playing hooky

teachers + strike = fun for us 

We just managed to squeeze in a visit to the Shirley Hughes exhibition, celebrating 30 years of Alfie at The Illustration Cupboard, it sadly came down that afternoon. It was wonderful to see the actual drawings and paintings, I've loved her books since I was a child so it's really special to be able to share those books with my own children now and for us to have seen the exhibition together.

The gallery is lovely and friendly and has lots of children's books for sale, signed by the illustrators (great pressie opportunities there!) I picked out some Lauren Child books for the girls, she's going to be there next week and we're getting her to dedicate a book to Missy Big for her upcoming Birthday - how fantastic! (I'm sure I'm more excited about this, but I hope she will appreciate it in time).

And afterwards, lunch, a stroll in the park...

 

a little royalty hunting... (didn't see any)

and then heading home...

hooray for hooky days

have a great weekend x

7 more things

I'm a very bad blogger, three lovely ladies passed awards onto me lately and I have been procrastinating. Mostly because I can't think of 7 interesting things to tell you about me. I did it back here, and my life and me are really not that fascinating, but I do love to read other people's 7 things, so it's only fair to share.

Firstly a huge thank you - to Flora and Purl, to Joyce Lives Here and to Used-to-Bees, (who all have wonderfully personal blogs, pay them a visit, they will all make you most welcome!) for the Liebster Blog award and the Versatile Blogger awards. I feel very humbled that anyone reads, comments on and possibly enjoys some of my waffle enough to pass these my way.

So on with it, 7 things about me - 

I'm a city girl, if I spend more that a week in the countryside I go a little bonkers. I need buildings, to watch people and a little crazy around me. It feels like living.

I am untidy, and it narks me, I'm a Virgo - how could the tidy trait miss me out?

When we were on our honeymoon in Antigua (exactly 8 years ago) we went snorkling, being a novice I was in the beginners group, which I managed to stray from and got into the shallow water where I sat on a sea urchin. Extremely painful. I was put on a small boat with a five year old and sent back to the big boat. The group leaders were bemused that an adult had managed such a foolish thing, I was further humiliated by having to show them all my behind with the spines stuck in. (quite why I'm sharing my humiliation again is beyond me). It took about 9 months for all the spines to work their way out. 

I don't have many regrets in life. Though I wish I could speak another language and I do regret not having lived abroad. Maybe one day it will happen.

I was a waitress at Mary McCartney's first wedding. I had never waitressed before, the terror I felt was enormous. The McCartney's are a genuinely lovely family. My Mum loves the Beatles - she was a little envious.

I don't see the point in fakery. Fake people, fake promises, fake tans, fake friendships, fake goods, I could go on and on, but you get the idea. What is the point? Just be real. Be you.

I'd like an invisibility cloak so I could sneak about and be a thoroughly nosey parker.

So that's me, now seven people to pass this on to, in no particular order:

Love and Peas

Flaming Nora

Lola Nova

Four Leaves

Ink Caravan

Green Valley Crafts

Small Catalogue

If these awards are not your thing, please don't feel any pressure, just take it as a compliment. x

my creative space

Last week it was open studios around these parts and we tried to cram in as many as we could. The work that grabbed Missy Big and myself the most were the gorgeous puppets by Robyn Wilson-Owen. They are so charming, and mostly dressed in Liberty. If you're in need of a new friend pop to her shop.

 this one is made by Robyn

We came home with this friend for Little Missy, however she was more struck by the one her sister had started making with Robyn (not shown here - ever ambitious she wanted to move quickly on from finger puppets to making a puppet in a dress).

So while inspiration was burning a hole we all started to make one. Missy Big made 'Gemmy', I love her freckles and her hand stitched dress. She was so careful while cutting her hair and making sure it was even. 

She's being entered into the children's competition. I hope she has a fine time in her party dress.

The other 3 are getting there. 

Amidst all this creativity a lovely little brooch arrived here. Amy Prior sent me this little treasure as part of the brooch swap. I love her dotty skirt with stripy tights. Of course my girls adore her too - best make sure she's pinned up high. Thank you Amy!

More creative spaces over here.

p.s. the bridesmaid dresses are finished - WooHoo!!! 

The bride is coming to see it all this weekend, I hope she loves it all.

Lots of you kindly asked would I be showing some pictures of them - rest assured ladies, I will bore you silly with pictures after the wedding!

my creative space

Sometimes I find my head full of projects, ideas and plans with deadlines creeping up, but these last couple of weeks have seen me finish projects, and turn a corner on others.  

I've finished and posted my brooch for the swap, with a few extras, but I'll keep them a surprise for my partner for now. It took me a while to work out exactly what I was going to do, but I'm pleased with the results. I couldn't manage to represent the colours of the flowers that inspired me in just one brooch, so there are 3 to tell the story.

 

I've finished the wedding dress (enormous sigh of relief). 

I've done the patterns and I'm now sewing up the bridesmaid dresses (another big sigh).

Of course there are many projects queued up in my head, but they'll have to wait.

And on Monday my moustache egg cosy made it to the front page of Etsy, oh my I was excited!! You can see it in the flesh here, or see my dodgy photo below (if you are technicalish and know how to add the treasuries onto a blog properly - please tell me, it's baffled me for ages!)

Pop over here for more creative spaces.

What are you working on right now? 

books and covers

Do you judge a book by it's cover? I do, this is definitely true when it comes to children's books. I'm always attracted to the illustrations first. I'm rarely disappointed.

I'm newly in love with the wonderful children's books by Oliver Jeffers.  We have had How To Catch a Star for a while. But we were all totally blown away with The Incredible Book Eating Boy, we've had this out from the library, and we keep going back and finding it again, and again. 

The story is of a boy who is distracted one day and accidently licks a book, then eats a word, then a page, and before long he's eating whole books. 

The more he eats, the cleverer he gets, he wants to be the smartest boy on earth. He loves it, even though everyone tells him it's no good for him.

Until one day, everything starts going wrong - everything gets jumbled up in his head and it's embarassing to speak. He stops eating books, but doesn't know what to do. Then he picks up a book and reads, and learns and  eats broccoli.

I love it, we love it, Little Missy can't put it down. And the illustrations are charming, the characters are uncomplicated and the scenes incorporate old pages from books and words float around, it's quite enchanting. I think a copy will have to come and live here forever. 

We're also loving The Great Paper Caper, I could get a little obsessive here, but again the illustrations had me. 

Branches mysteriously start to go missing in the woods, the animals turn detective to find out who's taking them. They follow the clues and track down the culprit and then hold a hearing. 

When bear tells his story, they feel sad that he had no-one to turn to for help. They then set about helping him make the best paper plane so he can win the competition that his ancestors had previously held the title for. Bear plants new trees to make up for his crime. Charming and you really feel bears loneliness in the book, magical.

I know I'm showing pictures of books here, despite my rant over copyright and images on the internet. 

I'm sucking up my hypocrisy.

If you fancy joining in and sharing a book you're into right now, send me a link to a post you write and I'll add it to this one so we can all see what you're reading. Novel, cookbook, children's book, you choose. 

Link back to here and share some book love. 

Flaming Nora is loving Splash, a children's book

take a look!

x

 

tents and scraps

The sun has been shining and we have been camping! Back in the cold gloom of January we thought about camping, and you kindly gave me advice about what we needed. We thought, and planned and bought a tent. And now we've been.

Wow it was such fun!! Some friends who have 2 girls, the same ages as ours invited us along, and after a whole 40 minutes of driving we arrived at our destination. 2 hours after we pitched the tent it chucked it down. No leaks. 

The next day was sunny and gorgeous. We had so much good, simple fun, playing snap, dominos, feeding ducks, sharing stories, it was so good we even stayed an extra night. This has been the best half term!

But none of you told us to take a heater! Yes, you read that right. I mentioned to a neighbouring family that it had been a cold night and I wish I'd had more blankets. They looked stunned, didn't we have a heater? Isn't that a bit noisy someone else enquired? No noisier than the fridge apparently! Speechless.

Need to start planning our next adventure now... 

Just before we went I received this gorgeous bundle of scraps from Linnhe at  Wee Mindings. A while back I took part in the Very Berry Handmade scrap swap, I'm so glad I did - so many yummy fabrics, I can't wait to start making with them.

  

This is what I sent to Linda at farm girl at home she already had plans for some of them within a day - can't wait to see what she makes.

I'm planning on having a go at a quilt in the autumn (no, not super organised, just realistic planning of time). I'd love to dive in right now, but there are more pressing things to be finished. I'm starting to collect the fabrics though, no harm in that, right? Some of my new scarps will be in it and some of the girls old clothes will get a new life, and some of the fabrics I've had loitering for years will finally get used. 

But right now the camping book is calling me....

my creative space

... is looking for inspiration for the brooch swap. I think I've found it, I'm completely hooked by all the flowers that are everywhere right now. The Chelsea Flower Show is on, it's so inspiring, maybe one year I'll plan ahead and actually get there. 

1. Close up of vibrant purple flowers (Allium Lucy Ball) and a visiting bee!, 2. Chelsea Flower Show 2011, 3. Chelsea Flower Show 2011, 4. Chelsea Flower Show 2011, 5. Chelsea Flower Show 2011, 6. Lisianthus destined for Chelsea

I adore flowers, but I don't manage to grow many, I have oodles of roses, which are beautiful. But a bit of variety would be nice.

I have a plan now for the brooch, thankfully. Just need to sit and do now.  

I have many plans for the garden, not sure they'll happen.

This week has been wedding dress sewing (yes, still on that!) and whipping up a quick German National Dress costume for school's international week. We found out on Wednesday they were dressing up on Friday - who has international costumes hanging around? A bit more notice would have been nice... still nothing like pressure to get things done. 

See some actual creative work DONE over here. 

Happy Weekend. x

my creative space

Love in the air.  

I'm in the middle of making a card for my best friends wedding. I cut out the wedding related entries from an old dictionary and sandwiched it between some silk organza and duchess satin and I'm stitching a heart around it. 

And then there's the drying of petals. For confetti and for decorations for my brothers wedding.

Simple. Beautiful.

More creative spaces over here.

 

kcwc day 9

Days 4,5,6,7 and 8 didn't really happen, too much other stuff going on. I cut the fabric, made the pocket and kept getting it out, and putting it away again. But you see it was Mr's birthday so we had to make and bake and celebrate and eat cake so the sewing got delayed.

So this morning I made up for lost time and got Little Missy's dress done. It's called My Garden Dress. 
My girls are opposites of each other, Little Missy loves to get dirty, and take risks, and loves bright colours, and loves finding worms while we dig at the allotment, and dances and lives in the moment. This dress is all about her, she chose the fabrics and I thought a garden theme would suit her, I love freestyle machine embroidery - you can just draw as you sew. Perfect.

The big flower is a pocket and I wanted a sketchy garden around it, that was fun to do, I added Mr Worm as she loves worms, she fed him one of her baked beans for lunch. I like the butterfly on the sleeve too, it makes me think of a sneaky tattoo. 

The spotty fabric I bought new, the sleeves are a thrifty pillowcase find and the pink pocket is from an old Indian cotton top I found in the charity shop. I think they work really well together.

Take a look at the Elsie Marley flickr group to see what some very, very busy people got up to.

She loves it, and it's not a bad fit. Yay!!

Onto the wedding dress next - yikes.

kcwc day 3 and 4??? a jam packed creative space

Yesterday (day 3) went well, and in 45 minutes I finished the dress. However it was a little big when tried on, so I spent the evening adjusting it. And today she refused to try it on, so I can only hope it fits.

Missy Big chose the fabric for this dress and has patiently waited since last summer - I guess I'm being too hopeful for enthusiasm, she has waited, and waited, and waited...

But she tells me she loves it, and she's happy, so I'm happy.

 

So tonight I plan to attack these and see if I can achieve anything before day 4 is over.

I love Little Missy's choices - more my kind of colours too.

I need to share our first harvest from the allotment too - my it tastes good, even though it's super early. We had to share, it's the only one that was ripe enough to eat - I'm sure we'll have a few more by the weekend.

Whilst zooming around the shops this morning I picked up Mollie Makes, the much blogged about new crafty mag (some bedtime reading) and a fab tin - a giant jammie dodger, filled with jammie dodgers oooh heavenly, it'll sit nicely with the custard cream tin I got last year. (thank you M&S - I see another collection starting) Gorgeous roses (also beautifully early) picked by Mr from the garden - it made my day to come home to find them in the kitchen.

More creative spaces here, in a brand new home of their own.