Reasons to be cheerful.

I know it's 10 days later than when I said I'd be back and I haven't finished my bits of Spring crafting yet either! The reason for the absence well although my mum died over 5 years ago I still get a bit down on certain occasions one of them being mother's day, of course. For a week or so beforehand everything becomes a bit of a bother and needs a lot of effort. Anyway it's all done & dusted now and I'm here with a few reasons to be cheerful.

Picnicking on the beach at Crackington Haven on Mothering Sunday.

We even managed to take our coats off as you can see it was a beautiful day here.

Then strolling through Boscastle, one of my favourite places.

Finding an 18 piece teaset of June Rose Pyrex in it's original box. I've been collecting this for a few years so was very excited to find this and made a swift dash across the CS to grab it!

New books.

New old books all 1960's. The Practical Gardening and food production is brilliant and covers absolutely everything, including keeping chickens, which I aim to do very soon.

Some mother's day gifts, the lovely CK lookalike bag from Primark.

A Gisella Graham crochet cake container,

and a lovely bouquet of flowers.

Daffodils and crocuses in the garden.

Some 1970's fabric acquired from MIL.

Lily's Spring bonnet biscuits :)

And finally a sunshine award kindly given to me from Maria at Country Style living blog, if you haven't already do pop over and see her lovely blog and vintage homewares store. I'm useless at passing on awards properly and know many people have this one but if you haven't and would like it you're most welcome. Thankyou Maria.

Now I must go and do some baking as that's another thing I couldn't be bothered to do.

Gorgeous gifts and goodies!

Oh, I love a bit of alliteration!

I finally plucked uo the courage and sent my camper van swap to Clare, Summerfete, on Monday and very excitedely received mine from Clare on Wednesday.

Isn't it wonderful?

Firstly this is what I received from Clare all wrapped up in the beautiful hand embroidered ribbon shown at the top of this post. Now I thought this was machine embroidery it's so neat. Once inside there was a lovely card and this gorgeous canvas, made from wonderful fabrics including a couple of my favourite Cath Kidston prints .

Much to Lily's delight there was also a packet of sweets with her own embroidered name label complete with camper van on the back, it certainly took the pout of her face as she sat there thinking that I had a present and she didn't! She started to jump around shouting it's my present, it's my sweeties. I'm so pleased that Clare was my partner for the swap as not only was it the first blog swap for both of us but she is the sweetest person and has a really delightful blog.

Thanks Clare.

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Now this is what I sent, it took me ages to decide what to make I was going to make a canvas but in the end decided on a little cushion. Clare always has lovely photos of flowers on her blog so I used some vintage flowered fabric, some flower trim and also crocheted some. The St. Ives sign post is because that is where she goes in her real life camper van, which also happens to be orange hence the orange camper key ring.

So now I have to concentrate on Indigo Blue's Christmas decoration swap and say Hi to Monique at thymeandlavenderblogspot.com in the Netherlands, my brain is ticking away! I've also got the shabbychiccafe October swap with a pink theme to do.

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Which brings me to two awards given to me this week one from the lovely Andrea from Indigo bluedesigns.

And the other from the lovely Mary from marypoppins.

I will get back to nominating these awards as soon as poss. Thankyou both of you.

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So now a few random bits firstly I found another shaving mug with roses on for my bathroom, it is so pretty and the photo really does not do it justice.

I've been making cake this time a carrot cake with an orange frosting, I found this recipe on attic24 and it is truly delicious. Along with a sticky lemon cake, which used lemon curd and very tasty too!

We went and collected some conkers and placed them in a bowl to ward off spiders, after reading about it at prettyshabby.blogspot.com So far so good, touching lots of wood here, I don't want to jinx it lol.

My kitchen is finally coming together and I'm starting to unpack some of my bits and pieces but more importantly I have my plate rack up and have threaded some clear fairy lights through it and across the tops of my units.
Here they are without the flash.

And with the flash on.

This is my sneaky way of having fairy lights up all year as my OH says I'm not allowed any more Xmas lights this year but there's always ways around these things lol.

I haven't quite worked out how they're going to stay in place yet at the moment it's taped up but they keep slipping!

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I've spent the morning cutting and machine sewing lots of things from the Tilda Crafting Christmas Gifts so I'll be doing the hand sewing this evening and will hopefully have some pics next week.

Have a good weekend everyone and thanks for all the lovely comments on my last post.

Making the most of Summer's end.

What a fantastic end to September, a little bit of sunshine to make up for the dismal summer we have had.

Until yesterday I don't think we have had any rain for 3 weeks. Of course the trouble is when it's sunny we spend far too much time doing this .....

instead of the million and one things we should be doing like completing the kitchen or moving a mantlepiece so that we can light the fire before it gets too cold. And even completing my camper van swap. I am so bad that I leave things to the last minute, only 3 days left whoops!

But who can blame me when you know that we have probably got endless weekends of rain ahead of us, you've just got to make the most of it haven't you?

One of the beaches we go to quite often is Par Sands, we like to go there because we also get to feed the swans, Canadian geese and the ducks, it's even better at this time of year as the parking is free lol!

Although I haven't finished my camper van swap I have done the shabbychiccafe swaps - 'Autumn' for Vivw.

And 'Green' for Lindens.

I've also been painting lots and have come to the conclusion that I hate painting! I cannot get on with Farrow and Ball, Laura Ashley is better but still not great, I need a hardwearing, non drip paint. However I have just painted a door, which is quite ornate and has 15 glass panes in it. I used Crown flawless powders non drip matt sketch book and I quite like this one, no drips lol.

I've also spent a good hour cleaning my dad's Bush radio that I rescued from his oily garage. It took alot of elbow grease but it looks a darn sight cleaner.

If we don't get the mantelpiece moved soon I'll have to hurry up with the ripple I've now done 66 rows but probably need 3 times that amount.

I'd like to say that my granny square blanket is finished but being impatient I didn't weave in my ends, well I haven't crocheted one of these for 20 odd years so I forgot how tedious it is to weave them all in at the end.

I also must thank the lovely Debbie at debbiesenglishtreasures for this award.

Characteristics for the Smile Award:

1. Must display a cheerful attitude.(not necessarily at all times--we are all human)

2. Must love one another

3. Must make mistakes

4. Must learn from others

5. Must be a positive contributor to blog world

6. Must love life

7. Must love kids{Most of the time}

I'm of to a fabulous book sale on Saturday at St Stephens Church hall where no doubt I will spend too much and come back laden with books that I have no room for. This takes place every month and I have been known to come home with up to 40 books! But they are only 30p each so very hard for a collector of books to resist.

Here's 3 I bought last time along with a teaset as they also have a bric a brac stall so quite good really. :)

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.