Happy Birthday Jemma and a wonderful swap!

It's my eldest daughter's birthday today. She doesn't like having her photo taken, so I sneaked some from her networking site, just to embarass her. That's what mums are for isn't it?

First a bit of info about her, Jemma is very clever, she qualified as an accountant 2 years ago at the age of 20 and is about to embark on a course to become chartered, which she will do at the same time as working full time!

She also now has her own apartment that she shares with her boyfriend, so is learning how to cook after having me wait on her for 21 years! She's being very good though and cooking most things from scratch. Today she has a day off and has been to the hairdresser this morning, she enjoys having her hair done and has modelled for her hairdresser at hair shows in Weston Super Mare hence the amazing hair-do in the photo! Enjoy your day Jemma and don't eat too much cake or drink too much tonight lol.

I made these cards yesterday and was hunting high and low for my quilling paper, so I thought I ought to tidy my scrapbook and card making stash. Far too much stuff so I'm putting these pictures on here to remind myself that I definately do not need anymore. The trouble is this is only some of the craft stuff I have, this doesn't include beads, buttons, fabric, papers etc....

The need to buy these things has to stop as I still haven't found my quilling paper!

I was so excited this morning to receive my Shabby chic cafe August swap from Angel the theme was 'green' interpreted as you wanted.

Well everything was so lovely and I was totally spoiled there was a gorgeous floral tablecloth, a picnic rug, a box of perfumed white roses and a soapstone set.

Also a beautiful enamel Home sweet home sign and a wonderful country flowers photo album and an organza ribbon bag that folds out into sachets. Oh and also a packet of sweets which Lily very quickly found and declared it her present, the poor mite was feeling sorry for herself earlier as it wasn't her birthday lol. Thankyou so much Angel, you definately live up to your name!

I feel so lucky as I also won a giveaway from Angel which was this really sweet strawberry tray and cup.

Some more pics and thrift.

A few more pics this time of Paignton and Torquay just to prove it was sunny for a change lol.

Paignton beach and pier.

A serious looking Lily with a giraffe in the background.

The only giraffe left at the zoo now after a fire in the enclosure in February 2006 when a one week old baby giraffe and it's mother died.

Watching the elephant.

A very inquisitive or greedy goat!

Torquay

A human statue in Torquay. This was a first for me!

Fountain in Torquay.

Torquay beach

And some more goodies found in Paignton: glass candlesticks, jelly mould.

Some Pyrex - 6 rose bowls and my first piece of black snowflake.

A floral tray, white rose patterned bowl, floral wee willie winkie candleholder.

Being a Judy Garland fan I couldn't resist buying Lily these 'Dorothy' shoes, even though she didn't need any new ones. Not the best photo, they are very sparkly but it's quite hard to get a 2 year old to keep her feet still especially when she has 'dancing' shoes on lol!

Follow the yellow brick road ................

Today I've done a little baking, chewy double chocolate cookies, what can I say .......

Yum!

I'm back with an award and a ripple!

I'm back!

I've spent the last week on the English Riveria. It was the first time that I've been to that part of Devon, apart from day trips to Paignton zoo. We didn't want to go far this year as we have a new caravan and we weren't sure how our car would cope with towing it. It was raining when we left home and for most of the 2 hour journey, we pulled into the campsite at Brixham and the sun shone and apart from the odd shower it was lovely.
Brixham

My daughter thought the houses looked like they were from the childrens' programme Balamory.

Sunset Brixham marina.

There was a small beach near the campsite I think it was called West Bay, this was a short walk but many steps down, wasn't quite a short walk back though uphill all the way!!

That was the first day, I'll be back with the rest of the photos in the next few days as quite a bit of thrift shopping was partaken lol.

For now here's one I couldn't resist as daughter number 2 is called Tara and this is a Royal Tara teaset or what's left of it!

And I came back to an award from the lovely Angel of shabby angel.

Thankyou Angel.

As this is a creative award I better add this pic of another ripple blanket that I started in the car, no I wasn't driving at the time!

And also on the subject of being creative, how about joining jellybelly jellybrain's camper van swap.

go on you know you want too!! See side bar link.

Christmas ramblings ......

As Lola would say 'Christmas is my absolute favourite and my best' So I was so excited to receive these 2 new craft books. I already have the other Tilda books 'Crafting Springtime Gifts', 'Crafting Christmas Gifts' and 'Sew Pretty Homestyle' and I adore these books. So I pre ordered 'Sew Pretty Christmas Homestyle' and waited and waited, well it's here and it is fantastic and I want to make everything in there! Creating Your Perfect Christmas' also has some lovely things to make, the trouble is there are only 129 days 17 hours and 56 minutes left, not that I'm counting of course!!

Added to this my favourite catalogue dropped through the letterbox yesterday, I then spent an hour oohing and arrhing and wanting to spend a fortune. I do love the Tomtes and already have a shelf full of them out at christmas!

I found a very easy soap recipe on Monday and thought I'd give it a try, maybe make some soaps for Christmas presents. Do not laugh! this was a trial run, I wanted them to be small so we could use them and I could only find a shallow container as half my kitchen is still packed away due to renovations. Anyway this recipe uses lux flakes, milk and milk powder and I added lavender essential oil and some oats, then just studded them with lavender flowers. They are now drying for a week but it seems okay so I'll have to get some moulds (just seen some in the Panduro catalogue) and do some more.

I think it has rained nearly all week so Lily is getting very board! Yesterday she played buttons, she loves this game it involves getting one of my tins of buttons emptying them into a basket and just picking them up saying 'ooh, look mummy a pretty one' obviously she has my genes!

She has also learnt how to make a sandwich, this occured because she doesn't particularly like sandwiches but life would be so much easier for me if she would eat them. So I thought I'd get her to make her own, with a little help from me as she is only 2!

First she buttered the bread, quite difficult as it was homemade and rather crumbling!

Then she added some grated cheese and ham.

Then she ate it, and probably wondered why mummy was taking all these photos!

Result!

Showery Mevagissey, a ripple and soaps...

We went to Mevagissey on Sunday just to get out of the house for a while, after all the rain. In the morning we had seen a glimmer of hope in the blue sky.

We were only there for about 5 minutes when the heavens opened. Luckily Lily had a raincoat, which is more than can be said for me and OH! So I quickly ran in a shop for a very bright rainbow umbrella!

Even though it rained, very heavy showers at times, it didn't alter the fact that Mevagissey is such a lovely place to be. If you ever go it's well worth taking a peek in the little aquarium, free entry but donations taken. Lily loved seeing the crabs and the sea bass, which she thought were sharks!

OH bought me this gorgeous chicken last week and I forgot to blog about it, so here it is.

I thought I'd just show some of the lovely soaps that my daughters friend's mum makes to sell. I bought these last week a slice of banoffee pie, a trifle, a lavender one with sprigs of lavender on top and one with a dried rose on top, aren't they sweet!

I've seen quite a lot of ripple crochet on blogs recently and having never tried this before I thought I'd give it a go. Well it took ages to actually find a pattern, then I wasn't too sure about it, so I thought I'd just do a small piece to perhaps make into a cushion. Silly me, I really love it and I so wish I'd started a big blanket but I can't stop now.