A little something of what you fancy

One of the things I love doing when I visit Cornwall is saunter around the little galleries.  

In past years I've purchased some beautiful prints.  Though unfortunately the ceramics always seem to be out of my price range.  However, this year I spotted this little seagull, which I purchased in the Sandpiper Gallery in Mousehole.

He/She is now bringing joy to my rather boring bathroom.

This year the other half said that he'd like to buy a couple of prints for Violet's bedroom (when she gets a bedroom that is), and even though Violet hasn't got the greatest of patience when it comes to looking around shops, we decided that we'd let her choose them.

Shall I show you what she picked out?  I'm so happy.  She's obviously got a good eye for art.

This is by Sara Holden and is entitled 'Discoveries of the Deep'.

I think Violet chose it because of all the little details

The other print she chose is a print by Lizzie Saddington

Entitled 'Full Moon at Sea'.

Again, I think she chose it for all the little details

I really love them both. 

We are an ice-cream loving family, so I couldn't resist buying this last print.

  

As you can probably make out, this is by Sasha Harding and is entitled 'Hot Dog'.  

This could have been a picture painted of me when I was little.  We even owned a little Westie - though ours never looked white, he was always a scruffy little beggar.

I love Sasha Harding prints - they're lighthearted, everyday images, that just make me smile.  I'll definitely be buying a few more of these.

Before I pop off and start on the laundry mountain, I'll leave you with a couple of Violet-isms that she came out with whilst we were away.

We'd just stopped for coffee in a little cafe.  I noticed that there was a lobster pot on the wall, so I pointed it out to Violet.

Me: "Look Violet, can you see that lobster pot on the wall over there?"

Violet: "A MONSTER POT!  For catching monsters?"

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The next one happened whilst we were all sitting on a bench in Mousehole harbour, eating ice-cream.  Violet got off the bench, stood in front of her dad and I and said "smile and wave boys, smile and wave". The other half and I just cracked up laughing. (For those of you who aren't familiar with children's movies, she got this little gem from Madagascar).

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Here's wishing you all a very lovely weekend.

I hope you've found all your Winter Woolies, because it's probably gonna be another cold, wet and windy one.

Whatever you do, enjoy yourselves.

x

Back from holiday

Hello there.

There's been plenty of sandcastle building.

 Visiting of beautiful Cornish fishing villages.

Mousehole Harbour

Writing in the sand

 Dancing like Eric Morecambe

More sandcastle building

Soggy bottoms

&

collecting pebbles on the beach, even when it was bloody freezing.

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Sun(?), Sea, Sand and plenty of Fish & Chips!

And, I'll be back with you all in a week or so.

Letter to Santa & Ballet Shoes

Today I'll be arranging Violet's letter to Santa through the NSPCC. 

I heard about their Santa Appeal last year and thought it was such a great way to help raise fund.

I don't want to ram Charity or Christmas down anyone's neck, but if you have a little person in your life who may still believe in Santa, then you might like to pop over to the NSPCC's website, where you'll be able to read all about it. 

Now, onto a completely different subject - Ballet Shoes.  

Since buying Violet her little ballet outfit last Friday, the ballet shoes have seemed welded to her feet.  There have been tears when more appropriate footwear has been required i.e. wellies, and there was even a temper tantrum when I had the audacity to physically remove them from her feet in order to sew some elastic into them (yes, I got told off by the ballet teacher because Violet's shoes didn't have the required elastic straps to keep them on her feet - tut, tut).  

Tears and tantrums aside, there is nothing cuter than my little girl dressed in her baby pink ballet outfit.

Want to see?

 

And, finally before I go, I'd just like to say a very big thank you for your fantastic comments about my pumpkin carving.  I had such a great response from you all, which really made me smile.  Pumpkin carving is addictive, I'll definitely be creating more next Halloween.

Have a lovely day.

X

The purrrrrfect pumpkin!

Whilst I was sitting around waiting for Violet to finish her dance class on Saturday, I got talking to another mum about the subject of Halloween.  I told the other mum that I'd seen pumpkins for sale in Sainsbury's for only £1.50 and was going to try my hand at pumpkin carving.  I mentioned that I didn't want to carve anything scary as I didn't want to upset Violet, but  I remembered looking at images of some amazing pumpkin carvings on the internet last year - not only faces, but cartoon characters and some had been carved beautifully in lattice work, which looked stunning. 

It seemed that I'd thrown down the 'pumpkin carving' gauntlet, as that evening I received a text message to say that the other mother had bought a pumpkin and had set her husband to work on it.  Apparently she'd been inspired by my idea of googling the internet and now her husband was busily carving an image of Minnie Mouse into theirs.

The pressure was on - what was I going to carve in to mine?

So on Sunday evening I sat down and trawled through loads of images on the internet for a little bit of inspiration.  As you'd expect there were lots of witches and scary faces, but I finally decided that due to Violet's love of all things Shrek related, I'd try and carve the image of Puss in Boots. I found the image on www.bandofcats.com, who were offering some free PDF stencils. 

I did manage to print the image, but it was too large for my baby pumpkin.  I struggled, without success, to reduce it's size, but my laptop was having none of it, so in the end I had to draw the entire image freehand.

It wasn't purrrfect(!), but it'd have to do.

After removing the pumpkin's brains, it was time to start carving.

Taking care not to slice one of my fingers off.

The carving all finished.

I just need to add a candle in the back

Ta da!!!!

It's amazing the things you can achieve with a pencil, a vegetable knife and a potato peeler.

I'm so chuffed with myself.

Me likey mucho!

X

Happy Monday morning

A very good morning to you all.

What kind of weekend did you have?  Ours was very busy house-hunting again, though we still haven't found anything suitable.  I know the house for us is out there somewhere, but my hopes of being in our new home by Christmas time is slowly slipping away.

I'm all excitement and anticipation at the moment - the reason being, I'm off on holiday this Friday and I'm like a child counting down the days. 

It wont be Violet's first time at the seaside, but it'll be the first time that she'll actually know where she is and see the sea for the first time, and feel the sand for the first time and build a proper sandcastle for the first time - lots and lots and lots of firsts will be had.  I could just squeal with delight. 

I have got a few things to share with you all.  The first is a beret that I knit for Violet - it only took a couple of hours.  I love it when you can make something in one evening don't you?  You'll have to excuse the photos, firstly the light was utter rubbish and secondly, madam Violet didn't fancy playing ball.

Pattern: Pompom Beret, which can be found in Simply baby by Debbie Bliss

Yarn: Full O'Sheep 100% Peruvian Wool 

Colours: Passionfruit & Peony

It was such a simple and easy knit, I absolutely love the colours.  I bought the wool from House of Fraser.  I just couldn't resist their gorgeous display of this beautiful wool - it was so colourful, it just drew me in and I ended up £9 worse off, but I had a huge smile on my face.

I'll leave you with a sneaky peek of something else I've been up to, I'll post more photos tomorrow.

Wishing you all a very lovely day.

X

Things that brought a smile to my face this weekend.

The Dahlias at Baddesley Clinton 

 

We visit Baddesley Clinton nearly every weekend (sometimes twice a weekend) because it's only 15 minutes away and it's such a beautiful place to walk around.  It's especially lovely when you arrive just as it's opened.  

Visitors tend to go straight to look around the house, which means we have the grounds and gardens to ourselves.  It felt quite magical yesterday morning.  The sun was still very low in the sky, dew covered the grass, and the lake was as still as a mill pond. 

I've been meaning to take photographs of the fantastic Dahlia border that they planted, which has been a stunning rainbow of colour for weeks, but I kept forgetting my camera.  The Dahlias weren't at their best, but hopefully I've managed to capture a little of their beauty in these few photos.

Some of them looked like little pom poms.  

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Conker and cone collecting.

Even though I haven't the foggiest what I'm going to do with them all,  I find myself unable to walk passed these shiny, brown jewels without picking them up and stuffing my pockets with them.

If I hadn't been like a very small child myself, riffling around amongst all the dead leaves trying to find the largest, the smallest, the shiniest, I might have been able to capture a lovely Autumnal photo of Violet on her little conker quest.

Pretty though aren't they?

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 Bargain books

The other half surprised me by bring home The White Queen by Philippa Gregory - he'd seen how much I'd enjoyed The Other Boleyn Girl so had picked this book up for me from WH Smith's (I think it was on offer with The Times for £2.99).  Bless him - sometimes they do take notice of us afterall :0)

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I bought Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones for 75p and The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd for £1 from The National Trust second hand book shop yesterday.  

I shouldn't keep adding to my unread pile of books, but how can you not buy them when they're such a fantastic price. 

And then there's Making magazine, which the lovely Siobhan of Hello Flower brought to my attention only a few days ago. I was so happy when my copy arrived on Saturday - though I haven't yet had the opportunity to actually read it yet. 

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Violet dancing around to Michael Jackson's Thriller at dance class on Saturday - unfortunately I'm not allowed into the room, never mind take photos.  I'm probably in trouble with the dance instructor for even sticking my head round the door to see what my little angel was getting up to.

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I hope your weekend was full of smiles too.

X