Hello 30s - Day 25 - 34

Day 25: I sat longer watching the printer than I would have liked. One part of me told myself to go and do something else while things printed, the wiser part of me, reminded myself of what happens when printers are left alone - paper jams, ink spills...

Day 26:
Supplies arrived - Hurrah!

Day 27:
Findings arrived - Hurrah!

Day 28:
This is my leg with a needle being tucked conveniently in the fabric. Pah! to pin cushions!

Yes I did stab myself...

Day 29:
This is my second day of sewing activities (secret christmas things), as you can see it is going really well!

Day 30:
There were sewing activities and shopping today. I am loving the celebratory classic tomato soup label.

Day 31:
Sewing activities nearly at an end, I put myself through some seriously intensive hours of doing nothing but sewing, and untangling threads. By this point I was starting to get things in order :)

Day 32:
Beads on sticks!

Day 33:
Chips!

Day 34:
Had a tidy, as the guest room is actually going to be used as a guest room. No, this isn't the before picture, this is as tidy as it gets.

Folksy Friday Special - Scape

Following on from the Nat's Nest Folksy Friday last week, this week I am featuring Scape. Caroline makes the most adorable tiny stacking rings from silver and semi precious stones, as well as a variety of other jewellery pieces. She is also super helpful for those of us incapable of measuring their finger (ahem - me), and is happy to take it back and adjust it for free and at super quick speed, which is great value, considering last time I took a ring to the jewellers we were looking at £15 and a 2 week wait :). I could not recommend her more, these little rings would make great little christmas presents :)

Click on an image to be taken to the Scape shop on Folksy :)

'Hello 30s' Project - Days 16 - 24

Day 16:Apologies for the image, I'm not trying to hurt you eyes! This is something I was playing with on my computer, but I can't share until after christmas, as it may turn into some kind of pressie for someone. This is actually going to start happening a lot, I'm finding it quite hard to take pictures every day when most of the things I am working on are for christmas.

Day 17:
So after a lot of umming and arrhing these were the final colour combinations I decided to try and create with the Cernit clay.

Day 18:
Cernit clay in action! You see I do actually create things away from the computer :) The clay was much softer than I am used to, so I found it quite hard to use. Ideally, I should have popped it in the fridge to firm it up before slicing, but I'm too impatient :)

Day 19:

Following on from the Lauren Child talk a few weeks ago, Boyfriend and I went to The Lightbox in Woking, as they were hosting a talk by David McKee, creator of classics like Mr Ben, King Rollo, and Elmer. I love hearing how children's writers and illustrators work, and what makes them tick, it was a really interesting evening.

Day 20:
So what do you do when your other half has left you alone for the evening, while on a work outing? You bake a cake of course!

Day 21:
Yet another picture of food - could it be that I was working on christmas presents again? This was in the middle of making vegetable lasagne.

Day 22:
Walking along the canal I was thrilled to see how the holly bushes had burst so vividly into berry, and I was even more excited by the huge cobweb in front of them.

Day 23:
Another walk! I love this time of year because all manner of fungi seem to appear like magic!

Day 24:
It suddenly went very dark over Bill's mothers :)

Folksy Friday Special - Nat's Nest

It has been a while since I have managed to complete a Folksy Friday, but after buying myself some birthday treats I have been inspired. If anyone saw my last post, I bought a wonderful White Rabbit from Nat's Nest on Folksy, so this week my Folksy Friday is all about the wonderful Nat's Nest. Nat makes adorable, and beautifully made BriesBerry Mice and Carrotby Bunnies (plus the ocassional fox). They aren't intended to be toys for children, they more ornamental, but they do make adorable gifts for those who are that bit older, but still a kid at heart :)





Click on an image to be taken to the shop :)

Hello 30s - day 13 - 15

Day 13: Goodies!!! I used some of my birthday money to order myself some treats at the end of last week, and they all arrived on Friday. It was so exciting to open the door to a postie holding a pile of parcels :)

I bought treats from Nat's Nest on Folksy, Scape on Folksy, and a whole bunch of Cernit clay, and some inks, that I can't wait to start playing with, from EJR Beads.

This is the White Rabbit from Nat's Nest, he is adorable, and beautifully made. Nat even sent him along with his own carrot :)

The wonderfully talented Nat also included one of her lovely cards. I plan to frame it at some point, it is so pretty.

This is my peridot stacking ring that Caroline from Scape made for me. It is one of the most beautiful, delicate and exquisite rings I have ever owned, and I love that it was made just for me :)

Day 14:
Not an awful lot gets done on a Saturday, we watched a pretty terrible film...however boyfriend did make me these yummy vegetable chilli wraps - delicious :)

Day 15:
I want to crack on with bead making with my Cernit clay, as I haven't used it before, but seems as I only have a limited supply, and I want to try a few new things, I thought it might help to try and go through a few cane colour combinations in Illustrator first. Usually I create my beads quite instinctively and organically from whatever is in front of me, but I am really enjoying this process, as I am able to see so many more different combinations than what I can normally just visualise. It is quite time consuming, but I will be interested to see the end result.

'Hello 30s' Project update

I really wanted to do a Folksy Friday this week, as it has been a while, but alas Friday crept up on me a little bit too quickly, so here is an update on the 'Hello 30s' Project, that I began in my last blog post.

Day 9: I have now taken down my birthday cards, this one is from my friend Liz, and it is beautiful. I have no idea what it says, but I am hoping it is something nice, as I want to frame it and pop it up in the hall or living room once we redecorate.

Day 10: A day of sanding beads by hand, one day, when I have some pennies I hope to invest in a tumbler, until then achey sore fingers it is.

Day 11: Hand glossing beads.

Day 12: Having had enough of wet, sore fingers, I stocked up on Zombie Menagerie cards, all ready for when my site is ready, or when Folksy create shop sections, whichever comes first :)

Biggest update ever!

I am finally back home and getting back to normal after celebrating my 30th up in the Lake district. We had a wonderful time staying at Ann's Hill Lodge, Bridekirk (Near Cockermouth). There was a hot tub, a breakfast basket every morning, speakers fitted into the bathroom ceiling, where you could relax in a huge copper bath, and the lovely Vanessa, who owns the Lodge, even made me cupcakes for my birthday :)

I am also taking an idea from the maker of lovely things, Lee May of Bonbi Forest. She is in the middle of her 29 Project, where she takes a photo every day for the final year of her 20s. Obviously I am too late to say ta ta to my 20s, but thought I would give a big 'howdy' wave to my 30s instead. For someone like me, who always forgets to use a camera, this will be a very challenging excercise. So I have a couple of pics from the beginning of my holiday, and then the 30 Project begins :)

The night before we left for the Lakes, Lauren Child, author of Charlie and Lola and Clarice Bean, gave a lecture at The Lightbox in Woking. I have it in my head that one day I would like to write a children's book, so I found the talk really inspiring. At the end I was able to get my copy of Clarice Bean signed :)

We travelled up to the Lakes on Friday. On the Saturday we went to the Taste Cumbria Food Festival in Cockermouth where we spent far too much money on handmade chocolates, strawberry vodka, bread, dipping oil, chilli sauce and Wild Boar Burgers - Yum! For the last part of the afternoon we went on to Keswick, where we stumbled across the Pencil Museum, home of the Derwent art pencil, it is only small, but we did find it interesting. This is part of a pretty display of pen nibs.

We also took a walk through the town up to Derwent Water.

30 Project

Day 1 : My birthday!

Our breakfast arrived with some adorable little birthday cupcakes!

In the evening our host Vanessa dropped us down at the Royal Yew for my birthday meal. It was wonderful, the food was lovely and came in unbelievably large northern sized portions.

Day 2:

We went back to Keswick and took the launch around some of Derwent Water. This is the jetty where we were dropped off ready for Cat Bells.

On our return, from a nearby village, I took a little pic from the jetty.

Day 3:

We began our walk up Wansfell Pike. The beginning of the walk takes you passed a waterfall in Ambleside, this is taken from a bridge at the bottom. I didn't take any photos after this point as I was too busy getting puffed out on the never ending steps up to the summit of Wansfell Pike :) It wasn't all hard work though, we stopped at Troutbeck half way round the walk and went to The Mortal Man for a lovely pub lunch. Who can say no to a venison, pheasant, and rabbit pie after a couple of hours walking?

I loved the hallway at The Lodge where we stayed, it had a really high ceiling and a pretty chandelier!

Day 4:

Just one of the scrumptious breakfast baskets left at our front door every morning. Spot those homemade muffins, possibly the best muffins I have ever tasted!

After breakfast we went to an animal farm where I fell in love with this Tapir. I love their noses, they remind me of Cedric Sneer from The Raccoons (he was actually supposed to be an aardvark but I'm not convinced) :)

Day 5 :

We took a visit to Windermere, taking another launch back to Ambleside. It started off pretty misty, but then brightened throughout the day.

The Copper bath!!!

Day 6:

I took a couple more photos inside the Lodge as we wondered around getting ready to leave, this is the wood burner in the second sitting room.

The second bedroom.

Now I know this probably isn't exciting to most people, but as soon as we arrived home Friday night, I had to put the adaptable shelves we had bought at Lakeland, Windermere, straight into the herb and spice cupboard, and now it is so much tidier!

Day 7:

The walls in our house are bare. We have had some empty frames sitting on the floor for a while now, but finally, we now have 3 Rob Ryan cards in a frame, not only that, but the frame is now actually on the wall!

Day 8:

Yummy gingerbread we bought from the Grasmere Gingerbread shop.

Naughty cat, I had opened my wardrobe for one second and in he popped. You can see by the motion that he realised that he had been rumbled, and was in mid escape :)