Spring is here :)

On Sunday I was at The Dairy House for the 2nd Vintage Textile Fair. There were lots of guest stalls outside full of gorgeous vintage textile related goodies and inside was packed full of beautiful antiques, clothing and furniture. There has been a major reshuffle inside and Sue from Vintage to Victorian has got even more drawers to rummage through full of buttons and vintage fabrics.

We were very lucky with the weather, I managed to sit in the sun most of the day (inbetween serving customers of course) Above is Justines stall from Pink Milk on Etsy , she uses a lot of Fabrics from The Dairy House in the making of her gorgeous cushions.
Yesterday Arthur and I went with a friend and her son to Brokers Wood near Westbury and had a fab day out. A picninc by the lake and a wander through the woods, where all the flowers are about to come out.




We have been so lucky with the beautiful sunny weather and I am lucky that I have been able to take advantage of it. We even had our first barbeque with a nice glass of Pimms. Perfect :)

How to Marble Paper

Gather together a deep dish that paper will fit into laying flat, or cut paper to fit. Lots of different things for making the swirls, we had cocktail sticks,chop stick, whisk, crochet hook, pencil plastic fork and the best one the barbeque fork.
Fill the dish with water.

Then add some drops of colour (first shaking the jars of colour to make sure they are well mixed.)
make some swirls by dragging the cocktail stick gently along the surface of the water. (we found there was only a minute or so to do this before it started setting.)
Grab anything to hand to experiment with different swirls and patterns ;) Then you lay the paper gently on the surface and lift it up, all the oil paint will have stuck to it. we found thicker paper worked best. there is a little residue left which if you lay thin paper down on and lift it up as above, you will have clean water to start again.
Then all that remains is to clear up the colourful mess.
We were very pleased with how the paper turned out and started experimenting with other things. The Jam jars would make good night lights with a candle in, and I'll probably wrap some wool or ribbons around the top.

Summer is...

Collecting Potatoes we've grown in the garden, Arthur was so excited we had to cook them immediately.
Jumping waves. we went down to Poole on Monday afternoon for a picnic lunch by the sea, a really special afternoon :)
Watching Balloons pass by on a summer evening..

Setting up a carboot stall in the sun, Arthur did his while I set mine up with a lot of shop stuff I no longer wanted, we both did really well. There was not much vintage bits around I only bought a few buttons..which meant I just brought home some money for a change!
I hope you've all been enjoying the gorgeous sunshine too :)

My blog has got very colourful which I like, but would like the background to be more transparent (I have pressed the transparent button but it does not seem to work) If any one knows how to do this or put solid colour behind the links please let me know. Thanks x

Spring Greens

We have had a lovely bank Holiday Monday, doing odd jobs around the house and the garden, me and the boys had nettle soup for lunch, made with nettles, potatoes,onion lovage, rosemary and oregana yum. Tony was not convinced that it would be delicious and stuck to bread and pate.
It was so nice to have lunch together, the boys are rarely around over the weekends now. We all went for a walk around our local woods after lunch.
They all have a bit of a competitive streak..as you can see from the top pic, I was taking a picture of Arthur and Harry, but the others wanted to see if they could jump higher Lol :)

Lots of chatting on the way (inbetween the jumping and climbing).
The colours of spring are fantastic, the vibrant greens of the new leaves against the blue sky..
The fields are full of dandelions and daisys, the wild garlic is all along the hedgerows and ready to flower.
The blue bells are just starting to come out. I will have to go back next week to see how the colours have changed.
How high can Arthur be lifted! and for how long? Harry ran up the hill carrying Arthur building up his muscles ready for the army.





Arthur is so going to miss his big brothers soooo much.
I am desperate to capture every moment of these last few months of us all being together.
More competitions in jumping, Arthur wanted to do it all by himself..and also refused to hold my hand on the walk.




More pictures of the beautiful spring flowers, happy colours :)

I have also been making a lot, inspired by Arthurs beading above where he used everything to hand regardless of shape or colour. I have made some allsorts bracelets, I loved the way the buttons were bunched together, I have not been able up to now to find a use for the shank buttons.
I have also made another scumble cushion, I am trying to get a collection together to get into Galleries. I have added buttons to this one.


I had a great day last Monday taking pictures of the new bracelets for my website, the bracelet above is made using recycled jewellery and wooden beads.
I hope you all had a good Bank holiday weekend. x

For the love of flowers..

The other day I met up with two of my close friends who I have not seen for sooo long. Lotte and Barbara used to work with me in my shop in Warminster, for 3 years. We had some great times :)  Everyone used to think Barbara was my mum! She is a very trendy dresser and used to wear all the clothes from the shop ( which were quite hippy and glitzy) and she always looked  amazing.  Lotte worked on Saturdays while she was doing A levels, I was pleased to hear she is off to Falmouth to study Contemporary Crafts, so she will soon be outshining my work!!

We went for Tea and yummy cake at Pythouse a lovely cafe with a walled PYO garden. We thought we'd go and pick some raspberries, and filled up our little basket only to find we'd picked logan berries instead doh! So then we filled up another basket with raspberries.
Lotte left us after lunch and I decided to take Barabara to Flowers Of Hatch just around the corner from Pythouse, a large field full of flowers with an amazing view over the countryside..a great 'escape' place.  Arthur went straight off with his scissors and bucket, he did like chopping the heads off the flowers so I had to keep an eye on him. We put the heads in a bowl and around Barbara's garden when we got back, so they were put to good use:)
I love the colours of the flowers, it's been ages since I did any paintings of flowers, due to lack of time , so it is great to be able to take lovely photographs :)
Echinacea's are one of my favorite flowers not only to they look gorgeous but they are used to keep colds away..handy at the moment :)

Gorgeous daisies and cornflowers, to remind us its summer..
and my lovely bucket of flowers I took home.
Barbara loves to see Arthur..she is his adopted granny ! They chatter for hours!

Barb was very happy with her flowers :) We also went home via the Dairy House as Barbara had never been there, Arthur enjoyed showing her every floor and all the little rooms full of yummy antiques, it was very difficult for me to go further than inside the door as thats where all the lovely fabric and buttons are kept ;) A fab day and I hope to meet up with the girls again soon, I have been so busy I hadn't realised how much I missed them.

Happy Day!!

I had a lovely day off on Monday, we decided to go to Lyme Regis whatever the weather. It was very grey when we left and even when we got there, but first stop was our favorite cafe for lunch so it didn't matter that it was raining.

This is the Bakers at Lyme Regis.  They have long tables and benches, I remember taking Arthur when he just started to walk and he just went up and down the benches holding onto them...now look at him. Straight in there with his apple juice. They have big jugs of milk, butter and jam out on the tables and you just go up and help yourselves and tell them what you've had at the end. 
We sit down and just feel ourselves relaxing, the food is always delicious. 

When we got to the beach, the clouds stayed behind us and we had blue sky for four hours..bliss
Not sure who was enjoying making sandcastles most ?

Arthur bought his big hat at Lyme Regis when we were on holiday earlier in the year and has not taken it off!

A beautiful day, I also knitted all the way down and back so have a few mobile phone socks to finish now :)