Right now I am...

looking forward to cosying up tonight in my new rosebud pyjamas and cream knitted slippers (purchased from Primark this morning)... A pretty (but not blow the budget) treat to me!

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Crafting Again!

This Sunday I went on a fab workshop called "A Christmas Home -Decorate your house with everything vintage at Christmas, transform woollen blankets, luxury fabrics and rich prints into all things Noel. Hand crafted stockings, swags and tree decorations will give you the perfect festive look".

Doesn't it sound great! The lovely lady who runs the course is an avid collector and treasure hunter and her workshop is an aladdins cave of vintage and salvaged materials, beads, sparkly buttons, lace and buckles. Just being surrounded by all these lovely things makes you confident you can create something beautiful!

This is her lovely workshop.

These were examples of the things that we could make.

We had a lovely time and over copious cups of tea and pieces of homemade carrot cake I put together a Christmas garland of gingerbread men, christmas trees and hearts, and a Shaker Angel. I didn't quite get to finishing both of them there, I had to do the final finishing at home. I've just finished my Angel, would you like to see her?

I've not tackled anything like this before, some of her I even tackled on a sewing machine without too many disasters(!), and I'm very pleased with how she has turned out. You might notice though, that she's missing one thing, her face! I'm still practicing drawing faces, before drawing hers on for real, but none of them have looked right yet. Does any one have any tips?!

My christmas garland is still being finished, I'll show that soon!

Getting in the Harvest

All of our local farmers have been so busy over the last few weeks gathering the harvest in the fields surrounding our house. Yesterday we had our school harvest festival at our church.

Today we took the opportunity of the gorgeous Autumnal sunshine to get our own little harvest in.

I think squashes and pumpkins are one of our favourite vegetables for eating and for decoration. We have arranged them on a rack (so that air can circulate but the rain is kept off), just by our front door so that we can look at them every day.

FINISHED!!!

Yey! I did it! I ran the Great North Run yesterday to raise funds for Breast Cancer Care. It was a brilliant event, super atmosphere, 54,000 runners, so many people raising money for good causes. The sun shone and the weather was beautiful, but crikey was it a hot run! Luckily there was lots of water enroute, and water tunnels to run through, and the atmosphere and buzz from the other runners really carried me along up and down all the hills.

The views of the blue sky and the sea that greet you when you run down the final hill and turn the corner towards the homeward straight really spurred me on for the final push to the finish and I finished the run in under two hours (which is what I was aiming for so I was very pleased!).

Once crossing the line the red arrows did an FANTASTIC display and I headed over to the charity village to the Breast Cancer Care tent to meet fellow runners and have a much appreciated complimentary post run leg massage!

My legs are a little stiff today - hence the comedy walk I seem to have developed!

Thanks to everyone who sponsored me I managed to raise £225.20 for Breast Cancer Care.

Sal xx

An Evening of Relaxation and Complementary Therapies

I feel like I've been away a while and need to catch up a bit with all on all the things I've been doing. First of all we have had our annual Women's Institute Open Evening where we hosted an evening of Relaxation & Complementary Therapies (plus local food) for anyone who wanted to come along. We had lovely ladies doing reflexology treatments, hopi ear candles, indian head massages, a homeopath, organic vegetable box schemes, lots of local organic food and drink producers, beautiful natural beauty products and wonderful homemade cakes. I put together some bouquets of flowers for our Recycle Table and made some Apple Cake using the apples from our garden for a healthy nibble whilst people were looking round the stalls.

I really enjoy the process of growing flowers, picking them and making them up into something pretty. I find it very relaxing being out in the garden in the fresh air, listening to the bees, snipping away..

Bringing it all inside, laying it all out, all the lovely colours and fragrances, deciding which ones I'm going to put together,

And making them into lovely bouquets.

Here they are finished on our Recycle Table.

It really was a great evening, and one of our exhibitors, a lovely lady homepath

kindly gave me some Arnica Tablets which she recommended that I take training for my Great North Run and after the run itself to help my body recover. Her sons who both run marathons swear by it, so hopefully it will do good things to me! Not long to go now, the run is this Sunday! So I've been resting from running this until the big day.

Oh and I nearly forgot, my winning entry for that week's competition "A Posy of Relaxation"!

Tomorrow I'll share our local village show... enjoy your day :-)

Is it Autumn?!

I don't know how it has been where you are but after an initial sunny start to the day this morning - hence washing on the line and two little people and me venturing out to the shops in summer clothes and sunglasses - the weather here suddenly turned very blustery and VERY rainy! Leaves started to fall from the trees, the temperature dropped and I could have sworn it was autumn...!

Leaving the house with the warmth of the sun on our backs I had forgotten to take any anoraks, nor did I think to check the weather forecast... so needless to say we got very wet... When we returned it was lunchtime and we were all in need of something warming for lunch. The little people said they HAD to have beans on toast, whilst I looked around to see what I could rustle up. Mmmm. Tomatoes.

Sauted off a bit of onion and garlic, plonked in the tomatoes and some basil, bit of stock, whizzed through my new gadget from Lakeland, a little mouli (very pleased with that latest purchase from there!)

and voila, warming tomato soup and a nice sit down with the magazine bought on our cold and wet shopping expedition.

Just what I need. Would you like to see inside?

I do love polka dots... Oooooh look at the beautiful things from Greengate...

and those spotty red tins from Tescos, not seen those in my one yet..... and I love that cakestand too...

Ooooh the postman has brought the lastest Plumo catalogue. I have to show you a couple of things. Have you got a minute?

Look at these beautiful Russian music boxes...

And I'm so inspired to make a lovely scarf with handwarming pockets now! Isn't that a great idea?

And look at this sewing stool - thats a makeover waiting to happen if I can just find the right stool!

And I have just opened another envelope - look!

Some lovely die cuts have arrived from Rose at Victoria Rose Crafts. They are perfect, thank you Rose! There are snowmen, Noel, Jingle Bells, some christmas trees and stockings and some lovely little people all to piece together and cut and stick. We are going to have lots of fun making our Christmas Cards!

Well that's it for now.... We have a busy weekend ahead involving a bit of a get together and a BBQ so hopefully the sun will shine! :-)

Enjoy your bank holiday weekend everybody! And I hope the sun shines for you!

A Celebration

Look what I found when I got up this morning...

Today's our wedding Anniversary.

Eight years, which traditionally is pottery or bronze.

My husband bought me this beautiful mug. He knows me so well.

Thank you so much :-) and Happy Anniversary xxx