Fresh as a Bouquet of flowers

 The holidays were busy for us, not only with Christmas but also Hubby and I have birthdays too.

This year there was a knock at the door and standing there was a delivery man (in the pouring rain) with a gorgeous bouquet of flowers!!

A lovely range of colours and they smelt so lovely!

Beautifully arranged and packaged.

Delivered carefully despite the weather and every single flower bloomed.  Guess what?

They are still going strong!  Yes, you read that right, I still have them in a huge vase near to wear I am typing this.

So who had this wonderful idea?

My long standing friend Andrea, who I met at Sixth form when I was 16 and despite jobs, families and living on opposite sides of the country we try our best to keep in touch!

Many thanks Andrea it was such a lovely surprise as I have not been bought flowers like that since Sophie was born and it is such a lovely thought.

xxx

Rose Compact

If you have been visiting my blog for a while you may know that I collect these.....

Whilst we were away we had a look around the antique/junk shops in Lewes and found the powder compact shown above.

I have been collecting these for about 14 years and the collection has reached a stage where it has to really stand out and catch my eye to be added.  We were looking for an unusual gift for my FIL when I stumbled on the above compact.

A little felty pouch was sold with it but I doubt that it is the original covering.  What really caught my eye was the raised rose design on the lid.  I have several with various rose designs on it but not like this.  I so not think it is mother of pearl as it does not have the look and sheen.  

I thought that one o the petals was broken but the edge has been finished like the others and why cover the lovely petals underneath.  The gold look edging is very different and it is plain gold on the back.

The inside is immaculate and clean but still not a new item.  It does not say who made it and judging by the ones I already have I can not guess either.  

So this lovely example was thought about over night and then I went back for it the following day.  We did the same with FIL birthday gift which was a pocket barometer in the style of a pocket watch.  He was thrilled with it.

So my collection has increased by one more and because we are re-decorating and re-organising the living room , my compact display case has been moved up on to the landing.  I actually see if all the time now whereas before it was behind the living room door and not seen at all!

Sophie loves dusting and looking at them so when I asked her if she would like to put the compacts back into the case after it was used her face lit up.

This is my modern day version of a button tin, she loves looking at the compacts and asking about them.

I like the historical element behind them and the fat that I can pass them on to Sophie.

xx

Let Your Garden Grow............

After I lost my one woman battle with the garden slugs last Christmas I made a New Year Resolution to stop trying to grow veg and turn to flowers instead.

The weather has been awful for us humans but by golly has my garden loved it!!!

The above honeysuckle is in its 2nd year and has by far the most flowers on it this year.

Lovely delicate petals.

Beautiful shaped flowers.

Of course my beloved Ox-eye daisies.

Borage, which the Bees go mad for!

We planted Pinks for the first time this year and have had some lovely blooms.  We hope they will spread over the coming year.

I have always had good success with Geraniums.  Sophie brought one home from school to grow and measure and basically keep a diary on it as part of her science lessons in Year 3.  Well it is still going and blooms all year round!!  It loves my kitchen windowsill.

Our Leeks did not do anything at all but the flowers that are created if you leave them are a perfect ball shape made up of lots of little flower heads.

Very unusual flower.

My little herb garden is happily doing its own thing as well.  Can not eat it fast enough.  The hydrangeas, Hollyhock gift, hanging baskets have survived past the 1st of August as well.  So the rain has been good for the garden and my first season on my flower garden project is off to a good start!

The Bees love it and so far I have found plants that the slugs do not seem to be so keen on.

I also love my little camera, taking pictures of plants is really enjoyable.  Some of these pictures will be made into cards as well.

xx

Corsage Surprise - Thank you............

Last week I entered a giveaway hosted by Gina at Fan My Flame.  I love Gina's work and I really wanted to follow her sketchbook posts last summer but I was on holiday without any of my art stuff!  Whilst looking up those posts again I came across the giveaway sign up.

There were three winners and I was lucky enough to win this gorgeous corsage made from recycled materials and trims.  A lovely design which is so well made.

Machine stitching and hand stitching combined together with the petals shapes as well.

You might be guessing that I was thrilled to win this corsage.  I would have been grateful, if not astonished, to win any of the three...........

Many thanks Gina and this flower will be going on holiday with me next week as well.

Before we go...lets have another close up.............

Lovely.

xx

PS Do not forget to have a go at entering my giveaway for 900 posts.  See below and leave a comment to be included.

Summer Daisy Gift

Last May I blogged about my struggle to find any Ox-eye Daisies in any of the garden centres.

Carol at "Smile at the flowers" did just that and sent me some live plants in the post!

I was delighted when a few brave daisy heads managed to bloom considering their arrival in a box and then being put in the ground I was not really expecting them to do anything.

As for this year.....well they have been fabulous!  The plants have multiplied 4 fold and there are so many blooms on them I am astonished.

I can see them from my kitchen window and they have made such an impact on the whole garden. Due to an on-going struggle with slugs I have decided to give up with our veg patch and stick to berry fruits (of which I have good success rates) and flowers to help the bee population.  So our garden is going for the country cottage garden look without the veg bit.

The apples have made an excellent start.  They loved all of the rain that we had and here was no wind this year to knock the blossom off too soon.

The hydrangea's have gone mad with flower heads as big as Sophie's head which she could hardly believe when she saw them.  Now these flowers love water and our excessive rain has been their cause for success.

We have also tried other plants to find out what the slugs will avoid and stocks are one of them.  Not as fragrant as I was hoping but they smell more in the evening.

The hanging baskets are looking brilliant although the sudden hot weather has meant some late evening watering to make sure they stay this way.

We have even had success with seeds which is virtually unknown in our house!

The honeysuckle is out, the pinks we planted are in bloom but not when I took these pictures and even my roses out in the front garden have had more blooms this year that in all of the previous years put together.  So we may have dreaded the rain and many people had a dreadful time you can see why it is needed by our planet, it just needs to be in manageable quantities but we can not really control it can we?

Does anyone have any other plant suggestions that I could try over the coming year?

Carol very kindly sent many other plants of which several have also bloomed including holly hocks and foxgloves.

Unfortunately last November we had to have our garden dug up by the electricity board due a line fault in someone else's house which ran under our garden.  This is actually the morning after as the fault was found at 9pm and they were digging all night!

We even had a mini JCB in the what s a very small garden.  Sophie's playhouse was moved lock stock and barrel to the other corner and several of Carol's plants were lost that day.

The garden was re-turfed, twice in fact due to a large section having died off.

The hole that they dug was over 10 foot deep and went into next doors garden as well.

I shall try and take some current pictures from our bedroom window but there is yet again someone in the next garden burning green garden waste on a lovely day with windows open and people's washing out!  Thick white billowing smoke everywhere.

"Billy Bonfire" hubby calls him. He has done this every day since last Saturday.  His garden looks like Beirut and there seems to be no end to it.  Very anti-social really.  He must have seen us looking over the fence as he has moved his burning dustbin further down the garden.  If the wind blows the wrong way it is straight in through my french windows.

He did this during the world cup a few years ago, we were in the garden and our eyes ran and we had to go indoors and leave everything outside.  We stank so much we had to change our clothes and have showers.

However......we shall continue with our flower garden and see what we end up with next year. What about those daisies though.......lets have another look.......

I think you can sense how happy I am with these very happy looking flowers.

Have a good day.

xx
PS Just rang the council about Billy Bonfire and apparently he is within his legal rights to burn in his garden!  What about my legal rights to sit in mine without being gassed out and needing a shower!  We are breathing it all in as well!  What is the difference between this and noise pollution?
House is sweltering, all doors and windows are shut dare not look at temperature, Sophie is not happy.  Great day ahead I think.

Bags of Flowers

Looking back through my posts I do not think that I have shown you the second bag that I made along with my year 9 group.  

These pictures do seem to have come out a bit bright even with the flash off.  The fabric is actually shades of green, bluey green and delicate brown. 

This pattern is my own and I added a flap which is bigger than the rose version.  The flap is self lined.and the lining is a navy blue.

The main body of the bag is very spacious inside and I decided not to add inside pockets for a change.

A more of a "chuck it in" and see type of bag.

Again I added rings as part of the strap and to adjust it I simply knot the end at the position that I want the strap to be.

The bag has box corners stitched to give the bag a bit of width and a magnetic fastening under the flap.

The flower was purchased from a shop to add a bit of zing and is simply clipped on.

What do you think?

I am going to a craft fair tomorrow and if this is not sold then it will be going on my website.

I intend making another version but with a different approach to the fabric itself.

Have a good weekend

xx

Bag for all reasons.

I have been completing a few makes this past week and the sketchbook has been a bit more closed.

The above bag is made of fleece with hand cut applique flowers, stems and leaves plus hand stitched details with buttons to finish off.

The drawstring handles are made from 100% cotton cord.  The bag is not lined.  

This would make an ideal PE bag for school, it it washable at 40 degrees.  Turn it inside out to protect the design and buttons.  However, the best bit about fleece is that it does not need ironing if brought out of the machine and hung up.

This bag has been added to my website if you want to pop over and take a look.

There is more to post about over the coming week which will also be listed gradually.

Take care

xx

Floral Gift - Thank you

Regular readers will know that my Tutor Group are in Year 11 and are working their way through their exams.  The last one is on Thursday.  Once they have completed their last exam they have been appearing at my classroom door in ones and twos with big grins and bearing gifts!!  

The picture above shows a lovely bouquet of flowers given to me by Alice and her parents.  It was in the style of an upright bouquet with the stems twisted round (hope that makes sense).  Lovely flowers many of which have only just started to bloom.

The message in the card attached to the flowers was thanks from a student who is an asset to the group and the words written in the card my her parents was lovely to read.

Lovely group who I shall miss (but I shall go in for results day)very much indeed!  

Needless to say that I have also kept the lovely yellow and golden thick tissue paper for my Art Textiles sketchbook that I will be  preparing over the summer.  Oh, ever the crafter!

x

In the middle of report writing at the moment, but hopefully I shall be back with some crafty news tomorrow as I did manage to gain a finish today during my break.

xx

Embroidered Sewing Kit OPAM 2012

A few weeks back I posted about finding a marked out piece of fabric that I must have done years ago 

and decided to finish it.....

Well, after having to think what I could make the small panel into (as this bit was not really thought about until AFTER I had cut the edge fabric.  Why did I do that?

Anyway..

This is the front with added flap and fastening.  Then some random free machining to  add texture.

A little iron on flower that I found at the bottom of my sewing box.  I normally do not rate iron-ons very much.  However, this is a really good one!

Plus a "Sew a little Happiness" label too.

I made a little pouch to go on the inside back cover to hold small items such as crochet hooks, tape measure etc.  

I still need to add a few more things, such as a small pincushion, labels for different types if needles and possibly a scissors pocket.  However, I wanted a follow up post to the embroidery one as it did say that I had plans for it.

I am in the process of developing this to make some for the new website.  As you can see it is quite big as I want to be able to take it to my embroiderers guild classes without having to take half of my sewing room. with me.

I shall be back with pictures of the additions once they have been completed.

It has been a very long week and the weather has been soooo unpredictable. Sun? Rain? Boots? Shoes?   Basically, whatever I had on .....it was not the right thing.

Heyho!  ballet run tomorrow as hubby is working away.  Then I think it is Mummy and Sophie time.

I love that time.

xx

This is also one of this months OPAM 2012 finishes.

OPAM 2012 Felty Floral Finish

This is my latest felt book/journal cover which will go into my Etsy shop or can be purchased directly through Paypal if you send me your email address plus free P&P if you live in the UK..
  It fits a A6 hard backed notebook or journal and is removeable so can be transferred to another book.

All of the flowers are hand cut and I used a nice large blue brad in the centre plus blue felt and a zingy lime green.

Plenty of hand stitching for added detail.

Running stitch and chain stitch are two of my favourites as they are strong and show up well on a project like this.

A label added on the inside.

An ideal spring gift or a treat for yourself.  I use them for project notes and I do have several which you could say were the prototypes when I first came up with the designs ideas for my book covers.

These designs can easily be enlarged for bigger notebooks or journals.

April OPAM is off to a good start.

What do you think of this design?  I love making these and I think that the feel of the felt has a lot to do with it.  Great colours and quite a tactile finish once made up.
xx