52 Weeks of Happy (7/52)

 

Goodness I don't know where the time is going at the moment. Life is very full and I'm not doing at all well at taking photos of it as it happens. So apologies that two of the photos this week are of my work. It seems to be the thing that I am photographing at the moment mainly because I'm starting to get pretty busy with it. I always feel a little awkward sharing my work on here because I don't want to feel like I'm doing a sales pitch! Anyway, as well as lots of time spent in the garden, playing in the paddling pool and generally enjoying the gorgeous weather here are four other things making me happy this week ~

:: A hoop decoration made for my little H. I've been wanting to make something like this for ages and as I'm now selling these to order I decided to make one for H as an example. I'm so happy with how it turned out. Got to get it on the wall now. 

:: A gorgeous day out on Sunday with some good friends at Chartwell in Kent. I've been wanting to go here for ages and it was worth the wait. Unfortunately we had to slightly speed through the house as Little F wasn't especially interested but the grounds and gardens were beautiful. A lovely day out. 

::The yummy Christening cake made for my Niece's Christening. To be honest this just falls into the previous week so I'm cheating a little by sharing it here. It was delicious and looked as amazing on the inside as the outside as it had about 5 layers of sponge, each one a different colour. It was made for my Sis by a friend but she created the gorgeous bunting decorating the top. 

:: This is a little decoration I made for my Niece as part of her present. She's just had her bedroom done in lots of lovely bright colours so I made this to go in it. One of her walls is a fantastic pea green and she has deckchair stripe blinds in these sort of colours. My Sister also bought a sort of 1970s cabinet on ebay for 99p which she has painted with Annie Sloan paints to match. It looks fab. 

Sorry for the Linen & Roses creations heavy post. I am determined to take more photos in the coming week so I can share a little more of life on here. 

See you again soon. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

52 Weeks of Happy (6/52)

I'm being a very bad blogger just lately. Even deciding to join in with '52 Weeks of Happy' doesn't seem to be helping as I seem to have skipped a week. Naughty!

At the moment my happiness is all about spending time with my boys and my garden. I inspect it every morning and evening (not to mention numerous times inbetween!) to see how things are doing. So here are this weeks picture descriptions - 

:: Pretty clouds in a gorgeous blue sky 

:: My hostas and alchemilla  - don't look too closely  as the slugs and snails are having a feast most nights.

:: More blue sky, this time viewed while lying with my little munchkin in the half tent. 

:: one of my four new David Austin roses. My in-laws bought us four bare-rooted David Austins for Christmas last year. They arrived in November about a week before I gave birth to Little H so my poor Mum and Dad braved the cold and wet to plant them for us. They're all doing wonderfully and this is one of the first blooms. It's Princess Alexandra of Kent and looks and smells gorgeous. 

One of the main reasons for being such a bad blogger is that I'm finding my Facebook page to be so much easier to write on on a regular basis. It's quicker for me to post a quick picture or a few thoughts and I tend to do this at least once or twice a day whereas the thought of sitting down to write a blog post is more tricky with so much other stuff going on. I'll always be here at least once a week though.

I'll be drawing the winner of my little giveaway later on so I'll post the winner tomorrow. 

Have a lovely Monday. 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

52 Weeks of Happy (5/52)

 

I've been pretty bad this week about photo taking. Partly it's been the weather and partly it's been me being a really scatter-brained Mummy forgetting to take my camera. For example we went on the loveliest walk on Sunday along a stretch of the Thames and I didn't take the camera. I was so annoyed with myself as it was a wonderful afternoon. So pretty and lots of memories to capture. It was a new walk to us so we're definitely going to be doing it later in the Summer and I promise to capture it next time. So yesterday afternoon when the sun finally came out I popped into the garden and captured a few images of how it's looking now. Problem is the camera doesn't really do justice to just how much better it's looking now than it did last year, hence all the fairly close up shots. So here in words are my happy things from the last week even though I don't have pictures to go with them all 

:: Making a Fathers Day gift for Lovely S with the boys. Little F painted a card and we also made hand prints of both of them which I put in a frame. ( I will take a photo to show you when it's on the wall as I'm really pleased with it)

:: An idyllic walk along the Thames. Sunshine, flowers, wildlife, fun, laughter and some seriously stunning riverside properties for Mummy to look at!

:: A day spent with my Mum and the boys. Dad was away sailing so we had a slightly more girly day together. Lots and lots of chatting and a lovely trip to the park plus window shopping in a lovely little town not far from here. 

:: Doing a lot of creating and getting my first sale via my Facebook page. I've been working really hard on Linen & Roses in the evenings and I'm loving it.

Hope you all had a good week. See you again soon. 

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

52 Weeks of Happy (4/52)

My happy things this week :

:: Stitching some new brooches which are now available on my Facebook page.

:: A first peaceful cup of tea in the sunshine before the boys awake. 

:: My lovely garden coming into bloom. I am beginning to realise why people become obsessed with their garden. I'm loving mine as it slowly starts to take shape. I promise a full post soon to show you just how much it's changed since my last garden update. 

:: Working on a custom order of lavender filled linen hearts for a very lovely customer of mine. 

So many other things making me happy this last week. Lots of sunshine here in Buckinghamshire has seen us spending lots of time in the garden. Little H learning how to use his balance bike, digging in the soil, finding worms, lots of imaginary games. Little H discovering the garden, rolling and trying so hard to crawl, feeling the grass under his cute little fat feet, seeing the blue sky,  the fluffy clouds and birds for the first time. Lots of cuddles. A barbeque with neighbours. Yummy Sunday lunch with my in-laws. Lots of sewing and working on ideas for Linen & Roses. I love Summer. 

Have a lovely week. See you again soon. 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

52 Weeks of Happy (2/52)

 

:: Something rare, a Bank Holiday weekend filled with sunshine. 

:: Seeds to plant. The first time I've grown anything to eat from seed. Starting small. 

:: Drawing with Little F. The shapes are Mummy's creation. Not my best work but F is currently obsessed with shapes and I have to draw these simple shape people (Mr Maker inspired for those of you familiar with Cbeebies!) every time we get out the drawing things. 

:: My ever developing garden. I'm loving my hostas and alchemilla. Unfortunately everything is still a bit green and there is a lot of bare soil but there are flowers not far away. We're definitely making progress and I'm loving it. 

:: Picnics in the garden with my boys. 

Have a good week. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

52 Weeks of Happy (1/52)

Hello, I'm back. Well sort of. I think all I can manage at the moment is one post a week so I've decided to finally join in with 52 Weeks of Happy as I way of encouraging me to write. Yes, I know I'm very late to this particular project but better late than never.

So here are some happy moments from the past week -

:: My lovely friend Maggie and her sweet boy popped over for a cuppa last Thursday and arrived baring a gorgeous bunch of larkspur. The smell is fab.
:: Finally picking some flowers from the garden. I couldn't have imagined that last year. We have a small lilac which is an off-shoot of one growing next door. I love lilac so I'm encouraging it. It managed just one bloom this year so I decided to pick it and enjoy it inside along with forget-me-knots which we have a lot of.
:: Enjoying lots of time in the garden pottering and playing

I need to get much better at capturing the happy times. There are many but sometimes they get lost amongst the hum-drum of everyday life. I'm hoping this project is going to give me some focus.

I hope you're having a happy week. See you again next week.

xxxxxxx

PS I'm still sharing odd snippets over on Facebook in the mean time.

In bloom

 Sorry for the unexpected mini break. I didn't mean to be away quite so long. We had a lovely weekend. Saturday was spent catching up with old friends in London. It had been a while since I'd headed into the City. Having lived there for so long I had a bit of an anti-London thing going on for a while. I think I'm over that though now and am longing for another visit. We're actually so close, just half an hour on the train but with two little ones in tow it's not always so easy. In fact on Saturday we didn't go right to the centre but to West Hampstead. It was still lovely to feel that different buzzy atmosphere you get in London. My friend who was hosting the get together lives in a lovely flat down a pretty leafy street. She has no kids of her own but was brave enough to welcome 10 children ranging from 3 months to 7 years, plus 11 adults! It was such great fun and so good to all be together again. I've missed a few meet-ups recently due to baby producing but I hope to see them more often in future. 

Sunday was a chilly day but after the usual delicious roast cooked by lovely S we decided we all needed some fresh air. We're very lucky to have a beautiful park just a few minutes drive away. It is actually walkable but it's down a very steep hill and the walk back is hard work with a pram in tow. So we naughtily took the car and walked lots when we got there. The park eventually joins up with National Trust land so it's possible to walk for miles. 

The park is particularly lovely at the moment as all the daffodils are out. They look really stunning. 

There's also a great playground so little F had fun on the swings and slides watched with amusement and longing by Little H. 

 

Something that's been occupying me a lot at the moment is the garden. 

 

My father-in-law came over with his jet wash to clean the patio and I've been re-arranging pots. Just need to get them filled now!

There's still not a lot of colour but we're really winning the war on all the weeds so it's all looking very neat and tidy. But there is one area that is starting to look pretty and colourful. There were already dafs here and a pale pink primula so I decided to turn it into a little Spring area. My Mum bought me another deeper primula and some cowslips last week and I've moved some forget-me-knots that I found in the soon to be veg plot. 

I'm pleased with how it's looking so far but plan to have a lot more in here next Spring.

 

Throughout the rest of the garden there are definitely signs of life. The roses we were bought by my in-laws for Christmas from David Austin at starting to come into leaf and grow. I'm hoping for a splash of colour with these. Bit by bit we'll get there. It's a slow process this gardening lark(unless you've got pots of money to throw at it!) but I'm loving starting to see the small changes every day.

There's been a little bit of sewing going on lately in odd spare moments so hopefully I'll be back again soon to share that with you.

Have a lovely week.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Garden hopes

The opening pictures are not pretty today I'm afraid but I wanted to share them because I want to remind myself just how far we have come with our garden and hopefully by the summer I can show even more progress. 

The first three photos here show how our garden looked in August 2011, approximately 4 weeks after we moved in here. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of how it looked on the day we moved in as I didn't get my camera out quick enough before Lovely S went to work on the jungle! But what I can tell you is that only about half the amount of grass was visible due to the amount of growth that over hung from all borders. Most of it was pretty ugly greenery. Certainly nothing much worth saving. 

Last year we started to make progress but it was frustrating for me as my pregnancy meant I couldn't be hands on. Lovely S enjoys dealing with his lawn and doing the basics of the weeding and plant care but I'm the one who is really passionate about planting. I am so excited to get out there this year and start turning my garden dreams into reality. 

On Sunday I had a brief hour when both the boys were napping so I took the opportunity to get out there and start assessing. I swept the patio first then did a spot of weeding along border. 

Here are two butlers sinks that Mum and Dad gave me. I'm hoping to remove the concrete treatment as I actually prefer the original look. These will be moved down close to the shed as the garden gets sun there all day long. I plan to plant one up with herbs and the other with salad leaves. 

This border down the left may not look like much yet but it is the one we have done the most with. We've planted a number of evergreen plants to give it some structure all year round, including the box balls which I love. Everything is quite small at present but I hope through this year things will really get going. Looking at the picture below I'm thinking that I seriously need to do something about the lawn edging. I love to see a nice crisp edge to a lawn. 

I still can't decide what to do with the shed. Do we paint it? Do we leave it? Do we keep it?Do we knock it down? It's not really in the best state close up but I do like the focus it gives the bottom of the garden.The wall is looking a little sad as well with the selection of random pots sitting on it. These pots are definitely coming off. I think it will look better bare with larger pots sitting in front of it and flowers behind.  

The bird table has been moved a lot but I popped it here on Sunday. I think eventually it will be in the border in front of the patio though. This border below needs some serious work. We have put some box in here too and there are now three roses. One of the roses is one that my in-laws gave us as a first Wedding Anniversary present. It has never done well as it lived in a pot for a while as we knew we would be moving and wanted to take it with us. When we moved it was a while before it was planted because of the state of the garden. In the end my Mother in law just plonked it in somewhere just to get it in the ground but it wasn't really the right place and last year it didn't thrive. So my Mum moved it to this border for me at the end of last Summer. I'm hoping it's going to prefer it's new home as it will get a lot more sun. It has two new friends in the shape of two David Austin roses that Mother in law bought us for Christmas. They went in bare rooted in November and are showing signs of springing into life right now. There are two more in the other main border. I can't wait to see how they all do. I miss the beautiful roses that we had in our old house. 

The patio is looking fairly bleak at the moment. Most of my big pots are in the garage as is the bench that usually lives out here. We really didn't make much of the patio last year and this year I want so much more from it. 

I want to paint these railings outside the back door and I have a vision of pots of geraniums on the steps outside my kitchen door

So that is where we're at now with the garden. The sun has been shining today and I'm imagining how this garden is going to progress over the Spring and Summer. I can't wait to share it with you here. I have such hopes. 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Just a dusting

Morning. So the promised snow has arrived but just a dusting. Lovely S was very disappointed as he had to go to work. He was hoping for a phone call early to say that the School was closed but there's not nearly enough of the white stuff for that. 

Me and the boys are taking it slowly this morning. Little H is still asleep after an early feed and Little F and I are still in our jim jams keeping warm and cosy. It's been a particularly testing few days with Little H still suffering very badly with windiness and Little F being rather unsettled with a lot of night time wake-ups so I'm just going to take it easy today. I think there will be a lot of tea drinking, biscuit eating, computer browsing and cbeebies watching for Little F! 

Have a happy Monday. 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A Magical Place

We had the most lovely afternoon yesterday visiting a garden I've been wanting to see for a long time. Here's a clue.....

The magical garden of Roald Dahl is open just occasionally for the National Garden Scheme and yesterday was one of those days. Mum and Dad had been a number of times before but came with me and little H again along with my dear little Niece Joss. Unfortunately the weather wasn't behaving quite as we would have liked and we arrived under heavy skies which then dumped a LOT of rain on us 10 minutes into the visit! Luckily it did then start to brighten up and we managed by the end of the visit  to sit outside on a sweet little bench eating home-made chocolate cake in the sunshine. 

It is a truly magical garden. Just what I was expecting. Lots of little areas with benches and seats dotted around to enjoy the views. Even the rain couldn't spoil it's beauty. I'll leave the words here and let you enjoy the pictures of this stunning garden. 

I hope you've enjoyed looking around this magical place with me. If you live in Buckinghamshire, or even further afield I would really recommend you check out the 'yellow book' and make a visit here. It really is so worth it. 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx