Hipstamatic love

tardy

2 months......2 months!

Don't get me wrong, there has been many a time when I have had something that I've wanted to blog about:

My birthday (which, indecently, was the day after my last post back in April), Thrifty finds galore, garden love, Hipstamatic appreciation, bargain floral high street finds and my lambswool CK Fair Isle Blanket to name a just a few.

But possibly the most exciting is my new chickadees. Bought with some of my birthday money, I finally took the plunge and they came to live with us exactly one month ago.

Meet the girls................

(from left to right) Bluebell- a Bluebelle, Primrose - a Heritage Skyline , Violet - a Maran Cou Cou and Snowdrop a - Bovans Silver.

They came from the lovely Kirsty at Hens 4 Homes and were only 16 weeks old when we got them, so I knew we might be in for a bit of a wait before we collected our first eggs.

So imagine my joy when I discovered this small but perfectly formed and gorgeous coloured egg two weeks after they arrived.

Laid by my favourite, Primrose (Skylines are a Cream Legbar cross and can lay either blue, green or pink eggs depending on the hen) I'm so pleased she is a greeny-blue egg layer! She is laying an egg a day now.....

.....and Violet laid her first little speckled egg yesterday and another today, so we are finally starting reap the rewards of all that feeding and fence building.

I have to say that I'm in love with them, I have managed to waste a good hour a day just watching them scratch about after I've let them out of the run when Ella and I get back from school. Ella loves them too, and she has scooping them up for a cuddle down to a fine art!

I shall leave you with some photos of my little patch of cottage garden, the Peony blooms (Sarah Bernhardt) have fully opened since I took this photo and I've had so many this year that I've cut some to enjoy indoors. I so love their raspberry ripple pom-pomness.

Let there be light!

Finally we have some springy weather!

I am just recovering from what has been a rather sicky weekend, first Ella was sick in her bed, and then for the rest of saturday night, then I came a cropper on sunday night, then Danny on monday, Yuck!
I missed the first day of blue skies and sun on monday as I was curled up in bed, but today I felt the strength to climb out from under the covers and get some washing on the line.

I've made some vegetable soup for dinner from some leftovers languishing in our very naked fridge, potted up a few primulas I bought last week, and got the camera out to take some photos.

new Rowan yarn in ice-cream colours from colourway- now I can finally make a start on a granny blanket.

last weeks bargain, which I found whilst wandering round a antiques centre with my mum and dad. A super soft 'comfy' quilt, a little worst for wear on the outer edges, and not normally my colours but for £9.75 I just couldn't leave it.

Now I have a dilemma.

Do I......

A) As my mum suggested, use it as a base for a new quilt.

B) Sew a band of fabric round the edges to cover over the damage.

C) Cut off the outer border, leaving the middle as a smaller quilt and bind the edges, and use any of the the undamaged bits of the border for smaller projects.

D) Any other ideas?

Ho Hum, Back to work tomorrow.

doodle bug

For christmas Ella received what I think must be one of the best colouring books about, fabulous doodles. I love her first attempts at filling it in, I especially liked the flower she drew on the bottom photo to the right.

one hundred

Please excuse my unexpected departure from my little blog, I have been lying low, although I have still been popping into have a peek at what you are all doing from time to time.

There has been a few changes in the TWV household, I managed to land myself a new job as a learning support assistant in my local secondary school, I started in September and my first week coincided with the last week before this little lot (above) started to go off to their new homes, which I have to say was a bit hectic!
I absolutely love my new job, and although I have to be in work too early to drop Ella off to school in the morning, I finish at 2.40pm which gives me plenty of time to pick her up in the afternoon and get the dinner on, and I don't have to worry about childcare in the school hols either, which is lovely. I do have less time for crafting, but surprisingly the house isn't suffering too much (to my shoddy standards anyway!) as I am a serial procrastinator, and actually seem to benefit for having a little more structure to my days.

After the puppies went, we all had a little treat, Dan had a week away at his friends apartment in the Canaries, and I got myself a new favourite toy, my White iPhone 3GS, it just made sense to me, as I my old phone contracted had expired and my trusty 4 yr old iPod had just died on me, and I couldn't live without an iPod!



I also put a deposit down on a new car. My very uneconomical 13 yr old Peugeot 306 is on it's way out and needs over a grand spent on it, and so with the £2000 Scrappage Scheme we started to think about getting a shiny but tiny, cheap to keep new car. At first my husband suggested we go for one of these, the sensible choice maybe, but if I had to put up with almost zero amount of boot space for hauling that must have piece of junk furniture home it had to be a little more aesthetically pleasing.

So my research began, and it wasn't long before I was lusting after a Fiat 500 and I went online and spent a weekend designed my ideal one. But I had my doubts about it's size, and when Fiat had a bigger offer of £2900 off it's slightly bigger cousin, the Grande Punto, I decided that that would be my best option.
Only when I got to the showroom I couldn't help but be disappointed with it, it was a bit plasticy on the inside, and I could only afford the bog standard with no air-con. My attention was soon turned towards the little cute one, with all the bells and whistles, and decided that yes, I could definitely put up with leaving that bargain chair at car boot, I haven't got room for more furniture anyway!








That was 8 weeks ago, and I have been told it is expected to arrive for collection the first week in December, I have been very patient, but I can't wait! (I was told it would take 8-12 week for delivery due to their high demand)

Meanwhile, my portable hard drive broke while transferring my photo library and I managed to loose all my photos on my computer, gutted. Then my 4 yr old iBook got broken, double gutted. Lucky I was covered for accidental damage under our home insurance, and they decided to pay out which means I am now the proud owner of a brand new Macbook.



But it hasn't been all nice new things, we are facing a bit on an uncertain time with Danny's job, he has a new one on the horizon, but he has been put on a three day week since the beginning of October. Fingers crossed, the new job will start in the next couple of weeks and we can hopefully breath a sigh of relief and get back on track for the Christmas hols.


Oh, I almost forgot, this my 100th post, hence the title, it's taken a while, I'm not exactly the most prolific blogger, but in true blogging tradition, I'm having a giveaway to celebrate.
I haven't decided what the prize will be yet, but I'll work on it this weekend. To enter please leave a comment on this post, and make sure you leave a way for me to contact you if you should win.
Jxx

Summer update

There has been some making.......


some updating.......


some treasure hunting............




a trip to the seaside.........


some celebrating - mum & dad's 35th anniversary..............


mum spent weeks planning a picnic, but on the day it was drizzly, so we decided to have it in their conservatory instead, as close to outdoors as possible!


and then last sunday at 4am, after spending all night up with her, Lily gave birth to the first of the pups, and the last was born at 8am. Mum came over in the morning to let me have some sleep, and then she took Ella home with her to stay for a few days, to lighten my load.


she had nine, 3 girls and 6 boys, but unfortunately I discovered that one of the boys had a cleft palate, the reason why he couldn't latch on, my sister came over on monday evening, and helped me feed him by hand over night, and the next morning we took them all the the vet, who said his chances were very slim, as it was quite a bad cleft, and it would be better in the long run to have him put to sleep. It was so sad, I was so glad I had libby to sob in the surgery with!
Over a week on and mum and the rest are doing fine, they've more than doubled in weight already. We have five families booked in to visit when they are 4 weeks old, so if all goes well we only have 1 girl and 2 boys leaft to sell, and they are only 1 and a 1/2 weeks old.

another year older

On saturday I celebrated my 26th Birthday, I had a party with some family and a few friends outside on our new decking. It was such a lovely day, we where very lucky with the weather as on friday the weather forecast was pretty grim for a garden party. 

Saturday morning started out rather overcast, with a light drizzle of rain, but come lunch time the sun managed to make an appearance. 

As you probably know if you read my blog regularly, I was was going for a pretty village fete theme, and with a little help from family and from my friend Lesley who kindly let me me borrow some tables a benches that she hires out as part of her business, it turned out to be just that.

So I thought I show you some pictures (courtesy of Lesley)

RE:

I made some of these little tea light holders last year, we live on pesto in this house, so I always have loads of these little jars around. I especially like the sainsburys own brand, because they have a pretty ribbed neck. 

They look so pretty on a warm evening, hung on branches, or lined up along walls or tables. Last time I just left them plain, but this year I thought I'd pretty them up a bit.


my first thought was to use some of my ribbon stash, but then I thought I could use some left over fabric scraps instead, which is more along the reuse, recycle theme, so out came the box of fabric scraps, useless for most sewing projects, but I just can't bear to through them away.

I think they look really pretty, I really like the effect of the torn fabric, and the only thing that I bought to make them was a reel of wire which I got from the florist for a couple of quid, and I still have loads left. They would be lovely for a country style wedding on a budget, you could use baby food jars as well, and because they require so little money and effort to make, you could afford have loads of them dotted around.

I've decided that I'm going to use them for little posies of flowers for my birthday lunch at the end of the month, it's going to be outside on our soon to be finished decking, so I will be praying for a sunny day, and in the meantime I better be cracking on with making some more bunting. I think I will have rhubarb eton mess (new family favourite) in pretty teacups for pudding too.

Reasons to be cheerful No.4

a new china brooch

dust free pretty china

freshly cleaned in honour of spring

thanks mum x

Recovering from chaos

This is the view from my window where I sit at my computer.
Back in October my father-in-law came to live with us, and up until the end of last week he was staying in my sewing room our spare bedroom while the junk storage facility outbuilding in our garden was converted in to a little annex for him to live in. In between then and now we have been living in chaos. Things that originally had homes have been been displaced, some outside under tarpulins, some just sitting about with no place to go.

My dining table hasn't been used for dining in a long while.

My garden has all been dug up with a digger, all my plants gone, to make way for new pipework.

the old boiler had to go, it finally gave up the ghost, and has left us with a unplastered patch in the kitchen and a load of new pipes that need to be boxed in.

 

But on the brightside we now have a central heating back which has been lovely, especially with this recent cold snap.

 

So now the big reshuffle must begin, it is time to find all things homeless a new place to reside, and restore some order to our home. Wish me Luck!