Well it has been ages since I last posted, however I am trying to get back into blogging and must admit that I have missed been here. 

Anyway I am taking part in a 31 Day Fall Challenge which is been hosted by Courtney over at Women Living Well . Every Monday during the month of November Courtney is going to set a task to Make Our Homes a Haven. Right now this is certainly what I am needing and I am looking forward to taking part. 

The sun shines !

Its been glorious weather here recently, we have had a couple of down pours and a HUGE thunderstorm but the sun is shining and it is still warm and here in this little house we are making the most of it. Today we packed our swim suits and went here, the children swam and spent most of the time jumping from the diving board trying to give Tom Daley a run for his money and I sat in the sun eventually going in for a quick ten laps. 

Here in England we need to make the most of the weather when the sun shines and today we really did.
Is the sun shining where you are ?

Its finally here !

 Its here ! The event that London has been waiting for ! Yes my dear friends I am so excited that today the countdown is finally over and we can watch the Olympic Games.

 When I was flicking through the above magazine I came across a familiar face. Oh how I longed to be like Olga Korbut when I was a child (or Nadia for that matter), so graceful and elegant and the most wonderful Gymnasts ever ! I must add however that this photograph was taken at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, three years before I was born, bt that didnt matter to me when I was a little gymnast. Naturally I plan on watching LOTS of gymnastics over the next couple of weeks and entertain my family with stories of ,

"I could do that"

"I used to be like that"

and so on ! You get the picture? Although the reality was not quite the same

I know where my daughter gets her ever so competative spirit from, I was continuing with my sort out the other day and came across a packet with all of my dance and gymnastics certificates and medals. In amongst them was a silver medal won for my gymnastics, at the time I was DEVASTATED for winning such a disgrace as a silver medal and threw it away. Spoilt brat , moi?

I obviously fished it from the bin when I had calmed down a bit. How my parents didnt strangle me with the medal I will never know. I am glad that my children may be competative but not in the same awful way their mother was (and no longer is I might add), they just strive to be the best they can and dont get competative with other people.



Anyway now I support our own Teams and will be following the Team GB Gymnastics Team.

What will you be watching?

Sorting out !

This is what I was faced with this morning, today was a designated clear out of the Boys room. As we are due to start the secondary school so very soon it was the ideal opportunity to encourage him that he no longer needed all the toys that were stuffed in there. He so badly wants daddy to decorate it , however, Daddy (rightly so) will not do such a task when it looks like the above. I coulend even get into the room to show you the shot the other way round.

After afew hours here is what we now have. Where did it all go you ask? Well currently everything that is to go is in bin bags stuffed in his sisters room. part of me would like to do a car boot sale but I expect that it will be donated to the local charity shop.  It better stay this tidy.

Now I just have the rest of the house to clear out !!!!!!

Feeling Frumpy !

I have recently been having my own little pity party for one and have been feeling a little on the frumpy side.  Like Mothers the world over I dont prioritise "Me time" and I have been feeling a little neglected and ... well..... Frumpy !

This has eventually drove my poor hubby nuts with my constant moaning so I have bought afew treats which naturally make me feel guilty but hey ho ! Whatever !

 Do you remember those ever so lovely Love Heart Sweets ? Well after popping into Superdrug I spotted these Lip Balms which look just like them.

 They dont really smell of anything which is a shame as I am used to minty lip balms but they are OK. They dont look as bright when you apply them just a nice shiny pink. 

 A little pink eyeshadow and lip gloss. Can you believe that the Love Heart Lip Balms were £2 each, I cant remember the price of the eyeshadow but it was only a few pounds and the lip gloss was £1. 

I also recently signed myself up to try GlossyBox . Basically you pay a monthly subscription of £12 and receive a box of "High End" sample size goodies each month.  This is how it came and below is what I received. 

Inside it was,

* DUWOP Lip Gloss

* DR BRONNER Liquid soap/ shower gel

* PAUL MITCHELL  Hair Curl Definer

*BM Mineral eyeshadow

* COMO SHAMBHALA Body Lotion

It was Ok, the body lotion is lovely as it smells of essential oils and the shower gel has organic essential oils in it, so again I like this. However the rest I am a bit Blah about, they are nice and I will keep . Will I get another one ? I dont know, its nice to receive a little treat each month but I think that I would prefer to pick out what I would like.  If I get could get my rear into gear I like to make my own lotions and potions and have plenty of books on the subject but I just never seem to get the time to make any. Do you make any of your own beauty supplies? 

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

I am joining in with Soulemama this week for the Friday Ritual.

Have a peaceful, blessed weekend. x

Having a clear out !

I have been busy clearing out STUFF ! You see, around my house there are various places which have the purpose of storing craft gear.  I have been doing different craft type things for years and have built up quite a collection from card making to sewing to knitting and more recently crochet.  I am guilty as charged for buying things that I love, storing them away and keeping them for a rainy day Well in my quest for decluttering I started with some of my craft stash. 

 Here is where the paper craft things are kept and I forgot to photograph all of the stuff stashed beside this seat. However when I took it all out it looked something like this ,

 Words escape me right now about all this STUFF !

 Anyway here is the after shot. Everything that you see in the above photograph has been sorted through and placed back inside here or the recycling bin apart from the purple bag thing you see in the background on the above picture. 

 Here is another after shot. Out of sight out of mind. 

 I didnt take a before shot of this cute little ottoman that my Hubby bought me a few years back. Inside here I keep my fabrics and patterns. Its all been sorted and you can actually sut the top now. 

 Another job jobbed ! Inside of here are some of the knitting patterns that belonged to my Grandmother, she would be tickled pink if she knew that I was sharing them with you on the world wide web. I can remember some of these as a child, she was always knitting something or other from toys to jumpers and cardigans. 

 It shows how old these are, just look at the lovely clothes that Sindy is wearing. Do you remember Sindy ? Gosh we had loads of them with four girls in the house, I think that we probably had just about every Sindy item you could buy at the time and to think that people collect them now. Anyway moving on.......

 I used to love CareBears, did you ?  I dont remember having a knitted out though, I think I used to have some of the small plastic ones. I might have to make my very own CareBear, he he !

 This is copyrighted in the early 70's

And here is my very own knitted Scarecrow made by my Grans fair hands. I am guessing here but I think it is probably 23 years old.

Anyhow, I have been busy creating here but have yet to take some photographs to share with you. I have been doing some crochet  and enjoying cups of hot tea with the lovely Melanie. She very kindly has been teaching me some new tricks with the crochet so I can move on from the Granny Squares. Thanks Melanie.  Not only is it nice to learn something new but its nice to have things around the home that I have made myself. 

Right, I am off now as we are watching The Magicians on tv and I need to see to the fire. 

Have a lovely weekend.

When it all gets too much !

Stuff that is !
We moved from our teeny tiny house some years ago into what seemed a HUGE house with lots of storage, two gardens, garage and a monstrous attic.  Fast forward some years and way too much stuff later and we have a house in the shape of a barrel about to burst at the seams. There is  literally way too much stuff cluttered on most surfaces and just dont mention the drawers, garage or attic (shudder)
Now I am not for this minimalist clap trap, no offence but I just dont cut the mustard there. But I just cant be doing with all of these things and lets be brutally honest with  ourselves, Do we actually NEED it ? The answer is most certainly NO I DO NOT !!!

I have set myself many a challenge this year for different things but the first one I am acting upon is the Great 2012 De-Clutter.. No cupboard, box, garage or handbag (not that I actually have that many) is safe. Stuff will be re-homed if possible or sent to the lovely ladies who run a local charity shop to be used by another raising money for a great cause close to my heart.  I dont have any photos right now but I will document the shamefull amount of "Too Much" I have and let you know how it is going. I think it will probably take the rest of the year.

Dare you join me ? Go on I dare ya!

Busy as a Bee

The last week as seen me inspired to finish off those craft projects that you start and for one reason or another you just dont get round to finishing, you know the UFO (UnFinished Object)

Well I seem to have plenty of them right now. Well firstly I needed to finish my Father in Laws birthday present,  he recently commented that he would like a crochet blanket to keep him warm on an evening as he always feels cold. So here you are, its more than big enough to put over his lap on a cold evening and it keeps you super warm. It looks smaller here but its on a king size bed. Perhaps not the best colours but this is what I already had in and we are been frugal here in this little house right now. 

Friday saw me behind this little love, that was until somehow the foot fell off and it all jammed up. I managed to get it all apart and fixed with the aid of a trusty screw driver. 

This is what I have been making, you may remember this post some time ago. Well I never actually got round to finishing the quilt and it lay in a box for however long. Friday was its lucky day and out it came to be finished into the lovely snuggly quilt.  Sorry for the poor photograph but it proved a little tricky to get a good shot. Anyway this is to be for her 13th Birthday in a few weeks and I am wanting to embroider a name tag for the back but cant decide upon a name for the quilt. Any ideas ?

This is a quick card that I made for a friend of my Daughters for her Birthday recently. I haven't made cards for years despite the amount of card stuff I have in drawers, cupboards and boxes. It was nice to just sit for afew minutes and get this done, I might even have to make another soon. 

Well I have to dash as Sunday evenings get rather busy here. Thank you for reading and please leave a comment to tell me you have been.

2nd January

Hello again, the picture above shows some of the rather lovely gifts sent to me as part of the Advent Swap by Rachael at http://www.sewrayme.co.uk/ , please do have a look at her website and look at the wonderful things she is making. Thank you very much Rachel, I hope that you liked the things that I sent you.  Oh yes there was chocolate in the parcel but it didnt last long enough to be photographed !

Today was a glorious start to the year with blue skies and the sun was shining, we headed out just before lunch to blow the Christmas cobwebs away and have a walk. We went to Beamish Museum where they were still decorated for christmas. How I would love to live in these houses, I could just spend all day tucked up beside the fire in the rocking chair.

I just love how these rugs are made from fabric scraps, I have all of the original tools to make these that belonged to my Great Grandmother and hope that one day I will be able to find the time to make on of my very own.

Perhaps it was a good thing that the fire was not lit or I might have pulled up a chair, it was very cold.

There were checstnuts in the bowl on the table.

The parlour was all set out in its very finest.

I am enjoying getting back to blogging and hope that I can keep it up. I have some crochet projects to show you when I post next.

Happy New Year

Hello, I hope that you all had a Merry Christmas and I wish you all a very Happy New Year.
I have not had the blogging bug recently but over the last few weeks have been thinking about the blog and miss been over here.  I have however been reading lots of your blogs.

I recently took part in an Advent Swap and my partner was Rachael from http://www.sewrayme.co.uk/ , I will post pictured of what she sent me later, however thank you so very much Rachael. Do pop over to her blog and have a look at some of the things that she is making, a very talented lady.

I havent made any New Year resolutions as from past experience I dont keep up with them, however there are afew things that I am going to try and do this year.

• I must try and have the house more organised, so 2012 will see the start of a HUGE de-clutter. My home is literally bursting at the seams.
• I must address my issues with food. I enjoy food and cooking (mostly eating) but find that the busier I become the further down the list of priorities cooking and more importantly eating becomes. Dont get me wrong I cook for the children and they eat healthily, but I am in the habit of snacking or missing meals altogether.  I should take lunches to work with me but run out of time to prepare them so end up either with a supermarket sandwich (blech!) or a biscuit from the tin in the staffroom. This means that by the time I get home I am starving and snack again. For evening meals quite often I just cant face anything and end up with toast or cereal. I have ALOT of cookery books and even have a subscription to Good Food magazine but feel completely uninspired.
• I will take more time out for me before I completely burn out, enough said there.

Anyway I fear that this is becoming a list so I am off to finish off the lovely dinner I prepared this morning and sit at the table with my lovely family and enjoy some food.

I am actually looking forward to getting back into the blog, I have been reading yours even though I havent really left comments.

Blessings x