Magpie Monday - Nice Jug :)

I found this lovely jug in the Newent Association for the Disabled charity shop in Newent, Glos, and just had o share it with you. It cost me a whole £1! (Yes, I am feeling a bit smug...) The glaze is a bit crackled but there are no chips or cracks in the jug itself.

I love the clean simple lines of this gorgeous jug and I can't wait to fill it with some homemade lemonade in the summer although I reckon it would look fab filled with flowers from the garden too.

Click on the button below to check out some other lovely finds...



Reuse, reclaim, recycle...

Silent Sunday

The Gallery - Hair! (Oh Yeah Baby!)

Hair - one thing I know a fair amount about, having been blessed (cursed?) with a abundance of thick, strong, uber fast growing locks. With a total will of their own...

My hair has been long, short, curly, poker straight, crimped, backcombed, dyed, henna-ed, plaited, wrapped and in one extreme experiment of sustainable 'natural' living, unwashed for the best part of three years! Ok, stop shuddering at the back there, it really wasn't as bad as it sounds!

I can't remember where the idea originated but I was about 18, I had just finished my YTS (yikes showing my age there just a tad...) placement at a solictors office and had decided that I'd had enough of being 'normal' and wanted to break free...
Enlisting the help of a good friend, several reels of different coloured cottons, lots of good vibes and a couple of bottles of cheap plonk we set about weaving my long hair into teeny tiny plaits, sewing the ends with different colours. It took a whole day and most of the evening, and probably a couple more trips to the offy but once it was done I was thrilled! I was also unable to properly wash my hair till I took the plaits out again about 3 months later.
Ok, so it itched like mad after about a week and I did rinse it in warm water with patchouli oil (well, this was my hippy phase after all...) to stop it smelling too bad. But no chemicals came anywhere near it and when I took the plaits out, despite looking like Crystal Tips, it felt fantastic!

The plaits were a recurring theme for the next year or so, as was the 'no shampoo' rule, before I got a bit lazy (or just more hardcore) and they became fabulous funky dreds complete with wool wrapped bits, bright red hair extensions from Camden Market woven in together with beads, gradually matting together in one glorious mass... When I was shaking my thang I had a clear 2 foot circle around me, no-one dared get close in case they lost an eye when I flicked my head :)

Then I got a job. In a chippy. The dreds had to go (darn health and safety). I cried a bit before having the whole lot chopped off to a 2 inch crop then quite enjoyed having friends I'd known for years walk straight past me coz they didn't recognise me...
Sadly, after all the years of mad hair experimentaton there are only a tiny handful of photos, mainly coz I was the one behind the camera most of the time, rather than in front of it. This one is cropped from a promotional shot from my band days and the only real pictorial evidence I have that the dreds ever existed...

'I have never let schooling interfere with my education...'

Here's a little something I have just discovered - a fabulous blog Sticky Fingers and an even more fabulous idea - The Gallery . The originator of this idea, curator of the Gallery if you like, is Tara Cain and her aim is to encourage and inspire fellow bloggers to take a fresh look at their photos and share them in the virtual Gallery. Every week she provides a prompt - a word or phrase - for inspiration. It's then up to us to either blog an old photo or take a new one and add our post to the ever growing blog roll (last week's Gallery blog roll featured 142 entries!).

This is such a wonderful idea and I have really enjoyed checking out some of the amazing pictures and the stories behind them, I found myself itching to join in so here is my first gallery entry on the subject of 'Education' 



Just starting out...

 I am a firm believer that education begins at home. Right from the start we read stories to Riley and as soon as he was old enough to sit up and reach for his toys books were clearly his favourite thing. I hope he grows to love reading as much as his daddy and I do. He is nearly three now and has recently learned his alphabet. He loves stopping at street signs and pointing out the letters or parked cars to read out the registration plates!

But educating a child is about more than knowing your 'ABC'. It's about giving them a wealth of experiences to learn from - walks in the park to feed the ducks, baking cookies together, making music with saucepans and wooden spoons, getting messy in the garden - all these things are part of his learning process as he explores the world in which he lives and finds his own way through life...

Yes, formal education of some kind is important but we learn so much more by jumping in with both feet and just being!

The quote I have used as the title is Mark Twain, by the way. Just in case you were wondering... :)

The Stitch and Creative Crafts Show (aka the ultimate stash boosting shopping experience)

Imagine all your favourite craft suppliers (and many you may not have met yet) all under one roof, add some demos and workshops and throw in lots of lovely, like-minded people and what do you have? The Stitch and Creative Craft Show ! This is the third year I have attended and the change of venue from Cheltenham Racecourse to the Three Counties Showground, Malvern last year was a definite improvement with much more room for exhibitors and visitors alike.

First stop was the The Southampton Bead Shop where Alys got stuck in selecting beads for her new jewellery designs.

I wasn't supposed to be shopping for beads - I have a very respectable bead stash left over from my jewellery making days - but the magpie in me just could not ignore the strings of beautiful faceted crystal beads hanging across the back of their stand. They are sooooo pretty... some of them just had to come home with me :)

 
 
 

                          One stall caught my eye - a table full of hats and fascinators.

These all came from Janie Lashford's School of Millinery - an impressive array of pillboxes, mini top hats, fascinators and headbands. Situated near Evesham, The Millinery School runs 1,2,3 and 4 day courses covering all aspects of hat making for beginners and experienced milliners alike. Janie also teaches at City and Guilds level for those who are seriously interested in millinery as a career path.

It's something I would love to have a go at.

Maybe one day...

 

More lovely things just across the way at Debonnaire Gorgeous artisan yarns in different weights including fabulous multi coloured sock yarns and hanks of super-soft lace weight yarn that I could just imagine knitted up into a beautiful vintage style shawl...

 

Lush Lampwork had some absolutely gorgeous lampwork beads, pendants and buttons and also runs workshops from her Malvern studio.

oooops...more beads...

 

And finally, Japan is in everyone's thoughts today as we watch in horror as the tragedy Mother Nature has unleashed unfurls before our eyes thanks to 24hour news streaming.  One stall we visited Festival of Japan was showcasing a selection of traditional Japanese crafts and had a beautiful selection of Japanese Kimono silk fabric pieces and traditional folding papers available to buy. We were taken by the fabric origami boxes and bought a kit to have a go. The lady running the show, Jill, is clearly very passionate about all things Japanese and is a frequent visitor.
 I hope that her friends over there are safe and that her next visit is not  marred by sadness...

Dear Winter, Enough already!

Is it just me that is getting tired of the cold, grey, dreary weather? No I thought not...

I know, I know it's February, it's what the weather does in February (at least we go the snow all over and done earlier this winter!) but I HATE being cooped up indoors and so does Riley. He is a little braver than I, donning wellies and raincoat to go out and jump in 'Big Muddy Puddles' but he rarely lasts more than 15 minutes before coming back in for a hot chocolate and a 'bitbit'! 

Sadly our back garden is a: tiny, b: on a slope and c: northwest facing. What this means is that it gets no sunshine for the best part of four months over winter so it becomes a soggy, slippery mess, with the far end becoming almost 'bog' like. The clay soil clumps together in a sticky mass so even if I felt like going out and doing something it would be very difficult.

Now we are nearing the end of February though, and there is light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. The grey and dreary days are occasionally punctuated with short periods of intense sunshine as the clouds part, hinting at the promise of spring soon to come...

Whilst some people count the 1st March as the first day of Spring, I prefer to go with the Spring Equinox which falls on the 20th March this year - I guess it's the pagan in me :) On this day the hours of daylight and night are the same and from here until the Summer Solstice (21st June) the light reigns supreme as the sun grows stronger.

Most importantly, as the days lengthen, my little piece of England begins to feel warmth for the first time in months, the sticky mud starts to dry out a bit and the first green shoots begin to tentatively show their faces.

Honeysuckle - always the first to wake from the winter slumber...

Cleared away the dead foliage to reveal new green leaves of my Lemon Balm

Spring bulbs breaking through the wet clay soil.

One little patch must get a little more sun than the rest as the mini daffodil buds are eagerly bending their heads towards the warmth and light...

...and some clearly just couldn't hold back any longer!

What a welcome burst of sunshine :)

Spring is very nearly properly here at last!

Competiton wins!

Do you ever enter competitions on blogs or posted on Twitter or Facebook and then forget all about them? I know I do! Most of them require no more than a click to follow and a retweet or a comment left and then, as I never win anything, most of them get forgotten about!

One I had completely forgotten about was run by Yorkshire Lavender (you can follow them on Twitter @yorkslavender ) to win a kilo of their fabulous dried lavender. So as you can imagine I was thrilled when the congratulations tweet popped up in my mentions column on Tuesday :) My box of lavender arrived on Friday morning. Do you have any idea what a kilo of dried lavender looks like?

...yes that is a carrier bag full!!!

...and it smells divine :)



I use dried lavender a lot in my designs, usually homegrown and dried so I have limited stocks, so this prize was much appreciated!

We will be holidaying in Yorkshire later this year and we may even fit in a trip to the award winning Yorkshire Lavender farm and gardens and buy a few plants to add to my own garden.

As if that win wasn't enough on Saturday night I was notified that I had won another!  This one run by one of my favourite online fabric suppliers SeamStar . Their competitions are always popular and as this as a bumper giveaway open for a month I knew they would have A LOT of entries and my chance of winning would be minimal. But it didn't stop me hoping...

When Courtney at Seamstar tweeted that I had won one of the three amazing hampers I was over the moon!!!

It arrived yesterday. I hope you don't mind if I share...

Beautifully packaged!

It was my birthday last week - this was like an extra special birthday present :)

I mean - just look at all these lovelies. Who could not be inspired by this selection?

There are even a couple of lovely owl prints by one of my favourite designers Saffron Craig. This one might become the netbook sleeve I have been meaning to make...

Riley picked out this funky bright print 'Lollipop Dreams' by Patty Young as his favourite.

...and just look at this selection of gorgeous cotton voiles by Anna Maria Horner I really don't know what I am going to make with them yet, but whatever it is, it will be special!

There was also a big bag of grosgrain ribbons in just about every colour you could ever need!

Not to mention some habdash extras - pins, buttons and zips.

As competition prizes go this was pretty darn amazing so thank you once again Courtney and SeamStar for making my birthday week one to remember :) I can heartily recommend that you visit the wonderful 'Seamzine' blog for all the latest products, projects, competitions and giveaways.

And good luck...next time it could be you!