Summer with Friends

Friends a walk/exploration of Irchester Country Park is just what was called for on this super sunny day
Picnics are always a must

 The carvings are always great here

 I lost count of how many of these we saw - super pretty

 The big kids are getting too big for the dino eggs!

 Loving the shadows we saw, these were my favourite

 One day gone, just the rest of the summer holidays to fill!!!

Its a baking kind of day!

Victoria Sponge with fresh raspberries and cream cheese frosting

Chocolate Sponge with chocolate frosting and liquid chocolate poured over!

 These were for a friend as I'm on Slimming World and am currently trying my best to be good!

Deco Terracotta Pots

I had a small amount of woodland themed decopatch paper left so I cleaned off a terracotta pot and set to work

I love how its turned out

Great for displaying crochet hair clips in

oh what to decopatch next!

Pierrot Mirror

My room in the 80s was covered in the pierrot doll! from wallpaper to bed linen to lampshades to porcelain dolls everywhere! (I was a lot younger then I'd like to add!!! lol)

I purchased a cabinet off a friend, it needed a good clean and tidy up first
When I took the door off to get ready to paint it I really liked the cabinet, it was perfect for storage on my craft table so I decided to keep it (more on that another time)
I cleaned the mirror, painted the frame in Craig and Rose 'oriental red', distressed and waxed it too

She'll be up for sale at one of my future vintage stalls

My Little Vintage - Bosworths Garden Centre

Libby and myself set ourselves up for another day of selling goods at a My Little Vintage Event, this time at Bosworths Garden Centre, so it was undercover and great as I love this place anyway as its very very local to both of us
Libby and I love sharing a stall this time was especially a squeeze but we think we made it work

This time I set up with my printers tray full of vintage haberdashery, a crafts destash basket, mini crochet garlands, aprons and a few items of furniture I'm decluttering too

I'd busily made crochet garlands and they were a big hit with the customers

The pooch attempted to help me but he got exhausted!

The vintage haberdashery was loved too

The night before the event I realised that I didnt have any business cards so I made up these ones, I wont say quickly as they took an age! hand drawn, wrote and cut out! but worth it as I like them alot :)

All in all we had a fantastic day

A big thank you to Julia from My Little Vintage for organising another fabulous event

The most heart wrenching decision

i've ever had to make!
Due to reasons with this that and the other, I have made the heart wrenching decision to close my shop The Gift Box
Im heartbroken, but financially it just wasnt working, more and more of my time was taken up with it, not only in the shop itself but in personal life at home, I knew it wasnt going to be easy running an independant shop alone, I wasnt blind but the time has now come to say goodbye
and it hurts ALOT

I cannot apologise enough to sellers and customers who loved to visit, as I said it was one of the hardest decisions i've ever had to make
The last shopping day is going to be Friday 1st August

I am going to continue on in the unit as my own studio and will in time sell my own makes from within it, but for now I'm going to enjoy my last couple of weeks selling artisans wares, then sorting out the final details and shutting up the shop door for a well earned family holiday

Sunday Smiles

Due to having one of the cutest dogs around living in our household, our pooch Wicket the Shih Tzu, I thought i'd share some gorgeous artwork that I've been collecting and pinning on my pinterest board here

found here

 no link :(

 found here

 found here

 and of course our gorgeous baby ~Wicket~

Muddy Boots...

We've managed to transform our garden space by digging up an area that was neither here nor there and after lots of preparation adding some new lawn to it
A few weeks of watering has gone by and the lawn has took really well

So we set aside a whole day of doing as much as we could whilst the sun was shining
We had odd gravel areas which we've dug up and are going to plant herbs and lavender in as they will look a lot more inviting than a gravel bed

Whilst we busily worked away the moggies snoozed under the hydrangea grabbing some shade whilst they could

Our garden space is really quite huge! so we're working on it in sections, over time the amount of work we've done to try to make it into a more family useable garden is finally starting to show
Before -
We dug the border in the front you can see as they were mainly over run roses and weeds

 

 All of this middle border came out

by adding new lawn its made the garden feel so much bigger! the middle border that we dug out was just by the climbing frame! so you can see how much extra space its given us
you can see the two areas i've dug out as well (they were the gravel spots!) so they will be planted really soon

Alot done but still so much more to do, I have to say though its lovely looking out the window at all the space now

The Journey of an Altered Box!

I joined a facebook group to alter a box and pass around between 6 of us
I was really stuck as to what to do, my first box went missing :( so to be honest my second box wasnt as well thought out
I went with the idea of crafts, and themed it with the question what do you love and what craft would you want to learn new?

After a few months of round robin all the boxes are now back home
Heres the finished boxes, the top one is mine

I really enjoyed creating my part of each box but it really showed me also that I just dont have as much free time as I use to have to just create for the pleasure of it
This I need to rectify as soon as...

A fishing we will go!

We've started a new family tradition of fishing!
Jacks wanted to do this for ages so we went on a free 'get hooked' day at Barnwell Country Park in Oundle
Much fun was had, me and little one went off for a walk around (he cant sit still for that long) and play whilst the others fished for a while

 Things learnt from this experience
* suitable footwear is a must!
* Jack loved it! totally loved it and cannot wait to go again
* Riley thought it was okay! but preferred running around
* Take a flask the price of tea is ridiculous!

We'll be back there again in the summer holidays...

Remembering

Three years ago today I held my friends hand as she passed on and left us all behind
It was heart wrenching, she was a mother of two young children and so unfair as she had so much life left in her
It still hurts just as much, I still ache at not been able to catch up over a coffee and go on a fun road trip whilst the kiddies are at school

I hope she knows I miss her, I hope she knows I still care

I have this beautiful quote written on a wooden heart hanging proudly in my home
This print is available from here

All the fun of the fair

The fair came to town so we popped along to see all the bright colours hear the loud music and have some fun

I used the A beautiful mess app on my iphone to edit my pictures you can find it here if you dont already have it