Another weekend....

Hello All

I hope you had a great half term and equally great spooky Halloween - we only just made it back from Sussex for the boys to go trick or treating.....! We wouldn't have been very popular otherwise!!

On Friday we went on our brief jaunt down to Lewes in Sussex and stayed in a different B & B this time which was just as delightful as our previous one. It certainly gave us an opportunity to visit another great part of Sussex.

As we are National Trust members we thought we'd stop off at Wakehurst Place which has the world's largest seed conservation project as well as beautiful botanical garden's and walks. The boys had fun as they had Autumn half term activities involving leaf rubbing, mask making etc.

After spending a lot longer at Wakehurst than we thought, it was then time to head to the B & B, drop our stuff off and go to Lewes for a wander around and something to eat. Lewes certainly didn't disappoint in terms of bric a brac retail therapy. I'll save those photo's for later in the week!

On Saturday morning we went back to Lewes to visit the castle, then off to the Bluebell Railway the UK's first preserved standard gauge passenger railway. It was lovely to hear the steam train and stand at a real old fashioned railway line. The weather was glorious too so added to the delight of travelling in a piece of history.

I'll leave you for now, don't forget to enter my giveaway for those who haven't - I'll be drawing a winner on Friday.

Enjoy the week!

Fabric delights

Hello all, hope you are keeping well and those with children, enjoying half term. It's so great not to clock watch - the days seem so much longer. We're off to Lewes in Sussex tomorrow just for a night, so will be a welcome break. No doubt I'll be taking my knitting to continue with the bunnies!

I'll remember to take the camera so hopefully will be able to share some snaps next week with you. In the meantime, I'll leave you with my fabric buys over the last week. I'm surprised they arrived so quickly in light of the postal strikes.

I'm really looking forward to making some goodies out of the Christmas fabric.....I'll salivate and stroke it for now!

See you next week!

Fancy a giveaway

Hello All

What a week it's been. None stop, full on, lots of stress and not enough sleep I think sums it up. Never mind, it's now half term so hopefully things will slow down a little.

At this time of year, I love filling the house with autumnal/wintery scents - be it candles, my Mr Smokey, potpourri etc.

One idea I liked, after seeing it a few years ago on a trip to the States was simmering potpourri. Very simple in principle but produces such a lovely smell. The idea is to put various ingredients together - bayleaves, cloves, cinnamon etc etc and allow the scents to mingle for a while. You can then add a tablespoon of it to some water and put it on the stove to simmer, or add some to a tart burner or indeed just simply put in a dish to fragrance a room.

Since making my own, it's proved a big hit on the website at this time of year, so as we are now at the right time of year I thought I would giveaway a jar of it along with instructions. If you are going to use it for simmering purposes it will last an awfully long time as you need so little of it to get a lovely waft!

If you would like to partake, simply add a comment saying what your favourite autumnal/winter scent is - easy as 1, 2, 3! Or indeed, just leave a comment saying you would like to enter.

I will draw a name out on Friday 6th November!!!

Have a great weekend.

Cooking a coming

Hello! - I can't believe it's the end of another week, where are they going? Thanks for your comments about the parents' meeting - all went well thank goodness. There is always a sense of anticipation which is so silly really, but anyway all done for 6 months!

This weekend sees lots of cooking and knitting teddies! We have some friends over on Saturday. They are great to cook for as they are so enthusiastic about food and eat with great gusto.

I thought I would cook Spicy Meat Gumbo from Jamie's America

I've not done it before but it seems like a hearty dish so we'll give it a whirl.

For pudding I'm doing Spiced Apple Bread and Butter pudding. A fairly bulky dish following the gumbo but I think it'll go down well.

Whilst flicking through CL yesterday my eyes were drawn to a couple of recipes which are worth giving a go - Christmas Rocky Road - a guaranteed favourite in our house. I've never made it using jam.

( Sorry about the poor picture quality, the light is awful today.)

The other recipes look equally scrummy.....

Hubby bought home some Sainsbury 'try something new' recipe cards yesterday. I'm a great fan of these as they are quick, simple and more importantly don't cost the earth to make. The wicked carrot scones, and the banana bread and custard pud are ones I'll try first - can you tell I've got a sweet tooth?!

I hope everyone enjoys the weekend - I'll be back next week with my very first giveaway!!!!! so tune in then.

Cheerio..

Who lives in a house like this?

Whilst flicking through my trusty CK brochure working out what I'd like best for Christmas (it's not hard?!), I noticed that on the kitchen page it scarily resembles our laundry room. The tiles are exactly the same, bar the grouting, same style of tap and ceramic sink - how bizarre.

I do inwardly feel quite chuffed about that!

Did everyone have a good weekend? Mine was busy as always - click clack with the knitting needles.....lots of bunnies to make for a large order. Only another 15 to go and at the rate of 1 a week in between everything else, I fear, in fact it is a fact that they won't be ready for the end of November - not hard to work out the maths is it?!! Tra la la.

I've got parent's meetings tomorrow morning. The boys assure me there is nothing to worry about and I do believe them, but you never know........wish me luck.

Bye for now.

Things to make you smile

More often than not, the things which make me smile come from what my children say....

I wish sometimes we could capture those one liners, but the words come out so quickly and before you know it they've moved onto the next thing.

An example of this happened the other day. I tried reversing out of a parking space and couldn't as car after car drove past. I said 'Every man and his dog is driving past' Jack looked round frantically and said 'Where's every man and his dog, and who is he anyway?' It did make me chuckle inwardly.......I guess you had to be there - hubby didn't find it that funny!

Moving onto other things which make me smile - I always look forward to getting out my 'seasonal bits' as each season gets underway. Autumn brings out a whole host of my decorative bits and bobs.

My favourite has to be Mr Smoky - German in origin (I think) these great wooden men puff away frantically in our house from now until January. I'm sure some of you are familiar with them - you can buy cones in various fragrances - strike a match to get them burning, put them inside Mr Smoky and away you go. The smell is great and really represents Autumn.

Finally, it has to be a piece of homemade gingerbread with apple. Yummy!

A girl can treat herself......

every now and then can't she?

There are times when you just feel like spending money isn't there? and this weekend was no exception! The great thing was that I spent money in a thrifty, productive way - brilliant....read on to find out how I can put such a positive spin on spending money!

When it comes to fabric, threads and other notions relating to the world of creativity, I feel I can justify spending money. Most things will then be turned into new goodies to sell on the website - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

So my embellishments and fabric I bought today can be cancelled out.

Walking past the florist I saw some gourds - always reminiscent of autumn and at 40p each - who could resist.

Next - a trip to B & Q for bulbs. Whilst there I saw 2 blinds which were ideal for the 2 bathrooms - right size, pretty floral pattern and only £1.50 each!!! I never spot bargains like that EVER. Now, just to clarify - they weren't just bought because they were cheap - I genuinely needed 2 new blinds - really I did...!

A walk past the CS saw me salivating over a pretty teacup and saucer - hubby's eyes started rolling wondering how many teacups we could possibly have in 1 house. At £3 I was more than happy.

Last but by no means least - a bottle of wine at 1/2 price!! - a necessity in my book after a long hard week.

I'm a happy bunny!!!