Birthday time again!

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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