The Nest

Chalkboard labels and a little giveaway

2012-02-14T19:22:00.000Z

Whilst browing at my local DIY superstore this weekend {I know I'm weird but I do actually like to browse in these shops} I came across blackboard vinyl by Fablon.

I picked up a roll knowing I'd find plenty of uses for it.

I recently bought a Silhouette Cameo which I am still getting to grips with.

I bought some of their images and turned one into a shape I like to cut for my Etsy cards - I have labels made by another Etsy seller and stick them on the cards.

I cut an A4 size piece of the fablon and cut out shapes with the Silhouette.

Simply peel the backing off and you have really cute chalkboard labels. The chalk wipes clean off and you can use them over and over again. I love this stuff and know I'm going to find a load of uses for it. I like the idea of making a wall calendar something like this one for the craft room.

Source: splendid-design.blogspot.com via Toni on Pinterest

I like the idea of cutting out the numbers to reveal the wall colour underneath.

And now for the giveaway

{just a little one}

When I get back from New York on Sunday I'll pick 6 people to give a set of 6 chalkboard labels away to.

Leave a comment and/or follow me and your name will be drawn at random when I get back.

Not much of a giveaway I know, but a freebie is a freebie and these are super cute after all!!

xoxox

The eagle has landed

2012-02-12T15:00:00.001Z

In this post, the eagle being my son, Seth.

I kept it together waving him off yesterday.

I think I shocked lot of people!

My baby boy looking very excited.

Despite my anxiety I thinks it's an amazing trip for him and his friends. They're going to have such a great time and will always remember this trip.

When I was in school my ski trip was to Italy! Not quite as cool a trip as skiing in Lake Placid followed by shopping in New Jersey and New York and then watching the Knicks at Madison Square Garden! My husband is more than a little jealous!

Here he is with his best friend on the left and 4 other friends he has had since he was 3. They've all gone through school together and are all really comfortable with each other. There are a few other close friends going too plus kids from the year above them.

After a two hour delay their flight eventually took off and that's when I started to cry!

I watched the progress of their flight online and then cried again when I could see he'd landed.

They had a bit of a wait for their bus and then the journey to Lake Placid took around 6 hours so the poor things were on the road (and in the air) for 24 hours.

I know he's going to come back with 6 clean underwear and one fit for the bin!

He's already phoned to ask where his glove liners are!

I know he's going to lose at least 2 things!

I know the scenery photos I've asked him to take won't be done!

I know he's going to have the time of his life with great friends and is going to make some amazing memories.

But mostly I know I'm going to miss him like mad!

And the award for the most pathetic, clingy mother in the world award goes to me!!

Hope you're all having a lovely weekend.

xoxox

A girly trip to NYC

2012-02-09T21:33:00.000Z

On Saturday my baby boy, Seth, is flying to New York for a skiing trip in Lake Placid with his school. He has 5 days on the slopes followed by 2 days in New York City.

On Wednesday his stalker mother is following him.

As anyone who knows me will confirm (whilst rolling their eyes in irritation) I'm a clingy mother and from the minute I ~~agreed to~~ was forced by everone else to let him go have been anxious. 8 days in a different country to me is more than I can take so Lily and I are going to overlap with him in the city for 4 days.

I've been before so this trip is going to be Central Park Zoo, American Museum of Natural History, FAO Schwartz, Build a Bear....and anything else my little girl wants to do. Of course, Mummy has written down the addresses of all 3 Pottery Barn stores and all 5 Anthropolgie stores (one of which is opening while we are there) just in case Lily feels the need to pop into one of them!

We'll go up the Empire State Building and over to Liberty Island plus some friends have recommended the Sky Walk but if anyone has any tips or suggestions I'd be happy to hear them.

We managed to get a really good deal at the Waldorf Astoria and it's long been a dream of mine to stay there so we're really excited now.

Seth has a really busy itinerary so I don't plan on seeing him (unless he runs out of money) but I feel more relaxed knowing I won't be far from him. Our plane gets back to London two hours before his on Sunday so we'll rush down the motorway in time to meet him off the school bus.

I expect then we'll all be doing a lot of sleeping.

xoxox

Introducing a little grey to Lily's room

2012-02-06T13:56:00.003Z

This is just a sneak peek at some of the grey things I've bought for Lily's room.

Lily's room hasn't been touched since she was a baby and she's 10 next week!

At the beginning of March she is going away for a week with her school.

I plan on redecorating her room when she's away (partly to keep me occupied so I don't miss her too much as it's her first trip away with school).

She doesn't know this yet so I'm planning on surprising her when she gets home.

We're keeping the basic colour scheme (raspberry and off white) but going to be adding grey as the main colour.

A charcoal grey rose pillow from Angella Eisman Designs.

A grey crochet pillow I picked up from Zara Home when I visited my brother in Majorca in December.

Two little banners I've made for her - one is burlap with glittered paint and the other is white linen.

Both have raw edges and the pennants are tiny.

A cute grey photo frame I bought on holiday in France two years ago. I loved it and didn't know where to use it but it'll be perfect for her room. It came from one of my favourite shops there - Maisons du Monde which is a chain and found all over France and other parts of Europe. I always buy loads there whenever I go to France. I also picked up a big white mirror there a couple of years ago which is currently in my craft room but which will be used in Lily's room soon.

...and lastly, a small white ceramic pot I bought in Bordeaux last year.

I thought it would be lovely for her to keep earrings in one day but right now is empty as I have the only (almost) 10 year old in the history of the world who {emphatically} does NOT want her ears pierced.

I can't wait to redecorate - I just hope it looks as nice as it does in my head!

xoxox

Spring Sale

2012-01-24T00:21:00.000Z

From today until 31st Jan I am offering 15% discount on everything in my Etsy shop.

Just enter code SPRING15 at checkout and the discount will be applied.

xoxox

Simple paper garlands

2012-01-21T14:31:00.002Z

A new Hobby Craft shop has opened up just 10 minutes from where I live.

It's like craft supply heaven to me and very handy as until now I have to get my supplies from lots of different places and now I can most things here.

Last month I came across some really pretty craft papers. I don't do any paper craft at all. I don't scrapbook or make my own cards etc so never look at craft paper but these patterns were just gorgeous. They are reversible with a different pattern on each side. I bought one sheet of each of three different patterns and a 2 inch circle punch then cut up the entire cards. I lay two discs together with the patterns facing (ie. spots facing spots and the other design facing out) and then stitched down the middle followed by more discs. I then opened up the discs and folded them out. I didn't really have a plan - I was just seeing what I could do with such pretty card.

I ended up with this really pretty garland which I love but which doesn't fit in with any room at all in my house so for now sits across a mirror in my craft room.

I've since bought more of these patterned cards and have made a load of butterflies for a bare wall in my niece, Kitty's bedroom. It looks so pretty and is a really cheap way of brightening up a bare white wall. I'll post some photos of Kitty's 'hippy bohemian' bedroom soon.

I got the bug then and made a garland from vintage sheet music which we used as a garland for our Christmas tree and which I haven't had the heart to put away yet so it's currently wrapped around the bottle drying rack which I've put in the dining room for now.

This is such an easy thing to make and I'm thinking of making loads to use on the ceiling for Lily's birthday next month.

Have a lovely weekend!

xoxox

Linking up to Funky Junk Interior's SNS 117

HELP!!

2012-01-16T20:00:00.000Z

Anyone else having problems opening a page or posting a comment?

cartoon from here

If I click on the name of a blog on my sidebar I can connect to their blog but if I click on the name of their latest post I just get a white screen.

After I've clicked on a blog name (rather than a blog post) and then try to leave a comment I get redirected to a white page again.

Anyone else having weird problems like this?

HELP!!

xoxox

My new niece, a trip to Spain and new wooden letters in the kitchen

2012-01-14T13:43:00.001Z

At the beginning of December we, plus my sister and her kids went off to Majorca (Spain) where my brother lives to meet this little lady - my brother's new baby daughter.

Beautiful little Manu

(Manuelle Ffion - her mother is Argentinian but grew up in Paris so the Manuelle bit is French and Ffion is a popular Welsh name so they've incorporated both cultures/countries in her pretty name).

While we were there there was an international rugby game between Wales and Australia and a pub in Palma was showing the game so naturally my husband and brother had to go and watch it! I think it's the law or something! I drove them in and naturally my sister and I took the opportunity to ~~dump~~ leave the kids with Eugenia (my sis-in-law) and do a bit of shopping. Palma is really beautiful and the weather was lovely so we really enjoyed having a couple of hours roaming the cobbled streets and alleys looking at all the beautiful shops.

My brother is a useless shopper so gave us money to get our presents and ones for the kids so off we went.

We found a stunning shop which was full of vintage pieces and lots of new pieces with vintage feel so we both bought wooden letters for ourselves from him. There were large letters in grey and smaller ones in white. My sister bought HOME but had to have H M and E in grey and O in white which looks really great. I bought EAT all in grey as I have a skinny wall in the kitchen where they would perfect.

The letters started off as dark grey paint with distressed edges but I wanted them to have more of a zinc/metallic look so simply rubbed 'Rub'nBuff' in Pewter over them.

You can see here how the look metallic in the light

Here they are on the 'skinny wall'

Looking from the kitchen through the dining room and into the lounge.

We plan on removing the door by the skinny wall and taking half the wall away (behind the jug) so you will look straight over the cooker (with a half height wall behind it) into the dining room. I think it will make the downstairs flow better as we have a lot of doors as you can see. One of our projects planned for this year.

My generous husband told me I could pick a yacht for Christmas when we were in Palma but I struggled between these two so had a pair of Hunter wellies instead!

Palma at night with the palm trees decorated for Christmas.

The beautiful Cathedral lit up at night.

Palma is a stunning place - we are going to have to visit there more often now so Manu doesn't forget her aunties. What a chore!!

xoxox

Balance

2012-01-13T16:37:00.000Z

I didn't make any New Year Resolutions this year as I know I won't stick to them - the main one should be to eat less chocolate but I'll end up getting carried away and make more resolutions than I can handle. This will lead me to get stressed which will make me eat more chocolate. To make New Year Resolutions is just counter-productive for me.

Instead my goal for this year is just one word - BALANCE

image from here

I work full time, have two kids whose swimming lessons alone take up 5 evenings a week without their other activities, have an extremely messy house and run my little business from home. I constantly feel like I am juggling way too many things at once.

This year I want to:

balance my family life and my small business

clock off by a reasonable hour on weekends so that we can have movie nights or games nights

balance my 'parent' life and 'couple' life

make sure my husband and I make time for date nights (something we've let slide)

balance my home life

I rarely have time for decorating any more - I no longer work Fridays but tend to use that day for my business so still have very little spare time. On the other hand my business is making money so this year I'm going to hire people to do some work around the house for me. Our house is in desperate need of redecorating and whilst I could do the work myself I never have the time plus a professional will do a better job in half the time. I've taken some convincing to do this but it does make sense.

balance my bank account

I love making things myself and will make as much for the home as I can which means I can then splash out on something I really want. I'm getting much better at watching the pennies but want to improve this year - by December I want to be a real tight ass! Which leads me on to ...

balance my weight

I used to be super skinny (many years ago) and am now super top heavy! I hate it but never enough to do anything about it. I'm not going to diet or take on an exercise programme which will surely kill me but do plan on watching what I eat more and becoming more active.

balance my 'me-time'

I love reading (crime novels in particular - no wonder I'm scared of the dark). I have very little time for reading these days. Over Christmas I had loads of time off work and rediscovered the simple pleasure of just sitting down with a book. I find it difficult to switch off and relax so reading is good for me. I plan on making for time for me to enjoy some good books. I also had some spa vouchers for my birthday last November which I haven't used yet so plan on using those soon. I'm also making the time to get my hair done every month - I normally have it cut twice a year and colour the greys myself but they are coming thick and fast now so for the last three months I've been having them done professionally. Initially I was anxious about spending this kind of money but it goes back to the fact that I'm working hard and making a little extra from Etsy which is probably contributing to the abundance of grey so it's only fair that Etsy takes me back to my 'natural brown with floodlights'! I'm hoping I'll keep up with my monthly hair pampering session.

and lastly...

balance my blog more

I've become an 'all or nothing' person. I'm missing loads of posts from my favourite blogs as I don't have the time to just sit and enjoy reading them. I'm posting very little and I've become the world's worst at replying to comments (this is partly down to time differences - most of my comments are left when I'm in work or in bed and I mean to reply when I get home from work but get caught up in other things). I do appreciate and read all comments and sorry if I don't reply.

Hope 2012 has started off great for everyone.

The sun is shining in Wales today (for once) and my spirits feel lifted - it does really feel like the start of a New Year here so I'm looking forward to seeing what it will bring.

xoxox

The upstairs trees

2011-12-26T17:28:00.001Z

I kept the decorating mainly to the living room, dining room and kids tv room but did put a small tree in the bedrooms.

In our room I bought a skinny tree which I put inside a zinc pot I've had for ages and hung a simple white tin star from the top. I also taped a small sign to the panelling on the wall.

For the kid's rooms I bought bigger spindly 'Frech style' trees and I put Lily's inside a large pot I found at an antiques centre a while back (the one with the missing handle). I helped her choose the decorations for it as she was drawn to huge baubles which were just too big.

Her little Maileg bunnies are sitting under the tree.

I put a picture of her looking 'angelic' in a lovely grey frame I bought in France earlier this year. On the same trip I also bought her the little ceramic pot with the bird on top (my idea was that she could one day use this for earings however she has no desire to have her ears pierces just yet so it's empty!).

Seth couldn't drag himself away from the Xbox for long enough to decorate his tree so it's not worth photographing. It's the same kind of tree as Lily's and covered with lights but just one decoration which I bought in Majorca earlier this month.

Dinner is served!

My husband is a great cook and as always our Christmas dinner was stunning!!

Excuse the scruffy garden - it's on our 'to do' list but pretty far down so I try to avoid getting it in photos as much as possible.

Hope you are all having a lovely and relaxing Christmas - I know I am.

xoxox

2011-12-25T17:59:00.003Z

WE WISH YOU A

MERRY

CHRISTMAS

AND A HAPPY

NEW YEAR

{ THE JOHNSON FAMILY – DECEMBER 2011}

Christmas art from vintage flash cards

2011-12-21T23:04:00.001Z

A few months ago I bought some vintage flash cards from this Etsy seller.

There were loads of words to choose from and I chose snow, sleds and mittens as I planned on using them as part of my Christmas decorating. These are really big flash cards - bigger than I expected but I actually love the fact that there is a lot of off white card left blank.

I bought a simple black frame from Hobbycraft for £10 and used double sided tape to attach burlap to the back board. I then used a small amount of the same (removable) tape to the cards and attached them to the burlap.

It's now hanging on the beadboard half wall which divides my kids TV room from my study area.

I love it in their room with mistletoe lights along the wall - I think it has a really vintage child like quality so looks great in this room.

xoxox

Linking to

Paper angel wings

2011-12-20T18:10:00.001Z

I think this is my favourite ever Christmas decoration that I have ever, ever made.

I found some gorgeous angels wings on Pintersest but cannot find the source so if anyone knows let me know and I'll credit the photo. They are such a simple idea but just beautiful.

So, with these as my inspiration I decided to make my own.

I drew a basic 'angel wing' shape on one side of A4 then folded the paper in half and traced it onto the other side. I then cut this folded shape out and traced around it for perfectly symmetrical wings.

If you want to make these just help yourself to my template below.

I then cut this shape out of thick card and glued a sheet of vintage sheet music to the front and then cut it to the same shape.

For Christmas my plan was to add a little German glass glitter to the edges but I didn't order it in time (I have ordered some but it'll have to be used for next years decorations).

Instead I glued a little irridescent fake snow around the edges just so that it has a little sparkle.

I'm going to make one for the back of each dining chair and have bought little wooden letters for each of us so that we can have our initials hanging with the wings.

I love having the time to craft and create.

Dear Santa, for Christmas please can I have more hours in the day?

(and of course John Cusack in my stocking!)

Thankyou,

Samantha Johnson (age 45)

xoxox

Linking to

A new look for my gold mirror

2011-12-20T00:39:00.000Z

After I took photos of my Christmas decorations yesterday I decided, completely on impulse, to paint the mirror. I've had this mirror for years and bought it primarily for it's shape and detail. I'm not really a gold or gilt person but have always had the intention of painting it one day. Two coats of Annie Sloane chalk paint and a healthy dollop of wax (clear and dark oak) later and here she is.

I rubbed just a little dark wax here and there to break up the white.

This is how she started the day yesterday...

And this is how she looked at bedtime!

I was a little nervous that I was making a mistake and was going to ruin a perfectly good mirror but I definitely prefer it white. We are going to paint the hall in the new year and I'm planning on using Farrow and Ball's Off White throughout the whole of the downstairs - we already have it in several rooms and it's kind of a greeny grey neutral so I think the white mirror will look much better with that colour than the gold.

Good night!

Sam

xoxox

Remember me?

2011-12-19T01:12:00.000Z

Well, I can't believe it's been three months since I last posted anything.

Working full-time and running an Etsy shop leave you with ~~little~~ no spare time especially in the busy run up to Christmas. My house has been neglected so I've had no nice clean rooms or finished projects to photograph. We also had a little trip to Spain a few weeks ago to visit my new baby niece, my {extremely proud} brother's beautiful little baby girl. We went plus my sister and her kids and had a lovely time - it was nice to see some sun. This is rare for us Welsh and I'm not lying when I say it was warmer in Majorca in December than it was in Wales this summer.

We were late buying our tree as we went away so we only bought it this week. The tree sits in our dining room which has double doors into our living room where we have a smaller (fake, but a lovely fake) tree on top of a unit.

The Santa decoration above I bought in Boston when I was 30. He's a dried gourd, hand painted and I have an angel by the same artist too. These are two of my favourite decorations.

I made the garland below years ago and although it's really simple I hang it every year.

My mantel - lots of birch, silver and zinc.

Some box leaves from my garden and a cute glittery deer I had on sale.

My mini tree in the living room.

Some angel wings I made after being inspired by some I found on Pinterest.

Since I took this photo this morning I've brought out the chalk paint and painted this mirror frame. It's something I've wanted to do for ages but have never found the time. I'll post some photos of the new look mirror soon.

And the best for last - my new vintage bottle dryer I bought yesterday. When we were in France earlier this year I was hoping to find one of these - I went to loads of flea markets and never saw one. Then yesterday I found this one at an antiques centre just an hour from where I live. I knew the second I saw it it was coming home with me. I've just hung a few mercury glass ornaments on it for now - it looks just perfect to me.

I'm more or less on top of things right now and of course, Etsy sales are slowing down this week, so I've had a pretty productive weekend around the house and have a few more decorations I'd like to share so here's to a relaxing week before the big day!

I have a lot of blog reading to catch up on too!

Sam

xoxox

Camping in style

2011-09-23T13:34:00.000+01:00

Wd didn't get to go camping this year. It's been too wet!

I'm a fair weather camper, NOT a real, hardened camper.

This tent, though, makes me long for a sunny weekend so we can pop off somewhere for a weekend under canvas.

It's a replica VW camper van tent which sleeps 4.

How amazing is this!

My husband has always wanted a camper van. Now perhaps we can afford one!

Have a happy weekend.

xoxox

Remembering

2011-09-11T16:15:00.000+01:00

10 years ago I was pregnant with Lily when I got a call at work from my husband telling me he would be late home from work as a plane had crashed into the World Trade Centre (my husband works is an operations manager in news and magazine distribution). I was completely shocked (we had been there ourselves before we had had children) but I had no idea how much more shocking the day was going to become. Work stopped, everyone was taking calls from family members who were at home watching the news as the most horrible day in my memory progressed. I spent the rest of the day watching the TV with my hands over my mouth time and time again and my three year old son asking me why I was crying. This was the day I learned just how much evil there is in the world. But more importanly, I learned about strength, patriotism and love.

Even though I am in the UK I believe that we are one world - what happened on 9/11 was the most awful thing I could ever have imagined. It affected everyone. I still can't watch footage of the day without crying all over again.

♥ For the husband who told his wife I love you one last time before his plane went down in a field ♥ For the wife who stopped in the stairs to call her husband to say I will love you forever ♥ For the mothers and fathers who kissed their kids goodbye the morning they died ♥ For the policemen who rushed in with the firemen to help get others out only to die themselves ♥ For the soldiers who fought back and lost their lives. ♥ today and every day we remember you!!! ♥

Twice in one day

2011-09-05T22:15:00.000+01:00

Two of my items have made it to the Front Page of Etsy today - once this morning and just now!

A big thank you to those who have the patience and dedication to keep creating treasuries.

Imitation is not the greatest form of flattery

2011-08-29T12:53:00.002+01:00

For a long time now I've been selling my deer, moose and bear stuffed pillows on Etsy.

Over the last few weeks I've been designing a range of pillow covers to complement these pillows and this is what I've come up with.

I wanted them to have the vintage look of old t-shirts, lodge signs etc.

I know that putting your work out there on the internet is opening yourself up to the likelihood of having your work copied. As long as this is for private use I have no problem with it. We are all inspired by others and by things we come across online. One thing I love about blogging is the fact that so many of you give detailed tutorials on how you made something thereby giving others your permission to have a go themselves. I have been inspired to 'copy' something myself many times.

The problem comes when something you spend many hours designing and perfecting is copied exactly by someone else who then offers it for sale on the same site you sell on. A few months ago I came across a new Etsy seller who had made exact copies of a couple of my pillows. I contacted her and politely pointed out that Etsy etiquette is that designs are not copied and asked her to remove her items or redesign them. She did not respond to my message however did remove the items and has not relisted them, which is clearly an admission of guilt. Sadly today I have noticed that she is selling these two pillows and another of my designs on two UK based websites plus designs which she has copied from another Etsy seller (which she has not listed on her Etsy site as she clearly realises that she shouldn't be doing this!). My items are sold in shops throughout the UK and it's so annoying to be copied so blatantly. I've now had to e-mail her again to ask her to remove them from this site or I'll take the matter further. I hate being horrible to people and am really conscious that I must seem like a bitch but what else can I do? I feel like I'm the bad guy here but basically I don't want my work copied exactly by someone else and the upshot is that I don't think it's fair for people to do this.

Whenever I think of something new that I want to print onto a pillow the first thing I do is carry out a search on Etsy to make sure no-one else has come up with it first. There are a number of Etsy sellers who sell burlap pillows and we all have very distinctive and different items and styles. So much so that I could now tell at a glance if a pillow has been made by My Adobe Cottage, Ramona Owen or Jolie Marche, all of whose designs I love. We all use the same products for our pillows but we all have very different styles and very different items for sale. It's really horrible seeing your own designs for sale in someone else's shop.

Anyone else had any experience of this and have any advice to give?

It would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

xoxox

May I be the first to wish you ...

2011-08-24T23:47:00.000+01:00

..... a very

Things are hectic for me a little at the moment - ill children, wholesale orders, husband away with work...

My house is completely neglected and I feel completely uninspired and not really in the mood to get on with things around the house. This will pass - I always lack motivation when I feel overwhelmed!

I was finishing up a large order for a shop in England a couple of days ago and while I was 'in the zone' came up with a few new pillows such as this one. I made it with black lettering too.

Hope you are all having better weather than we are right now - I got caught in a downpour today that was one of the worst I have ever seen. I was soaked literally to my underwear, just running to my car. Just another typical August in Wales :)

xoxox

Lily's home grown onions

2011-08-21T17:33:00.000+01:00

I can't seem to get any projects or decorating finished at the moment.

I've been working and carting the children back and forth to my sister and then am shattered in the evenings. I've been off since Thursday so took my kids and my sister's kids on the train to Cardiff for the three youngest to make a bear at 'build a bear' - Seth is now sadly too old for this :(

We had a great day, however, from about 8pm onwards Lily and Kitty (my two year old niece) started throwing up and this carried on all night. On Friday I was too tired to speak and although I stripped the beds and soaked the yucky clothes I haven't got round to any other cleaning and my house is a tip!

I'm of all next week so hopefully I can get on with more.

Before we went away Lily had planted a few vegetables and strawberries in the garden. We had loads of strawberries but Woody, our golden retriever, ate them as quick as they would grow! Is this normal! Does anyone else's dog eat their strawberries.

Today Lily came to find me and was really excited to show me that she had picked and washed some onions she had been growing (we thought they had died). She was so excited and is already planning a bigger vegetable patch for next year. This kid is such an outdoors kids it's wonderful!

Here is my 'green fingered' baby girl with her proud 'crop'!

I just had to give them pride of place in my favourite salad bowl.

I'm not sure what we're having for lunch tomorrow but I know there are onions in it!

Hope you're all having a lovely weekend!

xoxox

French yogurt pot votives

2011-08-09T23:37:00.000+01:00

In French supermarkets they sell yogurt and fromage frais in little glass jars.

For some reason we only have plastic in the UK.

I love the various shapes you can get so always try and bring a few back to use as tea light holders.

They have tons of uses and one of the best is to use them for wine glasses for picnics at the beach!

Throw in a couple with tea lights in too and what a lovely way to spend a summer evening.

This time I brought three different styles back and the other night had some clay left from a wholesale order so made little discs which I flattened and then printed a single letter in each. I did the words FAMILLE and NOEL.

I used some linen twine I also bought in France (I can't get this string anywhere else so this time brought back about 15 rolls to make sure I don't run out) and looped the twine through the disc, wrapped it round the jar three times and tied it at the back.

With the NOEL letters I tend to use a lot of mercury glass at Christmas so decided to paint the discs silver but it was a little flat so I rubbed a little metallic black craft paint over the silver and just rubbed it in with my fingers so it simply 'stained' the silver.

They would look even better with a little sand or some foliage in the bottom.

Cute and cheap - just like me ;)

xoxox

Some of the items I found at flea markets in France

2011-08-07T20:38:00.000+01:00

I was a little disappointed with the flea markets I went to while we were in France but did manage to find some lovely things although they took a good bit of digging to find.

Lots of the same vendors were at each flea market and many of the things were too big to bring home. Also I think they've cottoned on to us Brits going over and buying their stuff to sell on as some of the prices were really high.

Anyway, here are some of my lovely finds.

An alarm clock by French clockmaker's Jaz - I was really pleased with this find as it's such a great piece and the paint on the outside is all worn and chippy - just the way I like!

A vintage glass baby bottle which makes a lovely vase

Plenty of old linen

And some cute souvenir photo packs and old used postcards.

I am slowly ploughing through all the linen which is taking ages to do as I'm washing them one piece at a time on a hot wash to give it a thorough cleaning. It's been a typical Welsh August here so we haven't had the weather to dry them outside so they've been hanging over my bannisters to dry! My hall smells lovely though!

I've noticed little holes in a couple of sheets so they will be cut up to make other things out of. The fabric on these old sheets is just gorgeous and modern fabrics just really can't compare to the quality of these old linens. I'm delighted I found so many although there were some stalls at the flea markets that had sheets just piled up but the prices tended to be quite high too. I was lucky with a lot of the ones I found and didn't end up paying 'silly money' for them.

I haven't had a chance to go through everything as I went back to work on Monday and haven't even caught up with washing all our clothes or giving the house a good clean yet so I'm adding my finds bit by bit to my etsy shop.

I came back relaxed and now find I'm running around all the time!

I wish I could learn how to slow down - anyone got any tips?

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend.

We've had a lovely thunderstorm here (I do love the sun but I love thunderstorms more!)

xoxox

Back from France

2011-07-31T21:06:00.000+01:00

I'm back! After 17 days in France ~~without~~ (with ridiculously limited) access to the internet I can't wait to catch up on my favourite blogs - I know I'm addicted when the first thing I did when I got in was turn my computer on!

For the first week and a half the weather wasn't very good which I used to my advantage as it enabled me to pop off to flea markets. They weren't particularly good ones and as they were all in roughly the same area I kept seeing the same sellers but I did manage to find some great things some of which I'll be keeping and some I'll be listing on Etsy.

I'll share some photos of my finds over the next couple of days as right now I'm zonked! We spent 13 hours in the car yesterday driving up through France and after we left France this morning we spent another 5 hours driving home through England and Wales.

For now here is a little peak at my best find.

Three huge piles of vintage linen sheets three of which have large detailed monogrammes stitched on others which have red initials stitched in the corners. The feel and weight is just lovely and I can't wait to get them all freshly laundered and decide what to do with them - either sell them as is or turn them into cushion/pillow covers.

What would you do?

xoxox

Christmas In July Sale in my Etsy shop

2011-07-09T13:48:00.002+01:00

I was a new seller on Etsy this time last year so didn't know about the Christmas in July Sale.

For the next four days everything in my shop is 20% off including these original vintage Hungarian grain sack pillows.

My shop will be closed from 13th July until 1st August as next Friday we are off to France for 16 nights.

France is one of the few places I've been where I can completely switch off and relax so I can't wait to get there.

Hoping I come back completely refreshed (and tanned!).

xoxox

Linking this up to Handmade Christmas in July Link Party at Sawdust and Paperscraps.

My first Etsy treasury

2011-07-02T01:10:00.002+01:00

Since I started selling on Etsy last summer my items have been featured in almost 300 treasuries.

I'm really grateful to everyone who has selected one of my items to feature in a treasury but have also marvelled at how they find the time to select things, put them together and then notify everyone they have featured.

Creating my own treasury is something I've been meaning to do for ages.

An hour and a half ago I decided to go to bed so came into my study to turn off my computer but then decided now was the time to make my first treasury.

And here it is...

I hope you like it!

xoxox

Lily's Mummy is a Gleek!

2011-06-27T22:58:00.000+01:00

This weekend Lily and I went to London to see the Glee cast live on tour at the huge O2 arena.

The show was on Sunday so we spent the entire day on Saturday in the Natural History Museum. Whenever we've been there before the children were much younger so it was basically a look at the dinosaurs and then they had had enough. Lily is now 9 and hungry for information so we went into every gallery and had a great day. I think I must have walked about 10 miles inside the museum!

We went to Planet Hollywood for dinner but it's moved to a different location since I last went and I didn't like the new place. Shame because it used to be in Piccadilly Square and was great inside.

Sunday was really hot and sunny.

Lily was really excited to see Glee. I obviously censor the programme first - there are many she hasn't see or where I've glossed over things they've said but we both love the songs and the cast's voices are amazing.

They were just as fantastic live and every song sounded as good as it does on the telly.

We were right by the stage but up in the sky (scarily high) so I had to zoom in to get some good photos.

The whole cast all looked like they were really enjoying themselves.

While some others were singing 'Finn' was sitting down in the background and really dancing away in his chair - it was so cool to see them.

By the time we left we were worn out and ready for bed but our train was diverted so it took us an hour to get across London to Paddington and then another 4 hours to get back home.

We bought the boys (my husband and my son) a box of a dozen Krispy Kreme donughts but by the time we got home three had mysteriously disappeared!

We got in at Midnight and poor Lily had to get up for Sport's Day at school today.

She came second in the endurance race (long distance) and would have come first in the egg and spoon race had her mother not screamed out "come on Lily" and distracted her so she dropped the egg! Oops! I think she was too tired to care.

Today I am shattered and feeling my age! But yesterday I screamed and sang and danced like a little girl so a little exhaustion and aching feet is a small price to pay.

Hope you all had as much fun and sun this weekend.

xoxox

Future Laundry Room

2011-06-24T19:07:00.001+01:00

For a long time now I have been dreaming of putting a small extension on the back of our house just off the kitchen.

This little extension needs to be mud room, laundry room, bathroom and dog bedroom.

I want it to have a barn door and beadboard panelling just like this. I even have a chunkier version of the same dog!

I want my husband to make me some of these Ballard Designs drying racks.

A lovely window overlooking the garden, plenty of shelving and counter space plus of course a loo!

And somewhere for the shoes, boots and coats that seem to take over my house.

This dream is a long way off but I've been buying some little bits ready for it..

A Laundry Soap vinyl decal from Shelley at the House of Smiths

an antique french zinc flower pot from this shop on Etsy which I'm using as a laundry soap scoop

And a sign which I used to sell in my shop and would sell out really quickly every time.

In the UK we use the word trousers for pants and for us pants are underwear so the older ladies who used to come in the shop always giggled at this sign.

Although in our house we don't really need this sign as my kids (and my husband) drop their pants wherever they are!

I'm off to London in the morning for the weekend.

I'm taking Lily and one of her friends to see Glee on tour so we are all really excited.

We're going to go to the Natural History Museum tomorrow which I love going to and for tea we are going to Planet Hollywood and then on Sunday we'll be seeing the show.

I'm sure I'll have lost my voice by the time I get home.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

xoxox

Map confetti

2011-06-22T20:11:00.000+01:00

When I went to London last month I fished out my old A-Z's (which we used to use when we lived in London many years ago) and realised just how out of date they were.

I have a bit of a thing for maps and didn't want to throw them away so decided to make a ton of heart and dove shaped confetti out of them.

First I cut out four big heart shapes of two different roads we lived on in London, the road where we got married and the road where the hotel we had our wedding reception is. I've put these aside to put into a frame when I find the right one.

I cut out a load of heart shapes using a heart shaped punch.

I then bought a Martha Stewart dove punch off ebay and waited patiently for it to arrive from America and made a load of these.

They would look great scattered on a table cloth and I've put a few into some of my Etsy parcels. I haven't finished yet as it's pretty time consuming as I'm only doing one page at a time otherwise they stick together and you have to pull them apart.

I'm storing them in some lovely jars I bought in France last year and they are sitting on my table in my craft room. I love them and they were such a simple thing to do. I may make some out of old music sheets next as they would look great scattered aroung at Christmas.

It seemed a shame to throw the maps away and now I have some free pretty scatters instead!

xoxox

Vintage items now in my Etsy shop

2011-06-15T00:55:00.000+01:00

When my sister and I were antiquing a while back I picked up a few vintage pieces which I thought would be great to add to my Etsy shop.

I found these chippy white hooks which I love but which don't really have a place in my home - trust me, I've carried them from room to room and they don't really belong anywhere. I'd love to keep them but the laundry room I've been dreaming of is a long way off (as in years) and that's probably the only place I'd use them. They are actually gun hooks, which to be honest, initially put me off them a little bit but they could obviously be used to hang many other things from.

I've listed them for sale in my Etsy shop and will be adding a few more vintage pieces over the next few days.

I've been looking up Flea Markets and Brocantes for me to visit when we go to France in just over 4 weeks so I'm hoping to bring a few vintage French pieces back - some for me and some to sell.

Hope you're all having a great week.

xoxox

Fantastic Dreamy Whites Giveaway

2011-06-06T23:23:00.000+01:00

You have to head over to Dreamy Whites as Maria

is giving away a $250 store credit to buy anything

from her online shop Dreamy Whites Online

This is such an amazing and generous giveaway.

You could choose from lots of beautiful thing such as this antique French flowers crock

or one of her beautiful antique grain sack table runners

There are plenty of other gorgeous things to choose from.

Go check out her shop and enter her giveaway.

Someone has to win - it could be you!

Good luck x

Salvaged plant pot

2011-06-04T11:17:00.002+01:00

A few weeks ago I had to go somewhere which is a 2 hour drive from where I live and passed an antiques centre so naturally stopped to have a mooch.

There were tons of cool things there including loads of antique metal street signs and advertising but the thing that caught my eye was outside.

It was a big, heavy old off white pot which originally had two 'handles' on the side but one had broken off. That didn't really bother me as the pot was such a lovely colour and shape.

I bought it for £2 as I thought it would look lovely filled with hydrangeas and the broken side could be turned away or obscured by the flowers. It looks great in a corner of my dining room on the little round table I gave a makeover to recently.

The sun is shining here in Wales and it looks like we're going to have a glorious weekend.

Hope you have a great weekend wherever you are!

xoxox

Linking up to Funky Junk Interior's Saturday Night Special

Wooden wall letter

2011-06-02T19:26:00.005+01:00

A few months ago I came across a big wooden letter S on Etsy and loved the distressed paint effect.

my inspiration

I e-mailed the seller for shipping costs and they got back to me and by the next day when I went to order it their store had closed down on Etsy so I couldn't order one.

I managed to find a 30cm letter in the same style on ebay so decided to have a go at replicating this paint effect.

I used to sell painted wooden letters in my shop but the distressing I did was much more basic.

I would paint the letters and then sand back random areas around the edge and apply a dark oak wax to the exposed areas and rub it in all over the letter to seal it and age the paint a little.

The paint effect on this letter is a much more heavily distressed look.

It took a few attempts for me to get it right.

I also wanted it with a little more white paint showing than in my inspiration photo.

Firstly I stained the letter in a dark wood stain but it came out quite orange and I didn't like the look.

I then painted the letter in a dark umber acrylic paint and gave it a light sanding with a sponge.

On top of that I painted white acrylic paint but left some areas unpainted.

I gave it a sanding but it was too smooth and I was looking for a more lumpy/blobby 'left outside in the rain for the paint to peel off' look so I just kept blobbing dollops of white paint until I felt it looked right.

I was really sorry that I missed out on the one I fancied but I ended up with the same thing for a fraction of the cost.

Where there's a will there's a way!

I am one of the many people having trouble leaving comments on blogs. I am trying but blogger just keeps making me sign in and not letting my comments post. In the last week or so I've managed to leave one comment (and that one posted straight away with no problems!). As of tonight I'm having trouble uploading photos too - is anyone else having these problems?

xoxox

*** QUICK UPDATE ON LEAVING COMMENTS ***

I've been finding it so frustrating not being able to leave comments that I've been googling it and so many others are having the same problem. For me every time I write a comment it makes me sign in and then sends me back to the comment but makes me sign in again - non stop!
Someone suggested that when you sign in untick the 'leave me signed in' box and I've just done that and it worked for me so if you're having problems try this.
Good luck!

xoxox

Linkin up to Funky Junk Interiors Saturday Night Special

Vintage jam pot vase

2011-05-26T21:24:00.002+01:00

A few weeks ago I found a vintage jam pot at an Antiques Centre (or a jelly pot if you are not in the UK).

It was plain when I bought it but it was in really good condition and I loved the colour and shape.

It reminded me of the Digit Spice Jars that Anthropolgie sold a while ago but which sadly weren't available over here in the UK.

I fancied adding a number to the front to 'spice' it up a little (sorry!).

My first thought was to apply a number using a stencil and ceramic paint but then I decided against this as it would be difficult to remove if I want it to have a different look later.

So I printed out a number 5 in a font I liked and then, with a craft knife, carefully cut around the edges.

I then stuck the number to contact paper (the clear stuff used to cover school books) face up and cut around that leaving a very slight edge which could stick to the jar.

The jar cost £1 - who doesn't love a bargain?!

This was such a simple way to add a little something to a plain piece and can easily be changed if you go off it - I love it!

xoxox

Off to France again!

2011-05-23T23:58:00.001+01:00

Well, once again my constant spending has had an adverse affect on my ability to save enough to get to the States - maybe next year!

All is not lost though as we've just booked to spend a fortnight at this Gite in the Charente region of France, not far from Bordeaux.

The area is lovely and quite, right in the countryside with plenty of Flea Markets in the area so I have a list of things I want to look out for.

The best thing is that this old building has been converted into two gites and my family are taking them both over. My sister and her family in one and us and my brother and his (growing*) family in the other. That means all the cousins can share a bedroom if they like, plenty of babysitters on hand if any couples want to go out for an evening on their own and hopefully an amazing family holiday our kids can all look back on.

The grounds look lovely and there is a swing set area for the kids and hammocks and barbecue areas. We are close to an old train track which runs through old villages and is now popular with people walking and cycling so plenty to explore on foot. We are also quite close to the coast so we can have the odd day at the beach although it's on the Atlantic coast and the waves tend to be quite big so I'm happy to explore the countryside and sleepy French villages more.

And not forgetting the pool. I don't know what it is about France but the minute I get there I seem to relax (I don't seem to be able to do this anywhere else). Everything is so slow and the villages are always very sleepy and quiet. They seem to be able to take life at a reasonable pace which is what I need! I expect I'll be spending a lot of time in this pool in my armchair inflatable with drink holder which we bought in France last year. My husband asked why I was bothering to bring it home with me, as he struggled to deflate it so that it would fit in the car. I obviously knew then that it would get a lot of use!

*after a year of no luck and months of fertility drugs my brother and his partner are expecting a baby later this year. We are all so delighted for them and for Renzo to become a big brother. And of course, for me to be an auntie again - almost as much fun as being a Mummy!

xoxox

The kindness of bloggers

2011-05-22T21:57:00.001+01:00

I know this is not a new or original name for a blog post but I think the reason it's used so much is that there is no better way to sum up how incredibly thoughtful and generous so many of you are.

A while back I wrote a post after I bought my first Ball Mason Jar.

As these are American they are impossible to find in the UK so I had to buy one from American ebay and the postage was really expensive. Since then I've bought a couple more but just three with the cost of shipping set me back not far off £80.

Regan who writes the blog A Day In The Life wrote to me at the time and said that she would keep an eye out for some for me and send them to me. As we all know life is hectic and looking for jars for a complete stranger was not a priority for her so I was delighted when she contacted me a few days ago to tell me that a box of jars was on the way to me.

She sent me the three gorgeous and perfectly packed jars shown above, one of which is a quart sized jar. I LOVE them. They go perfectly with the three I already have.

And they all look great together on an open shelf in my kitchen with my favourite plate which I bought from TKMaxx a few years ago.

If you don't already know Regan check out her blog, especially her recent project where she built, from scratch, an amazing play kitchen for her daughter. She did such a great job it makes me wish Lily was little again so I could try and make her one. I doubt I could do as good a job as Regan has though.

I am constantly amazed a how lovely and kind so many of you are to ~~total~~ virtual strangers and it's just one of the many things I love about blogging.

Thanks so much, Regan.

xoxox

My experience at Grand Designs Live 2011

2011-05-16T19:42:00.002+01:00

Grand Designs is a hugely popular TV show in the UK and every episode follows one family's journey to build their dream , green home. The Grand Designs Live Show features the host of that TV show, Kevin McCloud and is a huge event where companies can showcase their new, innovative and green products and ideas. The show is split into interiors, gardens, kitchen/cooking and build and in each of these areas there is a theatre where seminars are held throughout the day. There is one show in London and one in Birmingham every year.

Last November I was contacted by the media company which organises the Grand Designs Live Show and they asked me to be a guest speaker at the Grand Interior's Theatre at their London Show in May.

I was convinced this was a joke and dialled the number then hung up when they answered.

Initially I said no as I've never spoken in public before and am a really anxious person but after speaking to the organiser she convinced me that I spoke with such passion and could do it.

I've been a bag of nerves the last few weeks and have had trouble sleeping.

On top of that my computer died and I didn't have my new one delivered until Tuesday 3rd May and I was speaking on Friday 6th May! They asked me to speak about revamping furniture and furnishings but I wanted to include the amount of free inspiration there is out there in the world of blogging. Blogging is not as big in the UK as it seems to be all over the rest of the world and I was really keen to highlight the number of amazingly talented people and beautiful and inspiring blogs there are out there. My introductory speech was written in a night and my 130 photo slideshow was done in a day. I didn't write a speech for my slide show as I decided to talk as I go along as I carefully selected all photos I was going to speak about and I included just a few of my own little projects I had done for the show. I showed several pictures from some on my favourite blogs such as The Lettered Cottage and Dreamy Whites to name just a couple. I also gave everyone a printout with the web addresses of all the blogs I mentioned so they could go home and ~~check them out~~ become addicted themselves.

My sister came with me as my assistant (more my moral support) and when we got there we were allowed past security into the restricted area which was such a buzz. When I saw the stage it hit me that I was going to be speaking there and started to giggle with nerves!

There was a huge sign next to the stage which listed all the speakers at each of the five seminars held over nine days. Several people spoke a few times - I had chosen to speak twice as I thought that if I messed up the first time I could have another go before walking away in shame! Some people spoke over a couple of days. So, there were a total of 45 seminars with around 20 - 25 people talking and I became overwhelmed with excitement that I had been asked to be one of them.

Here I am listed at 12pm and 2pm on Friday.

And I even had to take a photo of my name on the TV screens!

It does make me laugh that they called me an 'expert'!!

Apparently the seminars are often quiet in the mornings and the person before me only had a small crowd so when I started speaking there was my sister and some staff only in the audience. This turned out to be a really good thing as it really settled and calmed me especially when I thanked them all for coming! By the time people sat down and more and more joined I was completely relaxed and loving every minute of it. I was amazed that my voice didn't even shake which I was really worried about - where this side of me has been hiding all these years I've no idea!

My second seminar was packed before I even started talking and I had a round of applause at the end which made my ~~day~~ year!

I even had some people come up for a chat at the end.

I loved it so much I'm going to speak at the Grand Designs Live Show in Birmingham in October.

I never in a million years thought I would ever get a chance to do something like this and more so never thought I could do something like this.

Without you I wouldn't have had anything to write about so I would like to thank all of you for writing such amazing blogs, for sharing so many wonderful ideas and for just inspiring me (and hopefully a few more Britons) daily!

Thank you

xoxox

~I do have photo's of me on stage and of my audience but I've deliberatly not shown them as they all clearly show that I either am in desperate need of a breast reduction or had two people hiding up my top - I now plan on losing weight before the next show!~

Turning a filthy old games table into a kitchen cart

2011-05-02T19:31:00.000+01:00

The same day I bought the little round table I bought a filthy games table which had also been abandoned and left outside in the yard at the Antiques Centre. The people there thought I was nuts to want to buy this piece but I liked it and thought it could be turned into a useful piece of furniture especially for entertaining.

This piece wasn't destined for the scrap heap - it was the scrap heap.
It was actually a home for wood lice - I had to flick dozens of them off before I put it in my car!
I liked the shape and thought that if it was tarted up it would make a handy drinks/nibbles trolley.

Here are some photos of the state it was in when I found it.

And here it is after the top was taken off and the whole thing was sanded. I like the little manufacturer's label that was underneath the games table so took that off when I painted it.

And here it is after several coats of Rustoleum primer and Heirloom white paint and a bit of distressing.

I'm only going to bring it into the kitchen if we have friends over.

For now I'm going to put it to use in the craft room.

It's such a handy little piece of furniture - it could be used anywhere - it would look great in a bathroom with spare towels and a bowl of gorgeous soaps - there's even room for a glass of wine!

Not bad for a fiver!

xoxox

Beachy side table

2011-04-23T18:38:00.001+01:00

I'm always a little envious when someone posts a picture of a piece of furniture which they picked up at a yard sale or a thrift store for a song. We don't have either of these in the UK and there are very few bargains to be found at Antique markets.

I've been looking for some pieces of junk to do up in preparation for the Grand Designs Live show I'm speaking at on May 6th and yesterday luck was on my side.

I took my sister to a lovely interiors shop I discovered a few weeks ago and while we were there they asked us what we were doing for the rest of the day. We told them we were looking for junk furniture and they told us about an antiques centre about 40 miles away where they had bought a lot of things to do up and use for display in their shop. They gave us directions and off we drove up the Brecon Beacons (the highest mountain area in Wales). It was a beautiful day and a lovely drive over mountains and hills and past a reservoir.

We both bought loads and came back with the car absolutely wedged full of things just dying for a makeover (much like myself!).

As we were leaving with the car already crammed full I decided to have one last look around the outside and a little table caught my eye. It was tucked away in a corner and long forgotten by the owner. The top was melamine and covered in rust from an old and ugly birdcage left to rust on top of it. However, the base was solid wood and very stable.

I really liked the size and shape and love the little curve of the piece of wood at the top of the legs just below the table top.

There was a price tag of £15 on it but I asked if they would accept £5 as we had bought so much. They phoned the owner and he couldn't even remember the table as it had been left outside for so long. He was glad to have £5 for it so we had to shift things around a little but managed to sqeeze it in.

Here are some photos of the poor abandoned table before her makeover.

The first thing I did was remove the melamine top. The underside was wood but the rain had taken it's toll on it and I had other plans for the top so just kept the top to use as a template.

I did actually quite like the chippy paint on it but it was literally falling off in the breeze so it had to be stripped and sanded. The paint came off really easily but underneath there was a thick coating of varnish which I spent ages sanding by hand but gave up and used an electric sander. I then finished the sanding by hand.

I mixed up some chalk paint to get a pale grey beachy colour. I used about a quarter of Paris Grey to one part old white and then painted the whole thing.

I sanded it again and applied another coat of the grey paint but this time added a little more of the old white so that when I sanded it back both shades of grey would show through.

I then sanded a lot of the areas right back to expose a lot of the wood underneath and finished it all off with a coat of clear finishing wax.

My husband then clamped, glued and screwed 4 planks of 6" timber together and used the original top as a template and cut a circle. I gave it one coat of old white and then sanded that back loads to show the knots in the wood and some of the grain. I then applied an all over coat of dark oak wax and rubbed it right in. My husband had to help me with the buffing as by now with all the sanding yesterday and today I have tennis elbow! I'm such a lightweight!

After all that hard work here she is now....

I think she's a beauty!

One day I'm going to have a sun room and I now have my first piece of furniture for it.

Thank you all for your comments yesterday. I've tried to respond but Seth's laptop isn't linked to my e-mail account and our computer only works for about 5 minutes at a time so today I've managed to send one e-mail so far. Anyway, thank you all - I really appreciate every comment.

The weather in Wales is glorious - hope it is in your part of the world too.

xoxox

Linking this up to Funky Junk Interior's Saturday Night Special #78

A new look for an old cupboard

2011-04-22T21:20:00.002+01:00

I have a busy couple of weeks ahead of me.

In a fortnight I will be a guest speaker at the Grand Designs Live Show in London.

I'm really scared as I have never done anything like this before and am worried I'm going to mess up!

I plan on speaking on blogging and the huge amount of talent and inspiration which is freely available in the world of blogging plus giving furniture a new lease of life with paint.

We have a cupboard in our dining room which we brought back from London with us almost 14 years ago. When we moved here I decided to paint it green and used a paint specifically for furniture and mixed the colour myself.

I then sanded back areas which would have had a lot of wear and tear and applied a dark oak wax.

We plan on replacing this cupboard with a purpose built open shelving unit as I want to have our plates, dishes and glassware within easy reach. Until then I decided to change the look of the cupboard a little.

I've been wanting to try Annie Sloan's chalk paint since I read about it on Miss Mustard Seed and Perfectly Imperfect so tried it out on this cupboard.

I painted the whole cupboard in old white.

This paint doesn't need any primer and dries really quickly.

I should have sanded it first though to remove the old wax as it showed through the first coat.

I sanded it back a lot and gave it a second coat, then I sanded parts right back to distress it a little.

Both the old green paint and the original wood were exposed. I really like this effect.

I then applied clear finishing wax to the whole cupboard and a dark jacobean oak shade of wax to the exposed areas.

Not so much a facelift, more a touch of botox for this tired old piece of furniture!

This cupboard will never win any beauty contests but is a very useful and practical place to house all my interiors books.

...And the dining room looks a little brighter now.

xoxox

I'm linking this up to Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday

Spring Mantle

2011-04-04T22:24:00.000+01:00

Over the weekend I had a bit of a purge on cleaning and organising and decided to freshen up my mantle for Spring.

My cast iron bunny has moved all around my house - he started life as a door stop in the kitchen and more recently has been stuck in a corner of my lounge just waiting for a new home.

He is really heavy so if he falls off the mantle piece I'm going to be needing a new slate hearth!

I've put most of my mercury glass away since Christmas but couldn't bear to part with it all so some of my favourite pieces have been left out. I quite like the look of them with the twiggy pieces.

Some new white hyacinths. I don't like the colour of the basket so plan on washing it with a little pale grey/white paint to see if it blends a little better.

A close up of my lovely bunny!

I'm still thinking about paintint the fire surround. After reading Marianne from Miss Mustard Seed's post on Annie Sloane chalk paints I think I'm going to paint it (and the mirror) off white and heavily distress it. As we have oak flooring the warmth of the pine on the fireplace is just too much for me.

I hope it works out :)

Some eye candy and a winner

2011-04-04T12:50:00.001+01:00

I am caught up in a big wholesale order at the moment so have nothing exciting to share with you.

You can't do a post without a picture though so I'm going to let you all drool over this picture of my future second husband, John Cusack! Lol - I hope my (first) husband doesn't read this!

The winner of my giveaway is Nellie from McCarthy Designs.

I actually did the random number generator twice as I couldn't work out how to save it and she came up both times so she was destined to have the sign. And she is having a baby too! It was destiny!

xoxox

Metal photo holder and a giveaway

2011-03-26T21:46:00.003Z

Today I turned an un-used and forgotten metal sign into a little postcard/photo/memo holder for my craft room.

I had a few of these metal 'BABY' signs left over from my shop stock and I did take them along to one or two sales but ended up with 3 that didn't sell.

They've been in a cupboard waiting for me to do something with now for almost 2 years.

Today I decided, was the day, to revamp one into something useful.

This one started off in a cute little baby blue colour with raised lettering in burnished metal.

I think the fact that babies grow gives this sign a relatively short lifespan in a childs room.

Here it is after a couple of coats of Rustoleum spray primer.

And after two coats of Rustoleum Heirloom White.

I wanted to cover the letters but still show the cute little fleur de lys.

I used sand paper and a sanding sponge to rub the paint off on the raised areas and corners to reveal the old paint and the bare metal beneath. Then I rubbed finishing wax in a dark oak shade all over to age it a little.

Et voila!

Some French postcards held on with cute little magnets, including some of my LOVE pebble ones.

GIVEAWAY TIME

I have two more of these BABY signs left - one in pink and one in blue.

If you want to win one just leave a comment below.

For an extra chance become a follower, blog about the giveaway or add a link to your sidebar - leave an extra comment for each.

The winner can choose whether you want the sign left in it's original colour (that way you could use it in baby's room then revamp it yourself when you're baby is a big boy or girl!) or you can choose for me to spray it and distress it like mine.

I'll also include some of my hand made magnets to hold your photos or memo's to the board.

Winner will be chosen at random a week today.

You have until midnight next Saturday to enter.

Good luck!

xoxox

I'm linking this up to Funky Junk Interiors SNS #74

Wooden walls (or are they?)

2011-03-25T12:34:00.002Z

Well, my home PC has another virus so it's been left unplugged for the last week or so.

My only chance of catching up on blog reading is at my office at lunch or on my son's laptop.

All my photos are on my PC so are inaccessible.

We've already paid 50 quid to get the first virus removed so I'm not willing to keep chucking money at something which is obviously on it's way out so we'll have to start saving. However, I am in the middle of having root canal work on my teeth so the PC will have to wait until I've finished paying for that !

Anyway, while at the dentist this week whilst browsing through one of their home magazines (to calm my nerves) I came across the most amazing wallpaper. Yes, these wooden walls are all wallpaper!

I'm not normally a wallpaper person partly because I don't fancy ever having to remove something that's been stuck to walls and having to make that good before I can redecorate.

I am however, a wood person so I can't see that I would ever want to cover this up.

It's pretty expensive at £145 a roll but one roll covers approx 4 m sq so one roll would be enough to bring a huge amount of character to a little corner of your home.

I think this would look great on one wall in a teenage boys bedroom, especially if you're going for that surf shack look.

I think this one would look amazing on one wall in a beach house or holiday home.

The wallpaper is called Scrapwood Wallpaper and is by Dutch designer Piet Hein Eek

It comes in lots of designs including a very dark polished wood which would look great in a boutique hotel style of bedroom. That style would obviously look completely out of place in my 'take us as you find us and step over the shoes' kind of house I have but I can still appreciate it's beauty.

I just love this wallpaper.

What do you think? Love it or hate it?

xoxox

My dream house (or one of them anyway)

2011-03-14T13:56:00.001Z

Every now and then I see a house which stops me in my tracks.

This house is perfect.

Every picture makes me catch my breath.

It's on Whidbey Island, which is somewhere I've always wanted to visit.

Very few words are necessary - the photos speak for themselves.

When I win the lottery I want to live in a house like this.

I came across this house on House of Turquoise

You can read the full article from Seattle Homes Magazine here

xoxox

Down on the farm

2011-03-06T14:53:00.000Z

I've made a load of new pillows for my Etsy shop.

Here are some of my favourites.

The bunny is my favourite

xoxox

Wonderful blogging friends and some art for my craft room wall

2011-03-04T23:54:00.001Z

I've had a rough week this week.

My computer had a virus and had to go away to be fixed - then Seth and I both had a virus and have been dosing up on cold and cough medicine, nose spray and painkillers.

My house needs cleaning from top to bottom and I have a ton of sewing to catch up on.

Besides dozing and catching up on all that crap day time TV I've managed to scribble a few ideas into the little sketch book that my husband bought me for Christmas so when I feel back to normal I have plenty of ideas to keep me going for a while.

I've been on the search for the perfect old frame to turn into a notice board to go above my desk in the craft room but so far have had no luck. On the same wall I wanted to put a large wooden letter S and a frame which my sister brought me back from South Africa where she got married 5 years ago. The frame has been propped up all over the place for the last 5 years and has never had a picture in it until now. This gorgeoue photo with the perfect shade of green background goes perfectly in the frame and in the room. The photo was a lovely gift from Kat from Low Tide High Style. I had no idea she was sending it to me and it was so exciting to receive something unexpected in the mail (especially as this month I am usually the one giving the presents, not receiving them). Thank you again Kat - you made my day :)

I also wanted to include something inspirational on one wall in the room. Something to keep me going, to remind me that the late nights are all worth it and that whatever I want is possible if I work at it - I can make things happen. So tonight I had a go at making something on my Broderbund publishing package. I'm not too hot on computers so you can probably all knock something up 100 times better but if you like it just click and save. You are free to use it as you wish.

I also thought of ' you really can make it happen' and 'your dreams can be achieved' and so on.

I think they all say the same thing and would serve to motivate me.

Now I need to find a nice frame to put it in - I hope it's easier to find than the one I need for my noticeboard!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend

xoxox

Busy, busy, busy ...

2011-02-28T23:26:00.000Z

Today my gorgeous little man became a teenager.

I cannot believe how fast it has gone.

He has always been an easy child. He is easy going and laid back (sadly he gets that from his father and not his highly strung mother!). He is handsome and intelligent (he gets those traits from me :) Ok, he gets those from his Dad too!) He is popular and has a warped sense of humour (finally something he gets from me!).

We are so proud of him.

Happy Birthday Seth xxx

Today is also the 25th anniversary of my and my husband's first date.

I cannot believe it has been 25 years already.

Pat is a lot like Seth and he grounds me completely - I am such a worrier and he always puts me at ease. He looks after me.

I'm looking forward to the next 25 years.

I have no photos of us to post as our home PC has a virus. Apparently it's a virus which has swept our city over the last week. All my photos are on that computer and not Seth's laptop which I am using now. Hopefully we'll get it back by Wednesday. I hope so - I'm lost without my computer.

Last weekend I made a cushion which had been milling around in my head and on scraps of paper for some time. In my head the design was simple - double frayed ruffle with either piping or velvet ribbon.

In reality this was a pain to make.

When it came to piecing it all together there were six layers of fabric to stitch together.

I'm not happy with how it turned out so I won't be selling it. So it looks like I now have a cushion for my bed Luckily it goes really well with my new blue throw.

On another subject I received a lovely surprise in the post last week from Kat from Low Tide High Style. I'll be posting a picture of it soon but right now I don't know how to edit photos on Seth's laptop so it would have to be posted sideways.

One of the best things about blogging is the wonderful friends you make all over the world.

Thank you all.

xoxox

Pom poms, turquoise cupcakes and a 9 year old

2011-02-19T10:32:00.001Z

Yesterday my baby girl was 9.

Before you read much further you're going to ask yourself - "Flippin' heck, how many photos of one table can a person take?" Well the answer is 39 if you love how the room looked but don't worry - I'm not going to show you them all!

Lily's actual birthday party isn't until Monday but yesterday her best friends came home from school with heer for tea and then we all went to the cinema. I got to bed at 2.10am the night before and we got up at 6 so Lily could have a special birthday breakfast and open her presents before school so don't ask me if the film was any good as I fell asleep in the cinema!

I wanted to make the dining room look really pretty for her as a surprise.

This is my first attempt at pom-poms and I just love them.

I knocked up a little white linen table runner the night before.

Quick tutorial - iron some linen, make a snip at one end and rip. Repeat. Iron.

Hey presto a simple but pretty table runner.

I put some creamy roses into one of my treasured Ball Mason jars and used a heart shaped punch to make some tissue paper hearts which I scattered all over the runner.

Everyone who knows me knows I can't cook! So a colleague made some gorgeous cupcakes which were covered in edible glitter so really sparkled. The colour was a happy accident - she panicked as I asked for pale blue but they came out more turqoise. I love the colour and it sort of helped with the way the decorating of the table ended up.

I brought out my favourite wine glasses which are really thick and robust so I didn't worry about breakages. I bought kids champagne - basically sparkling fruit juice with a cork in the bottle. Before anyone tells me this is wrong and I am just encouraging children to drink please note that I don't drink alcohol (apart from once a year on my works Christmas do where I just drink enough to make me think I'm good at dancing! This is usually just a couple of bottles of beer) but I thought the girls would feel really special having such a fuss made.

The party bags contained all their treats for the cinema but on the table we wrapped little sparkly eye shadow sets in plain A4 paper with a little message from Lily on it.

My baby girl is in the middle with the blue 'Team Edward' (of course!!) baseball top on.

The others have been her best friends in the world since she started school when she was 3 and they are a great bunch of friends.

"Happy 9th Birthday Lily Manon"

"We love you 16 and a million"

(when Lily was tiny she used to think 16 was the biggest number in the

world til her brother told her that a million was actually the biggest number in the world. So then she changed her 'how much I love you' announcements to "I love you 16 and a million!"

xoxox

I am linking this up to Funky Junk Interiors SNS # 69

More grain sacks

2011-02-14T20:36:00.000Z

I've just had a new delivery of grain sacks. They only just arrived from Hungary on Monday and by Friday they were mine! I love them.

I had thought this one had my initials - SJ but on closer inspection I think it's FS.

I think I can get away with it though and am probably going to make a cushion for me out of this one.

The one below is my favourite. The thin stripes are so simple and understated.

On their metal rail ready to be washed and given a new lease of life.

I've got quite a lot on at the moment so I probably won't get a chance to work with these beauties for a few weeks. For now I'm just loving looking at them.

On Friday my baby girl is 9. She is having her besties back for a birthday tea and we are then going to the cinema to see Gnomio and Juliet. Then on Monday she is having a pizza making party at Frankie and Benny's Italian restaurant for her friends, classmates, neighbours and cousins.

The following Friday is my husband's birthday. Who?? Poor Pat gets forgotton amongs the chaos of the kids birthdays.

Seth will be 13 a fortnight today and a week Saturday is having a sleepover with a Chinese takeaway for his friends plus an evening of horror films!!! I remember when I was a teenager liking horror films. I would never watch one now.

On the same day that Seth is 13, Pat and I will have been together for 25 years which seems just unbelievable to me especially as I only feel about 19! So on top of planning birthdays, parties, party bags etc we are trying to find the time to do something special for our 25th 'dating' anniversary. I can literally feel the grey hairs growing with the stress of it all!

I love it all though - except the part where my babies keep growing - I want them to stay little and live with me forever :(

Wish me luck for the next couple of weeks x

xoxox

My craft room progress

2011-02-05T15:46:00.003Z

I've been busy after work recently moving stuff upstairs and trying to organise all my craft supplies in a really practical way. I'm one of those people who spends a lot of time thinking about where things should go and not actually doing much. This coupled with a week of horrible sinus headaches (again!) and internet connection problems has made progress on this room pretty slow.

Anyway, at last I now have a space where I can do all my craft work and the best thing of all is that we have our dining room back and my study area is (almost) tidy.

I needed the room to have a few functions.

The first was somewhere to store my fabrics and my pillows.

This burnished metal clothes rail was bought from France when I had my shop. I used to sell kids bedding by a Danish company called Greengate and I bought the rail to hang throws from and to pile more throws and cushions on the shelf below.

I love this rail and would never part with it. I kept it as one day I want a laundry room and want this to be used there. For now its being put to good use here to hold folded fabrics on the shelf below and pillows ready for printing and sewing from the rail.

I bought some new wooden clothes hangers and sanded off the varnish then stamped each hanger with the measurements of the pillows I make. That way I can cut a load of pillows ready for printing and sewing which should save me a lot of time and mess.

I bought this vintage looking basket from Home Sense a while ago and was keeping it for my 'one day' laundry room but for now it's just the right size to hold the pillow inserts I need to pop into my pillows when I photograph them to sell on my etsy shop.

We've had our wicker hamper for years. We brought it back from London with us and it used to hold Seth's dressing up clothes - he was a red power ranger for about two years!

It's quite big and has been a bit of a pain over the years as we've never known where to put it. It's ideal here as it can hold my ready made pillows and covers.

I would like to stencil a word or some numbers on the front to vintage it up a bit but am undecided about what to stencil - any suggestions?

We've had this chair a long time but it's broken and has been up the attic for a long time.

It now has a nice new home here and will be used as a prop when I'm taking photos of my pillows.

These little teddies used to live on the spare bed - I can't hide them away in a cupboard so they can stay here.

I had two of these long thin tables made a few years ago. The first one was to use in our study before I found the right desk. Then I lent it to the shop and liked how it looked there so had another made for the shop. My sister has been looking after them in her house and gave me one back to use as a sewing, packing and painting table.

I've put one of our dining chairs here for now so need to get a nice comfy chair.

I love the picture above the table but it looks out of place here now - it's called Amroth Storm and is of a beach in West Wales we love going to.

I plan on putting a large notice board here for lists and ideas etc.

This is on my to do list.

Craft supplies storage was the other thing I needed.

I had a unit built for the shop which has been in a friends garage since the shop closed.

It's just the right thing for here so I made a linen curtain for the front which I threaded onto dowel and hung with cup hooks at either end for easy removal.

Here it is without the curtain.

I bought these little grey drawers from TKMaxx about a year ago and never knew where to put them.

I think they'll be quite useful here.

And finally some little tin pots from Ikea with blackboard pegs on the front to keep my most used supplies handy.

There are still a few things we need to do to get the most out of this room.

There is a closet in the room which is double width but with a single door. My husband is going to open up the space and add shelves for more storage.

I need some lamps and a nice light fitting, a notice board and some nice things on the wall. These will come.

I've only spend £20 on this room - £14 for the linen to make the curtain for the storage unit and £6 for the wooden clothes hangers.

I'm sure how I use the storage will evolve constantly but I now see light at the end of the tunnel - the rest of my house is now looking like a home again instead of covered in a constant cloud of burlap dust!

Another good thing about having a craft room upstairs is that I can work after everyone is asleep - I'm scared of the dark so my poor husband has to stay up with me (usually sleeping on the sofa) until I've finished sewing and now he doesn't have to - everyone's happy!

Hope you like it!

xoxox

I am linking this up to:

Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch

One thing leads to another...

2011-01-26T22:47:00.000Z

A lot has been happening in our house which has kept me away from my blog for a while.

We have decided to go ahead with turning our spare bedroom into a craft room. I did have reservations as I like the bedroom and I feel a bit weird about 'gutting' the room - almost as though I am devaluing our house. But as my husband said - it's still a spare room, just without a bed!

Deciding to go ahead with this left us with the problem of where to put the bed from that room. It's only a couple of years old and has literally only had guests in it a handful of times so I didn't want to sell it. Our garage was converted into a kids lounge a few years ago so we had no big space to store it.

My husband came up with the solution. He worked out that although technically the beds are the same size the frame on the spare bed is slightly bigger than the one on our bed so dismantled ours and put it, and mattress, underneath the spare bed which he moved to our room.

I had already made a bed skirt for the bed so everything is completely hidden underneath and when we want to turn it back into a guest room there'll no need to shop for furniture.

It looks quite orangey in the photos but it's not that bad in 'real life' - just a nice warm wood.

I am loving it as we are sleeping on a new mattress and the base board is much lower than the one on our other bed so it doesn't feel so closed in.

Happy Days!!

My craft room is now a work in progress. I have a sewing table and a storage unit but have quite a bit to do in there to get it functional. I can't wait to have a space just dedicated to my crafts and also to have a nice tidy dining room which has been my sewing room for the last few months. The ironing board has been set up there permanently. Shocking!

At last I will be able to let people in through the door again.

I'll be doing a lot of work on it this weekend so hopefully will have some photos to share soon.

Thanks for all your lovely comments and e-mails - sorry I haven't replied to them all. as (as usual). I have a million things on my 'to do' list which leave me with not much spare time.

On another note I'm worn out and am sick of working full-time. I have so little spare time that my hair is begging for a cut and my eyebrows are so overgrown my husband is going to have to start them off with a hedge trimmer soon. This week I formally requested to reduce my hours in work from 5 days to 4 so if that's allowed I'll have more time to blog and drool over all your beautiful homes and crafts - fingers crossed!

xoxox

And the winner is...

2011-01-16T22:04:00.000Z

Emily from The Wicker House

Emily's favourite pillow from my Etsy shop is this whale pillow.

Congratulations Emily xx

Thank you all for entering.

I'm sorry you couldn't all win but as a thank you I'm offering 20% off any purchase from my Etsy shop until next weekend. Just enter the code january at the checkout and the discount will be applied prior to payment.

xoxox

Desk envy

2011-01-13T21:46:00.001Z

I just came across this lovely desk area at Holly Mathis Interiors and am in love.

It looks like I will be turning the guest bedroom into a workroom after all and I have a cubby hole unit earmarked for that space. I couldn't decide whether or not to make a burlap curtain across the front of the unit - until now! I love this look and am pretty sure I'm going to do something similar.

The whole space is just gorgeous - working at a desk like this would be such a pleasure!

xoxox

Dreaming of a low maintenance garden

2011-01-12T22:58:00.001Z

Over the winter months I hardly step foot into my back garden so every Spring after we've tidied up the balls my dog has chewed and cut back the overgrown bushes I dream of having a low maintenance garden.

I cut this picture out of Homes and Gardens (British Magazine) a few years ago and keep going back to it.

My garden is a similar shape and size (really small!!) and while I do love the look of a nice, well groomed lawn, when you have a golden retriever who can only 'perform' at home (seriously - he can go for a two hour walk in the forest but wait til he gets home to go to the toilet) I do worry about how hygienic a lawn is.

We actually already have a large patio area with slabs like these with a wall separating the patio and the lawn and then three steps in the middle going up to the lawn. When my kids were too young to play in the street or the forest the back garden was ideal. We have a large jungle gym which has been a magnet for all the kids in the street over the years. Now Seth and Lily are older they prefer to play in the street with the other kids or in a den they have all built just inside the forest gate.

I think it's time to move with the times. I love the fact that even though this garden doesn't have a lawn it's still very green. I also love that ther are various seating areas which would make it a good garden for entertaining and barbecues.

It's a big step digging out the whole lawn and it wouldn't be cheap either. I've a feeling my dog toilet may stay for a few more years and this picture will just get a bit more 'dog eared' with all my longing gazes!

There's still time to enter my GIVEAWAY - just click here

xoxox

Time for a giveaway...

2011-01-07T21:43:00.000Z

...as a little thank you from me to you

The truth of the matter is I am so worn out after doing very little over Christmas ... and having a yucky sinus infection ... and going back to work which is exhausting after all my lolling about ... that I am ashamed to say I have nothing to post about.

Now that all my decorations are down (and are on Lily's bedroom floor waiting for me to wrap them in tissue before they go back up the attic until next year) my house seems bare and in dire need of decorating and re-organising.

This time every year I feel like I need more time and money as this is the time of year when I want to make changes to my house.

We are thinking of turning our guest bedroom into a workspace for me as my craft stuff creeps all over the house. I've often got wooden signs drying on the lounge floor and pillow covers I've printed hanging from string across my lounge/dining room doors drying and my sewing machine now lives on our dining table. I think my husband has finally had enough of my crap all over the place and is hoping that if we give up the spare room for a while (the only people who ever really stay there are my brother and his lot when they visit and they've just gone back so that bed won't be slept in again until next Christmas) the rest of the house will be 'craft clutter' free.

So, to thank you all for following me, leaving lovely comments which I don't always get the chance to respond to (partly due to lack of spare time and partly due to the fact that when I do respond and check out someones blog I then so wrapped up in theirs and others on their side bars that I just get lost in blogland...) and of course, for inspiring me so much every day I'm going to have a giveaway.

The Giveaway

First up is a pair of these lovely heart shaped slate coasters which I have a wonderful man cut for me by hand in West Wales. I used to sell these in my old shop and since my shop closed these are one of the few things I continue to sell.

and you get to choose any pillow cover from my Etsy store

and lastly I'll throw something else in as a surprise.

For your chance to win just:

visit my etsy store and tell me which pillow cover you would choose (one comment)

be an existing or become a new follower (one comment)

blog about the giveaway (another comment)

Winner will be chosen at random at midnight GMT a week from today - Friday 14th Jan.

Good luck

xoxox

Another Christmas - big surprise for my kids

2010-12-29T12:24:00.001Z

I've been struggling to keep something from my children for the last few weeks.

I've almost slipped up a few times.

Somehow I've managed to keep a secret.

My brother lives in Majorca in Spain and only manages to get home maybe once a year.

My kids adore my brother.
So tonight these two....

....and this gorgeous little man....

....will be knocking on our door to spend a second Christmas with us.

I can't wait to cuddle Renzo - he is just the cutest.

Lily adores Eugenia (or Auntie Egg as she calls her as Eugenia is too hard for her to say) and Seth will be attached to his super cool Uncle.

Eugenia's parents are also coming to stay and we've never met them before so we are going to have a house full and I'm going to love it! Her parents don't speak any English so I'm going to have my work cut out - they both speak Spanish and French fluently so I'll be babbling in a really bad mix of both plucked from the recesses of my memories from school.

My sister and her family spent Christmas in Ireland with her husband's family and they will be back on the 2nd so on the 3rd we are having Christmas all over again. More turkey, more presents, more silly hats and games!

In between we have a New Year's party with our neighbours. This year we decided that every house should pick a country to represent and play music, offer food, and dress representing that country. Everyone has to have a flag of that country. We will be going from house to house in order of the time zones so the first house we are going to visit will be China. We are America so will be playing Bruce Springsteen or some country music, offering teeny burgers and meatball sub's and will be wearing cowboy hats. I've also bought an Argentina flag as Eugenia's mum is apparently a great cook so she will be making empanadas for everyone.

So this year we get to have Christmas, New Year and then Christmas all over again!

Hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone.

Hope 2011 is all you want it to be!

xoxox

Waking up to a blanket of white

2010-12-18T20:09:00.000Z

On Thursday we had a bit of rain and sleet so we didn't expect the snow which had been forecast to stick.

We woke up to this scene on Friday morning.

It's funny but my kids never seem to jump out of bed as quickly as they do after it's been snowing.

So pretty - the view from my spare bedroom window

The gate into the forest just outside our house - my kids have posed for a photo at this gate every time it has ever snowed here - it's such a pretty sight looking into the forest behind them

The view from the forest back into my street

Seth spend ages rolling a huge snowball.

Snow always means hot chocolate to my children so I've had to make sure we've got plenty of cocoa, marshmallows, cinammon, Cadbury's flake and squirty cream on hand.

The cold weather always makes me crave comfort food.

Today I made cheese scones. Whenever you think of Britain chances are you think of scones with jam and cream but as much as I love these I make cheese scones far more often. I'm sure I've mentioned before that I'm useless in the kitchen other than when it comes to organizing cupboards and drawers so unlike so many of you I don't have any amazing recipes to share but if you want something quick and easy (and unhealthy) here you go:

Cheese Scones

Today I ate them with crispy bacon in the middle - gorgeous but very naughty!

My kids love me making these scones.

Hope you enjoy too!

Make your own recipe cards here

(I found these thanks to My Sweet Savannah)

xoxox

Our visit with Santa in Lapland

2010-12-14T23:07:00.002Z

First of all thanks for all the advice on coping with flying. I hate that I'm such a flying phobic and it's nice to know so many of you have experienced this and learned to manage it.

Well, Lily and I got back from Lapland (eventually) to find a News TV crew waiting for us at the airport!

What an eventful trip we had!

We got up at 4am to go to the airport to board our plane for Enontekio in Northern Finland. The very North of Finland (and Sweden) is known as Lapland and here in the UK it is where children believe that Santa spends his time when he is not in the North Pole.

My head was pounding and my stomach was churning for the whole flight while I waited to fall out of the sky! I cried during take of mainly due to nerves but partly due to the fact that Lily couldn't sit next to me for take off or landing as they sat me by the emergency exit and she was too young to sit there.

We had been in the air for over 3 hours of our 3 and a half hour flight when the pilot announced that we couldn't land at Enontekio as there was a plane blocking the runway (these airports are really small and only have one runway) so we had to land at Kittila, which is where Seth and I went to see Santa 6 years (to the day) before.

Lily and her classmate, Tom, whose sister, Molly is one of Seth's oldest friends and came with us on our last trip.

Lily and Tom plunged straight into the snow to make snow angels - it was such a novelty for them to see so much snow. Just after this photo was taken Lily asked Tom if he had seen Dumb and Dumber (I didn't know she had until then!) when someone stuck their tongue to a lampost. So.. guess what Tom did? He licked a lampost and got his tongue stuck - he panicked and pulled his tongue off with his hand then talked really funny for a hour or so due to the bleeding and the swelling. It was horrible but so hard not to laugh - even he laughed eventually!

Day trips to Lapland from the UK are very popular these days as although it's quite far away it's do-able in a day and a real treat for children.

You end up having around 7 and a half hours there to go on a sleigh pulled by reindeer, another pulled by huskies, a snowmobile ride and a visit with Santa. When I went with Seth the trip was magical. Unfortunately for everyone on our trip it was disastrous!

From the airport we were taken by bus to Enontekio - the trip took just under two and a half hours. It was very pretty but basically it was just driving on a road through forest as this area is very remote. We did pass a stunning ski resort called Levi which I fell in love with but that was about it besides the bus slowing down to show us some reindeer.

When we got to our destination we were told by our rep that she would be with us all day and that we would have two extra hours there to make sure we did everything. Then she disappeared and left us all standing around in -35degrees not knowing where to go. We found another rep who told us that we couldn't have another two hours there but we would get to do everything then she disappeared. My friend and I registered for the sleigh for the Santa Safari and while we were waiting for that queued for 40 minutes to go on the husky ride. As we had got there so late it was now night and absolutely baltic so loads of kids were crying and saying they wanted to go home. Luckily Lily and Tom are old enough that we could let them go off just behind us and play with sledges while we waited.

We then went on our Santa Safari which started out beautifully. We were pulled by a skidoo on a sleigh over a frozen lake and through snow covered forest for quite a way until we reached a very picturesque log cabin with a huge carving of a grizzly bear outside. Just beyond that Santa had parked his car!!!! This went unnoticed by Lily and Tom but my friend Tina and I were so disappointed that Santa hadn't had the sense to park his sleigh there instead or just park his car behind his cabin.

I sneaked Lily's Christmas list in to Santa's 6 foot elf (!) and Lily was delighted when he produced the letter she had written a month ago and left on the fireplace to be collected by Santa when he next flew over our house.

We returned to the main area to go on a reindeer ride only to be told that we had to get on the bus to go back to the airport. People were very unhappy to say the least. Children were in tears. Lily tried to be very brave but cried when she found out she couldn't see the reindeer. Some children didn't even get to see Santa which is just awful.

We got back to the airport with everyone agreeing to write in to the travel company to complain. You pay a lot of money for this trip and most people have to save for some time to afford it. It was such a disappointment for everyone for it to be such a let down.

We got back to the aiport and after boarding found out that one of the engines was faulty. After the first officer went out and tried to start the engine manually (can you imagine how relaxed I was about that !!) they realised that there was a realy problem so in complete contrast to how inefficient the travel company had been the airline immediately arranged hotel rooms for everyone.

I phoned my husband from the plane to tell him and he couldn't stop laughing - he said your day started with Dumb and Dumber, in the middle it was Planes, Trains and Automobiles - let's just hope that when you get to the hotel it doesn't end with The Shining! I do love his warped sense of humour!

I was delighted as we got to stay in the beautiful ski resort called Levi that we had passed earlier.

The hotel was gorgeous and looked like lots of log cabins at the foot of a hill with illuminated ski slopes behind the buildings. After a good nights sleep which we all really needed we had the day at the ski resort to do as we pleased with meals provided.

I was in my element here. There were sledges everywhere so all the children had a fab time running around and sliding down hills.

Lily and I went for a stroll (well I strolled and she sat in a sledge pulled by me) around the village which was just beautiful.

I was still a bit upset that she hadn't been on the reindeer ride or the snow mobiles like her brother had and felt I'd let her down a bit so decided to take her on the cable car up to the top of the ski slope just for fun!

By pure chance there were two newspaper journalists (from different newspapers) with their families so as soon as we got back the BBC news TV crew met us at the airport and were interviewing people coming off the plane. The story has been in loads of newspapers and I had a phonecall from ITV news yesterday asking to interview me and they came to my house yesterday and I was then on the news at 6!

What a weekend we had!

It was only saved thanks to the airline (Thomson).

The Travel company Transun unfortunately now have to deal with horrendous publicity and complaint letters from 188 passengers - I hope they have as good a time dealing with them as we did standing around on our own in minus 35degree temperatures!

At least the stress of the weekend made me forget about my fear of flying on the way home!!

xoxox

Fear of flying

2010-12-09T21:12:00.002Z

On Saturday I'm hoping to take Lily to Lapland (which is at the very top of Finland) to see the 'real' Father Christmas.

I took Seth a few years ago and it was amazing - he had such a great time and I got to see the Northern Lights which was just incredible. We both had certificates for Crossing the Arctic Circle which Seth thought was really cool!

My only problem is I hate flying. I'm terrified and have already got a headache and an upset stomach.

I know I'm a fool to put myself through this but if I didn't I'd never get to go anywhere plus Saturday is all about Lily and her having a truly magical and memorable day. I know this may seem an extravagant trip so I'm keen to point out that we are not 'flashy' people at all - as I've left it til last minute to book there's a big discount and it's such a fantastic experience for children that I'm willing to make sacrifices elsewhere - beans on toast for me for the next few weeks!

I never used to be scared of flying but since I've had the children my anxiety levels are through the roof.

Anyone else out there with an age induced fear of flying (or just anyone with a ton of common sense) who can offer me some advice to help ease my churning belly??!!

This is no joke - I need some serious shaking and a good slap to sort myself out!

HELP!

xoxox

Lily's bedroom decorated for Christmas

2010-12-03T20:26:00.001Z

Lily has been really keen to decorate her bedroom for Christmas.

She loves crafting so has been drawing pictures of snowflakes and Santa and has stuck them all over her bedroom door - they have been banned from the walls!

She really wanted a small tree in her room and had pointed out a white tinsel tree which I did consider but decided to have a go at making her a white 'twig tree' instead.

My husband never complains when I rope him in to help me with a little project.

He cut some straightish branches off a tree in our garden for me. We laid them out on the floor and he cut them to size for me - one long one for the 'stem' then four more each decreasing in width to go across the tree.

I glued them into place first with my hot glue gun and then tied them in place with string.

After it was all nice and secure I painted the whole thing white and Lily gave it the finishing coat.

I cut a piece of white linen and left the edges raw to make a sort of snowy table runner.

I love my black(ish) florist bucket which I've had for years. I have a smaller zinc pot which I had planned on using but it looked better in the florist bucket. We wrote Ho Ho Ho down the front in chalk.

The Christmas stocking is made from vintage French fabric - I bought it at a Christmas Market in Bath (historic city in England) a few years ago. It's used just for decoration as we use Christmas sacks I made years ago for their stocking fillers.

This picture is one of a few which normally hang above her drawers but I took them down as it all looked too busy with the tree in front. I kept this one out though as it's of a child praying and I just love it.

I also kept the little china shoes out as I think they are adorable and they fit with the red and white colour scheme.

We also put her Maileg bunnies on the other side (mainly to fill up the blank space) but also because we thought they looked cute.

We then had fun going through our many decorations picking out ones which were small and either red or white.

To finish it off I bought some battery operated tiny flashing lights which we wound around the central stem. The battery pack is hidden behind the bucket.

Lily is delighted with her tree.

I think it turned out quite cute too!

I'm really sorry about the terrible photos - she wanted me to take them tonight!

She inherited my ability to be patient obviously!

xoxox

A bit more Christmas decorating

2010-12-02T14:42:00.000Z

Either side of my fireplace we have white open shelved units.

Today I decorated the one on the right.

I used my little fake tree that I bought last year.

I love the zinc pot it sits in.

I decorated it with mercury glass hearts which I've been selling at parties and fairs this year - I have a few of these left so if anyone wants to buy one just let me know (they are £3.50 each). I also used some favourite white wooden birds and metal snowflakes and a few other little white decorations.

Some large pine cones which I have had for years and years. I never tire of them.

Some Pottery Barn reindeer candlesticks (I have 4 of these as I bought some in Canada a few years ago and my sister went to America a couple of years later and bought me two back not knowing I already had some). The other two are on the other unit facing these two!

And even more mercury glass of course - some baubles in a hurricane lamp and some more candle holders.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in our house!

Lily and I started a new Christmas project (involving branches off a tree in our garden) for her bedroom last night. Hopefully we'll get that finished tomorrow and she can proudly reveal her 'new' Christmas tree.

Linking this up to:

Christmas vignette party at Southern Hospitality

xoxox

The Nest giveaway over at Another Manic Mom Day

2010-12-01T19:53:00.000Z

Amy over at Just Another Manic Mom Day blog is having a 12 days of Christmas giveaway which I'm participating in.

For a chance to win one of my Moose pillows (plus a ton of other stuff) head over to Amy's to enter.

Good luck

xoxox

My Christmas Mantle

2010-11-30T20:47:00.002Z

Tonight I started my Christmas decorating.

I decorated my fireplace with some of my favourite things at the moment - mercury glass, blackboard and zinc.

Little dollops (I love that word!) of sparkly fake snow.

Some vintage ice skates.

Lots and lots and lots of mercury glass in all shapes and sizes.

And a favourite Danish zinc sign in front of the mirror.

The (almost) finished fireplace - I still need to add stockings.

I still would prefer a white fireplace with possible some board and batten panelling above it to tie in with the panelling in the hall. I'll add it to my 2011 'to do' list.

One (part of a) room down - several more to go!

Happy decorating everyone.

xoxox

Linking this up to:
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
The Lettered Cottage
The Shabby Chic Cottage Transformation Thursdays

Not long til Christmas

2010-11-26T17:51:00.000Z

Today is my birthday.

As soon as my birthday is over the countdown to Christmas begins.

This is even more the case this year as we've had loads of snow today - the first time I ever remember it snowing on my birthday.

And there's more to come :)

This year I want lots of white, zinc and mercury glass.

Very simple and very Scandinavian.

The children's little TV room on the other hand is likely to be a different story!

The more decorations the better is their philosophy.

As usual I may have to remove a few things after they've gone to bed - what a terrible Mum I am!

xoxox

Black Friday discount on my Etsy store

2010-11-26T07:58:00.000Z

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving yesterday and are not too full of turkey to move today (I love that feeling!)

Today I'm giving 15% off everything in my Etsy store.

Just add code 261110 at checkout

Free shipping on Etsy

2010-11-19T00:58:00.000Z

I desperately need to reduce my hours at work.

I have very little time to ready all your blogs at the moment and no time at all to post anything myself.

I'm trying to peep in now and again but only for a minute or two.

Please don't hate me for ignoring you :)

I am literally getting home from work and crafting until I go to bed.

I tell myself it will all be worth it after Christmas when things slow down and I can just collapse in a chair and have a rest for a while.

I'm also hoping it'll help us pay for the flights for next year's holiday.

From now until Monday night I'm offering free shipping on all my pillow covers and a few other bits'n'pieces in my Etsy shop.

I hope to catch up with you all soon.

xoxox