pretty things

this week i have achieved a technological advance! due in no small part to a piece i read on Selina lakes blog about how to create photo collages in flickr, well you use a thing called bighugelabs and you can create lovely collages from your own images or your flickr favourites......i am sure it will be yet another thing to occupy my non existent spare time! unfortunately i seem to have lost the links back to the pages they came from! however most were from acreativemint on flickr and here is leslies lovely blog too!

lovely press

we were thrilled to find this month that we were featured in Period Living April issue. A while ago the very talented and much blogged stylist Selina Lake asked for a few bits on press loan for a feature she was working on, and here are the results. The piece is all about how favouriet/treasured possessions can inspire decorating schemes.

Its a really lovely article with delicious colours, i love the splashes of fuchsia with all of the spring greens and yellows - takes it up a level from the pedestrian 'spring greens and primrose' which seems to be in every magazine! Selina's website is here and she blogs here. she has also written two lovely books called Romantic Style and Bazaar Style, both of which are fantastic. Pop back in at the weekend for a cup of tea and see Selina featured for Weekend reading!

air your dirty laundry

Like birds on a telegraph wire I find something rather satisfying about cloths hung on a washing line. I don't mean grubby string vests on a rotary stand but linen sheets on a line between two apple trees or rustic Italian balconies laden with geraniums and laundry swaying gently in the breeze.

I also love the smell of washing dried on the line so I've been making the most of the good weather and using it as an opportunity to get on top of all my laundry. But the girls have wanted their own washing line for dolls clothes. We dug out all the tiny dolls clothes, but decided we didn't have enough so I had to make some more.



So here our little Maileg Mouse has crawled out of her match box and is wearing her new homemade-best-dress to air her dirty laundry!

All in a days work

A while ago I was given an old piece of embroidery. I love the bright, bold flowers but wasn't sure what to do with the fabric. I had in mind to make it into a cushion but wasn't really sure where it would fit into the house. That was until the sun started shining and I realised that the best place for my cushion was outdoors on a garden chair. My next problem was a lack of garden chairs. I knew exactly what I wanted to create and outdoorsy, shabby chic look so started looking for old Lloyd Loom chairs on the internet. I soon realised I wasn't going to find what I wanted as cheaply and easily as I originally thought.

However everything came together today. Following a morning stroll with a friend, dogs and our baby girls we went for a coffee in a pub garden, where I spied 2 old wicker chairs waiting to be chucked. Ok the bottoms are going but they will last this summer so, after a quick word with the landlord, we loaded them into the back of the car and took one each. The other chair was nicer but too big for the spot of garden sun I wanted it for. I took the smaller chair promptly gave it a white wash with some watered down paint, despite expecting friends to turn up for lunch in the next 10 mins. As soon as the friends had gone I rushed to rummage through my fabric cupboard for the embroidery. A few whizzes of the sewing machine, the cushion was made and my vision was realised.

Now I just need that idyllic moment, lazing in the summer sun with a cup of tea or a glass of wine, just 5 minutes will do, please.

book of thank yous

Having had a glorious day of sunshine it may seem a bit odd that my mind has gone back to Christmas. It's just that eventually I have sent off the last of our Christmas 'Thank yous'. I don't mean to sound ungrateful but from Boy's birthday thank yous from the end of November, then all the Christmas cards, the endless Christmas thank yous, swiftly followed by Baby's birthday thank yous, and 3 children who get bored of writing their name after 2 letters I have to confess that I find all the thank you letters become a bit of a chore. However I'm a true advocate of proper letters.


These days there is nothing better than a personal, hand written envelope dropping through the letter box and thank yous are always welcome (and, given the postal chaos this Christmas, one way of knowing for certain that a gift has been received!).


To alleviate the boredom I decided on a new approach. We created a little book, or rather a zine. One of my gifts had been How to Make Books by Esther K Smith where I learnt this nifty trick to make a book using one sheet of paper.*

Instead of writing 5 separate letters to family members we made one Book of Thanks Yous. Each of us having a page where we created something relevant to the gift we had received. It probably took longer than writing all the letters, but the children enjoyed it more so there was a lot less whinging involved. And hopefully the result is a thoughtful gift in return for all our Christmas goodies. Can you guess what the gifts were?



*These are the best on-line directions I can find. It may not look it but it is really simple and can provide hours of fun.