Celebrate!

It's been nearly two weeks since I came off on holiday for Easter. Where has the time gone? I haven't really done much; I've just lazed around, crafted a bit, went out for lunch a few times with my mum or Paul.  Oh! And I also celebrated my birthday on Good Friday. We (Paul and I) thought my gifts should be practical this year; bits for the garden and as I'm in the process of re-organising my craft room, some pieces for that too. Paul bought me one of the cool frogs in a half tree yoga pose. I've had my eye on one of these for a long time, the one in the photo is the biggest one. I think there's two other poses in the range.  Paul also found some cool wicker baskets to go on my new shelves; they are a good size, sturdy and deep, so I think they will be great for storing fabric or wool. I also received a quirky little gift, a Tina Belcher keyring (Bob's Burgers) and some tasty Lindt Orange Chocolates; I've been craving another box of these since Christmas time (I think it really shows willpower that I've held out until April). Lol!

New subscription came this month in the form of a medium sewing box kit by Sew Hayley Jane . The theme for this month was France. I have to say I'm very impressed by the goodies; it includes: 2.5 metres of dressmaking fabric a floral georgette,  4 fat quarters and a selection of haberdashery items and sewing gifts. I also received new sewing machine needles size 70/100, 4 covered buttons, 1 metre of spaghetti cord by Frou Frou, a matching reel of Gutermann thread and two lollipops. Not quite sure what I'm going to make with the georgette, I may leave the box until my summer holidays (only 10 weeks away, not that I'm counting down or anything). That way I'm not rushing into things and I've got plenty of time to find a pattern. The fat quarters, I may use one for a crochet hook case and save the others for another project.

All in all it's been a good month. I've finally caught up with my Scheepjes Hygge Cal shawls,  after crushing my fingers in my garden door and I've made a respectable start on my little garden too.

Until next time, take care and be good to yourself.

xoxoxo

How I Made Easter Special

Usually, my perfectionist's head kicks in, and I find myself planning special holidays like Christmas and Easter down to a fine line.  This year for Easter there was no rushing about, no organising (well, other than the food shop for Sunday Easter lunch) I just relaxed, I didn't make any plans and I went with the flow.  It felt odd, but when you organise and work with little one's every day in an education setting sometimes it's okay to take a step back and breath...right?

So, where did this take me?  Well, I woke up at the crack of dawn (so much for a long lie, my body clock had other ideas) on Friday morning did a bit of cleaning and tidying and then I declared to my other half that I wanted my portapuzzle case brought down from the loft. Don't ask me why I suddenly wanted this, I was into jigsaws in a big way about four years ago, but this request just came out of the blue. I then went out to potter about in the garden while Paul took to the loft.  This is really the first time I've been out in my garden this year and boy, it's been hit very hard by the lousy weather; high winds and thrashing rain, the garden wall has no rough casting left as most of it is lying on the ground, and quite a few of the plants are gone (died off) or are in need of some serious TLC, sigh!  Four hours later my garden started to look a little more respectable; no rough casting on the ground, plants pruned, fed and watered and wall assessed for repair. I then headed back into the house and found Paul had located my puzzle case from the loft but there was no jigsaw box. On opening the case I found 450 pieces (I counted them) of a 1000 piece puzzle. Yip! You guessed it the other 550 pieces are still in the loft and Paul won't go back up for them.

By Saturday, I had forgotten all about the jigsaw and spent a wonderful day with my mum. We went for lunch and I presented her with an Easter pamper gift and then we had a wander round the shops. We got caught being silly by two male members of staff in our local craft shop (I'm sitting chuckling to myself as I write this post). My mum and I were caught making faces at each other through a large crafting magnifying glass, you know, big eyes and lips (easily amused) We were so embarrassed that we slunk down an aisle sniggering and nudging each other like little school girls, with my mum declaring that I'm a bad influence. Eh! What! You're the adult, I'm the kid, it had nothing to do with me. All joking aside, I think my mum was quite impressed that I didn't buy anything from Hobbycraft , I usually come away with a piece of stationary, a sewing or knitting item. In fact, looking back I didn't spend any money that day as I bought my makeup treats through my Boots points card and Paul's Easter Egg using a voucher (I was very thrifty).

I'm sad to say my thriftiness didn't last, though, as yesterday (Easter Sunday) I decided to have a browse on Amazon (always lethal) whilst watching King of Kings and eating an Easter Egg.  I ended up buying not one but three books.  I've been having withdrawal symptoms after finishing all my Mark Haddon novels and I've been eager to find an author with a similar writing style. I found the Alan Bradley series of books through Good Reads.  I must have been destined to buy the authors books as on picking up the first novel and turning the pages to read, I was faced with this:

 My Christian name printed on the second page.  Now I know this read is going to be awesome.

Happy Easter holidays everyone

xoxoxo

(This post is dedicated to my beautiful orange boy 'Cheivo' who we lost on this day two years ago)

Forever in my heart

little man xx

Spring time is here

I do love this time of year, after months of cold and darkness everything feels new and bright again. Lambs are jumping in the fields and calves are taking their first wobbly steps outdoors.
The weather here in Scotland has been quite warm and a refreshing change from the rain and snow we were experiencing at the end of last week.  It seems with the sun making an appearance that my little garden has started to bloom too. Most of the plants in bloom have either regenerated from last year or have grown from bulbs that I planted in Autumn. Most of this good gardening work has come from watching and taking advice from Monty Don on Gardeners World. A programme that I watched religiously last year and one that I need to catch up on over the Easter holidays. I can see a few visits to my local garden centre coming up soon.