A thrifting show & tell.

Yet another rag doll abandoned & saved :)

1958 Singer book, 260 pages covering practically everything.

This is a metal tray with legs. A man selling old tools was using it to carry them on, I asked him if he'd sell it & he let me have it for a £1. It took a lot of elbow grease to clean it up & still has some rust marks but I like it.

I love this large bowl made in Staffordshire.

A friend of mine sold me this cupboard, which is huge & now houses lots of my fabric.

This is a pink Lloyd loom bedside cabinet. Sadly the fabric is quite water marked as you can see, I cleaned the glass but I haven't attempted the fabric yet. I was sold this for £6 as it didn't have a door knob luckily I already had an old china rose one that fit perfectly. The seller gave me the cot decals too.

Very cute book given to someone on Sept 24th 1955.

And finally some more June rose Pyrex to add to my collection, unused too!

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.

Just a load of old jumble!

On Saturday we went to a jumble sale in aid of Shelter Box/ Haiti. As it was for such a good cause I felt I ought to buy a few bits :) A little bit of Kitsch above and something for next Christmas below.

One can never have enough teasets or spare cups and plates!

Now who could resist this little face, I think she's been sat in the sun too long as the front of her dress is so faded, time for a new dress methinks.

An unused piece of aqua Pyrex.

Even though I went to the book sale last week I still had to get this one inscribed 'To Annabel from Daddy & Mummy Xmas 1960'

Some tiny green glass sundae dishes.

And then what I went for 50p's worth of fabric,

and a jumble of lace for 25p

which was indeed a bargain and took quite a while to unravel.

I mustn't forget this, my 16 yr old declares it to be soooo retro! needs a good clean though.

This one didn't come from the sale we found it in a CS just before Christmas, the picture doesn't do it justice but I have been looking for one of these for a long time just need to give the wood a lick of cream paint.

Food Glorious Food.

A bit of a foody post today. Last week I joined in with Marmalade Rose and the other 20 minuters bloggers, the aim being to craft for at least 20 minutes a day for a year. I usually do some sewing or crochet everyday but I wanted to do this so that I'd make things for me or in this week's case for my 3 yr old, hence the felt cakes. These are by no means perfect I just played around with some bits of felt & seed beads but Lily loves them.

I've also completed my first string blocks project and made them into potholders.

I think I've mentioned on here before that I collect cookery books, I now have 1008 thanks to these ones that I bought on Saturday at the 30p book sale. the trouble is I buy them look at them and think oh yes I'll cook that, that and that. Of course you then forget well I'm now making an effort to cook lots of the recipes and have started with The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook.

I'm loving all the things I've made so far from this book, dread to think of the calorific values of the cakes though!

Traditional Brownies.

Oat & Raisin Cookies.

Banana & Chocolate Cupcakes.

Nutty Apple Loaf, which incidentally fell apart, as I took it out of the oven a bit too soon, tasted fine though.

Lemon Loaf.

We have now completed week 5 of the 52 week recipe challenge - cherry and coconut bake.

Just so it's not all about cake I thought I'd add some soup in here :) For a few years now I've grown Jerusalem Artichokes in the back garden, for their height! But I've never cooked with them until last week when I made this soup. I just cooked the peeled and chopped artichokes in some homemade chicken stock for 30 mins, blended then stirred in some cream.

Kinda food related - I was very happy to find these in the charity shop at the weekend, 6 rose Pyrex plates to add to yet another collection.

And another rose jug a twin to one I already have!

I treated myself to these from Lakeland last week, heart shaped silicone cake cases, so cute.

And finally carrying on from my last post, I managed to capture a photo of the the female Blackcap.