Micro beer festival

Last weekend my husband had a gig with his ukulele band at a lovely little beer festival. It had a lovely atmosphere and lots of chilled out crafty kids. It was at some artists studios, and we had a lovely day.

Today I ate 1000 cupcakes

(awaiting photos!!)

Well ok, so maybe not 1000, but a good few! This week is National Cupcake Week, so really, it was the least I could do. We have a tradition of Cake Day among some of my friends here, so we had the perfect excuse. It is such a lovely way to catch up with each other, relax and let our children hang out together, and even to get some new garden furniture built. I must take photos of that too, as this is a really random stream-of-consciousness post without pics!

tibetan prayer flags

After seeing this different take on a type of bunting, I knew we had to make some. So, one rainy summer day we set to cutting squares from my extensive scraps collection. the children drew images to do with summer using fabric marker pens on some old calico curtain fabric, then we sewed them together, sometimes with a line of stitching, other times using buttons or beads.
I also made a 'summertime' stamp in three pieces on three tiny erasers and stamped some squares with those.



This is how I would like more of our free time to be spent, all happily crafting away, but so often more time is spent setting up and then tidying up afterwards. The girls especially really liked doing this though and it kept us busy for most of the day! And Lucie revealed herself to be a talented little seamstress, sewing more than her elder brother and sister put together, unfortunately I didn't have the camera out then, and just realised I havent got any pics of the finished flags, now they are all hung up.

summer in a tent

The summer holidays always involve lots of camping trips, long weekends and weeks away, festivals and camps with groups and with friends. We have taken all the children since they were tiny, Lucie was 7 weeks old on her first camping trip. They always seem to sleep better too, all that fresh air and fun!

in no particular order

Fancied a return to blogging. no really. I was never any good at keeping a diary either. And Blogger is as good a place as any, what made me think a different host would make any difference? so i return. so here we are a diary of sorts. to inspire me. day-to-day. and to share. This photo is one of many from our summer holidays - collecting conkers in August. Autumn is here before we blinked in the summer sun it seems.




a few tree moments.

moved out

fancied a bit of a change to revitalise myself a bit so I have moved my blog over to wordpress, I am still gentlytiptoe so please come and see me there!

Button Your Eyes

Tuesdays snowman must have known about this, a new film Coraline that is out this week in the US, not sure when it comes to the UK, soon I hope. After first reading about it at Craftzine blog I have spent the evening watching trailers and playing with the website and looking at the boxes they sent out to 50 different blog sites to promote the film. check it out, it looks really cool. It is stop frame animation, and has lots of crafty things, tiny knitting, sewing, circus mice, cool music including a song by They might be Giants, and of course buttons! you can download the button poster(above) and several others from their site, you can find it in one of the pictures in the sitting room of the house. I am going to frame mine and put it on the wall, its slighty creepy, but I like it.

snow day

Esme's mini snowman.

Please bear with us if you live somewhere snowy, but it doesn't happen much here, today it snowed! We made a big snowman, bigger than the children, and some mini-ones, threw lots of snowballs, and sledged down the main road, as there were no cars and the roads were snowed over. Then back into the house for homemade soup and homemade bread, and to warm up in front of a cosy log fire.

I am regretting throwing out my wellies a few weeks ago, my shoes aren't really up to snow play, being open on top and smooth underneath, which is kind of skiddy when pushing big snowman body parts and at the same time carrying a 9 month old in a sling. all good fun though, now the gloves and hats are drying out, I wonder if there will be any snow left to play in tomorrow?

paper butterflies

I have been enjoying cutting out lots of these little butterflies this past week, an instantly gratifying craft activity.


I have been using the teensiest cuticle scissors, and tracing the butterfly images from a book of insects and flowers. All the butterflies I have cut are native to western Europe. Way too chilly here for butterflies at the moment though, maybe we will have snow this weekend?

Hello again!

I guess I should first wish you a happy new year. It has been a while hasn't it. Sometimes, with 4 kids and all that, stuff gets hectic. Excuses, excuses.

Anyway, I crocheted this little hat just before christmas using a ball of lovely wool that I received in a red and pink swap from Amity a gazzilion years ago (a long time anyway). I got the pattern from this funny book of crazy hats. Strangers stop me on the street to comment on it, I think that means it is cute, thats the reason I'm hoping anyway. I went in the Pound shop this afternoon and the lady on the till said to the other assistant, look, its that baby in her sling with the hat who we saw this morning.

I'm the talk of the Pound shop.

pumpkin fun

We dont really do halloween, but I do like a pumpkin, so last Thursday we went to the pumpkin farm and chose a nice big one to carve. They were quite pricey so we all shared one and squandered the rest of our money on the other goods for sale; locally made ice cream (for the children) and hot chocolate (for the grown ups) to enjoy at the farm, and a jar of fresh honey to take away with us. There was also a walk with clues that took us into the orchard, past the henhouse, through the vinyard and back to the pumpkins. The children charged round, it was freezing but very sunny, and we had a really lovely afternoon.

autumn acorns and mice

Getting into the Autumn groove, I have been enjoying making these acorn caps over the last week or so, I am not so good at crochet really, but these are easy peasy! The children have been enjoying the Brambly hedge Autumn story. We love the detailed illustrations of the little mice houses.





(ps, the acorn cup pattern was not originally by me, I found it on whip up (I think!) but now i cant find it to put in a proper link)(link added, it was via crafty crow!)

small things of beauty

I have to show you this moss.

It grows on a wall I walk past most days. I first noticed it on a really really rainy day, I was walking home up the hill, pushing the baby in her pushchair, with my toddler by my side walking, and we were drenched, to the point where I had just decided we couldnt get any wetter.

We slowed down to a stroll, and looked around about us, and there was this moss, luminous against the dark, nearly black-wet stones of the wall. It was so green and soft and velvet and lovely, and we just stood and looked at it and touched it.

Now I cannot walk past without touching its loveliness, and I may not have even seen it had we not got so wet.

coasters

I was inspired by some ric rac coasters I saw on whipup to make some for myself. I had already been thinking I would make some quilted ones from this lovely tree mushroom squirrel fabric. I cut rough squares, hand sewed them and stuffed them with a piece of old woollen blanket to make them able to withstand lots of heat. I found it tricky to get the ricrac round the edge, I think I was probably doing it wrong (I didnt read the tutorial!), but they turned out sweet and make me smile and only took an evening to make.

cake day

Chocolate chip cookies, Lemon syrup cake, Praline cake, Devon apple cake and a carrot.

A few days ago we had a long-missed cake day round at my house. We used to do this more frequently but have got out of the habit!

It involves everyone baking the day before, then bringing a cake to share, and we sit about and chat and drink tea, all day. There were the usual cake day group of friends plus a few newbies as my sitting room isnt too big, but we have lost some original members to full-time employment. We had a little collection for the Christian Aid Mad Hatters Tea Party (like we needed an excuse to eat cake!) I also made cheese scones for lunch, one friend brought round fresh chives for these and another bought olives - the carrots were for the babies!

tree report

Over the summer a flock of beautiful birds have made a new home for themselves in my little fabric tree. The branches are rather crowded but no-one seems to mind. The bird pattern was from ....




and here is the progress of the weather tree after almost a month. I think I could have picked the colours better in hindsight. I will continue this year and change them for next year I think.



And Esme has been thinking about trees too, she drew this one last week.

so excited

...to receive this in the post!

It is a weather tree, and I and my sister in law Red Rapunzel have been searching for this poster for 5 years since we first saw one. We were staying in Ilam hall youth hostel and there was one in the shop window, but it was the only copy and not for sale. since then we have been unable to track one down, and after many phone calls to the YHA I had all but given up. But she has managed to track them down and buy one for me too! And, on what I think is a new website, you can buy one for yourself here.

You assign a different colour for each type of weather condition, and then each day of the year you colour in one leaf according to the weather, we are going to use watercolour pencils. So you eventually get a pictoral record of a whole years weather. you can start at any time during the year, we started ours yesterday.

how does your garden grow?

recently we took charge of our neighbours garden while they were away on holiday. I had a little willing helper, to water the many pots. We then went back to our garden, which is mostly lawn and plastic toys, and felt inspired to attempt to grow some of our own. here there should be a photo of our great success, but the slugs and snails all seem to live on our side of the hedge!

trip to the beach

My love of the seaside has meant it is never very long before my babies get to see the sea. This has to be one of our favourite beaches too, it has rockpools, nice smooth sand when the tide is out, (although an alarmingly quickly incoming tide!) and an exciting hidden walled garden with heavy weathered gates and turreted walls, great for hiding and chasing about in.


We spied this garden display belonging to the little house right next to the sea, how did we miss it before? One day I want to live by the sea just so I can have a wall like this!


Isla was not phased by all this though, cosy in her sling, she just came for the ride!

what shall i call this - blimey a post???!!!!

Thought I would share some most recent gifts, it was my birthday on Monday, a pretty jar of buttons, arranged in rows of colours, a gift from Julia (thank you!) and a hand spun and handmade bracelet, a gift from non blogging (yet - though she should!) kirsten - thank you too! (fabric behind and on top of jar is from Julias recent trip to London, I must let her do a guest blog in the next few days and tell you all about it!)



Baby Born keeps freaking me out, Esme has taken to dressing her in the babys clothes, borrowing the moses basket and putting baby born in it, leaving her lying on the floor, that kind of thing. You can see why, they are pretty similar!!

I haven't fallen off the edge of the planet after all. here I am. And its not the babys fault, its my stupid Internet provider. it mostly isn't working. roll on June, and hopefully a smooth switch over (another) to someone better.