Valentine

Union Jack Bunting

Now 2012 was a pretty Union Jack focused year with the Jubilee and the Olympics and you might remember me sharing a few pics of how we embraced the red, white and blue...from Union Jack flags in the window to making red, white and blue trifle and cupcakes...a couple of reminders below...

 

Now these square flags are OK and were find during the Olympics and Jubilee but they feel a bit too big to have hanging in the house all year round.

 

So armed with my guillotine, some red, white and blue flowery fabric, my seam ripper and sewing machine I got down to business of pimping my Union Jack Bunting!

 

I needed to unpick the bunting binding so that I could insert the new fabric triangles, then pin and sew.  I resulted to the floor to lay out the lengths of bunting and chose which fabrics would go where.

 

I'm immensely happy with my bunting.  It feels fun, fresh and very very British.  I plan to paint the wood panels in this room white but that's a project for another day.

Spring Colours - The Aquas

In a complete contrast to the gentle Spring Mauves in my previous post, I am also thinking of playing this with red and aqua combo.  

I will always home towards shades of blue from dramatic bluey grey stormy skies to deep dark gorgeous smart navy to delicate china blues and fresh aqua turquoises but red is a colour I love but find harder to use.  I guess I associate it more with Christmas than spring and summer but this red and aqua combination I think it feels light and full of holiday fun!

Spring Colours - The mauves

I've been choosing colours for my Spring Collection and thought I'd share a sneaky peek of some of my choices....mauve, white, grey and lemon with accents of thistle and pistachio.  I have never worked with this shade of lemon and mauve before and I just adore them and have some gorgeous plans in my head which I can't wait to get designing and creating.

Clockwise from the top lemon, pistachio, mauve, thistle, white and grey.

Ready to ship

I love putting an order together and packaging it into my lovely stripy paper bags...I guess it stems back from all those hours playing shop when I was little....weighing out sweets (small stones), serving cakes (rolled up pieces of newspaper with currants marked on with felt tips) all into wonky paper bags I'd made...happy days!

Now I get to do it for real!  

This order is all ready to ship and I'm very excited as a small part it order will then be heading to the U S of A.....

Snow Day

It's been snowing and we're having snow much fun...

Miss M and Frosty

Miss E created a brilliant game of going down the slide into a big pile of snow...such fun!

 

I love sledging....nothing like feeling like a child again. We headed to the local park and met so many friends.

Back garden fun...and yes we can still ride our bike in the snow!

 

We took a break from sledging and Head chef Mr A, assisted by Misses M and E, got busy in the kitchen making chicken kievs, roast potatoes and carrots and a lovely green salad for lunch.

I also got busy inside cutting out teddy and dolly plasters which you may have seen here on a previous post to replenish my stocks as they are proving very popular.

These are waiting to be tidied up, have their ends rounded and the velco added which is tomorrow's job.

Call for a Nurse

Mum's know the magical properties of a plaster to heal a scrape, cut or graze...even if you know that letting the air to it to help it dry and heal would be the better option, I'm prepared to put a bet on that many of us have reached for the box of plasters to make the hurty better. 

We currently have The Hungry Caterpillar, Moshi Monsters, Charlie and Lola and my favourite, some vintage circus design ones complete with curly moustached ring master!  Wow that's quite a collection...and it's not like we're the most clumsy of folks but their magical healing properties means I will never be without a box of plasters.

Miss M and Miss E love playing doctors and nurses and although Mr A and I have been mistreated by them on several occasions, I think their dolls and teddies are more compliant patients.  We have a very well stocked toy doctors case but it doesn't contain any plasters so I decided to make some... doesn't teddy look happy now his hurty has been fixed with a teddy plaster?

Nurse E, coincidently wearing the nurses outfit I used to wear when I was little (I love how my mum has kept so many things) comforting baby after applying a special plaster to her hurty leg.

Nurse E at work...I love how baby had to stand on her head to have her plaster fitted!

Baby Freddie is also feeling a whole lot better now he has a plaster on his poorly knee.