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

Grandad B's Birthday Bash

Mr B's Dad was 70 last month, we wanted to mark such a special birthday with a family party. He has 3 children and a fair few grandchildren (Joel being the youngest) who are rarely all gathered together in one place.

Instead of making a birthday cake we made birthday muffins and arranged them in a 70. Half were strawberry cheesecake and the others were triple chocolate, I got the recipes from a great little baking book by Good Housekeeping. It meant everyone could eat one flavour and take the other one homefor later.

The North Pom made this pom pom garland (dubbed 'the new bunting') in colours to complement our kitchen. The colours looked so good you can now order them yourself.

I finally got to make good use of my bargain birdy glasses (£2 for 12 at a really soggy car boot sale) when we did a champagne toast to the tune of 'Happy Birthday!'

Snapshot

It's been a busy few weeks since I last posted, many a blog is queued up in my 'drafts' folder but I'm not sure if they will see the light of day now. Probably best to give you an abridged version of recent life.

Joels first encounter with Swans, he didn't believe me when I said they were birds. Well who would?

Lakeside fun

I've been slowly adding to my china collection, these 4 cups cost 50p and they are really old.  No saucers but they will be perfect for serving puddings in

Joel got some molars, nasty things.

I spotted this baby Toad in our front garden just the other night, he was diddy! Remember the difference between frogs and toads? Frogs have webbed feet and Toads have toed feet.

We ate blackberries straight off the brambles, they were warm in the evening sun. Joel loved them but got frustrated when I couldn't find them fast enough.

My love of all things miniature continued with an investment in this delightful little knife, perfect for topping my morning eggy weggs with

We were glad when the summer hols were over and groups were back on.

Washer Woman

The Washer Watcher in action!

 The weather has been pants lately, adding to the frustration of not being able to go out wandering as much as we'd like is the ever growing stacks of wet washing with no where to go. Drying indoors just isn't glamorous, unless.......
You spend a rainy day totally re vamping your washing room, whilst avoiding all other housework!

I started on this little baby airer. It's been with me for years now, a bargain find in a Nottingham junk shop. I saw an idea recently in a magazine for tying ribbon around the joints but I thought I'd go one better and replace the tapes with fancy trimmings, from my collection.

Here is the finished article laden up with Joels 'real' nappy's

...drying off in front of our lovely blue Rayburn

I also got my lovely selection of old tins out of storage and set them out along the high window sill. I used some of Joel's building blocks to spell out WASH

Hanging from the ceiling are these fabric print paper lanterns which used to block a street front window at my old house.

and our traditional big airer. Where would we be without it!!!

The finishing touch was covering Myrtles crate with some bright red, spotted oilcloth. The Orla Kiely Tesco bag for life is perfect for emptying the machine into as I can carry it over my shoulder to the line whilst holding Joel. Much better than a wash basket.

So all in all I am very pleased with my efforts. Who said utility can't be pretty?