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Starting the day with a nutritious breakfast of fingers...
and a little bit of pumpkin...
taking a nap to recuperate...
before some running around in Tatton Park...
and posing for photographs...
What? You mean your pumpkins don't wear pink sunglasses?
Happy Halloween to you all! Here's hoping for a pumpkinlicious time!!
We've been getting all Halloweeny over here.
Making bats...
Pumpkin garland...
'Boo' signs...
Spooky water bottles - using this download and a few drops of black food colouring...
And creepy eyeball jelly...
These are so much fun! Pour blackcurrant jelly half way up the glasses, and leave it to set. When it is almost set, pop a chocolate eyeball in, then pour in some orange jelly. Leave in the fridge and voila - completely creepy halloween pudding!
Would you like to join in?
I made a little Halloween template page, which you can download here to make your own decorations. Hope you like it!
Happy Crafty Halloweening!
(p.s. the bats are just two of the cardboard wings with a papier-mâché ball, and a ribbon glued on.)
We drew, we cut, we glued.
We screwed paper up, and flattened it out again.
Stuck stickers, used chalks, got wet with gluey water, and dried ourselves off again.
Halloween decorations were calling, and well, who can argue with that?
And whilst creating our little masterpieces, we listened to this -
- at least three times.
Matilda's little friend Zac turned one a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to make him something special. So this is what I made...
A birthday crown using one of my favourite patterns, from Soulemama's The Creative Family.
And the bag that I made up as I went along. The fabric on the pocket is Alexander Henry 's 2D Zoo, which I absolutely love.
And I filled it full of these...
Lovely and colourful wooden blocks - I think they make such great gifts for little-ies.
It has been a tough week. There has been lots of poorliness working its way around our house - including throat infections, vomiting bugs, viruses, medicine allergies - oh it's been fun!
But in between the worst of it, we've been finding beauty in the ordinary things of autumn...
I hope you are all enjoying the beauty of autumn as much as we are.
:: baby curls
:: smiling for the camera
:: getting a few precious crafting minutes to make a birthday present
not loving...
:: our phone and internet line being down for the weekend, leaving my weekend blog posts floating around until Monday.
:: smashing my favourite mixing bowl on the floor whilst it was full of blueberry and banana muffin mixture.
but loving...
:: the muffins that were made before the big smashing incident.
I have been thinking a lot lately about inspiration and how it can turn up in the the strangest of places. I am so inspired every single day by really ordinary things.
Last night I started cutting fabric for making my very first quilt, and it excited me so much that I actually got butterflies in my tummy! And the fabric is just so inspiring. I hope that when I have finished the quilt it will give me the same feeling every time I snuggle under it, my little girl cuddling tight. (I'll have wip pictures when I have more squares cut.)
Ooh, my new Fiskar's rotary cutter, my moleskine notebook/diary, and the first quilt squares cut.
I am practically giddy about this book, I only have to look at the cover and I smile. And this by Lizette Greco is wonderful. This by A Little Sprout, this by rosaechocolat, and these by Hillary Lang. Not to mention two blogs I have recently come across...
I had an email the other day from a lovely lady who told me that she was so inspired by the work she had seen on my blog that she was going to start stitching again. I was pleased and impressed, but later when I told Tom, his eyes filled with tears. He said that he was so proud of me, and that to inspire someone is the greatest thing in the world. After that, I felt kind of proud too.
Corners of peoples homes are wonderfully inspiring to me too. Work desks, play corners, cosy nooks. The kind of thing you see in Country Living magazine (especially at Christmas time), or on Soulemama's blog. And so I thought that I might share a few of my home corners this week, and I hope that maybe they will inspire someone else.
Home corner number one. The messy work desk...
Moo cards and stickers by Raspberry, my birthday card from last year by Tom :: Bookplates from Kikki K :: A picture of the house I have wanted ever since I was twelve :: Piles of tins for pattern pieces, pins, ribbons, lip salve, and rescue remedy pastilles.
Working on a new Clara and Macy stitchy picture :: Postcard of Lauren Child's self-portrait artwork.
Peebo number two still waiting patiently for his proper photo shoot.
The shelves that Tom made for me last Christmas - housing fabrics, wip's, sketches, toys, general messiness, and hey - the ruler that I have been looking for, for weeks!!
A beautiful birthday portrait of Matilda from her Uncle Ben :: Wooden blocks that I found in a charity shop, and am in the process of repainting :: All sitting on the shelf next to the shelves.
Some of my favourite books currently residing underneath my desk because all of the bookshelves are full.
And that about concludes my little desk tour. I hope that it may have inspired you in some small way - if nothing else given you the inspiration to not have quite such a messy desk as mine!
I want to say a huge thank you to sewmamasew for featuring the birthday crown that I made a couple of months ago (for Matilda's birthday).
Thank you!
And it occurred to me that I never actually showed you lovely folks said birthday crown - oops!
So, voila... Matilda's birthday crown...
I made it using Soulemama's crown pattern in her wonderful book The Creative Family.
And of course, the little missy absolutely loved her crown...
Thank you so much sewmamasew, I have had more readers in the past two days than ever before!! A warm welcome to any new readers, it's lovely to have you here. Feel free to pull up a chair, a blanket, a cup of tea, a chocolate cookie... settle yourself down and have a little read. Welcome x x
