Bloomin' Teenagers

My teenager's computer is broke. As a result, mine is permanently being used to skype a young German gentleman who shall remain nameless.

As a result, no posts for ages, which is rubbish. So here's some photos of stuff what I have been mostly making over Christmas ... and here's to my new year's resolution of retrieving said 'puter on a regular basis!

Crockery in Disguise

Who the hell would have thought that plates could pretend to be something other than what they are?!?

My lovely friend H told me about her clever sister's Christmas present ideas a few months ago. Vintage plates made into cake stands with ironmongery bought off of her majesty's royal internet.

"What a lovely present!" I thought - and said. I sadly would be strung up if I brought any more cake stands into the house, and lots of my friends, while they appreciate the merits and finer points of a cake stand, aren't really the sorts of people that would appreciate one as a present. "Shame". I thought. That's the sort of thing I'd like to make. "Shame I have no use for more cake stands!"

Then, as luck would have it, I, ahem, have a use for some cake stands. I can be a little more candid than usual as I know him indoors won't see this. He's not feeling too good.

Let's just say, I have a very good use for LOTS of cake stands next year.

So, El & Beth's Saturday Afternoon Craft Workshop ( or EBSACw for short) decided to embrace "the cake stand".

I bought three dinner and three side plates in pale pink when Steve and I took the Grandmother to Tenby the other week. £1 for all three and I really like them because they remind me of quilts. They have circles of three decreasing widths embossed into them in a quilting style - they're dead pretty.

The Grandmother gave me a tea set the other week that's lovely but the kind of wrong colours for my requirements. The are cream with a brown dog rose pattern on. El had a brain wave. We could paint the dog roses. We had a little go an lo and behold, dog roses painted red become poppies!

And I purchased another incomplete tea/dinner set this week courtesy of St David's Foundation, so one of those was earmarked for a cake stand too. I did think about making 2 from this set. I've changed my mind. A lot.

So, we got the drill, we measured the plates, marked the plates, located the special arrow-head ceramic drill bit ... and off we went.

Little did we know that we had a traitor in the midst. One of our plates was not what it pretended to be.

Obviously the pink set, the dog rose set, both female. Relatively easy to drill, and ta dah! we have cake stands! We set about the third one. Decorated with pretty orchids and such like one would think it was also female. Not so. It had a distinguishing mark on the bottom "made in Japan". Therefore we could only come to the conclusion that this set was male in disguise as it gave us so much trouble. A Japanese lady boy, we decided. A rugby player, dressed as a delicate lovely, pretty set of table wear. I swear the stuff was made of kryptonite.

There's only going to be one of those cake stands.

Pretty though, ain't they?! Can't wait till they fulfill their purpose ...

Today I have Mostly Been Fabric Shopping ...

...and doing 1940's barrel rolls for Meg's photo shoot this evening.

I made my advent calendar yesterday. I can't take the credit for it, it's a Martha Stewart concept, realised by my good self and fashioned as a result of two year's worth of collecting.

It's made of 25 baby socks, sewn on to a washing line style red ribbon. Each one has 3 sweets and 3 gravy bone biscuits in - one each for the whole herd. I;d love to show you it, but I can't find my little mini gold pegs. When I do, I will show you. Unless I get fed up of looking and post it anyway.

As usual, I had a really specific idea in my head of the Christmas presents I was to be making for my most important ladies this year. And as usual, when it came to buying the raw materials, I bought something totally different and, I think, better. Lovely chestnut corduroy handbags with amber handles and a beautiful print to line and decorate with and co ordinate with the brooch. I'm chuffed to say that I'm making one for my good mate El's Mum. She's setting up a little soap and cream business and is making dreamy products on her kitchen table - I'm thrilled to be her guinea pig.

And I do hope it all turns up soon or it's going to be a 3am finish every night until Christmas again like last year. Lordy, I'm just not as organised as I'd like to be... but who is?

SO in the mean time, this is the "lady garden warmer" I made for Meg's, ahem, "special day" last week. You like?

Oh knickers to it .... here's my calendar.

Lady Gardening

As usual, my lovely Husband and my lovely friend's medical lives have coincided once again.

Stevie was given bail on Thursday while J was sent down on Friday, and my goodness what an ordeal she has had.

She's a sufferer of advanced endometriosis and is on one of the first of many surgeries. A little while ago she asked me to make her what we like to call a "lady garden warmer".

You see these microwaveable heat packs are great for pain relief, but they're the wrong shape, so I made her a heart shaped one from a fleece blanket, some cotton leftovers, lots of swearing and some lady bird printed felt. Unfortunately, I failed to take a photo of it before I gave it to her, so I'll have to get her to take one, which she won't mind doing - she needs the practice on her new phone.

I'm up to a severe amount of creativity at the moment, but most of it I just can't tell you about it because it's a real, proper secret. But what I am doing is keeping a photo log of all the lovely things so that I can share them after the big surprise.

So I'm trying to continue with creativity I can talk about in the mean time! Aaaaaarrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhh I REALLY WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!!!!

Oooh, and my lovely friend Helen gave me a friendship cake to "grow". It's still bubbling - I haven't killed it!

Love Thy Neighbour. I do.

I've got a new best friend. Actually I've got two. What a show off.

One of them is a circular saw - who I have called George. I used to be really scared of him, but now I love him, and I use him every day.

The other best friend is my neighbour. Until we moved here I'd never set eyes on them before but my goodness what a lovely couple and my goodness how grateful to them am I? Very is the answer to that.

A conversation over the fence yesterday with me looking longingly at their beautifully kept garden while I wrestled with something or other in mine, resulted in the lovely gent offering to help me concrete my line post back in. The council ripped it up when doing renovations and I'm fed up of waiting for them to come and put it back. I'm quite brave, I'll attempt and pull off anything DIY wise (that doesn't involve wires - except a plug of course), but I've never touched concreting before, and I didn't really have the tools to even dig the whole.

I also mentioned that I had had a quote for cutting my front shrubs back from their bedraggled and unkempt state. I came home today and found the shrubs beautifully pruned, off cuts gone. I nearly cried. It's so lovely to have another big job to tick off my extensive list.

Then, while thanking lady neighbour for the pruning, she spots my half dug hole for line post. I wanted to at least do the hard work bit so that I didn't have to ask "getting on a bit" gent neighbour to do it. Within five mins, he was around, pick axe, sledge hammer and crow bar later, a suitable site was located, between all the buried rubble, and another ten minutes later, the post is supporting itself! I'm so grateful - and isn't that lovely? In truth I had no idea how I was going to pull it off.

Then, as I was doing further drilling (shelves, wall mounting wicker baskets, tie back, fixing my shed door) and my other neighbour on the other side knocked the door with two lovely fresh trifles for us! I love it here, I must be honest.

I've been so lucky. I've got awesome friends, and awesome neighbours and for all of the things they've done for me I am incredibly grateful. Let's face it, we're all busy, but some people make the time to help a family struggling with massive life changes and illness. I'm so grateful.

So with my help received today, I managed to do the last bit of fencing today too, and I'm also really pleased with it. I'm going to use some of my skip-rescued timber to reduce the amount that can be seen through it. I reckon I'll finish it tomorrow, photos will follow.

And I FINALLY fixed my shed door! What a relief!

Gratuitous Spaniel Photos

I don't apologise one bit for sharing this picture of my gorgeous Spaniel. His gorgeousness deserves to be shared - I look at it as a public service. And in fairness he is under one of my most favourite candy stripe brushed cotton sheets from the actual 1950's that I was so excited about inheriting from my Grandmother.

One of the five, count 'em - five, funerals I went to of late, my Grandmothers lifelong friend Enid was sadly one of them. She had been quite frail and vulnerable for a long time, but before she got very ill, she used to do a bit of knitting as most ladies of that generation did. My Grandmother gave me a sack of wool odments that she had been given from Enids house and there were two half made Tom Baker style scarves. I joined them together and fringed it - I don't think there's anything prettier in the world. ANd I get to carry a bit of Enid around with me wherever I go.

So, Steve's back in hospital, not fun, and a side effect of my looking after him full time is that I have put a lot of weight back on. The difference is this time, I quite like it.

What I don't like is constantly having to spend a fortune on ever bigger underwear. So I'm going to make my own.

Watch this space!

Rest and Rejuvenation in the Face of Sadness

Something good has come out of the recent sadness. Some lovely creative conversations with Mrs CrownHeartStar and a trip to new haberdashery territory gave my creativity a kick up the backside. And not a moment too soon.

We've got the wedding of the year on Saturday to look forward to, and boy are we looking forward to it.

I picked up a genuine vintage 1960's suit off ebay for £30 and that one outfit will do the whole day. The suit, obviously, for the day, remove the jacket, move the brooch, add a belt and a change of shoes (my old faithful Ravel Mary-Jane's £2 from a car boot nearly 10 years ago that rarely get an outing) and voila - evening wear also.

My Mum in law gave me a plain fascinator when we were up there last and I fell in love with a bag of feathers in the lovely haberdashers, so, this little multi-coloured baby was born. I used my favourite brooch and added a little few feathers to it to match beautifully. I'm really into the whole multi colour thing at the moment. Colour schemes are for wimps!

And while in said haberdashers, I was quite taken with some wool in there. I've been wanting to make myself a wrap for ages, and I must be honest it really feels amazing, and has been a pleasure to knock up.