harder to finish some lovely crafty things so that I actually have something to post about!!

A New Year just has to have some New Yarn ~ or so I told myself!! And isn't this lovely lot absolutely gorgeous? I decided to buy myself a little yarny present and opted for this collection of Rico creative cotton and to tell you the truth I can't wait to get started with it. I love the brightness of the colours ~ they are just begging to made into something bright and cheery ~ I'm not quite sure what that something is yet, but I will let you know as soon as I have decided.

Right..........I think I can hear the kettle calling to me, so it must be time for a cup of tea and perhaps a little bit of pondering over some Rico creativity.

See you all soon :O)xxx

The night before Christmas

2010-12-24T08:56:00.000Z

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads...................

by Clement Clarke Moore.

Don't you just love this poem? It is one of my absolute favorites and I have very fond childhood memories of it being read to me and my sisters every Christmas Eve when we were small. It was a tradition that I really wanted to carry on with my own little family too.

We always settle down to watch The Polar Express with the children on Christmas Eve and then after the stockings have been hung up and the glass of milk and mince pies have been left out for Santa. Oh....... and not forgetting the carrot for Rudolph! It is time for that magical part of the evening to begin. Once we eventually get the children tucked up in their bed my husband reads it to them.......... I love watching their little faces ~ all the excitement and anticipation of going to bed knowing that when they wake up in the morning Santa will have hopefully left them lots of presents.

I hope that Santa leaves you lots of lovely presents too and that you all have a very Happy Christmas and have all your Christmas wishes come true ~ whatever they may be!:O) xx

Seasidey Stuff

2010-11-11T14:16:00.002Z

A few weeks ago ~ when the sun was a little bit shinier that it is now ~ we headed out for the day to the Seaside on the East Coast of Scotland. Our first stop was at St Abb's Head which is a National Nature Reserve looked after by the National Trust for Scotland. We had never visited this lovely place before and were very glad that we decided to stop for a look. There are some fantastic cliff top walks and the sea views are beautiful. Definitely well worth a visit if you are ever in the area and as an added bonus there is also a little craft type village there with a little tea shop, an art gallery and a wool shop too.

After all that lovely fresh sea air we were feeling a little bit hungry so we decided to drive to Eyemouth for a traditional fish tea. Freshly caught battered fish, chips, mushy peas and bread and butter all washed down with a lovely hot cup of tea. Not very healthy, but very tasty indeed!

Still keeping with all things seasidey......... I just have to show you the picture that I treated myself to a few weeks ago. I absolutely love this seasidey picture which is a print by the very talented artist and fellow blogger Julia Crossland. You will also see on my mantle that there is another little picture there too ~ that one was made for me by daughter and I love it just as much!

Lastly, but by no means least, I'd like you to meet my very new helper ~ Ollie the Socktopus as I like to call him. This fantastic little chap came from Ikea for the grand sum of £4 ~ a bargain in my mind! He will be extremely useful in the wet and windy wintery weather for helping me to dry little bits of laundry ~ mostly socks (hence his name) and small peoples pants......... I'm not quite sure that his little peggy legs would be up to carrying pants any bigger than this!!

I hope that you enjoyed my seasidey trip. I'm off on another watery trip now ~ the school run in the pouring rain! See you all soon :O) xx

Halloween Happenings

2010-11-05T10:27:00.003Z

We spent last weekend in the beautiful village of Alton in Staffordshire, attending the wedding of my younger brother and my very lovely new sister-in-law. The ceremony itself was in the registry office in Burton on Trent and then it was back to my Dad's pub ~ The Royal Oak ~ for the wedding reception. The weather actually decided to behave itself for once and was absolutely glorious and the sun came out to shine on a very perfect wedding day.

On Sunday ~ which was Halloween ~ we ventured off to Scarefest at Alton Towers which was fabulous! The spooky atmosphere and the special effects were amazing ~ the Towers were all lit up in their very spooky splendour and ghostly images were projected eerily across the night sky.

There were also lots and lots of different Halloweeny decorations dotted around the park to add to the spooky Halloween atmosphere.

We had a fantastically spooky Halloween evening and the children are now at an age where they are getting just that little bit braver with the rides that they will actually go on! Although, it has to be said that I just can't do the rides that go spinning around and around and around! I actually can't even bear to watch the children on them without feeling very dizzy and wobbly indeed!!

I hope that your Halloween weekend was as wonderful as ours :O) xx

Happy Swap

2010-10-26T07:34:00.010+01:00

I am a very bad blogger! x 100
I am a very lazy blogger! x100
I am a very neglectful blogger! x100

I have been such a very bad, very lazy and very neglectful blogger recently and decided that some kind of punishment was in order ~ I decided to give myself lines to write! Only, I also thought that you might not like the idea of having to read each of these statements one hundred times so I improvised ever so slightly!!

Thank you all so much for your kind Happy Birthday and Happy Anniversary wishes ~ from almost a whole month ago! ~ they were all very much appreciated indeed :O)

Now, before any more time passes by I really do have to tell you about the Happy Swap that I took part in a good few months ago! Apologies to the lovely ~ and very patient ~ Louise for the very long delay in blogging about this!!

This Happy Swap was organised by Lisa and I was paired up with Louise, the idea behind the swap was that you were to send a little package to your partner with things inside to make them Happy. I sent Louise a colourful gardening book, a rosy Cath Kidston wash cloth, a flowery toast stamp and a big bar of chocolate which you can see here ~ minus the chocolate!!

Happy things that were sent to me were a very pretty wash bag, some beautifully fruity bath time treats, some lovely stationery ~ notebook, pencils and erasers ~ and some very yummy and colourful skittles which I absolutely love and didn't share at all!!

Thank you so much again Louise your parcel made me feel very Happy indeed :O) x

Family Celebrations

2010-09-27T08:33:00.004+01:00

Hello ...........I'm back!

I haven't disappeared of the face of the earth at all!! I didn't quite mean to be away from Blogland for quite so long, but sometimes life has a habit of taking over and some things just have to take a bit of a back seat for a while! I am so glad to be back though and am looking forward to catching up with you all again.

It is a day for celebrations in our household today!

My little girl is eleven today ~ I really can't quite believe that it is eleven years since she was born and whisked away into intensive care in the Special Care Baby Unit. I didn't even dare to dream about birthdays then and just took each day as it came ~ but here we are celebrating her eleventh birthday. The time seems to go by so very, very fast once you have children. One minute they are tiny and helpless babies and the next they are nearly all grown up!

It is also our wedding anniversary today ~ I have been married to my wonderful husband for TEN whole years. We decided all those years ago that it would be a very lovely idea to get married and have our daughter christened on her first birthday. A little bit unconventional perhaps, but it makes today a very special day indeed!

Here we are looking very young indeed outside the beautiful church in Dirleton, East Lothian.

We took the children and some of their friends out yesterday for a Birthday Day Out ~ swimming and a Chinese Buffet lunch. Then it was back home for some Happy Birthday chocolate cake and a bit of a play ~ which involved much charging about the house, with lots of LOUD noise going on too!!

The celebrations today should hopefully be a much quieter affair and it will be just the four of us enjoying a civilised Birthday/Anniversary dinner. Although, at the moment I'm not quite sure what that dinner will be ~ because as usual I am Mrs Very Unorganised and have yet to go shopping for the necessary ingredients! :O) xx

Back to school

2010-08-19T09:37:00.006+01:00

My two small people went back to school today after a what seemed to be a very quick seven week Summer Holiday ~ I'm not quite sure where the time went to, but it certainly zoomed by at a very alarming rate indeed!

We were all up bright and breezy this morning, trying very hard to get back into some sort of routine. Breakfast, teeth cleaned, little faces washed, new clothes to put on, packed lunches made and new school bags packed.

Off they both trotted, looking very happy and cheery in their brand new school uniforms and their beautifully shiny new black school shoes ~ which will no doubt be scuffed to death by the end of the first day back! Thank Goodness for Scuff Coat is all that I can say about that!!

I delivered them safely to school this morning and am now sitting with a well earned cup of tea and enjoying the peace and quiet ~ Ahhhh...........Bliss!! There's nothing quite like coming home from the school run and being able to do whatever YOU want for a couple of hours. No constant cries of MUM!, or I'M BORED!! to be heard at all. It goes without saying that I will miss them terribly ~ but I can't tell you how nice it is to have some ME time back again.

I know that most of you still have a few weeks of your Summer Holidays to go and hope that you all have a very lovely time :O) xx

Holidays ahead

2010-07-27T16:11:00.002+01:00

I'm so excited!

I've got 3 whole weeks of time off work ahead of me ~ and after the last few weeks that I've had at work ~ I must say that I really am in desperate need of them!

I usually only work a few hours a week, but have been covering for holidays and other absences and as a result I have clocked up an extra 40 hours in overtime over the last couple of weeks. At times I have been stressed up to my eyeballs! Who ever said that libraries were supposed to be nice quiet places? A few days ago I even had to call the ASBO people out to deal with some horrid teenage trouble makers!!

We are not actually planning to go away anywhere very far due to the house selling situation ~ but I am looking forward to spending time with my family and having lots of days out and about........

I'm planning on reading lots of rubbishy novels and looking at lots of crafty books to try and get some new ideas together for future projects. I've got lots of ideas whizzing about in my head already just now but I'm really struggling to find the time to get them all done.......... Maybe one day!!

I have also got to keep adding to the pile of Summer Garden Grannies...... I would love to get this project finished whilst we are still in Summer! and ...........Yes, I do actually mean this Summer!! I really do want to make a start on a Lucy style Granny Stripe blanket but am not allowing myself to buy the yarn until I am nearly finished with this one!

I hope that you are all enjoying your Summer Holidays and look forward to catching up with you all very soon :O) xx

Sunday viewing

2010-07-08T07:11:00.003+01:00

Last Sunday the boys of the household set off on a bit of a Boy Adventure which they had been planning for ages.

They went off to visit Bo'ness and Kinneal Railway ~ which is Central Scotland's Steam Railway situated by the Firth of Forth. A real boys day out ~ lots of fun for the small boys and nostalgia by the bucket load for the big boys!

They took a ride on a beautiful old steam train to Birkhill station.

Where they also took a tour of the Birkhill Fireclay Mine.

Through the entrance and into the dark depths of the mine ~ definitely not my cup of tea! Far to dark and claustrophobic for my liking!!

Back up lots of steps ~ you can just spot a small boy charging up in front of everyone else!

They also met a lovely old doggy, who seemed to belong at the station. They nicknamed him the Dog Master as he parades up and down the platform barking at all the trains and being friendly to anyone who stops for a chat.

Little Miss Madam and I were left to our own devices at home. We normally would have planned a girly day out doing a bit of shopping, but as our house is still for sale we had to stay in ~ just in case there were any potential buyers looking to view our property on the Sunday afternoon. FAT CHANCE!! Nobody turned up!!

To alleviate our boredom we decided to do a bit of Sunday viewing ourselves and settled down with a new DVD ~ St Trinian's 2, The Legend of Fritton's Gold ~ which we had treated ourselves to especially for the occasion. We had a lovely afternoon cuddling up on the sofa, eating lots of yummy snacks and with the added bonus of no small boys running noisily around interrupting the film ~ Bliss!

Hope that you all had a fun filled weekend too ~ whatever you were doing...........:O) xxx

Last day of term

2010-07-01T10:19:00.006+01:00

Today is the last day of term!

I'm sitting here this morning with my feet up, having a little cup of tea and doing some hooky yarny stuff and making the most of the peace and quiet before the Terrible Two ~ Ooops!, I mean my lovely children ~ break up from school this afternoon for their Summer Holidays.

They went off to school this morning in a very happy and cheerful mood, clutching little bags of goodies to say Thank You to their teachers. We all went into Edinburgh last Saturday to do a bit of shopping and they both chose a lovely colourful Cath Kidston mug for each of their teachers, which we then stuffed full of yummy Thorntons chocolate bars.

I'd like to tell you that I took a very long time in wrapping them all up carefully but that would be a bit of a lie! I wrapped them up this morning in between making breakfast and packed lunches! To say that I am not the most organised of people these days would be a vast understatement!

We are all looking forward to this summer break immensely ~ 7 whole weeks of fun and adventures, days out to the beach and trips to the park, visits to some old rugged Scottish castles, yummy picnics and lots more have been planned. All we need now are some lovely hot summer days and life will be good!

Hope that you are enjoying your day and that you all have a lovely weekend :O) xx

Baking Day

2010-06-24T11:09:00.008+01:00

When I woke up this morning I immediately knew that I wanted to bake today. I haven't done any baking or making of any yummy things for eight whole months ~ as all my baking things have been packed away pending the sale of our little house.

However, this morning I decided that enough was enough and I rummaged about in my kitchen cupboards looking for suitable alternative baking utensils to use ~ and managed to scrape together enough substitutes.

I fancied something nice and sweet to have with my mid afternoon cup of tea and made some Fudge Slice ~ very yummy, very sweet and very moreish too!

This is a lovely recipe and it is just like eating fudge, but a lot easier to make......

The Ingredients are ~

225g digestive biscuits, finely crushed
225g butter
225g sugar
397g tin of condensed milk
200-250g chocolate ~ use either milk, plain or white, whichever you prefer!

First melt the butter, sugar and condensed milk together in a pan over a low heat until the sugar has completely dissolved.

Then bring the mixture to the boil and boil for 3-5 minutes stirring continuously until the mixture thickens and begins to turn golden. Take extra special care not to burn the mixture or you will get little black bits in your fudge.

Remove from the heat and add your biscuit crumbs. I find that there is something quite satisfying about bashing biscuits into crumbs with a rolling pin ~ it's very theraputic!!

Next pour the mixture into a traybake tin and leave to set. I usually line my tin with tin foil to make it easier to remove. There is nothing worse than having all your hard worked ruined by the refusal of the fudge to come out of the tin and be eaten!

Once the mixture is completely cool, melt your chosen chocolate and spread over the top. Stick the tray into the fridge and once the chocolate has set you can then cut the fudge into small squares.

Finally ~ put the kettle on, make yourself a nice cup of tea, put your feet up and ENJOY............... :O) xx

Ups and downs

2010-06-03T10:18:00.001+01:00

I'm just popping by to say Hello to you all and to let you know that I am still very much alive and kicking! I've just not had much time recently or indeed the motivation to have anything decent to blog about!

Thank you all so much for your lovely comments about my woolly paintbox cushion. I am so glad that you liked it and I did love reading all your wonderful comments about it ~ it really did cheer me UP alot ~ xxxx

I have been UP to my eyes in the end of year accounts for the wonderful charity that I do some voluntary work for. Rummaging around in piles of receipts and invoices and calculating and then recalculating ~ I think that I am finally getting somewhere though, and hope to have some kind of report done for the AGM which is happening very soon. Much too soon for my liking!

Earlier on in the week I had a little bit of a panic to myself ~ a little bit of a disaster....! No matter how hard I looked I just could not find my favourite and trusty metal hook. I decided that I needed to tidy out my crochet bag ~ which was a very necessary and very much avoided task ~ and do you know what? I found it hiding at the very bottom of the bag with all the scrappy little bits of wool that I keep 'just in case' I might need them again. I'm sure that you will all know how that is!!

Now that the little hooky stick has resurfaced again I really do want to get going with my summer garden granny squares ~ I desperately want to finish the little summer garden throw that I seem to have working on for ages. I have told myself that there are no more projects to be started until this WIP has been finished and as an added incentive to get it finished I have promised myself a new batch of Lucy inspired yarn once it's done. Better start crocheting quick then!!

I'm looking forward to catching up with you all sometime next week and I hope that everyone has a very lovely weekend :O) xx

Woolly paintbox cushion

2010-05-10T10:18:00.004+01:00

Oh my goodness! Where on earth did the last few weeks disappear to? I just don't seem to have had the time to fit in everything that needs to be done and I have certainly missed the time that I usually spend blogging and visiting all your lovely blogs too.

Although I have been really pushed for time, I have actually managed to fit in a little bit of crochet and have finally finished my woolly paintbox cushion. And I have to say that I am very pleased with it indeed!

I was a very good girl and for the very first time I actually blocked! I must confess that I have never blocked anything before and I was more than a little bit apprehensive about it. BUT blocking is good! It seems to totally transform the piece of crochet and actually makes it look more lovely than it did to start with and it feels so much softer too. I definitely recommend it and it is well worth the extra little bit of effort involved.

The woolly paintbox cushion was made using Lucy's Summer Garden Granny pattern and lots of yummy bright colours of Rowan Pure Wool DK surround by a lovely soft creamy colour ~ which really did bring out the bright colours beautifully. I didn't really want to crochet the back of the cushion cover this time, so I bought a really cheap fleecy blanket for less than a couple of pounds and made an envelope style backing for it ~ which actually worked out as well as I had hoped it would!

I'm off now to put the kettle on for a cup of tea and am going to sit for a while and play a little catch up with all of your lovely blogs. I hope to be here again very soon :O) xx

Monday Fun

2010-04-22T11:54:00.006+01:00

Monday was the last day of the school holidays for us so we decided to try and pack in as much fun as we possibly could. We had arranged to spend the day with my very best friend who lives in the beautiful Scottish Borders and had all been looking forward to it for ~ what seemed like forever.

First stop was Ceramic Experience ~ my two small people had been excited about this for weeks and absolutely love this kind of thing.........they LOVE looking at all the little white ceramic figures and take ages choosing just the right thing to paint ~ this time it was a little hedgehog and a little dog. They LOVE rolling up their little sleeves and getting stuck in with all the colourful paints and brushes ~ there is usually lots and LOTS of paint on clothes and faces and arms but it is so much fun watching their little creations take shape.

Then there was a leisurely walk along the river Tweed ~ stopping every so often to throw in a stick or a stone ~ which sometimes seemed to me to be more like half a tree or a rock! Small boys and water ~ what is that all about?? They just can't help themselves!!

We stopped for a very tasty buffet style chinese lunch which went down a treat and then we made our way to Harestanes Visitor Centre which is just outside Jedburgh. I love everything about this place as there is just so much to see and do.

There are little thatched houses to be explored............

There are willow sculptures to be found............

And pretty gardens made with paper too..............

It was a lovely day out! A most enjoyable way to spend the last day of the holidays!

However ::

There were two very grumpy and tired children on Tuesday morning ~ very reluctant to go to back to school and now they are both on a BIG countdown to the Summer holidays!

I have to say though that I am somewhat enjoying the peace and quiet and the routine of getting back to normal. It is lovely to come home from the school run and to be able to sit quietly with a cup of tea and some crochet and indulge in a little ME time :O) xx

Japanese parcel

2010-04-15T11:10:00.006+01:00

Look what I got in the post this morning!

A very beautifully wrapped parcel that has come all the way from Japan! Can you guess what it is? I'm sure that if you follow the very wonderful Lucy at Attic 24 then you should have absolutely no trouble at all in guessing what is inside the parcel!

Were you right? Yippee............ it's my very own copy of the beautifully illustrated Japanese book ~ Pretty Colour Crochet and Knit Goods ~ bought on Etsy from a seller called Pomadour 24. Now......... as it came all the way from Japan there is only one drawback and that is that the book itself is actually written in Japanese too! Fortunately for me all the patterns are also shown as diagrams and although I've never actually followed any crochet diagrams before I'm quite sure that it will be MUCH, MUCH easier to teach myself how to follow these crochet pattern diagrams that it will be for me to even begin to teach myself Japanese!!

As you will see from the photos I have busying myself this week by sewing in all the little end bits and joining up the granny squares on my colourful painbox cushion cover. I've nearly finished joining them all together now ~ I've just got to block it and then find something suitable to make the back of the cushion cover from. I usually just crochet the back of my cushion covers but this time I have another idea that I want to try out ~ I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will actually work out just the way I want it to!

I have also been out and about in the garden ~ pottering a little and enjoying the spring sunshine ~ I've been planting some pots with geraniums, sweet williams, trailing lobelia and sweet peas which should hopefully provide me with lots of beautiful colours in a few of months time. Do you see the very lovely colourful flower pots that I bought myself? I just couldn't resist buying them when I saw them ~ they really do make a very lovely change from the boring old terracotta ones that we normally use and I am really looking forward to planting those little pots up too!

Hope that you all have a very lovely weekend :O) xxx

Easter weekend

2010-04-06T07:48:00.007+01:00

A very Good Morning to you all today ~ I hope that you had a Happy Easter weekend.

We spent Easter Sunday down in the very lovely seaside town of North Berwick visiting my Mum. The weather has been very kind to us this Eastery weekend and we decide to work up an appetite for lunch by going for a bracing stroll along the beach and believe me, it was very blustery and very bracing indeed! Don't be fooled by the weather in the beachy photograph ~ silly old me forgot to take the camera so this picture was taken on a much brighter day last year.

Yesterday the weather took a bit of a turn for the worse and it became very windy and very rainy indeed. We decided to have one of those very lazy, staying in our pyjamas kind of days and lounged about and ate lots of chocolate eggs and drank vast amounts of tea. A wonderfully satisfying way to spend a day I must say!

In between all the tea drinking and chocolate eating I also managed to find the time to sit with my feet up and do a little crocheting. I have now finished making all the colourful little granny squares that I need to make my woolly paintbox cushion. As you can see I have still got to sew in the little end bits and then join all the squares together but I'm quite sure that it won't take me too long to do that.

There's a very busy week ahead with two small children to keep entertained ~ in ways that hopefully won't involve spending too much money. Although with a trip to the cinema planned that will pretty much blow the entertainment budget in one go!!

I hope that you enjoy the rest of your Eastery break and that you have a fun filled time whatever you may be doing :O) xx

Happy Easter

2010-04-03T10:19:00.005+01:00

Just popping in to wish you all a very Happy Easter ~ I hope that you all have a very lovely Easter weekend.

Enjoy your chocolate Easter eggs and TRY not to indulge too much........... although I somehow think that in this house it will definitely prove to be much easier said than done!! :O) xx

Woolly paint

2010-03-26T10:36:00.000Z

At the beginning of the week I was playing around with my little metal hooky stick and some very lovely colourful woolly stuff. I was supposed to be busying myself making a few more summer garden granny squares with some green grassy borders but somehow I got a little side tracked along the way.

I started making my flowery circles with creamy coloured middles and instead of surrounding them with their grassy borders I decided that I would play about with the colours a little bit. For some reason those little creamy circles surrounded by the bright colours reminded me a bit of an artists paint palette or paintbox ~ I'm not sure why!

It then set me thinking that for all of us like minded crocheters out there that a crochet hook is very similar indeed to a paint brush and that the colourful woolly stuff is a little bit like the paint. I was very pleasantly surprised at just how different the same little granny square could look just by using different colours.

Little summer flowers surrounded by their greeny grassy borders::

And a completely different look here altogether ~ a rather colourful creamy concoction ::

All this playing about with different colours just reminded me of what a wonderful medium that hook and yarn are. I can definitely see a colourful woolly paintbox cushion cover being made from these colourful little granny squares too ~ just the right kind of cushiony loveliness to brighten up my comfy settee.

Think it must be time now for a cup of tea and maybe a biscuit or two ~ I hope that you all have a very lovely weekend and look forward to catching up with all your blogs next week :O) xx

Raspberry Ripple

2010-03-15T09:26:00.004Z

Firstly I would just like to say THANK YOU all so much for your lovely comments about my Flowery Circle ~ I was overwhelmed by all the Flowery Circle love that you sent my way :O) xxx

Yippee!! I can't quite believe it ~ I have at long last finished my little girl's Raspberry Ripple Scarf. It was supposed to have been finished in time for Christmas! But it didn't quite make it as a Christmas pressie!! However......... Here it is now in all it's beautiful pink berrylicious glory.

My little girl loved my Watery Ripple Scarf so much that she asked if I could possibly make her a pink girly one. I have to admit that when she picked out the colours that she wanted I wasn't that sure that they actually blended that well together. However ~ now that it is finally finished ~ I am pleased with the way the colours look and she is absolutely delighted with her very warm and very cozy Raspberry Ripple Scarf.

Once again, I used the very lovely Attic 24 Neat Ripple Pattern and Rowan Pure Wool DK in the following pinky berrylicious colours::

Tea Rose 025

Hyacinth 026

Raspberry 028

There are 59 lovely pink ripply rows which were an absolute pleasure to crochet ~ I LOVE rippling away! Unfortunately to go along with those pretty little ripply rows there were 118 horrible little ripply ends that needed to be sewed in. WHY did I do my usual and leave them all to do at the end?

Still......... there is something strangely satisfying about seeing a growing pile of little ends that have been sewn in and snipped off and I just love seeing all the little end bits sitting in a colourful little pile too :O)x

Flowery circles

2010-03-04T09:53:00.005Z

First of all I'd like to say Thank you all so much for your very lovely birthday wishes and also for all the purple woolly boot love ~ your comments were all very much appreciated indeed :O) xx

This week I have been playing around a bit with all the little crochet flowers that I had made recently ~ I have had this idea whirling about in my head for a little while now and have finally had the time and the inclination to actually do what had to be done to get it made.

And here we have it! and I LOVE it, LOVE it, LOVE it!!

A pretty little flowery circle of woolly loveliness just waiting to be hung up somewhere that needs to be prettied up a little bit. It works along the same principle as the little button hearts that seem to be quite popular at the moment. I thought that if you could thread buttons onto craft wire then it would be fairly easy to add something as pretty as a little crochet flower into the mix too.

I really do have to say that I am very happy indeed with the resulting flowery circle and I can definitely see a lot more of these little woolly circles being made in lots of different colours and I also think that they would make rather wonderful little Mothers Day gifts too.

It looks very pretty hanging up in all manner of places ~ I know this because I have been going around the house and the garden this morning hanging it on door handles, windows, beds, drawers, garden gate latches and once I had made sure there were no neighbours looking I hung it on the holly tree just to see how it looked there too!

This blogging lark makes you even more mad than you actually thought you were to start with! I'm quite sure that there is a few of you that will agree with me on that one :O) xx

A Birthday Hello

2010-02-24T10:50:00.007Z

A great big HELLO to you all this snowy morning. I'm back! Not that I have been anywhere or indeed done anything exciting that has been keeping me away from blogland for so long! Although, I have just noticed that it must have been about 3 weeks since I last posted something ~ there are no excuses either ~ but anyway......here I am again!

It was my birthday yesterday ~ I won't go into all the numerical details but let's just say that I am very definitely at the stage where I have started counting backwards now! I had a very nice day ~ my lovely husband took the day off work and waited on me hand and foot and kept me supplied with vast quantities of tea and cake when I felt it was necessary...... which on your birthday is very necessary indeed!

I got some lovely presents too ~ my most favourite being these very cosy, very purple and very woolly boots which I absolutely adore. I keep opening the box to take a peek at them and am waiting for all this snow to disappear again so I can venture outside with them on my feet without them being totally ruined on their very first outing!

I have not been totally idle on the crafting front either ~ I have been busy crocheting lots of tiny little rainbow coloured flowers and I have also been trying to finish the Raspberry Ripple Scarf ~ there are lots and lots and lots of horrid little ends to sew in ~ but I am slowly getting into the swing of things again.

I'm off now to put the kettle on again for yet another cup of tea and maybe just a small slice of cake ..... because it would be a real shame for such a yummy chocolatey birthday cake to go to waste now wouldn't it? :O) x

Waiting.....

2010-02-03T10:40:00.001Z

Why didn't anybody tell me that this house selling malarkey was such hard work?

I have to admit that I am beginning to think that the bright pink FOR SALE sign that is very prominently sticking out from the middle of the garden hedge is invisible!

Our little house has been up for sale for 3 months now and so far there has been almost no interest in it at all. I suppose that on hindsight putting it on the market at the end of October was probably not the best timing ~ with Christmas and a new year looming ahead ~ but I just can't stand all the waiting about that is involved!

We thought that it would be a good idea to have our viewing by appointment and also to have open viewing on a Sunday afternoon. Sunday mornings involve running about like mad people doing all manner of household chores imaginable ~ washing, ironing, cleaning, dusting, hoovering, hiding things in cupboards etc......... And then Sunday afternoon we sit about WAITING for prospective buyers to knock on the door. We sit and we WAIT and we WAIT and so far not one person has viewed the house on a Sunday.

The estate agents phoned us on Monday morning to arrange a viewing for last night ~ and we got ourselves all excited ~ only to get another phone call from the estate agents to say that the viewing had been cancelled :o(

Now it's back to playing the WAITING game again!

Playing along with this game is the Raspberry Ripple scarf ~ which is patiently WAITING to be finished ~ it was supposed to be finished in time for Christmas but that just didn't happen!

Also playing along is this rather lovely pile of woolly colourfulness just WAITING for me to find some inspiration to turn it into some hooky goodness. But I'm not quite sure where my inspiration has gone right now as it seems to have got lost somewhere along the way too. Maybe I accidentally hid it in the cupboard when I was tidying up the house! :O)

Woolly Bunny

2010-01-25T09:06:00.005Z

A big HELLO to you all this morning ~ I hope that everyone had a very lovely weekend.

I'm not quite sure what happened to last week! The days are just whizzing by at such an alarming rate and it is difficult to believe that we are heading into the last week of January already.

As you can see I managed to find the time to finish my little woolly bunny. I sewed on the two little woolly bunny feet and the tiny fluffy pom pom tail. I was also planning to attach a little crochet flower to her ear but it didn't really work so I decided to give her a pretty little ribbon instead. And do you know what........... I have to say that I am very pleased with the result indeed!

The pattern for the little woolly bunny came from this very lovely book ~ Super- Cute Crochet by Nicki Trench and it does have some very cute patterns in it and is well worth a look if you fancy giving amigurumi a try. I found the patterns easy to follow and there are some beautiful pictures in the book too.

Right now I can hear the kettle calling to me and I am going to make myself a nice cup of tea and put my feet up whilst I ponder which nasty ~ but unfortunately very necessary ~ household chore I am going to tackle next! :O) x

Back to normal

2010-01-12T10:13:00.010Z

I don't know about the rest of you but I am finding it incredibly difficult getting myself and the children back into some kind of routine now that the schools have finally gone back.

I was really enjoying the extended break from school that all the lovely snow had given us. I was enjoying lying in bed all snuggled up cozily with the children and not having to get up and get ready for school, enjoying the lazy days watching children's films and all the fun playing out in the snow. Not to mention the endless cups of tea which just had to be accompanied by some kind of yummy calorie laden snack ~ chocolate or biscuits or cake or a mixture of the aforementioned yumminess!

All that has now been replaced with trying to get small people into bed at a reasonable time ~ even though they claim that they can't possibly go to sleep because they are very definitely not tired. It is a completely different kettle of fish when you are trying to coax them out of their cozy warm bed in the morning and trying desperately to get them to eat breakfast before going to school!

I am also finding it really difficult to get myself back into any sort of crafting routine too. I have a couple of projects that I have been working on but find I am struggling to find the motivation to actually complete them ~ I think I may have a touch of the January Crafting Blues! There are also lots of crafty ideas swimming about in my head but at the moment they are all whirling about and making me feel rather overwhelmed indeed!

Did you see the little woolly bunny peeking out at you from the crocheted jam jar? She is one of the things that I have been working on for ages ~ one of the things that has been NEARLY finished for a good few months and just needs a few finishing touches. I decided this morning that enough was enough and set about crocheting two little woolly bunny feet, a pretty little lilac flower and I also made the teeniest little fluffy pom pom for her little bunny tail. I've still got to attach them to her little bunny body and will let you see the finished result sometime very soon.

Enjoy your afternoon ~ whatever you may be doing............:O)x

Hello 2010

2010-01-04T13:56:00.005Z

And a very big HELLO to all you very lovely bloggy people ~ I hope that you all had a fantastic time at Christmas and although I am a little bit later than most people I would like to wish you all a wonderfully happy and healthy 2010.

We had a very quiet Christmas at home ~ just the four of us ~ and it was really lovely to be able to spend some time together. We did go out a couple of times to visit family but other than that most of the time has been spent at home. We have had a few lazy days when we have spent all day in our pyjamas. We have snuggled up on the settee with blankets watching Christmas dvds. There has also been lots of tea drinking and an HUGE amount of chocolate eating too!

The weather here has been very snowy and the children have had an absolutely fantastic time playing in the snow ~ sledging, throwing snowballs, building snowmen and snowcanos ~ which my little boy tells me is a volcano made out of snow! You live and learn!! We have been ready to wrap freezing cold little feet in warm blankets and cozy socks when they have finished playing and supplying hot chocolate to warm them up again.

Like many of you I have been taking a little look back over my blog for 2009 and thought that you might like to take a little look with me too.

There has been.............

::Woolly bits::
::Woolly birds::
::Flowery favourites::
::Holidays and Adventures::
::and of course some crochet too::

I'd just like to say Thank you to all you lovely people who take the time to visit my little bloggy space. I have really enjoyed being part of the lovely bloggy world in 2009 and am looking forward to lots of colourful creativity in 2010:O)

Wishing you all.........

2009-12-23T08:58:00.007Z

A Very Merry Christmas!

Not long to go now ~ only 2 sleeps until Christmas and I am so excited.........

I'm hoping that this lovely snowy weather continues so that the children can enjoy their very first white Christmas ~ how wonderful would that be?

I'm looking forward to sitting with my feet up on Christmas eve with a nice glass of Champagne and knowing that everything is ready for Christmas day.

I hope that you all have a very lovely time and that your Christmas is everything that you wish for :O) xx

Ready for Christmas

2009-12-17T10:38:00.000Z

Blimey! Where did last week disappear to? I must have blinked a little bit too hard and missed it! I know that I said that I had almost finished my Christmas shopping but there still seems to be a hundred and one other things to do to get organised for the BIG day.

I have been Busy,Busy,Busy! There has been a lot more running around like a mad woman doing lots more Christmassy preparations. I have been.............

BUSY ~ counting down the sleeps until Christmas by opening advent calendars. Not long to go now! Although I don't think that Joseph should really be dressed as a dentist or that there was a dentist chair in the stable all those years ago, but the children were responsible for the additions which were very kindly lent by the Sylvanian families!

BUSY ~ writing Christmas cards AND managing to get them posted before I miss the last posting date.

BUSY ~ wrapping my little Giveaway presents.

BUSY ~ buying a few more little Christmas presents ~ this time for ME! I'm not quite sure just how these little things managed to find their way into my shopping bags either!

BUSY ~ rippling away and trying to get this scarf finished in time for Christmas and making a few more felty decorations for the Christmas tree.

I hope that you are all having as much fun as me and enjoying this rather hectic time of year in the week before Christmas. I'm really looking forward to the BIG day and think that I am getting more excited than the children are! :O)

Giveaway winners

2009-12-04T12:44:00.000Z

I would just like to start by saying a very big THANK YOU to you all for the lovely comments that you sent me on my first Bloggy Birthday ~ they were all very much appreciated and made me feel very happy indeed.

I am sorry that it has taken me longer than I anticipated to do the draw for the Bloggy Birthday Giveaway ~ but I have been running around like a very mad woman doing all manner of Christmassy shopping things and I am nearly done! Yes.............. you did hear me right! I am nearly finished my Christmas shopping AND I have most of them wrapped up and hidden in the loft out of sight of small people! How organised is that? I must say that I am feeling incredibly proud of myself too :O)

Right.............. let’s get ourselves back to the Bloggy Birthday Giveaway. I put all the names of the lovely people who were kind enough to leave me a comment into my Cath Kidston Stanley bag and as I had two small people at home both eager to help out I decided that we would each draw one little piece of paper out of the bag ~ which means that 3 lucky people will each get a little Bloggy Birthday present from me.

The first name to be pulled out of the bag by a small boy was ~ Kim

The second name to be pulled out of the bag by a small girl was ~ Lucy

And the third name to be pulled out of the bag by me was ~ Louise

Congratulations to the winners ~ I shall send you each an e mail very soon and will need your posting info and I promise that I will try my very hardest to send your little present to you before Christmas.

I am just really sorry that I can’t send you all a little present but THANK YOU all again so much for your lovely comments.

I hope that you all have a very lovely weekend too :O)

Rainbow Birdie

2009-11-26T11:04:00.008Z

The sun is shining here in my little part of the world today which makes a lovely change after all the very stormy, windy and rainy weather that we have had over the past couple of weeks. I don't know about you ~ but it always makes me feel much brighter and happier when the sun is shining.

Today I thought that I would show you all my Rainbow Birdie that I made from another pattern from the very lovely Lucy over at Attic 24. I loved these little Birdie decorations the very minute that Lucy showed them on her blog and knew that I would just have to make one. However, I very stupidly thought that it would be plain sailing and very easy to do ~ BUT I had never crocheted a circle before and I ended up frogging it twice before I was happy with the shape for the little Birdie body. I'm not sure what I was doing wrong but no matter how hard I tried my circle would just not lie flat!

Taking my inspiration from my lovely stash of Rainbow coloured Rowan Pure Wool DK I tried to include all the colours of the rainbow ~ Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet.

I know that some of you will have already had a sneaky peak at my little rainbow coloured birdie over on Flickr and Ravelry but I am so pleased at how he eventually turned out that I just had to show him off here too! I think he looks very lovely indeed hanging on the holly tree in the winter sun.

There is also plenty of time left to enter my first Bloggy Birthday Giveaway ~ I will leave it open until the end of November and then I will get my small people to pull names out of a hat to find out which lucky people will receive a Bloggy Birthday present from little old me! All you have to do to enter is leave me a comment on either this post or my Bloggy Birthday post.

Tomorrow I am going shopping in Edinburgh with my very lovely husband ~ just the two of us! How EXCITING is that! It really doesn't happen very often so I am really looking forward to it. It will be lovely just browsing around the shops and stopping for coffee and cake and a lovely lunch without small people being bored or hungry!!

I hope that you all have a very lovely weekend too :O)

Bloggy Birthday

2009-11-21T08:37:00.003Z

Happy Bloggy Birthday to me....................

Today it is my Bloggy Birthday or Blogiversary ~ my little blog is one year old! I really can’t quite believe that I have been part of Blogland for one whole year ~ the time has gone by so very quickly and I have met some very lovely bloggy people along the way.

One of the many things that blogging has given me is the motivation to make lots of lovely things and also to try out things I wouldn’t normally have thought about making. The inspiration that comes from all you other lovely people is a very wonderful thing!

Now everyone knows that birthdays ~ even Bloggy Birthdays ~ need to have cake. Unfortunately all my baking things have been put into storage because we are trying to sell our house so bought cakes it had to be! ~ but they are still very chocolaty and very yummy indeed. I am going to celebrate my first Bloggy Birthday by putting my feet up and having a lovely cup of tea, a cake ~ or maybe 2 ~ and a little read at my new Country Living magazine too.

Bloggy birthdays also need to have presents so I bought myself a present of some lovely Rowan Pure Wool DK in some very pretty pink shades ~ I do have a little project lined up for this and all will be hopefully be revealed very soon.

As a way of saying a very BIG Thank You to all the lovely people who take the time to read my little blog there will also be presents for you too! I am not quite sure what these presents will be yet or even how many there will be either. I am also not promising that they will be handmade by me but they will definitely be something nice.

One of the most exciting things for me about having a blog is checking to see if anyone has left me any lovely comments. I just LOVE getting comments! The anticipation is sometimes just too much for me to cope with ~ I really must get out a bit more!! Anyway to be in with a chance of winning one of my Bloggy Birthday presents all you have to do is leave me a comment at the end of this post ~ I will leave it open until the end of November so that it gives you all plenty of time to be included in the giveaway.

I hope that you all have a very lovely weekend and I am looking forward to hopefully reading some of your lovely comments too :O)

Garden Loveliness

2009-11-13T11:21:00.002Z

Earlier on in the week I just happened to take a look out of the window and noticed how bare and wintery my back garden was looking. I decided to take myself outside for a closer look and noticed that although most of the flowers had stopped blooming there was in fact quite a lot of colour still around.

Beautifully vibrant red Wintery berries::

A pretty pink rose ::

Some very fragrant Rosemary ::

And some lovely Geranium leaves ~ with a few little red flowers still out.

One of the things I love most about blogging is that it makes you far more aware of your everyday surroundings and I was actually quite surprised at how beautiful these plants were. I suppose that what I learned was that if you take the time to look a little bit more closely at everything around you then there is beauty and pleasure to be found in even the simplest of things and that there is plenty of colour to be found if you look hard enough for it.

Right ............ moving onto an entirely different kind of garden now.

Summer Garden Granny Squares to be more precise. I have now finished the first block of my Summer Garden Granny blanket ~ and I am very happy with how it has turned out. As you can see it is still looking a bit bunched up and wrinkly and it definitely needs to be blocked but it lets you get the general idea though. That’s one down and only about 29 more blocks to make!! I can definitely see this one being a very long term project! I must say that I am absolutely amazed at the speed that some lovely bloggy people can produce beautiful blankets!!

Enjoy your weekend ....... I hope it’s a good one :O)

Watery Ripple Scarf

2009-11-10T10:09:00.005Z

Today is a big day for my Watery Ripple Scarf ~ because today is the day that it get’s it’s very own BiG Moment in blog land ~ a kind of show and tell if you like.

My Watery Ripple Scarf started out life as a test run of the very lovely Attic 24 Neat Ripple Pattern and it just evolved very easily into a scarf. I used Rowan Pure Wool Double knit in the following water inspired colours ::

Glacier 005

Pier 006

Marine 008

It was my very first time rippling and I really do have to say that once I got started I LOVED it. I did not, however, like trying to crochet in to the foundation chain for the first ripply row! That was really difficult and I am so very glad that I only had 31 chains to battle with! Maybe if I start now I might get the first row done for a ripple blanket this time next year! I may be missing something but I’m sure there must be an easier way to do it.

Anyway ~ here it is!

The BiG Moment for my Watery Ripple Scarf.............

I really do love my Watery Ripple Scarf and I really do LoVe the water inspired blues and greens too. It is also such a joy to wear and it had it’s very first outing into the big wide world this morning as I wore it for doing the school run and it kept me very warm and very cosy indeed :O)

Crochet Mosiac

2009-11-06T09:08:00.005Z

Hooray! I did it! I'm so excited about it too! ~ I have finally managed to make a photo mosaic and I have to say that I am very, very happy with it indeed :O)

I have admired these wonderful photographic creations that I have seen in other peoples blogs for such a long time and I have tried unsuccessfully several times to make one for myself. However, yesterday it seems that I finally cracked it!

I used a combination of Flickr and Bug Huge Labs and once you get the hang of it then it is fairly easy to do. It is lovely to have all my colourful October crochet projects in one image and I can definitely see myself making a few more of these lovely creations for future blog posts.

Right.......I really do have to go and do some yukky but very necessary household chores ~ laundry, dishes, cleaning, dusting, hoovering............. you all know how it is ~ the list is endless! Oh and I have to sew some pink elastic onto some ballet shoes for this afternoon too ~ these poor ballet shoes have been waiting for their elastics for a good few weeks now!

I hope that you all have a very lovely weekend :O)

Wet Weekend

2009-11-04T10:44:00.007Z

I am back ~ and I had a very lovely ~ but very WET weekend ~ in the beautiful Highlands of Scotland. The hotel was just as warm and friendly as I remembered and the picture of the Buachaille Etive Mor was taken just as we arrived from our bedroom window!

The weather was very typically Scottish and it rained for most of the weekend and rather unfortunately I discovered that my so called waterproof coat was not in fact very waterproof at all and I got absolutely soaked from head to toe!

Unfortunately because the weather was so wet there was not much chance to get as many photographs as I would have liked as the rain and cloud were coming down and blocking the view over the mountains.

The Autumnal colours were beautiful and the photographs do not really show the contrast between all the greens and browns and oranges but the scenery was spectacular.

The rainy weather didn’t stop us from enjoying ourselves and although we didn’t get very much walking done we did manage to visit Oban and Fort William and have a lovely lunch and stop a few times for tea and cake!

And I did find the time to crochet some greeny grassy borders around my flowery circles too!

Weekend away

2009-10-29T09:24:00.002Z

Do you remember a few weeks ago when I showed you a picture of this beautiful mountain?

This gorgeous mountain is called Buachaille Etive Mor and is situated at the head of Glen Etive in the Highlands of Scotland and is where I will be staying tonight!

I am going away for a Girly Weekend with my very best friend and we are going to be staying in The Kings House Hotel which is a remote inn and hotel at the eastern end of Glen Coe and enjoys breathtaking views of the beautiful Buachaille Etive Mor from it’s bedroom windows. Whilst I am very excited about this weekend I am also a bit apprehensive about it too as I have never been away from my children or my lovely husband for as long as 3 nights before and I know that I will really miss them ~ a LOT.

We are maybe going to do a little walking as the scenery is so spectacular ~ but mostly we are planning on relaxing and taking it easy.

I will be taking my walking boots and my watery ripple scarf to keep me cosy ~

Some very essential reading material ~

And of course some crochet too ~ I am hoping to find the time to crochet the green grassy borders around my little flowery circles.

I hope that everyone has a very good weekend and I will be back next week to show you some more of the lovely Scottish scenery :O)

Little end bits

2009-10-26T11:04:00.005Z

I have been taking it very easy for the past week and have had my feet up on a daily basis and have managed to do quite a lot of crocheting ~ and quite a lot of drinking tea and quite a lot of eating cake and chocolate and all manner of things that are not good for me at all. But it was all for medicinal purposes you understand!

You will all be very glad to know that I am now well on my way to making a full recovery from my Stupidness and had the very nasty little staples taken out today. OUCH! OUCH! OUCH! OUCH!! At least that is over with and I am truly glad about that. Hopefully that will now be the END to my Stupidness!

Talking of ends ~ what do you do with yours? Do you sew as you go? Or leave them all till last? I must say that I usually do sew them in as I go because I absolutely hate being faced with all those troublesome little ends when I come to the end of a project.

However, this past week I have been in a such a hurry to get a couple of little projects started and finished that I just didn’t want to interrupt my crocheting to sew in all the ends.

This might look like a very neat little pile of flowery circles.....

But look at them from a different angle and you can see the tangle of little end bits that need to be dealt with.

Same here with my Watery Ripple Scarf ~ again there’s lots of little end bits ~ although I did actually start with good intentions but was enjoying the soothing action of rippling so much that I didn’t want to stop.

So here I am faced with the horrid job of sewing in ends and how I wish now I’d done it as I went.

Yippeeeeeeeee! The job has now been done and the little flowery circles and the watery ripple scarf are looking much tidier and there is something very satisfying about seeing a growing pile of little colourful ends that have now been sewn in and snipped off.

Don’t you just love seeing all the colourful little end bits sitting in a colourful little pile :O)

Rainbow colours

2009-10-20T11:37:00.004+01:00

Firstly I would like to say a very big THANK YOU to everyone who has been kind enough to send me Get Well wishes following my Stupidness last Thursday!

I am feeling a little better and although my head does still hurt quite a lot ~ which with 4 staples holding it together is to be expected ~ I am slowly starting to get back to normal. Although to say that I am beginning to PANIC about the removal of the aforementioned staples is a bit of an understatement! However, as I can’t keep them in my head for ever I will just have to grin and bear it and put up with the pain~ because I am very sure that there will definitely be pain involved somewhere!

Right that is enough panicking for the time being ~ let’s get ourselves back to these Rainbow colours.

A few weeks ago I signed up for a Rainbow Colour Swap and my lovely swap package from Juanita arrived on Friday just in time to cheer me up from my Stupidness! Inside the parcel was a very lovely little green bag which Juanita got on her travels in India and also a beautiful handmade green beaded bracelet which included a bead which she had handpicked from a street vendor in India too. I love the bracelet and am sure that I will wear it often! Thank you so much Juanita.

I also received another parcel at the weekend which was of the very lovely woolly kind. I LOVE it when these packages of wool arrive. I get so much enjoyment from just unpacking it and seeing what lovely colour combinations can be made. As you can see there are quite a few rainbowy colours in there and they will be just right for making more of the pretty flowery centres for my Summer Garden Granny Squares. There are just so many different colour combinations to be made that I find myself waking up at night just thinking about it!

I’m think that I am going to go now and put the kettle on and rest my sore little stapled head and I must say that I plan to put my feet up, drink tea and crochet for most of the afternoon :O)

STUPID :O(

2009-10-16T12:07:00.006+01:00

STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!.........that is exactly what I was yesterday morning!!

I did a very STUPID thing yesterday and thought that it would be a good idea to climb up onto the kitchen worktop to try to get something that was high up in the kitchen cupboard. I somehow managed to slip and fell from the top of the worktop and hit my head on the metal kitchen bin. I instinctively knew that I had hurt myself quite badly and that was before I had managed to scrape myself off the kitchen floor and before I saw how much blood was involved.

After a LOT of crying and a LOT of panicking ~ and whilst trying not to bleed all over the new carpets ~ I managed to pull myself together enough to phone my by now very worried husband who zoomed home from work in record time and rushed me to A & E.

To cut a long story short and as it was a head injury I got seen by a Doctor straight away and I have now got 4 metal staples holding my head together and am suffering from the after effects of concussion. Oh! And my head really, really hurts! A LOT!!

Now it has to be said that I never normally need much of an excuse to put my feet up and take it easy ~ but I am enjoying being made a fuss of and have had breakfast in bed and a never ending supply of tea being sent up to me by a very wonderful husband who has taken the day off work to look after his very stupid wife.

I have also got the ideal excuse to sit in bed and maybe crochet a little ~ or a lot! ~ and I have made a start on a very soothing little ripple pattern just to take my mind off my poor little head.

I hope that everyone has a very lovely weekend and I hope to be up and about next week to catch up with all your bloggy news :O) xx

Colourful crochet

2009-10-09T10:24:00.007+01:00

Colourful crochet ~ one:

I have at last finished my colourful crochet cushion cover ~ this little project seems to have been on the go for absolutely ages and I am so very glad that it is finally complete and ready for use. It has to be said though that I am not personally getting to sit down and use it very often because it keeps being pounced upon by small children who are finding it very comfy and cosy indeed!

I’d also like to know why small boys like to stick their fingers in all the little crochet holes and have a good old rummage around inside the cushion! What is that all about?

Colourful crochet ~ two:

Look at all this wonderful hooky loveliness! I couldn’t resist treating myself to this fantastic set of very colourful aluminium crochet hooks ~ I LOVE them and although I am not sure if I will ever find a use for every single one of them (sizes 2.00mm to 10.00mm) I’m sure that you will agree that they are all very pretty and are lovely to look at.

Colourful crochet ~ three:

Finally I want to show you this colourful little crochet jam jar cover that I made yesterday. This is yet another wonderful inspiration from the very lovely Lucy over at Attic 24 ~ she has created so many lovely patterns and I am slowly trying to work my way through them all. I am very pleased with the way that it has turned out and it makes a very pretty little container for all those very colourful crochet hooks too.

I hope that you all have a very lovely weekend and look forward to catching up next week :O)

Mountainous!

2009-10-06T14:07:00.008+01:00

I’ve got a little bit of a dilemma for you all today!

Faced with this mountain ....

Or this mountain....

Which one would you prefer to be standing looking at?

Well ~ I know which one that I would choose! But unfortunately for me I was standing at the bottom of this very large mountain of ironing yesterday.

Be warned ladies ~ as this is what happens when you spend your days playing hooky with a small metal stick and some wool instead of tackling the very yucky housework!

I had taken the very necessary step of removing the enormous pile of clothes from the airing cupboard as it was in danger of causing a small avalanche and threatening to topple down on top of anyone who happened to move or go anywhere near it!

I spent the whole of yesterday ironing and it took me 4 very long and tedious hours of just standing ironing ~ there were just under 100 items of clothing making up that mountain ~ I know this because I actually took the time to count them!

I am so very, very glad that it is now done and I can get on with doing something else a little bit more constructive ~ such as sitting with my feet up with some lovely crochet and a nice cup of tea :O)

Flowery favourites

2009-10-01T10:57:00.011+01:00

Today I thought that I would have a bit of a flowery post and tell you all about my favourite flowery bits and pieces..........

My very favourite flowers in the whole world are these beautiful pink lilies. I absolutely LOVE the way that they smell...... the way that they practically take over the house when they bloom and the way that they look so very pretty with their big pink petals in perfect contrast to their greenery. I Love them because they remind me of when my little girl was born when my room in the hospital was filled with their smell and their prettiness. My lovely husband always buys me a great big pink bunch of them on our little girl’s birthday and our Anniversary.

I also love pink carnations ~ my Dad bought my Mum these flowers when I was born and my lovely Mum now buys me some every year for my birthday too. I love how family traditions are made and that a simple gesture from my Dad to my Mum all those years ago is still being made from my Mum to me.

Another flowery favourite of mine is the little Attic 24 inspired crocheted flower pot which I made a few weeks ago. It now has pride of place on my bedroom window sill and it always brings a little smile to my face when I see it sitting there looking very colourful and pretty.

I also love my very flowery blue Cath Kidston Knitting/Crochet bag which my best friend bought me for my birthday last year. I have to say that it has had quite few derogatory comments thrown at it by various members of my family ~ words such as Granny and Old Lady have been said about it ~ but I don’t care! I love it!! and it is a very useful bag too........

Finally, I love these little Flowery summer garden squares which I started to make yesterday when I really should have been doing some very yukky housework! Once again they are another wonderful inspiration from the very lovely Lucy over at Attic 24. I am not quite sure what I am going to make with them yet ~ I would like to think that I could make a lovely flowery blanket to cosy up with on the sofa in the winter ~ but we shall see! :O)

Birthdays and Anniversaries

2009-09-28T09:24:00.006+01:00

Yesterday my little baby girl turned ten ~ TEN! Into double figures! How did that happen so quickly? I can’t quite believe how quickly time goes zooming by once you have children. It really doesn’t seem like ten years ago when she was born and whisked away into intensive care in the Special Care Baby Unit where I didn’t dare to dream about birthdays and just had to take each day as it came. However! Here we are celebrating her tenth birthday and what a lovely day we had too.

She decided that she wanted to take three of her friends swimming to a Water Park in Edinburgh ~ one of these pools that have all manner of slides and waves and rubber rings and waterfalls going on! Followed by a Chinese Buffet Lunch ~ all very grown up! Then it was back home for more charging about the house, lots of girlie screeching and giggling (at very high volumes) and some Happy Birthday cake with candles and lots of presents.

Yesterday it was also our wedding anniversary too ~ we have been married for 9 years! All those years ago we decided that it would be a very lovely idea to get married and have our daughter christened all on her first birthday! A little bit unconventional, but it makes her birthday and our wedding anniversary extra special. We got married in this beautiful little church in the very picturesque village of Dirleton in East Lothian.

I got some very lovely Anniversary presents ~ self portraits were drawn and button bracelets were very carefully threaded up and proudly presented. I also got a beautiful bouquet and a very nice bottle of champagne from my lovely husband. You may also just see that we did manage to find the time to drink it in the evening too!!

We tend not to do too much more to celebrate our anniversary as birthday celebrations are obviously far more important in the minds of small children ~ so our anniversary meal out was the very same Chinese Buffet Lunch where we were accompanied by five lovely children! All very romantic as you can well imagine, but a great time was had by all:O)

Successful Shopping

2009-09-24T10:23:00.010+01:00

I had a very successful shopping trip last Saturday and actually came home with some very useful purchases. You might have already guessed by now that I love shopping for woolly bits and pieces but I hate shopping for clothes for myself. I don’t normally get the chance to buy very many clothes for myself as money is usually a bit scarce and like most families the children’s needs come first. It also has to be said that they have much nicer clothes than me and a much fuller wardrobe too!

However, I was on a mission on Saturday to buy myself a very much needed pair of shoes in preparation for the winter months ahead of us. I don't know about the rest of you but I usually get a picture of what I want to buy in my head and then can’t find anything that I like when I trail around the shops. Luckily for me this Saturday the shopping was very successful. Do you want to see what I got?

A very comfy pair of trainers ~ perfect for wearing with jeans and doing the school run.

A very cosy pair of black leather boots ~ also perfect for wearing with jeans and doing the school run when the weather gets a bit colder.

And a very pretty little top and a pair of jeans too! You have probably realised by now that I am definately a jeans and t shirts kind of girl and I just don't never ever wear heels!

Like I said ~ A very Successful Saturday Shopping trip :O)

Getting there

2009-09-17T09:54:00.012+01:00

We are getting there! It has been busy...busy...busy! An absolute hive of activity in fact! Workmen have been coming and going at an alarming rate! But ......walls have been painted, patio windows have been repaired, kitchen sink has been replaced, carpets have been laid and everything is starting to look very lovely indeed. We still have quite a bit of work to do, but our little house is almost ready to be put up for sale.

I am getting there with my very colourful crochet cushion cover too. Both sides have now been completed and I just have to join them together now which I will do by using this method here from the very lovely Lucy over at Attic 24. All going well I should be able to show you the finished cushion cover sometime very soon.

I am also almost getting there with two amigurumi figures that I have been making. A cute little pink birdie and a sweet little grey rabbit. They still need a few finishing touches done to them ~ such as sewing in of ends ~ but I am fairly pleased at how they have turned out.

I am really looking forward to this weekend as we have a Friday and Monday holiday from work and school. I am taking myself off on Saturday with my very best friend for a little Girly Shopping Trip and I really do intend to make the most of the day out. It is such a treat to be able to go out shopping without having to have eyes in the back of your head whilst keeping watch on two wandering small children. It is also such a treat to be able to stop for coffee and cakes and a lovely lunch when you want to....... instead of listening to cries of 'I'm hungry' or another favourite 'I’m bored’!!

I hope that everyone has a very lovely weekend and I will ‘see’ you all sometime next week :O)

Moving House

2009-09-08T10:31:00.005+01:00

Arrgghh!!

Things have been very hectic around here for the last week or so! Earlier on in the year you may remember this post when we had decided to build an extension onto our house. However, following a week full of meetings with the bank and estate agents we have now decided that moving house would be a much better idea.

I have been under very strict instructions from my lovely husband that I must de clutter the house in order to get it ready to put up for sale. Who is he trying to kid? I am a hoarder at heart and find it very difficult to get rid of things ~ quite traumatic in fact!! I like to squirrel things away ‘just in case’ they may be useful later! However, I have been a good girl and have been sorting out and sending bags of stuff to charity shops and putting lots of things in the bin and although I hate to admit it, the house does look a lot better with less clutter.

We have been ~ or should I say my lovely husband has been ~ very busy ripping up carpets and doing lots of painting and the house is starting to look very lovely indeed. So lovely in fact, that if we really didn’t need some extra space I would be changing my mind about moving altogether!

Whilst my lovely husband was painting last weekend I was sent on a little shopping trip to buy some new lampshades and blinds and other bits and pieces to make the house look pretty. As this only took me a couple of hours and I had been sent out of the way for the whole day I decided to have a little look in the wool shop! It was only a little look and as you can see I only bought a few balls of that very lovely Rowan Pure Wool DK. At last I can now finish my colourful crochet cushion cover and have plans to maybe start on a blanket too :O)

Quiet House

2009-08-24T10:40:00.007+01:00

My children went back to school in the middle of last week and I am now trying to get back into some sort of routine. I can’t believe how quickly seven and a half weeks of school holidays have just disappeared! The house seems so very quiet now and it’s funny how you miss all the chatting and laughing and noise of lots of children generally charging around the house causing mayhem!

However, now that they are back to school, my absolute favourite time of the day is just after I have come back from doing the school run in the morning. That is when I make myself something yummy for breakfast, along with a nice cup of tea, and I settle myself down to read a few chapters of whatever book I happen to have on the go ~ Blissful........

I can also now get back to doing some serious crocheting without the constant cries of ‘MUM’ every two minutes. I have nearly finished my Colourful Crochet Cushion Cover but disaster has struck and I have run out of my lovely Pier coloured Rowan DK Wool........ with only one round to go! The only good thing about running out of wool is that it gives me an excuse to go into Edinburgh for a bit of a woolly shopping spree ~ although I don't think that many of us need an excuse for woolly shopping! Do we? :O)

Swaps are FAB!

2009-08-17T10:28:00.009+01:00

Last week the Postie delivered my Seaside swap parcel from my swap partner Val ~ Dotty Dotty. As I have said before this was the first swap parcel that I have received and we were all so excited! The children gathered around expecting me to rip it open. But No! First of all I had to take some photographs to show you all. You should have seen their little faces!

It was wrapped in lovely colourful flowery paper and perched on top of the parcel was a lovely little windmill which is now sitting in my garden looking very pretty.

Once all the photographs had been taken it was a race to see who could get into the parcel first and we were not disappointed either! Inside the parcel was a very lovely felt bag which was embellished with a FAB ice lolly made by this lovely blogger. I have admired Lisa’s work for a long time and am now the lucky owner of this lovely bag.

Inside the bag was another of Lisa’s creations ~ a felt FAB ice lolly ~ which my children have now decided belongs to them! There was also a lovely handmade lavender pillow which smells wonderful, crochet covered seaside pebbles and a little box of sea shell chocolates.

I loved everything in my parcel ~ Thank you very much Val ~ and I am so glad that I decided to take part in the swap. Swaps are FAB! :O)

Little Flower Pot

2009-08-11T07:12:00.004+01:00

Can you remember a few weeks ago when I was crocheting these lovely little colourful flowers from Attic 24? I wasn’t sure at the time what I was actually making them for and just carried on crocheting them as I was enjoying it. Would you like to see what I did with them?

Well ~ I decided that I would have a go at the Japanese art of Amigurumi and eventually made this little flower pot. I have to admit that it took me quite a few attempts because I didn’t realise that you had to work in spirals and not in rounds ~ if that makes any sense! It was frogged a few times and I very nearly gave it up as a very bad job. However, once I got the hang of it I found it fairly easy to do and it does work up very quickly too. Once I had made the flower pot all I had to do was attach the flowers and I ended up with this lovely little flower arrangement which I love.

Now, anybody that knows me well will be aware that I am not renowned for my green fingers ~ all the gardening is done by my lovely husband who is helped (although I’m not sure if that is the right word to use!) by one small boy. The good thing about these little flowers is that they don’t need any green fingered skills and will sit happily on my window sill looking pretty without the need for constant care and attention from me! :O)

Seaside Swap

2009-08-07T10:02:00.007+01:00

I recently took part in my very first bloggy swap which was organised by Rachel ~ the swap had a Seaside theme and I had such fun looking for all the little Seasidey bits and pieces. I know that my swap partner has received her parcel so I can now safely show you what I sent.

It took me absolutely ages to think of what I was going to send as my handmade item, but I finally decided on this little Seaside inspired felt pin cushion. I am sure that my stitches could have been a lot neater but I was quite pleased at how it turned out. I added some sea shell shaped buttons and some pretty little pearly pins as a finishing touch.

Also inside the parcel was a little Gisella Graham lighthouse tea light holder, some shell shaped soap, a painted glass yacht wind chime, sea shell shaped wine glass charms, an ice cream shaped lip gloss, a beach hut cross stitch kit, some sea shell chocolate and finally some seaside rock. I really enjoyed this swap and am looking forward to doing another one sometime soon :O)

Back home again

2009-08-05T11:35:00.008+01:00

We are just back from our lovely and relaxing countryside holiday, where we were staying with my Auntie and Uncle in the beautiful Durham Dale of Weardale. They stay in this beautiful little riverside cottage and it is always a pleasure to stay there. It always feels like you are stepping back in time and staying in a bit of a time warp, as everything is so old fashioned inside, with sloping floors and very low dark wood beamed ceilings ~ not good for a very tall husband who now has a few bumps on his head as holiday souvenirs! It is very cosy and very homely and always has a lovely roaring coal fire burning at the end of the day, which is just right for snuggling up on the sofa with a glass of wine and getting a bit dozy.

We went on some lovely countryside walks and admired all the beautiful scenery ~ we even managed to find a lovely little Fairy House.

Something looks very interesting here!

Here we are having a very well deserved rest after a long walk. You can see that we were very obviously dressed for the British Summer in wellies, waterproofs and walking boots ~ although we can't complain that much as the weather did stay mostly dry for us. I have all but given up hoping for hot summery days and now just hope instead each day that it doesn't rain!

We had a very lovely and relaxing holiday and also managed to find lots of little countryside tea rooms,which are very necessary for much eating and drinking of tea and cake ~ just what you need after a nice walk ~ although I think that I will need to walk for miles now to lose all the extra pounds gained from eating all that yummy cake! :O)

Farmhouse Holiday

2009-07-26T11:19:00.013+01:00

We had a wonderful weekend staying at this lovely Farmhouse Bed and Breakfast, which I can highly recommend if you should ever find yourself looking for a place to stay near to Alton Towers.

Unfortunately the weather wasn’t that great but the scenery is glorious and the children can play safely too.

We fed some goats

We played with some Farm kittens

We visited a Zoological Park where we saw some Meer cats ~ which caused much hilarity as it just reminded us of Alexander from that brilliantly funny advert for Compare the Meercat.com!

And some Flamingos.

We had a lovely, but very wet day at Alton Towers, but it didn’t stop us from having a lot of fun. We were not brave enough to go on any of the fast and scary rides, but enjoyed all the small child and parent friendly rides with the Berry Blaster being our very favourite. We went on the Sky train and later found out that one of the stations that we were in caught fire and was completely burnt down the same day!

We are off again later in the week to spend a few days with my Aunty and Uncle in Weardale, County Durham. Hopefully the weather will have dried up a bit by the end of the week, but if not then I’m sure we will still have a lovely time :O)

More Goodies

2009-07-17T09:14:00.009+01:00

As you can see I have been buying a few more lovely goodies this week as they were just a little bit too much for me to resist!

I absolutely adore Cath Kidston’s Stanley and it is very hard to find now. However, I have managed to get my little mitts on two lovely Stanley items this week. The first one is a little Stanley fold away rain jacket, which I have persuaded a small boy to wear for his up and coming holiday by telling him that it is the thing to be seen in this summer! How I wish that they made this in adults sizes too ~ but alas, I must content myself with gazing at my small boy wearing the much desired item instead.

The second must have Stanley item is a little zip up bag which is just the right size to fit crochet hooks, darning needles and scissors into without the need to delve into the larger CK knitting bag and rummage every time I need one of those elusive items.

Lastly, I have treated myself to the latest Country Living magazine as it is essential holiday reading ~ the only thing is that now I will need to hide it from myself in order to stop it being read before we set off on Sunday.

We are heading off to the beautiful little village of Alton to visit my Dad who owns a lovely little village pub there. We will be staying just a few miles away from him at the very lovely Crowtrees Farm Bed and Breakfast ~ which I would highly recommend if you ever find yourself looking for somewhere nice to stay that is near to Alton Towers.

I hope everyone has a very nice and relaxing weekend and Happy Holidays to all those who are just finishing up for the school holidays or who are heading off on a little jaunt somewhere nice too :O)

Woolly Goodies

2009-07-13T09:26:00.005+01:00

I had a lovely weekend and hope that you all did too!

On Saturday morning the postie arrived with a lovely little parcel of woolly goodies from this lovely web site called Rowan Up Country. They have the most brilliant woolly shade cards and I had decided to order a couple of them for future planning of more woolly projects and future purchases of more lovely woolly packages.

I also treated myself to two more balls of the Rowan Pure DK Wool in Pier to complete the back of my colourful cushion cover which I made a start on last night.

I have got a very busy week ahead as I am doing a few extra shifts in the Library to cover for holidays and I have also got to get organised as we are going away for a few days holiday next weekend. Unfortunately I can see very little time for crochet and a lot of time being spent on washing,ironing and organising :O)

Playing hooky with a cushion

2009-07-10T15:20:00.012+01:00

We have not been out and about nearly as much this week as the weather has been a bit wet and yucky. We have been filling our time doing all the boring things such as getting summer haircuts and having the car serviced before we head off on holiday. There has also been much playing outside with friends when the weather has been nicer, leaving some time for Mummy to play inside with some wool and a metal stick ~ when she really should have been playing with an ironing board and some clothes instead!

I have been filling my time with some more lovely crochet and have managed to finish the front of my cushion cover. I have still got to sew in the rest of the pesky ends and then it will need to be blocked. I have put it on top of one of my other cushions to see how it would look and am quite pleased with the results. At the moment I think that I am going to crochet the back of the cover in just the green colour and then join the two sides together with a pretty edging.

I have also been trying out a lovely flower pattern from Attic 24 and have managed to make some little crochet flowers which may end up on the front of my cushion or as a pretty little flowery garland.

I hope that you all enjoy your weekend ~ Have Fun :O)

Seals at Eyemouth

2009-07-07T12:21:00.010+01:00

Last Friday we visited the little seaside town of Eyemouth on the East Coast of Scotland. Swimming around in the harbour there were about 6 seals who stay there all year round for a very good reason ~ a plentiful supply of eager tourists feeding them with fish!

There is a little blue kiosk at the side of the harbour which sells yucky fishy snacks for the seals and much yummier fishy snacks for people. For a couple of pounds you can buy a bag of fishy bits to feed to the seals, fortunately they also supply you with plastic gloves so that you don’t end up all smelly and fishy!

Along the harbour railings there are fishing rods which you attach the fish to and then you lower the fishy bits on the rods down to the seals. If you lower the fish onto the orange platform then the seals will jump onto the platform and get the fish that way too. They have to be quick though as the greedy seagulls are also ready and waiting to get some free food.

The children had such fun doing this and it is lovely to get so close to the seals and to see them in their natural environment ~ although I’m sure that normally they would have to look a bit harder for their food!

After we had fed the seals we decided that we were all feeling quite hungry too. We found a lovley little award winning restaurant and treated ourselves to a very nice traditional fish tea ~ with fish and chips, mushy peas, bread and butter and a cup of tea and very yummy it was too :O)

Out and about

2009-07-02T09:40:00.009+01:00

We have had a very busy first few days of our Summer Holidays and have been out and about on a few adventures. The weather has been typically Scottish and has been fairly temperamental, but it hasn’t stopped us having a lot of fun. We have had a picnic on the beach, surrounded by sea mist and another picnic in the park during a thunder storm. We have also ~

Looked for crabs in the rock pools.

Dug holes and built sandcastles.

Sat on some giant chairs.

Played on the Flying Fox

And had a ride on a giant bicycle.

We are planning to go to the little seaside town of Eyemouth tomorrow and are hoping to see some seals in the harbour and have fish and chips for tea too.

Schools Out

2009-06-29T10:38:00.013+01:00

Our schools finished up on Friday for the summer holidays, so today is the first day of a nice long seven and a half weeks of doing lots of lovely things ~ we have nothing planned for the first three weeks and will be pretty much taking each day as it comes! My children are quite happy playing in the garden with their friends, visiting Granny who lives very near to the beach, having lots of yummy picnics and going to play in the park. I am really looking forward to spending lots of days outside hopefully enjoying some nice sunny weather.

Just in case we have some rainy days (well this is Scotland!) we have visited the library to join in with the annual Reading Quest. The idea is that the children have to read six books during the summer holidays and they get little prizes along the way for each book they read. We had a good old browse and stocked up on some lovely things to read.

Doggy Stories ~ for a small boy who loves dogs.

Edinburgh Stories ~ this is a child’s book, which is set in and around the Old Town of Edinburgh and I may be trying to get my hands on it before my daughter does!

And of course some Crafty Stitchy type books for me.

Making progress!

2009-06-27T14:17:00.008+01:00

I have been busy with my little crochet Granny squares and have now managed to join them together fairly easily using this very good tutorial from Attic 24. I decided to make them the centre piece and started to crochet around them, not really giving it much thought to what I was actually going to make. I’m still not one hundred percent sure what the finished object will be, but I think that it may eventually become a colourful little cushion cover.

I have also, at long last, decided on what I am going to make for my Seaside Swap and if you look very carefully at one of these photographs you might get a little clue! This will be my very first attempt at making this particular item, so I only hope that it turns out the way that I expect it to, otherwise I will have to get my thinking cap on very quickly and come up with another idea. It’s probably just as well that I still have a month to go until the posting deadline!

I hope that everyone has a very lovely weekend and look forward to seeing all your bloggy weekend news next week :O)

Desafio ~ Game of 7 Things

2009-06-22T09:35:00.013+01:00

A few weeks ago Floss involved me in a game called Desafio which is a Spanish word that means challenge in English. This game is all about getting to know each other better and to play it I must let you know 7 things about me ~ so here goes, here are my 7 things:~

1. My husband and I got married and our daughter was christened all on her first birthday! A little bit unconventional, but it makes her birthday and our wedding anniversary extra special. We got married in this beautiful little church in the very picturesque village of Dirleton.

2. I do a lot of voluntary work for Simpson's Special Care Babies which is a small charity linked to the Neo Natal Unit at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. My daughter was cared for in the Special Care Baby Unit for 3 weeks due to developing complications after her birth. I am so grateful for the level of care that she received in the unit and like to try and give something back.

3. I lived in Surrey until I was ten and then moved up to East Lothian in Scotland where I have been ever since. I love the fact that you have the beach and the countryside and a big city within a short driving distance. My favourite beach is this one in North Berwick.

4. I am passionate about reading and am completely lost if I don't have anything to read. I am also extremely lucky that I work in a library so have lots and lots of books to choose from all for free.

5. I am very much a jeans and tee shirts kind of girl, with either flip flops, trainers or flat boots. I dress to be comfy and I never wear heels.

6. I love Chinese food and only wish I could have it more often.

7. One of my very favourite places to be is Glencoe, which is a glen in the Highlands of Scotland. I try to go there once a year~usually with my best friend and we do a little walking and a lot of chatting and just take in the spectacular scenery.

Granny Squares

2009-06-19T13:04:00.005+01:00

These are the four little Granny Squares that I have managed to make from the lovely new wool that I bought last weekend. They are by no means perfect, but I don't think that they are too bad for a first attempt ~ what do you think? I have still got to sew in all the ends and then I am going to attempt to sew them together. I'm not sure whether or not they will need to be blocked at this stage, but I'm sure time will tell!

There's not much planned for this weekend as I have a coughing child at home and she is feeling rather sorry for herself ~ we will probably all just stay in and keep cosy under blankets on the sofa, drinking tea, eating yummy snacks and watching DVD's. We could all do with a bit of a rest as we have got a very busy time ahead at school next week as we break up on Friday for our Summer Holidays.

I hope that everyone has a lovely weekend :O)

Saturday Shopping

2009-06-15T10:47:00.010+01:00

I had a lovely day out on Saturday, shopping with my friend in Edinburgh. Our first stop was John Lewis for the haberdashery Dept ~ where else! I bought some lovely Rowan double knitting wool and a new crochet hook. My theory is that is if I have the same lovely wool as Lucy then maybe I’ll be able to crochet as well as her too! I live in hope ~ even half as well would be a big achievement.

We decided to do most of our shopping in the morning and had a leisurely stroll along George Street having a look in Lakeland Ltd, Cath Kidston and Paperchase along the way. We had a delicious lunch in our favourite restaurant and then headed up to a little shop in Castle Street called A Treasure Trove. This little shop is run by The Royal Edinburgh Repository and Self Aid Society and is an absolute delight. It sells all sorts of lovely crafts made by local people in need. I have just learnt this morning that Floss ~ was in that little shop on Saturday too. Unfortunately we didn’t bump into one another this time ~ hopefully there will be a next time!

I bought these lovely flowers this morning as I have a meeting to go to this evening at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary as it is the Simpsons Special Care Babies AGM, which is the charity that I am involved with. We are having a bit of a celebration tonight as our lovely Secretary has been awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday honours list. This is in recognition of her work over many years for Simpsons Special Care Babies. Well Done Gill :O)

Crocheted Mess

2009-06-12T11:05:00.012+01:00

I’ve only very recently come across the delightfully fantastic blog Attic 24. It is wonderfully written, very colourful and very inspiring.

I was taught to crochet by an old Great Aunt when I was still at school ~ which is a lot more years ago than I care to remember. I made a granny square blanket and remember that is was lovely to crochet because it used to keep me cosy at the same time. Anyway, being inspired by this lovely blog, I thought that I would try my hand at crochet again. I dug out some yucky old double knitting wool (all scratchy and nylony) and found an old crochet hook and set to work.

Do you want to see?

Not very good at all is it?

I thought that I would still be able to do the basic stitches, but it’s not as easy as I remembered it being. It took me absolutely ages to get the first row done as I couldn’t get my crochet hook into the foundation chain and then I don’t thing that I am doing the right thing when it comes to starting and finishing the rows as it seems to have gone a little wonky at the edges. I have decided that I am going to give some of the blame to the horrid wool and the tiny crochet hook – and am going to treat myself to some new supplies tomorrow.

I am having a Girly Day out in Edinburgh tomorrow with my best friend and plan on going on a bit of a Woolly Shopping Expedition ~ some lovely new wool, a better crochet hook and maybe even a little book on all the crochet basics. I have also got some ideas for my Seaside Swap project and need to pick up some bits for that too. I will hopefully let you see some lovely purchases next week. I hope that everyone has a great weekend :O)

Walking in the woods

2009-06-09T11:16:00.009+01:00

My children had an extra day off school yesterday because the teachers were having an in-service training day. It was a lovely day so we decided to head off to a local woodland walkway for a little bit of an adventure. We went out well prepared with our wellies and our walking boots and took lots of yummy things for snacking on along the way.

We walked and explored and found lots of 'boy sticks' and plenty of streams for a certain small boy to dip his little feet into. What is it about boys and water? They just can't help themselves!

And we sat down here and had our little picnic. We all had a lovely time and went home tired and very happy. Sometimes I think that the best days out are the ones that are not planned.

Quilty Loveliness

2009-06-03T11:22:00.009+01:00

I recently entered a giveaway on a lovely blog called Comfort Stitching that I just happened to stumble upon. The prize was unbelievably generous and I nearly didn't bother entering it because there had been so many comments left already and I really didn't think that there would be much of a chance of winning something that was very much sought after. Imagine how surprised and delighted I was when I received an e mail from Aneela telling me that I had won her beautiful lap quilt!

It is absolutely beautiful and she must of put so much work and time into making it. The centre square has been hand embroidered with a lovely flower design, and the colours used in the patchwork all work really well together.

I am sure my pictures don't really show you how lovely the quilt is ~ I have tried to take them from as many different angles as possible ~ and for those of you that know how long it has taken me to get more than one photo in a post, I hope you notice that there is a bit of progress happening now! Please also excuse the burnt and faded grass, it's Scottish and it is not used to all this gorgeous hot weather that we have been having :O)

Blue and Speckled

2009-06-01T10:54:00.010+01:00

I have just finished making this little Blue Speckled Chicken and I just love him. He was very quick and easy to knit and even the sewing up part wasn't too bad (and I usually hate that part!). I love the way the yarn makes him look all speckled and my favourite part is his dingily dangily legs with his little knotty knees.

I can't believe that I have just managed to put in two photograph's in the same post! It has only taken me about six months to work out how to do it, and I probably will forget how I did it when I try to do it again!

I hope that everyone had a lovely weekend and made the most of the fantastic weather that we have been having - even up here in Scotland! Let's hope that it continues and we have a lovely hot and sunny summer :O)

Beside the Seaside............

2009-05-08T14:04:00.005+01:00

I was lucky enough to have spent my childhood growing up beside the seaside in the gorgeous seaside town of North Berwick on the East coast of Scotland. The beaches are wonderful and we spent lots of happy days down on the beach when we were children. Although I don't live there now, it is only a short drive away and we spend most weekends down in North Berwick visiting my Mum. It is lovely to be able to take my own children to play on the same beaches as I played on, and like most children, they like nothing better than building sandcastles and paddling in the sea.

The reason that I am rambling on about the seaside is that I have just signed up for my very first swap! How scary is that!! Rachel is organising a Seaside Swap and although I am little apprehensive about it I am also very excited too and am looking forward to the challenge of making and finding seaside themed things :O)

Little Baby Mittens

2009-05-06T11:05:00.005+01:00

I don't seem to have had much time to do very many crafty things recently, but I have just finished knitting these cute little baby mittens as a present for a friend's new baby. The cute little Duck in the photo is the motif on the blue baby blanket that is also going in the parcel, I couldn't resist it when I saw it in the shop!

Where did that holiday go?

2009-04-27T09:47:00.011+01:00

One minute we were all getting very excited about it and doing all the getting ready for holiday things - and then what seemed like a couple of minutes later we were back! Why do holidays always go by so quickly?

We had an absolutely fantastic time, although Disneyland was a lot busier than last year. Our school holidays seemed to be the same as all of the rest of Europe and the place was packed and the queues were much longer - which meant that there was more time for the darling children to argue and kick each other whilst they were waiting!!

We did the all the magical rides in Fantasy Land such as Peter Pan's Flight, It's a Small World, Alice's Curious Labyrinth, Snow White and Pinocchio. Our favourite ride by far was the brilliant Pirate's of the Caribbean, I think we must of gone on that about 7 times and each time we were lucky enough to be at the front of the boat! All that was missing was good old Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow!!

I would love to be able to show you lots of pictures, but no matter how hard I try I can't get more than one picture to appear on my blog at a time. I would like to be able to have a picture then some text and then another picture..... or to do one of those lovely photo collages that I keep seeing on other blogs. I must be missing something really simple so if anyone can enlighten me and let me have some very easy step by step instructions then perhaps I can have another go.

Disneyland Paris

2009-04-02T09:06:00.003+01:00

Just in case you haven't noticed my Disneyland Countdown, we are flying off to Disneyland in Paris this weekend for a fun filled week of Disney delights.

I think that I have already mentioned this before, but we went last year and unfortunately a certain small boy managed to get chickenpox half way through our stay, and as you can imagine he wasn’t feeling his usual bouncy, happy self! Despite this we did have a good time, but felt we just HAD to go back and do it all again.

We have been getting into the Disney mood by watching some of the Disney DVD’s that match our favourite Disneyland rides - Toy Story, Pirates of the Caribbean and Peter Pan to name but a few.

This year we have also decided that we will spend a day in Paris doing all the touristy sightseeing things - such as going to the top of the Eiffel Tower, taking a trip on the river Seine and visiting Notre Dame. It seems a bit silly to go all the way to Paris and miss out on all of that!

I will be back shortly with some Disney stories and lots of pictures – that is if I can get more than one photo to appear on my blog at once – but that’s another story for another day!

I hope everyone has a very Happy Easter :O)