how lucky ....

.... am I?

We had a stash swap on MISI .... the lovely Sprinks sent me some fab goodies and I am absolutely thrilled with them! I'm also very impressed that I had the strength of will to take a photo BEFORE I ripped open the pink tissue wrapping paper! (doesn't tissue paper make a parcel that extra bit special?)


So - Sprinks knows me very well indeed. My lovely goods included lots of jewellery findings:


Lots of lovely glass beads (check out that fantastic blue spotty pendant!):

And some great pink, blue and lilac spotty felt:

My fingers are itching to get making ..... I just need to decide where to start!!

I've been working on .....

..... my garden. It all started when one of us (I think it was me!) had the genius idea to remove the large raised patio at the end of the garden ...... so we did. It took a week of rather hard labour (cunningly timed to coincide with half term so my boys did most of the work! And there it was gone, and left in its place was a largish flat patch that we were going to fill with a smaller patio.

And then one of us (I think it was me!) said "why don't we reshape the lawn into a circle or two, we could edge it in bricks and fill in around it with some slate chippings" ... so we did.

And then one of us (I think it was me) said "rather than have a second, smaller patio why don't we build a couple of raised beds so that we can grew vegetables?" ... so we did. I say we, Mr G built these and I can't begin to describe the trauma, even a shiny new drill didn't help very much. (If you look closely you can see where he had to "patch" one of them because the wood was so warped that the soil just fell out ....)

It's almost finished ... the lawns are almost edges (photos to follow) and the raised beds are built ... we're just waiting for the compost and the slate chippings and then, hopefully, nobody will come up with any other ideas!

The veggies that I've been growing in pots are all starting to come through .....

My second lot of chilli seedlings:


My strawberries:


My potatoes (in my old wheelie bin!):



And my all time favourites, peas:

I love my garden, hopefully I'll love it even more when we've finally finished it and I can spend more time crafting!

Time Out .....

..... in Torquay.

What great Bank Holiday weather! And what better than to spend time with our family in Torquay; walking lots, eating lots and (shame on me) drinking too much!! We loved Dartmouth, especially the colourful houses:


We found some great cliff top and beach walks around Torquay:

Devin took time to perfect a classic "pointing into the distance" pose:

And Jack Devin worked on this "soulful and alone" number:


Jack discovered what good fun go-karting is (even though he got overtaken by a girl):

All in all, a not too shabby weekend!

A little bit of ....

.... wonderful thriftiness.

I found this lovely pot holder at one of my local thrift shops this weekend. I'm not sure what I am going to do with it just yet, but I'm almost certain it won't involve plants. I love the old-fashionedness of it .... and I especially love the £1.20 price tag.

I also managed to snag some baby themed bargains at the Pound Shop for a project that I've been dreaming of for a while. I love the idea of making gift sets, a decorated container, a small book and some appropriate gifts .... perhaps completed by a matching card and gift tag.


I'm hoping make some more themed sets over the next week or so .... all of my recent "makes" have gone off to a friend who is having a craft sale and I have a craft fair in less than four weeks so I really, really do need to knuckle down and get making. My immediate "to do" list consists of:

• pages for a swap for my favourite Yahoo group
• the remaining 20 of 90 wedding invitations
• a baby themed bag book to celebrate the birth of twins
• a formal album for a work colleague
• make stock, stock and more stock for the next craft fair and my MISI shop

I was lucky enough to take part in a wonderful MISI swap this month, the idea was to make items that reflected your swap partners name. I received Martin the Monster and some Handwarms (MMH for Magic Making Hands - clever eh?) from the very clever Sharnemainiaknits. Martin the Monster was immediately adopted by my 20 year old son .... what better compliment is there than that?

Time Out ....

..... in Bath.

To celebrate being best friends forever (or BFF as my goddaughter would say), Catherine and I escaped from our families and spent a wonderful weekend in Bath. We managed to find a great place to stay, the Astor Guest House which was only few minutes walk from the city centre (or a long drive when the sat nav let us down!).

We had a great time, we did a bit of sightseeing (planned which house in Royal Crescent we will be moving in to!), a lot of shopping and far too much eating and drinking. I love Bath, it really is a beautiful city and I would dearly love to live there. But, for now, I'll have to settle for the occasional visit.

Back at home, we're trying to grow more this year. Our garden is rather small so we don't have room for a "proper vegetable plot so normally we just manage a couple of tomato plants or some peas .... but so far this year we've planted:

• potatoes (in our old dustbin and also in five huge pots)
• cucumbers
  
• a mix of salad leaves
• rocket
• peas
• chillis
• tomatoes
• spring onions
• coriander
  
• bay
• sweet bay
• lemon thyme
• lemon grass
• and loads more chillis
  

Fingers crossed that it all grows and that the birds don't pinch too much - they are my prime suspects in the case of the scotch bonnet thefts!

Almost a month ....

is far too long between blogs. I keep meaning to blog, I really do, but there is always something else I could finish and write about, or another photograph that I could take .... I'm bad at blogging, too busy making and seeing and doing.

Anyway, since my last blog my first baby turned twenty .... how did that happen? The GCSEs were bad enough, starting college was awful and the first voting slip nearly killed me (I was sure it was a mistake and, at the time, felt I should wirte a letter of complaint!). Now, he would be mortified if I posted baby pictures and, tempting as that is, I won't. But here he is now all grown up ....


This past week I've shopped for England, splashing out on everything from new shoes to self cover buttons. I've also managed to visit each and every thrift shop in Salisbury (what a great morning that was!). I've been inspired by a book I found in one of these thrift shops - Vintage Fabric Style by Sylvie Simmons and Lucinda Ganderton. It's a wonderful book, full of great ideas and, best of all, it only cost me £1.50 ... it's my new favourite bedtime read!

I'm really trying this year not to buy ready made presents but to make my own and, if I can't, then to buy handcrafted from someone else. With this in mind, I invested in some more books which will go a long way to help me.

Really Jazzy Jars by Marie Browning has some great ideas for dressing up jars as gift containers, candle holders or memory keepers. It has some great patterns and recipes ....


The other one was Bags, Tags, Boxes and Cards by Karen Delquado ... again some excellent projects - my favourite being a build your own snowman kit. I must confess, that wanting to make this kit has left me a little disappointed that Christmas isn't a bit nearer, but bought some ear warmers today just to be ready!

So, too much reading and not really enough making - still, I'm sure I can make up for it over the long Bank Holiday weekend ....

I've been ....

.... tagged! By Joanne at lej jewellery. The rules are as follows:

1. Link the person who tagged you.
2. Post these rules in your blog.
3. Write 5 random things about yourself.
4. Tag random people at the end of your blog and link to them.
5. Let each person know they've been tagged.

Now, random is very hard for me but here is my best attempt!

1. I am a perfectionist.
   
2. I can't bear it when people use apostrophes in the wrong place, that and bad grammar drive me to distraction!
   
3. I think I may be addicted to Facebook ....
   
4. I worry too much.
5. Apart from my boys, the love of my life is my best friend Catherine. She absolutely means the world to me - what's not to love?
   

And I'm going to tag:

Chloe - The Paper Fairy - come on, you need to blog more!
Jodi - Art From The Hart - if you haven't seen her creations, go take a look!
RJ - RJ's Bits And Pieces - the lady who started it all for me!
Dawn - Dawn's Stamping Spot - another great creative TSG lady :-)
Hennie - The Hen Coop - always good for a laugh! ;-)

Apologies if you've been tagged before ....