Cupcakes and Cupboards

Hello Girls, I'm up in the attic cupcaking this afternoon.

Although I think I should maybe spend a few minutes tidying! Nah! Life's too short for that.

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Would you like to see the old kitchen larder cupboard that we rescued from the roadside?

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Yes?

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I've finished painting it now and hubby bravely fought his way into the shed at the weekend and dug out the counter top for it.

TADAA!

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I am sooooo pleased with this cupboard. I paid £20 for it and we've probably spent another £30 in paint (3 tins because I chose the wrong colour cream to start with, OOPS!)

I've put some Cath Kidston fabric behind the glass doors and I think I'm going to line the shelves with either this spotty pink oilcloth or maybe a blue and pink rosy one.

Aaaah,... I think I'm in love!

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Right! I better get on with some cupcakes... or tidying. Cupcakes it is!

Till next time.

Love Fi x

OOO! It's Triplets!

Hello, Ladies. Today I'd like to introduce you to the triplets.

They're only about 5 inches tall and a little shy, but I thought I'd ask them to say hello before they leave for their new home at Katherines Dream.

This is white faced bunny,

This is pink faced bunny,

And here is little blue face.

They're all going to string together in a line across the front of Nana Carols pram; where hopefully they'll dance merrily up and down.

Oh dear! I think it's all been a bit too much for little blue face!

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Now, while I have your attention could I just say thankyou for the lovely comments you have left, especially on the last post. I don't know if my mum has seen them yet, but I'm sure she'll be overwhelmed with your response to her beautiful hardanger bag.

Thank you all.

Love Fi x

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Birthday Bag.

Here are the photos of the beautiful linen, embroidered bag that my Mum made me for my birthday.
It must have taken her hours and hours.

Isn't it fantastic?

Each little square had to be embroidered and then cut out.

And then the embroidery added.

Such lovely soft colours.

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Look at all these little button hole stitches.

Even the loops for the ties are embroidered on.

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The back is just as perfect.

I'm a very lucky lady.

Thank you Mum, you are so special.

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Check out the Hardanger shelf edging my Dad made me last year.

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Next time I'll show you what Carol over at Katherines Dream asked me to make for her next grandchild. She's getting in early, it's only a twinkle in it's daddy's eye at the moment!
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love Fi x

Birthday Weekend.

Hello you lovely people!

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Look at these beautiful flowers.

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They were from my lovely boss, a gift for my birthday yesterday.

And this scrummy cake too. OOPS! There seems to be a SMALL piece missing.

This magnificent chocolate cake was made by my 14 year old daughter. All her own design and craftsmanship. What a sweetie!

My Mum and Dad came up at short notice for the weekend, which was a lovely. Mum always takes great care with her parcels. They are always beautifully wrapped and tied with real ribbons which I snaffle away.
But the best part of her present was this amazing bag that she had made me. Yes that's right, she MADE IT! I'm only going to show you this one photo as I think it deserves a closer look. Next time we'll take a closer look at it, so I'll save it till then if that's okay with you?

Still on the subject of home made gifts.(I luuuuurve homemade gifts, don't you?)

This little bear has been knitted by my lovely friend Sam. I'm not sure what she's saying with the specs and the pearls, but the needlework is definitely me!

Look, isn't she fantastic! It must have taken her many evenings after putting the children to bed! It's soooo beautifully made. Thank you Sam you make me smile, and I miss you. (Especially because you are a total nutter!)
The pretty gift boxes from my mum contained a bundle of old fashioned cream cotton lace, wrapped in the most beautiful floral tissue paper. Don't they look at home on the top of my newly painted larder unit?
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Oh, you've not seen my cream and pink larder unit, have you?
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Well it's still not finished. I'm just waiting for the pull out counter top to be rescued from the depths of the shed! And when I say rescued, I mean RESCUED! You wouldn't believe how much wood it's hidden under. I'll take us the best part of a weekend to dig it out!


There it is. At the end of the kitchen in all its ice-creamy, creamy, pinkie loveliness. Hmm, I think we'll have to take a closer look at that too....when it's got its counter top of course.
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Lastly I'd just like to say a big thank you to my Wonderful Man and best friend Carol. They very sneakily arranged for Carol to secretly travel the 120 miles from her home to our little village, where she leaped out from behind the fruit machine in our local pub and surprised me soooooo much I burst into tears and blubbed all over her shoulder!
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What a weekend! I hope you all had a good one too.
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See you next time for some close ups of that gorgeous embroidered bag.
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Love Fi x

Dress Making.

Today I have been dressmaking.

On a very small scale I must confess.

Pinafore dresses to be exact.



Not too tight I hope!

Not too long either!

Perfect fit!

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Yes Carol, they're your bunnies. Sorry they're taking me so long! x

Kirstie who?

Hello my lovely bloggy friends.

I don't know quite where to start today. I've been dibble dabbling in a few different things lately. I've been knitting, sewing, crocheting and most interestingly of all... painting!

Do you remember this old, old, old kitchen cupboard from this post last August? No of course you don't because it was an embarrassingly long time ago.

Well we've finally started to do it up. We've been waiting for some decent dry, not too windy weather to take it outside and sand it down; it doesn't say much for our weather here does it!

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A quick recap: We spotted it laying on its side in the rain, outside a cottage in a neighbouring village. Cheekily left a note written on the back of an old receipt asking if it was being thrown out. Twenty four hours later three of us were straining to lift it into the back of our car (it weighs a tonne!) Eat your heart out Kirstie Allsopp!

Strange as it seems, I wasn't too keen on the 'battle ship grey' paintwork, so its being painted cream and pink. I can't wait to get it finished.
And I think my new Sanderson fabric might be ok behind the glass of the cupboard doors. We'll have to see when its finished.

Oh and I've been really enjoying making more cupcakes. Calorie free of course!

Love Fi x

Thrifting and Cupcakes

Gosh! Look how similar these colour combinations are!

Hello all.

The sun is shining on my little patch of earth today and I'm feeling alive and zingy! My blogging mojo has been sadly missing over the last couple of weeks my friends. Yes, I must admit it took me all my time to post the crochet pattern for the Kitty. I don't even like to see it on my blog! But I'm feeling much better today.

I thought we'd better have a general catching up session today.

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Yesterday wonderful man and I went out to the garden centre and came home with an unusually shaped lampshade, some beautiful Sanderson curtains, some sewing bits and pieces, paint and a few other odds and ends. 

Here are the scrummy Sanderson curtains that I snaffled up for £3.99. They are, in my humble opinion absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunatley they won't fit any of my windows! I did wonder if I could make them larger by adding a co-ordinating gingham check around the edges, a bit like my kitchen curtains in the picture below. Alas, that would indeed be A LOT of gingham!

These were made from a pair of spotty curtains and a apair of check curtains which I had to cut up to make four curtains and two pelmets (there are two windows in the kitchen.)

I wish you could have seen me doing the maths for this project! It took me weeks just to work out how to do it, to make the curtains both look as full as each other as one window is wider than the other. (Nothing is ever straight forward is it?) I don't think you can tell from the photo but the pelmet on this window is actually made by unpicking and then re-stitching together all the little tab tops from one curtain, thats how tight the fabric was! You may also notice in this picture two rather large dustwebs! Ooops!

I also came across this lovely little KNITTED doily. It really is delicate and at 49p I couldn't possibly leave it. The floral fabric next to it is a blouse, sadly too small for me but as fabric for crafting...perfect.

Talking of crafting; this is what I've been up to lately...cupcaking! I've designed a new cupcake base which is not quite as fiddley as the ones I was making back in this post, but still gives me a lovely cupcake shape. I don't like to see cupcakes made with straight cases, I like mine to go wider at the top like a real one! As with the curtains, nothing is ever straight forward. It took me seven or eight attempts at making a pattern and trying it out before I got the right shape and size. I just can't help it, if it's not right then I'm not happy and won't want to make any more. So it really was worth all the effort and junior school maths! Lets hear it for Pythagoras's theorem!

Just so I don't get into trouble with Carol; I've also been getting on with another little project, but more of that when it's finished : )

I'll leave you with a photo of what I can see in front of me up here in the attic.

Love Fi x