Welcome 2013

Happy New Year to you all. I'm sending you a bunch of spring tulips and wishing everyone a wonderful 2013 full of everything you wish for. 

We had a lovely first Christmas with our new little H. It was somewhat hectic. Things are never really going to be as normal when you have a five week old baby. But it was lovely nevertheless. Little H is proving to be very different to his big brother. Bless him, he is suffering terribly with colic in the evenings so we are feeling just a little tired out at the moment. Hopefully this phase will pass soon. I don't really have a lot of time for myself at the moment so posts here may be a little thin on the ground for the next few weeks but hopefully we will settle ourselves into some sort of routine as the weeks go by. I will see you all soon. 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Feeling Festive

Despite life being totally crazy at the moment we have managed to get the house looking Christmassy. Here's a little peep. Edited this way so you can't see the piles and piles of babygrows, muslins and endless other washing!

:: Little reindeers on my German roundabout candle  :: My Grandma's vintage baubles and Little F's first advent calendar  :: Little F's second wonderful advent calendar recently bought by one of his fab Godfathers
:: A little scene on our sideboard  :: Detail at the top of the first advent calendar  :: Grandma's baubles  :: My German smoking man bought at the Aachen Christmas market, a little elf and the bottom of my Christmas candlestick  :: A gingham Christmas cushion  :: The Tree


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Candlelit Breakfast

Here we are at Friday again. Can't quite believe it. The weeks are flying past at the moment! Doesn't seem a minute since last Friday when I spent the morning in my PJs baking little F's Birthday cake.

It's very gloomy here this morning so I lit a little candle for us to eat our breakfast by. For a 2 year old my son has quite sophisticated taste as he loves it when we light candles while eating. I guess it's the pretty flickery light. I can't wait to see what his reaction to all the Christmas lights is going to be this year. I reckon this will be the first Christmas where he will be properly excited by it and may even remember some parts of it in years to come. I can certainly remember some things when I was two.

Despite the gloom and drizzle we're going to venture out and about this morning. We have library books to return and I desperately need to buy a new iron as ours decided to drastically overheat and die on us last Sunday while lovely S was in the middle of ironing his work shirts. Luckily he was on his last one but it was completely ruined and our ironing board is now sporting a lovely black iron shaped mark right in the middle of it. He was not impressed! Apart from needing the ironing to get on with the general ironing pile(yes I am a bit of an ironing freak and even do my teatowels!) I also want to spend tomorrow morning while S and F are out on their usual Saturday morning 'boys time' completing new curtains for Little F's room so that I can move his current ones into babies room. My super Daddy put up the blackout blind and curtain pole in babies room yesterday so I really want to get the curtains up now as that will really start to pull things together in there. I promise I will share pictures once it's all done.

I just wanted to say thanks for all the lovely baby blanket comments. You're all so kind. I know how busy everyone is but I do so love to hear from you all.

Have a lovely weekend.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The look I'm dreaming of

I've been looking back over old photos today. I wanted to remember exactly what my olding sitting room in Kew looked like as I really like the look I had there. Our new living room is a good basic shell but it needs some finishing touches. We have plain cream walls, a nice pale blue carpet and cream sofas. We've put in a book case running half the length of one wall and we have a lovely old dark wood dining table and chairs that used to belong to my Grandparents. What we need now is all the touches that are going to bring it together. We currently have the curtains that the old owners had and frankly they are horrible. They are blue, presumably to match the carpet, but the blue is a horribly cold shade and not the same as the carpet at all. I'm thinking of a lovely fresh blue ticking stripe instead. The windows, one at each end of the room, are large as it is a 60s house so I don't want anything too overpowering and I want the overall feeling to be quite fresh. I then want to bring in accents of red as I did in Kew. As the pictures today show this is particularly lovely leading up to Christmas.

I've been scanning the internet today looking for some more inspiration for my perfect living room::

Some cute fabrics::

Source: robertallendesign.com via LinenandRoses on Pinterest

Source: google.com via LinenandRoses on Pinterest

Source: sewmamasew.com via LinenandRoses on Pinterest

Source: warmbiscuit.com via LinenandRoses on Pinterest

More lovely blue and red inspiration::

Source: sueswink.tumblr.com via LinenandRoses on Pinterest

Source: everythinglovely.tumblr.com via LinenandRoses on Pinterest

Source: allsorts.typepad.com via LinenandRoses on Pinterest

If I can manage to clear the large amounts of one year olds bright plastic from the living room floor I will take some pictures to show you where we are so far. Until then I will just imagine the room looking something like this::



Have a lovely Sunday. See you during the week.

Fiona x

It's been a while..

....but I'm still here.



The new kitchen is in place, although we need to decorate still. The garden is partly cleared and we are starting to make the house feel like home. There is SOOOOO much that I want to do. I have lists of lists and can visualise just what I want to do. As well as the house, I have a lot of projects in my head for re-stocking my little shop and I also have other creative business plans. I'm really really hoping that I can manage to stock the shop with just a few Christmas decorations as I have loved making these in the past.

I absolutely promise that there will be regular updates around here from now on and they will be more interesting than of late so please do keep calling by.

Today's pictures are of the cute little shed at the bottom of our garden. It needs a little work as the roof has a small hole and it is missing a board on one side above the door. I'd love to know what you think about the paint work though. Should we paint it or should be leave it as it is looking slightly faded? I can't quite decide myself. Come the summer it will have pots of geraniums either side of the door and I am planning a small vegetable patch just in front.

A small boy have just woken from his nap and is calling for me so that's all for now. Back again soon.

Fiona x