So where to begin….

Saturday 4th: We discovered a wonderful Victorian brick fireplace lurking behind the plaster round our birthdays (remember the pictures?)……… well hubby did a lot of the hard graft then but now it was my turn……………while he was away over the weekend I got to cleaning the bricks.  With some serious elbow grease the old plaster finally decided to come off! It was hard work but oh so worth it – it’s going to look amazing!

Friday 3rd: Somewhat maddeningly the day before I started on this (but still after our renovations had begun) our boiler broke down – now if you live in the UK you’ll know that the temperature barely gets above freezing right now (or -5 degrees where we are!) and so that made for a very, capital V, cold day…………..see the link to the above paragraph yet?  Well in order to rediscover our fireplace we naturally had to render it unusable…………oh how I could have done with a nice, crackling fire that day to warm my toes (indeed to warm my entire being!)……….but alas no so I layered myself up in as many clothes as I could wear comfortably and ‘grinned and bared it’ – it was fixed by the evening so all was nice and toasty again.  There was of course a hot water bottle in the house that I could have used but it was busy being useful elsewhere – cryptic?  Yes?  Keep reading…………..

Thursday 2nd: Louis, our guinea-pig, decided it was the day to finally have her babies……….I was literally just about to head out shopping and so with bag in hand and boots on I watched the whole thing (from a distance so as not to disturb her).  It was quite amazing and remarkably quick (30mins max)!  So now we have two (thank god it was only two!) mini pigs dashing here there and everywhere and giving us much entertainment.

Now you might – rightly – be thinking where does a hot water bottle fit into this?  Well let me explain, guinea pigs born Thursday + boiler broken Friday = a very chilly first day for the mini pigs.  I therefore generously sacrificed my hot water bottle so as to keep their mini selves warm.  Read of that what you will – generosity or madness!!

All the above, plus a happy visit from my pa, lots of snow, lovely friends over for supper, still enjoying the last few flowers from our beautiful birthday bunch, still ‘hooking’ those hexagons……………….and did I mention lots of snow?

All in all a pretty busy and original week.  How was yours? xx

Been round to visit my lovely aunt this week and whilst there we both had a nosey through her button box………or should I say button ‘skyscraper’ as it’s three tiers tall and FULL to bursting with the most gorgeous buttons!!  She let me take as many as I wanted – eeek!  Now people fit into two categories – those who go ‘phhhft whatever!!’ to such a moment or those that go wobbly at the knees………….I think it’s obvious where I fit.  As your fingers swirl around the ‘button sand’ it’s like a history lesson, what garment the buttons came from, what they’ve each seen and experienced and naturally we got a talking – doesn’t take much to do that! Some of the buttons come from all the way over in Burma – where my great grandmother and grandfather used live (look at the buttons bottom left – they’re still attached the their original packaging with what I guess is Burmese writing on it) and some are so tiny that they make a 5p piece look huge!!!

Just thought I’d share this button-tastic moment.

Today has been one of those days I love……………OK so the weather’s been a bit pants (and I got soaked getting grass for the gpigs this morning) but inside these four walls it’s been 100% happy and productive.

I just lent back in my chair, took a sip of tea (a common occurrence) and thought ‘I’ll take a pic of this scene and post it for you all to see.’

Organisation might not exactly be the first word that springs to mind when you look at the picture above (or if you looked about the rest of the room for that matter)…………..but I prefer to think of it as organised chaos!!  Multi tasking might be another word I would use…………as I’ve been printing two orders for shops today whilst working on a crochet blanket commission – how about that for utter creative yumminess

The ladies at the post office were as lovely as ever and the girl in the shoe store gave me loads of old shoe boxes (and a somewhat strange look as I left the store) – I use them to post off my parcels see………………..recycling! They’re only going to bin them all at the end of the day so I got there first!

Hope you’ve had a lovely day too x

The picture pretty much covers it………

These happy, soft and silky facial products will soon be for sale in my shop…………..many more to follow – I just couldn’t resist giving you a sneak peek!!

There is only one day between the birthday of my hubby and I …….and three good reasons come in hand with this:

1) it’s easy to never forget I hear you say (true!) 2) it’s easy to organise things (true again), though mine usually starts with the hangover of the night before  (which happily happens less and less – we must be growing up!) and number 3) we just get to have two happy days together doing what regular couples do…

OK so in regular couples husbands don’t start bashing out fireplaces on their wife’s birthday – but then most ’regular’ wives wouldn’t have actually suggested that he do it in the first place!  One might also say that an old pig trough (bottom right) is rather an odd present………… NOT when you’re me however, had picked it out especially and have got the best idea ever to turn it into a herb bed !!  (pics to follow one day when complete) Look at those flowers too – aren’t they yummy! Got a bunch each from some beautiful friends……..I’m still enjoying their glorious colours now!

Twas a great weekend involving the most bizarre restaurant EVER, that happily turned out to serve amazing food (phew!), and I just wanted to share a couple of photos with you xx

I’ve been working on this idea for a few days now and am absolutely delighted with the outcome! Keeping with my environmentally conscious and brightly coloured ethos I’ve made them from a smooth and vibrant bamboo yarn.  They can be used for absolutely anything and would brighten up any room in your house!

FINALLY I can show you what I’ve up to most evenings over the last few months.  I set myself a challenge to make a large majority of my Christmas presents for 2011 and naturally thought it best to start early.

These scarves are great fun to make but I couldn’t have done it without the FANTASTIC pattern by Amanda Perkins that I found on Ravelry. She even suggested the Jitterbug wool that I used which is gorgeous and a total dream to ‘hook’ with!  (I actually made more than this but had to wrap the parcels and pop them in the post so fast that I didn’t get photos of them all!)

My niece wanted a hot water bottle cover for Christmas and I jumped at the chance of making one.  I found the ‘African flower pattern’ on the internet, bought a hot water bottle and got about making the two fit together.  It took a bit of tweaking here and there but I’m SO SO pleased with the outcome – requests have already been put in for these – myself included   

I’m made three beautiful flower broaches (from Attic24 website) as gifts.  They are quick to make (plus it means you can raid your long lost button stash with joy!) and it’s really easy to personalise the colours to whomever you’re making them for. 

The three little fish (pattern this time from Etsy by Amy Gaines) were for my nephew.  I got inspiration from the curtains he has in his playroom, once I found the patter how could I resist making them!? I changed the pattern slightly to my needs and made up the eyes myself……..had great fun doing that and creating the expressions.  I actually made them into a mobile, all hanging from a piece of wood that I found on one of my walks and polished up – I will post a picture soon as once again I forgot to take one. 

 Recognise that hexagon blanket?  I made one for my nephew when he was born and posted it a while ago……………..Ii used to hang it over our sofa while I was making it and the kitchen looked so bereft once I’d given it away……..so what did I do? I went upstairs, found some more wool and got ‘hooking’ once more.  I’ve made a mind boggling 200 hexagons so far with both blankets and almost dream about the pointy little blighters!!

Last but not least…

I’m rather proud to introduce these two fruity little numbers……………both of which I did without a pattern!!! I found some on the internet but none of them ‘did it for me’ as they say……………so with inspiration gained I got out my crochet hook and started creating. I absolutely love how they turned out!  I made them with an eco baby yarn so they’re all beautifully soft and easy to wash.

There will be more of these made in the future I just know it!!

So there you are………………..I haven’t been sitting idle at night – far from it. It’s been a lot of work but I’ve loved (almost!) every minute of it.  I’m thinking of how I can perhaps work on selling some of these in the future as I already have a few possible commissions……………what do you think? 

So go on why don’t you give it a try…………………honestly if I can do it YOU most definitely can!