Woo hoo! I'm on holiday til September. What's a girl to do with herself until the school holidays? I know, get together with a friend and have a cupcake stand at the local gala day! We have six weeks to go. Lots of planning over cups of tea (there has been much hand flapping) and searching the internet for fabby colouful finds.
We're aiming for full-on old-fashioned village fete style with plenty of bunting, vintage cake stands, flowers in jam jars and of course the most delicious (hopefully), iced cupcakes. There will be a few practice runs before then as my baking and icing skills are decidedly wobbly but hey! how hard can it be?
Here are some we prepared earlier for a recent art exibition opening night. The title of the exhibition was "Time Flies" so we ran with the Mad Hatter's tea party theme...
I love the cake stand my friend Jackie made by gluing some coloured plastic picnic plates and bowls together. So cheaply done and so effective. Genius!
The onus is on fun and an opportunity for us to flex our creative muscles more than make any money from it (although that would be nice!) and I'm having to reign myself in from spending too much upfront. There are so many amazing things out there during what seems to be a cupcake boom right now and I have been getting a little carried away...dreaming that we might progress to this one day..
Think I will have to settle for my garden gazebo for now. But it will be customised - watch this space!
May I express, by the sentiments of a dusty vintage typewriter key, my shame at the lack of posts of late. In my defence, however, I haven't been idle. I have been elbow deep in glue and paint and happily tearing up paper and fabric. My sketchbook is getting plumper by the day. On the page below I was experimenting with oil pastels, torn paper, photos from Country Living and a piece of Vanessa Arbuthnott fabric! Glad to be puting my squirreled away bits and pieces to use at last.
The little one at Clover Yard has been creating too, for Literacy Week. He was to dress up as a favourite story book character and right up to the day before the big event he was intent on being Peter Pan. After a playground conflab with one of his little friends however it was all change and he came home announcing that he was dressing up as "the-farmer-with-the-enormous-turnip". His friend was to be the turnip. (I would love to have been a fly on the bike shed wall during that conversation!)
The sticking, painting and drawing suddenly took on a more feverish pace and we managed to cobble together an outfit with wellies, a check shirt and cloth cap and made a giant seed packet from a manilla envelope (which I was rather proud of!), with little cardboard seeds inside. A trowel fashioned from a kitchen roll holder, rice krispies packet and tin foil finished off the look. Hoorah for home made!! The teacher must have agreed as he came home with 1st prize! {Beam} This, despite the enormous Turnip being off sick. Blight I think.
And then there was Easter. Oh the chocolate. Oh the stomach-aches. Oh the eggy-smelly kitchen for 3 days afterwards. When will we learn?
But of course with Easter, come all the lovely pastel coloured fripperies and flowers.
I've had quite a few rich pickings from the charity shops lately, more of which I'll share in another post. I just love the covers on some vintage books and this one was particularly lovely for my blue shelf.
Happy Springtime to all. It's nice to be back x.
I took the plunge the week before last and decided to go away for a few days to the sunny climes of Lanzarote in an attempt to stave off the usual February blues. This is something I've wanted to do for a couple of years but haven't had the courage. I wanted to go alone - to kind of prove I could still fend for myself, but I won't pretend that I wasn't really really nervous about the whole thing. I needn't have worried though. I was returning to a Villa that I'd been to 8 years ago. It is far away from the usual touristy resorts, extremely peaceful and has the most wonderful Yoga Teacher - Lynne Oliver. Now, I must make it clear that I am in no way a yoga expert - in fact, it had been 8 years since my last session! - but this is the kind of Hatha Yoga that needs no special bendiness and doesn't tolerate any kind of standing on heads and showing off. Which suited me fine as my body certainly wasn't up for any of that milarky! It was wonderful to stretch out and reconnect with my bod that has been swaddled up for the past few months. And so nice to spend the days in bare feet, albeit it did rain for most of the time but at least the temperature was in the low 20's.
I have never been on a winter holiday before and found it quite strange to be suddenly thrown into a landscape of greenery and flowers in bloom. I thought of my garden at home - very much asleep and lacking in colour. It did give me hope however, and belief that life will move on - I usually have lost faith by this time of the year and feel as if winter will last forever - like in Narnia.
I'm a bit of a nosey parker abroad - always trying to peek through windows - to see how the local people live. This newly built row of houses was definitely inspired by Gaudi. Aren't they fab - wish I could have seen inside.
I'm definitely glad I did it, however I have realised that, pardon the cliche, there is no place like home. There's nothing like going away for a few days to really appreciate your own wee nest and your loved ones...
but allowing yourself a different view now and then doesn't half make you feel alive!
Welcome to my first entry in a new category - Creative Heroes. Today I have stumbled upon the work of Ed Kluz who is currently exhibiting at St. Judes Gallery in Norfolk.
This beautiful piece of art titled "Felbrigg Hall" caught my eye for its rich jewel colours and texture and the way he has used images of branches to frame the picture really draws the eye in to focus on the building.
Ed uses a mixture of paper collage and paint in his work as well as some of the old mediums used by Renaissance painters. Being a big fan of pictures that tell a story, Ed's work really appeals to me in that he is giving these ancient, often decaying buildings a sense of permanence among his leafy borders.
In his own words: “I am fascinated by the past. Our architectural heritage is a huge source of inspiration for me. The great edifices of the realm, past and present, have always conveyed a sense of power, which fails to dwindle with the passing centuries. Even the overgrown foundations of a long demolished country house hold a melancholic power as does the shattered body of a great abbey.”
Visit St Judes for more information.
Walking at the Nature Reserve at St Cyrus yesterday I stopped to watch this field of barley swaying in the breeze. I was completely mesmerised by it. The fields all over Angus have turned honey gold and on a large scale it is quite spectacular when the wind ripples through them. If I was a farmer, I'd probably be leaning on the fence chewing a bit of barley and muttering "Aye, it's a rare crop this year".
This morning, I took the "long back road" home and for a split second, drove alongside a little Roe Deer. I slowed down so as not to frighten it as it turned into a field. I stopped the car and turned off the engine. Too special a moment to have lost frantically reaching for the camera, we both just stared at one another for what felt like an eternity.
All part of my campaign to slow down and appreciate the small things.
Today I am celebrating the humble washing line. It's my garden's best feature, when flapping with dish towels and pillowcases. It's the one thing that made me feel that we'd bought a home rather than just a house. We had a washing line - we'd finally made it. It's educational too. My little boy has learned a lot about colours as he passes the bright pegs up to me.
I have no specific technique, other than I must flap the wet clothes about three times before pegging them and I can't resist burying my face in the sheets to inhale that amazing fresh sweet smell when they're dry. You just don't get that from the tumble drier.
I wonder if it's one of those things that we used to watch our mothers or grandmothers do from a very early age and is just, well, comforting?
Our washing line on holiday at Cromarty.
How exciting to have discovered a new shop that sells hand crafted items within a 15 mile radius of home. I love where I live, however I have become frustrated with most of the local gift shops which sell the same old tartan tat (gosh that sounds harsh). So I was most impressed when I stepped in to the Starfish Studio recently opened in Johnshaven - a little fishing village nearby. Here, the lovely owner is celebrating all the great talent available on our doorstep, but being choosy about it to create the kind of shopping experience I know anyone reading this will appreciate!
After the owner settled my little boy with a jigsaw and a pile of books (nice touch) at a very smart yellow bistro table (she bought from Marks and Spencer), I got down to the business of doing about 8 laps of the shop - a little shopping quirk I have perfected that frustrates my husband but is completely necessary so as not to miss anything, you understand.
I finally settled on this sweet little strawberry keyring as a treat for myself and it is now swinging merrily from the back door. I have squirreled away a few other bits which I won't reveal as they are pressies. The keyring is by The Apple Cottage Company and I was delighted to hear they are based in Johnshaven itself. They have featured in Country Living magazine and have some beautiful things for sale on their website.
Around the corner from the studio I wished I was dangling the keys for this...
On one hand it is sad to see so many holiday homes going up for sale in these small communities but it's also an opportunity to attract more permanent residents - maybe young families that will keep the schools going. Up until now these types of properties were like gold dust with prices to match.
Back home, I noticed that there is a bit of a strawberry theme going on in the Clover Yard House.
Good old British Home Stores has a lovely vintage inspired range at the moment, including these sweet plastic tumblers, perfect for little hands. I suppose I should confess to the picnic hamper bought at BHS too - a complete bargain I thought at £25 and soooo Cath. My one is a 2 person set but I've just gone on to their website and you can get the 4 person hamper for £35!!! AND, you also get it with a strawberry patterened liner!
A tin sign picked up at Matalan earlier this week. Perhaps I will get round to growing some of my own next year.
I snapped this tea cosy at St Andrews at the Alanhill Fruit Farm who also do fabby jam with Cath Kidston covers on.
The cosy wasn't for sale but I have found one on Folksy along with a few other juicy strawberry goodies.
Bon apetit! x
I am Mum to one little boy, a part-time florist and nest fluffer-upper.
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