Crushed

This isn't the first time I have blogged about a kitchen utensil, but it is the first time I've had to replace something I love with something I never will.

Susi the Swiss made garlic press has been part of my life since I can remember but not for bringing the flavours of the world to our Blackpool kitchen. You see Susi is really something, she didn't just press garlic, in fact in our house I doubt she ever even saw so much as a clove until the late 90's, no instead Susi formed the main part of a northern housewife's 'toolkit', taking many a blow in aid of  my mums Christmas card strings, decorations, pictures and repairs to the garden fence. Why buy a hammer when you have this eh?

Susi met her match with a new brand of dishwasher tablet, stripping her shiny coating off she now leaves grey marks on my hand.

Every dint tells a tale

Bye bye Susi, you just weren't made for these times, Susi 2 will have nothing on you x

What a find

Wednesday morning Joel and I took a stroll round the charity warehouse in town, it is a freezing cold place, where you have to dodge buckets catching rainwater on the floor, but oh boy it is good. Really good. The kind of place where the cups you buy still have fresh tea stains in them, like the stuff in there has just rolled straight out of someones sideboard and onto their over burdened shelves. Exactly the kind of charity shopping I like, non of this over priced clobber, arranged in order of the colour spectrum, ornaments in locked cases displayed with print outs of their eBay potential propped next to them.  I want to pay low and work hard for my treasures, I'll take my chances in the Nana scrum!

This visit was no disappointment, tucked under a pile of rugs something brighter than bright caught my eye. I pulled out a circular tapestry wall hanging of what can only be described as pop/folk art style. Perfect for Joels room.

Signature woven into the tapestry

Reverse detail

It's stamped with the studio details and also signed and dated (23:5:67) by the artist, Luis Montiel. He took some finding but I now know his work was mainly from the 50's and 60's (although he was still producing tapestries in the early 90's) and he lived and worked his whole life in Venezuela. All his work featured bright orange and magenta (amongst others) and is described as 'Pop Art Venezuelan style'.
It was up on Joels bedroom wall the very next day and looks fab with his bright wallpaper and curtains. His 'tweet tweet' tapestry must have had quite a journey to end up at Oakbank 45 years after it was woven, I am so happy to have found it and know it will give us many years of pleasure.

Alright Me Old China!

I am too much of a blab to not tease you with wedding prep. A total and utter blabber blogger, that's me.

Anyway.........I'm enjoying the creative aspects of wedding planning the most, seems like forever since I could indulge my love of nice old stuff (I won't use the 'V' word, it's too cliche now) Messing around with place settings was one weeks nap time (Joels not mine) antics. Having admired from afar, but seldom purchasing, beautiful fine china over the years I have been on a one woman mission, since entering fianceedom, to be thoroughly greedy when I now see pretty little cups and saucers, gilt edged trios and plates of fancy going cheap. Here's a wee taster of what's going to be waiting for each of our guests on May 19th.

This cake plate is probably what sparked my love of china many moons ago. Laura Ashley at it's best, this range of fine china deserved to have most of my wages spent on it.



Make do and mend with odd cups and saucers, pick up some bargains too only 5p for the cup on the right!

 

Picked up a set of these unusual birdy cups and saucers in Westbourne, heavily decorated inside the cup and plain on the outside. Lovely.

Only right to have Diamond Liz sneaked in. I love a bit of commemorative china me.

New Years resolution is to blog more, I must, or I'll pop! The last month or so, since my last post, I've been wedding planning, holidaying, toddler club hosting and festivating (a word?) our home.

The wedding plans are going well, so far all the big things are booked; registrars, reception venue, transport, catering, the dress! It's hard to tell you all much about it as I want most of it to be a surprise on the day, needless to say though it is a very time consuming process and I've already had nightmares about turning up at the registry office in my jeans!

I'm collecting vintage china for our reception dinner and stumbled across this on the back of a plate. How lovely, and how orderly.

I was wondering whether to wear a veil or not when I remembered my great grandmas veil was in our loft somewhere, I managed to find it buried away under lots of baby stuff. Unfortunately it is so old that my fingers went straight through it. I did manage to get some lovely photos to share with you before it was packed away again.

The bag that it was carefully folded up in

It's a large rectangular shape of fabric

with a stitched daisy design round the edges in thick silk thread

Taking a break from it all we had a week 'down south' in Bournemouth. It was lovely to spend quality time together as a family, we all just wished it didn't have to end.

The bright lights of Westbourne greeted us

Joel learnt a new phrase, 'uhh ohh', from his dad and he uses it every time he does something he shouldn't.

As well as how to get his feet out the top of his pram fleece, what a bendy boy!

While we were away we treated our house to a fresh look by having the hall, stairs and landing decorated.

We've had our eye on this wallpaper for a couple of years now and the long drops against the stairs really show it off. The walls have been pained in a lovely grey colour and the paintwork freshened up with a lick of white. Chuffed!

Son Rise

Since the clocks changed last weekend Joel has been getting up an hour earlier all week, that's a 5.30 start to the day! Not for the faint hearted! We had hoped that after a couple of days he would gradually adjust back to 6.30/7 (or later!!) but it's only today that he managed it. However gruelling the pre dawn starts to the days have been two things have made each one special.

Our boys beautiful smiling face, thirsty for a new adventure (and porridge), something to climb on and a morning pat of Myrtle.

It took me forever to find a button up dressing gown for him

and the beautiful Cumbrian sunrises, even Joel points and says 'ooooooooh' at the amazing bright pink sky and the birds ('tweet tweets' as Joel calls them) singing the start of the day.


The view from our kitchen window

It's all worth it though :)

It's a date!

Mr B and I have finally gotten around to setting the date for our wedding. We have sent out save the date cards, an American custom which I think fits well into British correspondence etiquette. We bought a beautifully crafted hand drawn stamper from Emililies on etsy, and used some posh ink pads from our local art shop to stamp on vintage style blank postcards. We are well chuffed with how they look.

So now the hard work starts, planning a wedding with a 15 month old boy who climbs on EVERYTHING trying to help. Wish us luck!

Harvest for the home

The other day I was a bit bored in the kitchen and decided that, even though I'm not religious, I wanted to celebrate the harvest. My mini bounty consisted of windfall cooking apples from my mums garden and bargain pomegranates from the supermarkets 'oops' section (wrinkly, injured or unloved products) It was grey and rainy outside yet colour radiated from the fruit, arranged on my lovely vintage cake stand. A moment to just stop, take stock and appreciate what we have. Not just in terms of food but the aesthetic quality of life, even on the dullest of days, can brighten the home and enlighten your heart.

Bags of Fun!

I was given a lovely little project a while back which I haven't had the chance to tell you about. When our friends got married in September I was asked to organise party bags for all the children attending, along with snack bags too. Organised fun at it's best, in a bag!!

I got all their names and ages so I could tailor fill each bag to best suit the little guests. I found some really good stuff on the indoor market, brilliant joke/party stall which seemed to have stock from about 20 years ago (in a good way though) funny masks, squidgy toys, bubbles, fortune telling fish and whoopy cushions to name but a few of what I used.



This bag was for a 7 year old girl.



This bag was for the brides 7 year old nephew.

I kept the snack bags on the healthy side with home made heart shaped vanilla choc cookies, natural corn crisps, cheese, fruit and raisons and some delicate little round sandwiches made with half brown and half whites slices of bread. Fun.

There were some new babies there too so I gave their mummys some bubbles, a light up wand to keep baby entertained along with an energy giving biscuit (which I wrapped in baking paper and stuck with pretty tape) for them to munch during the speeches, feeding your baby starts with feeding yourself.

Charming!

For the last few years I've had something on my list of things to get sorted, finally last month it got done. My Grannys charm bracelet (a present from my Grandad) had been sat tarnished and tatty in it's original box for around half a century.

          

I'm sure you'll agree that it was money well spent getting it all cleaned up and the charms re soldered on. Tradition is that a new charm would be added at each Anniversary/Birthday/Christmas. I doubt my Granny (at the grand age of 95) can remember which was bought when but there is no doubt a story behind each one.

I couldn't wait to wear it out somewhere and did so the first chance I got, to a lovely dinner with Mr & Mrs B to mark (that) Mr B's return from America. We had a really nice evening out thanks to Millie and Nick taking up their roles as 'Best Auntie and Uncle' by babysitting, we left them a nice vege cottage pie in the Rayburn to take the winters chill off the evening. Full tums all round. Lovely friends X

Mr & Mrs B

No not us, well not just yet, our friends got married and became Mr & Mrs a month ago.

It was the first wedding I'd been to since I was a child, and what a lovely one it was. The ceremony was at the most divine little village church in the heart of the Lake District, the bride looked amazing in her 1950's length dress and dinky glittering Cinderella slippers. The groom was not to be sniffed at either, suited and booted he looked proud as punch. I think us girls had a smile and a sideways tilted head for the majority of the day, well worth the cricked neck though, whatever your beliefs are it was a wonderful moment, thank you for letting us share it with you x