Balloons, rides and finds.

We've been up to allsorts here lately; It was really hot two weeks ago, Joel and I made it out on the trike. Here he is with a balloon we picked up/stole from a friends house whilst visiting her new baby. Thank god it's popped now as he wouldn't go out without it! He shouted ''Lllllloon llllooooon!'' as we rode along.

Later that week the maids and I went on a girly road trip (plus Joel) to Somerset to visit Alexandra King at her studio. Alexandra is making all our big day dresses (I only wish it was my entire wardrobe!) I didn't take any pictures as it was a bit of a whistlestop fitting after a six hour car journey but the studio was jam packed with exciting sketches, fabric samples and frocks to die for. We all looked super swish and I know I made the right choice in designer/maker for such special dresses, more to follow. Roll on the 19th! I'm about to burst with all the wedding blog drafts I've got stashed!!
We spent a day in Bath, it was lovely and we all said we'd like to go back. Bobbi Brown did the hard sell on us and we all walked away swinging bags of special makeup, as did a bakery window display, check out their wares!

Pistachio meringues the size of your head!

A darling iced house!

and Joel got himself another 'free' balloon thanks to Baths on street promotion of their Fashion Festival and Auntie Kebs sewing scissors!

Today is a rather grey Easter Day and as Mr B needed to do a few hours work I thought Joel and I could hit the bank holiday car boots. It was a little cold so thin on the turn out, but ofcourse I didn't come away empty handed. I got three different cups and saucers, a plate (all for the wedding reception) one of which was this kitsch little beauty.

I love souvenirs, especially vintage ones. It's an unnofficial collection/obsession of mine. So fate drew me to a small plastic cube on a very grubby stall, on closer inspection I realised it was a miniature TV shaped viewer.

 I thought 'dare I put it up to my eye before cleaning it?' I dared, it payed off and this was the view inside...

...even better, the rather ancient stall holder said I could just have it for free. It made my day. Well that and the chocolate eggs.

You are Cordially Invited....

We have been lucky enough to have our invites and RSVP cards designed and hand illustrated by a very good friend and fellow blogger Jill Wignall. I've been sitting on showing them off (like every aspect of our wedding!) until they were printed and posted but now I want to rave about how beautiful they are.
Back in the day of the Winter Entertainments Club and the Lovely London Ladies Social Evening there was always some kind of postal wonderful landing on our doorstep so I couldn't think of anyone better to illustrate invites for our special day than Jill. A fellow mummy friend of mine told me that ''the invite sets the tone for an event'', it's so true, ours was to capture the essence of our big day, before it even exists. No mean feat! Our day, like us was to be; Fun, Relaxed, Old England, Tea Party, Knees Up, Village Hall, Bit of a Do with Chips an Cakes.
 

Recipients first view of envelope contents, exciting eh!

Front cover of gatefold invite, featuring the vintage double decker bus which will take our guests to the reception

Inside of invite, depicts the village hall all decked out and guests partying

Back illustration; note to self 'must stop biting nails'

 

An advantage of using save the date cards bought us time to get all aspects of the day in place before the invites were drawn
  



We are so pleased with the invite and RSVP card, it's received so many positive 'ooh' 'aah' comments and has certainly set the perfect tone for our perfect day. Thanks a million Jill x

Toy Story

Joel moving into a big boy bed was a big deal, not just that he would need to train himself to sleep without the security of two foot high sides all around him but his room needed completely Joel proofing, just in case he climbed out in the night. This meant moving his bookcase and most of his toys downstairs to the fancily painted under stairs area we created for him when having the hall decorated before Christmas. It was the perfect size and makes a great addition to the hallway.

Naturally he takes over the whole house when he plays but I've tried to create a few designated storage areas for his things. In the kitchen he has his own cupboard which has kitchen related play in it.

As well as a pretty standard set of play food I put empty packets and tubs in there, as they get used, so each day he has a new item to use. It's nothing spectacular and he usually loses interest in it after a morning of play but it keeps the kitchen role play going nicely without the need to buy more and more foody toys.

Like most toddlers he knows that mummys purse is the best thing in the world to get to play with, that and any remote control, so I used an old purse and filled it with expired cards for him to play with. This lives in his Noddy shopper along with my old diary.

When it comes to wheels it's all about tracks, and what better track is there than the 'sheer drop window sill of doom'? Never mind the paint work, get those wagons rolling! Back and forth they go shunting each other along. So yes, cars mostly live on the lounge sill and go brrrrroooooommm!!

One important and yet sometimes costly lesson to learn when having children is they usually favour very simple things over expensive toys. Apart from a ball, some toy cars and his ride along Joel likes nothing better than to climb and run round the house with seemingly important things in each hand, being busy playing at being busy, and I like nothing better than to watch him, when I'm not playing at being busy too that is.

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.