Happy Birthday Mum!

Today is my Mums 60th Birthday, so happy birthday Mum! Here are a couple of pictures of her and me when we were both a bit younger.

one last time

Here is a bit of my finished blossom branches (blogged for the last time I assure you!), sorry about the fuzzyish photo, the light is not good in my dining room, and it is actually in my window but those photos didnt work at all.

When I went out to collect branches from my usual place and trees, the pussy willow, which is usually not out at all at this time of year, looked like this:


So I had to rethink, as it was so far on and all full of pollen. I found some other branchy tree, but on pulling down a high branch I discovered it had thorns (ouch). So I had to snip off all the prickles. I am happy with it now though, and along with the fine weather we have been having it makes everything feel like springtime has arrived.

spinning it out

oops, so we havent got round to getting twigs yet, but i thought you might like to see how pretty the white blossom looks in its bowl, nevertheless.


Busy doing nothing today, or so it has felt. We went to ikea for lunch, I bought a new muffin tin and some washing-up brushes, oh and a new smoke alarm, and thats about it. They had nothing Easter-y in, which was disappointing. We ate our lunch on a table next to a new mum who talked loudly and incessantly to her baby in high pitched motherese, completely driving me crazy, was I ever annoying like that? no im sure I didn't gush at my babies in public.

I have just been bought a cup of tea, it is green tea with mint, and is a different brand I am trying. This brand reminds me of my Grandads house, and I haven't been able to think quite why, it has a smell that haven't been able to place, until just now. It smells of fresh mint as you chop it to make mint sauce to accompany Roast Lamb sunday dinner. Rather disconcerting considering I have been vegetarian for 18 years, but funny how smells and tastes stick in our minds over time.


Today I got this cute (and big) postcard through the post from Megan of Beetlegrass. It really is sweet, Red Riding Hood looks rather worried, like she knows what might be about to happen to her. I love the toadstools, and her knobbly knees! You should go and check out all the finger puppets she has been making recently, I love all the googly eyes on Mcfly, Thanks again Megan!!

spring blossoms

For the last week I have been trying to work out how to make the paper blossoms that I remembered from spring last year. They were from Martha Stewart Living last April, but I did not have the magazine, and on the rejigged Martha website there is only half the instructions. So all I had to go on were these (great) flickr pics.

I was stuck on how to make a 5 petal flower out of a square piece of paper with 4 corners. However, the internet has the answer to everything and I found this great site that had a pentagon fold. Then there was no stopping me! I fixed the flowers to my fabric wrapped tree with a little wire and a shirt button.


So there we have it, the winter tree has blossomed. And I love making these simple flowers, tonight I made a whole load more to do some branches like the original Martha Stewart idea on twigs. They are looking gorgeous in a little bowl now and I hardly want to disturb them.

Tomorrow I am sure the children will love to go out searching for sticks, and then they can help me fix the blossoms on, watch this space!

want to see my odd sock collection?

Confession time. The odd sock situation in our house has been spiralling out of control, so I bravely decided to tackle the heap of socks that was overflowing its basket and taking over my bathroom floor. I emptied the pile onto my bed to search for pairs.


This took some time.

ok now, how many odd socks can one family have? Well, there weren't many grown-up socks so I took them out, as there wasn't enough space on our (5 foot wide!) bed. After matching 43 pairs of kids socks, all that was left was these few...


132 odd socks!!!!

I have thrown out all the hopeless causes and saved only the few socks I think might have friends lurking under bed edges, in the bottom of the laundry and places like that. I have hidden them in the bottom of this basket, with the pairs rolled together on top.


ssshh, don't tell anyone, this can be our little secret.

the new girl

There has been a new girl round these parts! She has been finished for a week but Blogger has not let me post her picture until today. I made her for a friend and she has left now to go to her new home.


She is pretty similar to Bea, in fact I think they are cousins. She has lovely stripey hair and turquoise legs, and a skirt made out of Amy Butler fabric. I have been making her for ages, I am not very good at doing something twice so I must apologise for her taking me so long to finish!!


Glad shes done, she turned out ok I think, and now I can get back to the 3 different spring baby tops for Lucie I have on the go, oh and to try and find somewhere where I can get my sewing machine serviced, or I will be doing them by hand!

problems with Blogger

thats what I have got!

it looks like lots of Mac users are having blogger issues the last few days, as Blogger is not uploading pics for us.

so please excuse the temporary blip in posting while we wait for them to fix it.

3 days I have been trying to post - uurgh!!

look what came in the post!

Chocolate!!


As modelled by the most fantastically strawberry scented dolly borrowed from my daughter for the photo, she was sitting on the windowsill and every time i see her I have to pick her up and sniff, she smells great. She loves chocolate too, she even has a chocolate scented dog!

The chocolate has come from Maria, also in the UK, for the latest round of Candyswappers. Thankyou Maria!!! Lots of yummy goodness from Thorntons, you might be able to tell I have already eaten the littlest bar!! She is way ahead of me, as I am usually a posting-on-the-deadline girl and havent sent out my parcel yet, but be patient dear Maria, it will be on its way this week!
It is so great that Candyswappers is up and running again, as this is the first swap since autumn, and now with a new co-ordinator Amber.

We also got a new toy at the weekend, and, as Hubby has pointed out, it doubles as a mirror too look.

St Davids day and a blog birthday!!

I have put this on here largely because today I went to visit my friend Julia and we were talking about putting photos on blogs that our kids will hate us for when they are older, this one surely fits into that category. oh yes, and its St Davids day, so lots of welsh celebrations going on.

back to my day,one spent sitting and chatting, and I helped unpack and set up Julias new sewing machine, as she doesnt like instruction manuals!! We ate a large amount of Welsh Cakes and Bara Brith, yummy!! and she cooked me and Lucie the most fantastic pancakes for lunch. While there we were talking about how it must be nearly a year since I started my blog, and I just looked, and it is exactly a year! strange huh??!! I have never kept a diary consistantly for this long so I feel this is quite an achievement, and it is interesting to look back on this time last year and what was going on.

So, Happy Birthday Blog!!


I couldnt resist this beautiful heather picked from Julias garden as I left there today, don't worry, I did ask first if I could have some!! It is such pretty colours, and I bought 2 jumpers in the sales today, also in shades of purple and deep pink. Then I noticed Lucie was wearing Lilac, she is the blur in the background, I am definitely going through a purple phase right now.