Valentine’s Day pretties

Posted on 08/02/2016 by Pam

As Valentine’s Day is coming up, my email is full of all the things that companies think we should give each other. Some of it is a bit too much even for me, but some of it I think is fabulous, and I wanted to share!

The item that started this post in my head was this heart bag by Radley that they emailed me about a couple of days ago, and I saw in another email this morning!

It’s so cute!

I’ve been described as a bit of a magpie, so there has to be jewellery on my list of lovely things!

This bee necklace by Alex Monroe looks so real, as though a bee has settled on your décolletage (love that word!).

And the romantic in my needs more hearts on this list, and so I fell for these little heart earrings in rose gold.

Whilst the above are lovely, there’s always a part of me that wants something fun (though I’m not sure anyone who carries around a bag in the shape of a heart can ever be called boring!) and so I found dinosaurs in love socks!

And I’m afraid that means I’m back to jewellery, because I adore Tatty Devine, and they have some lovely ideas for Valentine’s Day!

And how about a little reading of what other people think about love? There’s Love Poems from Penguin

I always feel like I should read more poetry!

Or we can follow Carrie and Mr Big from Sex and the City’s example, and read Love Letters of Great Men!

But a little self love with Dita Von Teese’s book, Your Beauty Mark won’t go amiss!

I hope this has been entertaining at least, or maybe I should say, it’s kept me entertained!

Mr X-Stitch Workshop

Posted on 05/01/2016 by Pam

Back in September, I went to a workshop that Jamie aka Mr X-Stitch (pronounced X, and not cross, as I found out at the Handmade Fair) was running, which was hosted by Alanna of RubyxRedxHeart.

I’ve been cross stitching for a while, but I wanted to go and see if I learnt anything new, and meet up with other people who loved crafting!

It was a fun evening of stitching different things, and yes, I did learn a couple of new things!

That on the finger thread cutters are pretty nifty!

And I learnt how to start a piece of thread without leaving a knot behind, which was pretty useful! Not that I’ve started doing that, but when I want the back of a piece of work to look very neat, I have new ideas!

Here’s what I made on the night! Jamie has made some sheets that he takes to events like this – he’s got various Mario characters, which you can tell I liked! Space Invaders, and just words were the other options, but I like the ones I’ve made, even if the colouring is a little unusual – spending ages to find the right thread didn’t seem to be that important!

It was a good workshop, and I think it’s always good to try to learn new things… even if you decide not to use them (oops!)!

I’m hoping to do a lot more crafting this year – I’ve promised my other half that I will stitch some silly bits onto hankerchiefs for him, and I want to learn more croquet, and there’s my list of cross stitch that I want to do! It’s going to be a busy year!

Hair update aka bring back the mermaid hair!

Posted on 03/01/2016 by Pam

My hair was getting less blue, and more green, with lots of roots, so I decided to do something about it. I wanted less dryad and more mermaid!

I tried to bleach my hair on my own, to begin with. Not the best move! My fringe and parting were bleached well, but the back…. not so much!

My attempt didn’t go so well!

And so I roped in my other half to help me!

It went much better with someone else doing it!

As you can see – he did a pretty good job with the bleaching, considering that’s the first time he’s every done anything like this!

And then I went over it again with blue!

I’ve realised that I quite like it when my hair is teal covered – the blue is now feeling a little too strong (hurrah for bleached roots, though!) I found teal easy to wear with different colours, whereas the mish-mash of colours that my hair is currently is a little harder!

But I’m not ready to go back to brunette yet! The next colour adventure might be a dark blue… or green, since that seems to be where my hair wants to go!

Home made chocolate covered chillies

Posted on 01/01/2016 by Pam

I finished the year with something new for me. I wanted to try chocolate covered chillies, and so I bought the chocolate, melted it down, and dunked the chillies… and wow did that make a mess!

There’s a lovely mix of about 6 varieties, which include jalepnos, scotch bonnets and naga chillies.

Whilst I’ve made these, I will be avoiding eating any of the smaller ones! I don’t handle chillies very well! I’ve managed to put my hand to my eyes on more than one occasion after cutting them, so I’m a bit wary!

I hope you have a great New Year’s, and a fantastic 2016 – I can’t wait for it to begin!

A very merry Lego Christmas

Posted on 28/12/2015 by Pam

I’ve only really discovered that I like Lego in the last 6 months, and in that time have made Wall-e, a Halloween scene, a pen pot, and now a lot of Lego that my other half got me for Christmas – hurrah!

There was an offer on, so I had to have both sets that I was eyeing up, in order to get the cute gingerbread house for free, so I’ve had a huge amount to make, and it’s been great!

The lovely gingerbread house, which seems to no longer be on the Lego website!

We started Christmas early, with gundam building for my other half (I really do feel like I need a good nickname for him – Pioneer Woman has Marlboro Man, which fits her husband to a tee, but I will have to think on this – any suggestions are welcome!), and I had Lego – I knew what I was getting, as I had chosen it, and had it delivered with my name on it! We started Christmas on Christmas Eve, just after lunch, when he came home early from work – hurrah!

I started on the gingerbread house (in the picture above), and then moved onto Santa’s Workshop, as that seemed the most appropriate! We were out for most of Christmas Day, so I finished it on Boxing Day, with my other half assuring me that waking him up to find a particular brick, or if something had gone wrong, would be fine! (And this from a man who doesn’t bounce out of bed on Christmas Day, wanting to open presents at the crack of dawn…! Lego is serious stuff!)

It was a really nice kit, and I love the way it’s come out! And I much prefer this Santa to the one on the fridge magnet – I’ve decided it’s his ZZ Top beard that doesn’t really work for him!

This is the reverse – look at all the wonderful detail! There are stickers galore on this, and I love the seat with all the letters in the top left!

Once I had the workshop displayed as I wanted it, it was time to move on to the next bit of Lego, and this is one that I’ll be playing with often throughout the year! It’s a seasonal house!

There are only 3 seasons on it currently, but I think I’ll switch out the Christmas tree and snow machine for some flowers and…. I’m not sure… umbrella?

It has Summer, Autumn and Winter, and I’m really pleased with how it’s come out!

Again, this has an inside, but it’s one you can’t really see in this picture…

Until you press on the light brick – all hail the light brick! I thought this was amazing, and really enjoyed trying to work out how it was going to look in the finished article!

For my Christmas lego, I’ve kept all of the instructions, and the spare bits! My plan is to dis-assemble all of these, and put them back together in December 2016, which will be like another Christmas present! I’m really excited, especially as we should have moved by then, so there should be a proper amount of space to display them!

I have re-sealable sandwich bags for the spare parts, and I will make sure they go into the right bag, so that I don’t have to look through 883 pieces to find the one that I want!

For the seasonal one, I’ve done something similar – I have used the sandwich bags, except for the seasonal one, you do have to look at all the pieces at once, and try to find the particular piece you need, which isn’t always as easy as I feel it should be!

I hope you’ve enjoyed looking at my Lego, because I have a feeling this won’t be my last post on it…and something very exciting is coming out on 1st January (Ghostbuster’s Firehouse!!!)

Jingle Bell Necklace Workshop at Tatty Devine

Posted on 25/12/2015 by Pam

I recently went to Tatty Devine, to make a bell necklace at one of their workshops with my sisters.

This was my second workshop that I’ve done with Tatty Devine – the first one was the lobster workshop, which I’m going to put up a post about soon!

It was lots of fun, and you come away with a professional piece of jewellery, which I adore! And you know that none of the links are going to come apart as the 2 people who run the workshop will check all the links for you, and are really helpful when you get stuck!

I really love that you get to put together the acrylic pieces – in this case, you can choose between three colours for the bell – pink, red and gold. The original necklace that was the cover for the workshop was all three colours, and I liked it so much, I knew that was what I wanted to do!

Some people made all gold, one of my sisters did gold with 2 red bells, one either end (you can see it in the picture below), and it was really nice to see what each person wanted to come away with!

Here’s my finished piece, which I’ve been wearing nearly every day since making it!

I’m going to go back to Tatty Devine, and do another workshop – I just have to decide which one to do!

I hope you have a great Christmas, and see you soon at Tatty Devine…..!

The beginnings of an idea of what I’ll be doing next year!

Posted on 21/12/2015 by Pam

Well hello there, it’s been awhile!

I’m afraid I’ve been so busy I’ve had an exam to study for which is in early January, and I’ve been getting quotations for contractors to work on my late father in laws house! We need to do the boiler, electrics, all of the walls, some of the windows, you get the idea! It’s going to be a big project!

And it’s one that that my other half is trusting me to do so I’ll be researching what looks good in homes that people want to rent!

It’s all going to be very exciting, and I’m sure I’ll be posting about it as I go along, if only so I can stop and think about it, and see if there’s anything I’m missing! Or any huge mistakes that I’m about to make!

Is it Christmas yet?

Posted on 15/10/2015 by Pam

It’s at this time of year that I start to get excited for Christmas.

Yes, I know that makes me about 10, but every year I feel anticipation for the chilly mornings of December, being snug, eating yummy food, pretty lights and decorations every where, and of course, presents! That’s the giving, and yes, receiving them!

This means I’m the awful person looking at Christmas decorations, and the equally awful (ly excited!) person opening emails with ‘christmas bedding’ as the title!

The ones that caught my eye were Scandi-style

and a bit more patterned.

The next question is, at what point can I hope that my other half doesn’t notice the Christmas bedding…..

I didn’t spot bedding when I was shopping the other day, but I did find Christmas ornaments!

I think the shops and I both have a thing for snowglobe decorations this year, because look at all the pretty things I’ve found (I have bought some of them already!) This beautiful Christmas tree in green , or in red!

and there really is bits of white stuff in there that you can make fluff around! No water, so it won’t fall, but still a lot of fun! And your eye are not deceiving you – they are slightly flat at the bottom!

The next isn’t in a snowglobe, but I think it’s awesome anyway!

A telephone box that I really want to buy and then paint TARDIS blue!

The next really are little snowglobes!

I really like the small christmas tree!

Continuing the snowglobe theme, a Santa in a glass dome!

I really do like Santa ornaments! So much so that I found another Santa decoration!

Hot air balloon Santa, who I think wants to be steampunked a little!

And now I’ve matured (for the moment!) and I think this Art deco snowflake is lovely!

I though this next one was adorable!

It’s a cozy house that lights up! Cute!

And then this last one, I just want to have them for any time of the year!

Because who doesn’t love some art deco style bugs?

I’m sorry if you don’t like people who talk about Christmas before December, but there’s some things that you know will sell out quickly (like the first little trees!) and so you just have to start browsing earlier… at least that’s what I’m telling myself!

The time I wanted to stop looking out of the kitchen window

Posted on 23/08/2015 by Pam

It all started innocently enough!

It was Christmas 2010, and it snowed, so Piete decided to make a snowman….

Yes, our garden is mostly paving stones and concrete, which makes gathering snow pretty good, as it’s nice and even, and Piete is a determined man…..

Piete asked me what kind of snowman I wanted, and I couldn’t resist as it was near Christmas, and requested Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas!

Just a reminder of what he looks like, before we go on to the terrifying conclusion!

And so Piete built me what I had requested…..

And this is how I saw the snowman, whenever I went into the kitchen… smiling at me with his creepy smile, and WATCHING ME!

‘Why yes, I would like a drink, please! A drink of your blood!‘

And then, finally, the nightmare was over, but our creepy snowman lasted a lot longer than I wanted him to!

Happily, there hasn’t been snow enough for a snowman since then, but I have a feeling that when we do next have a snowman, this one might re-incarnate!

The kitchen

Posted on 21/08/2015 by Pam

This is a post I found in my drafts (from 2010, need I say more!), and it really captured a time for me which I had completely forgotten about! So I thought I’d publish it now….

As you’ll have noticed from the post below, we’ve recently moved, and what you might have noticed is that the kitchen has a hole in it, that looks suspiciously like a cooker shaped hole. And it is.

We were living off microwave meals (Innocent veg pots – yum!) until I realised that I could actually dig out the slow cooker, and cook in a very slow manner. So that’s what we’ve been doing, along with researching how to cook rice, and boil potatoes, in a microwave!

We are going to buy a cooker, but we’re taking the opportunity to work out what we want in a cooker – something that’s going to cook good food, that I’m not going to get too frustrated with (I can handle electric hobs, but it doesn’t mean that I like them!), and that’s going to be a good investment, and of course, isn’t going to cost the Earth to run! And in the meantime, we’ve bought a combination microwave – so we’ll actually have something that I can use as an oven, and that might actually work for me every time, unlike the microwave, which has always shown me that it belongs to Piete by not cooking things for me. The classic example was a couple of weeks ago, when I made 2 lots of hot chocolate – 1 for Piete, and 1 for me. Guess which one was hot, and which was cold! And I didn’t do anything different.

I’m looking forward to the chance to bake things again – I’ve bought some cookie cutters recently, and it’ll be great to have the chance to use them!