French Knots

Project 365

Well 20 days in I've taken photos everyday and am learning about my limitations. The weather is a huge factor in how a picture turns out, adding interest, shadows or all over grey dependent on the weather!

I'm struggling with depth of field and would love to be able to take a picture like this last, amazing shot. I've even read the manual! To have the contrast between the sharp focus and the rest of the picture makes it an interesting photo. So that's what I'm practising this week as my photos are either all in focus or all blurred! 

The project 365 group on flickr is full of amazing and inspiring work as well as pictures from people like me who are at the beginning of their journey with their camera. I hope I'm still enjoying it at Day 220!  

Haiti

The news is too terrible to believe, such dreadful pictures, such awful despair.  Our natural reaction is to want to help the people suffering still further from the effects of the earthquake. To be unable to get medical help for your injured child, to have lost all that you hold dear is unimaginable. 

Pebbledash has an excellent link to a charity  Shelterbox who provide a tent and other practical equipment for a family who have lost everything.

Craft Hope has set up an etsy shop to allow crafters to sell items to raise money.

Rebecca Sower returned from Haiti only days before the earthquake having met some amazing people. She brought back many of their handmade items and has set up an etsy shop to sell them on behalf of her Haitian friends Haiti By Hand.

Melting

My world is starting to peep out from under it's blanket of white, there is a drip, drip, drip outside the window and the poor snowman's nose has fallen out. I might venture out myself, I've actually enjoyed being at home the last week or so and it's been great for saving money - no shopping trips = no spending, which is good for the bank balance in January.

 Here's a little picture I missed off my last post. The Baby Brother was given a present wrapped in such a lovely wrapping paper, sweet, naive drawings of animals. I copied them with my magic water soluble pen onto linen and embroidered them. As the piece of fabric I'd used was too small for the frame ( great planning) I stitched some stripy fabric top and bottom to make it larger before I laced it onto the cardboard for framing. I'm rather pleased with the effect.

Isn't this amazing?! A sweet little house hand stitched in felt, just look at the size of the leaves in the wreath on the door! Made for me by the talented Amanda. Talented and currently bed bound with flu poor love.

With the children finally back at school and Mr FK back at work the house seems rather empty this week. While The Baby Brother has his nap I've been exploring and have some 'new to me' finds to share - have you read these?

A collection a day

Little Suitcase

Once Wed

The Prairie Girl

I know you'll need a few more blogs for your Bloglines! Well the pc has crashed twice while I've been typing this so I think it's a hint to go and tidy up the house a bit or at least run the hoover round so The Baby Brother doesn't eat too much fluff when he's rolling about on the floor!

Handmade with love

I decided last year, or maybe the year before, to make as many gifts as possible to use some of my fabric stash and to enjoy creating something from things I already have. So for Christmas I made -

A dinky little quilt and pillow set for dolls or teddies, I made an appliqued bag to keep them in. Love the floral fabrics which I have had for ages and only use a little at a time as I love them!

I think I saw this on Martha Stewart, appliqued dresses mounted on a backing fabric but not stitched on the shoulders. You can use the hair clips to peg the dresses onto the ribbon washing line.

I had the plan for this in my head for ages, in fact I remember painting the frame on a sunny September day in the garden.

At the Baby Brother's Christening I drew round hands, some of my family live at the other end of the country so I had to grab them while I had the chance!

   I made the pattern then stuck it to the window to trace onto the fabric and made quite a few of these as I thought it was a lovely way to freeze time while the children are little.

 
A quilt for My Little Helper, just right for snuggling under on the settee, jeans cut into 5 inch squares and sewn with the seams on the right side.Snipping the seams then washing and tumbling gives a great textured finish.

 

A recycled bedspread made a perfect soft backing and it has been popular so far.

ok I promise not to mention the C word again till November!

Have a safe and snowy weekend, hope you can hole up at home and keep warm!x 

Clearing the decks

With the arrival of 12th Night it was invigorating to pack up the Christmas decorations and have a quick tidy up. It had to be quick as the school is still closed so the children are at home and grumbling at each other!

The main job is getting the tree outside with out sprinkling too many pine needles everywhere. I love a real tree and couldn't imagine Christmas without the tree scenting the air. As we have wooden floors downstairs it's fairly easy to brush up but the key to making the job easy is a duvet cover. I use an old king size one and drape it over the top of the tree, tucking in the lower branches all the way round and then do up as many of the buttons on the bottom of the duvet cover as I can.

Once you have got the triffid outside it can be recycled.

It feels like we've moved into a bigger house now all the knick knackery is put away and most of the furniture is back in it's usual place, just need to get life back into it's usual rhythm and the year will feel like it's under way.   

Snow in suburbia

We woke up to 8 inches of snow, well when I say woke up I mean the time we got up as it was morning as opposed to the other times in the night we were woken up by The Baby Brother ( pesky teeth)!

Happily the school was shut as the staff couldn't get in so we spent the day snowballing and sledging. A bonus day, an extra holiday.

I've never seem so much snow here, light and fluffy just right for enjoying. Goodness knows what it'll be like after it's frozen tonight though.

 
With a well stocked pantry and freezer we don't need to go any where, school is closed tomorrow too so we'll be in front of the fire toasting our toes.

He'll have to stay outside though, don't want a flood on the floor.   

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to you all, hope 2010 brings you peace and happiness. We had a very quiet New Year and were only up at midnight as The Baby Brother woke us up at 5 to midnight! We watched some fireworks from the top floor window and also saw about 100 of those floating lantern thingies that have some sort of little candle in them. It looked like a very atmospheric alien invasion!

I can hardly believe I've been blogging for 3 years, when I started at Christmas 2007 I wondered what I'd find to write about and here I am many posts later still recording our lives and my inspirations. Thanks so much to everyone who visits and comments, the friends and community I've found here have been so important as life as a stay at home Mum can be a bit isolating. To find so many wonderful people with the same passions and interests as me has been amazing.

Domesticali posted the other day about the 365 project and I thought I'd do it, taking a photo each day seems like a good way of doing something everyday just for me, learning how to use my camera ( which has been on my goal list for the last 2 years) and an encoragment to notice things more.

  Here is the first one, trying out the super macro setting on an ornamental cabbage. Let's hope I can keep it up to the end of the year!

Ali also mentioned Tumblr, and like a stalker or that girl in Single White Female I went to have a look at that too! It's a place to collect lovely pictures, so as someone who has a box full of pictures torn from magazines and a folder on the pc full of inspiration pictures it seemed perfect for collect more pictures of lovliness. Having been French Knots here,  on flickr , Etsy and delicious for years I was gutted to find someone had nabbed that name a couple of months ago on Tumblr! So I'm Flora McFlimsy instead! Did you read the books when you were little? I still have them upstairs wonderful pictures and sweet tales. And worth a fortune it seems from the search I did to find you a picture!  Too lovely to sell though! I'm looking forward to exploring Tumblr and building up a collection of amazing pictures and quotes.

I don't make resolutions as they are always broken by the end of the first week of January but I like a few goals to guide me. I love the start of the year, blank and waiting to be filled with whatever we wish, a new start and a fresh opportunity.

I never got round to learning to crochet last year ( something to do with a new baby perhaps?!) so that's one for this year. I also want to work on myself, my health and fitness. I've not really bounced back from having The Baby Brother and have splitty nails, eczema and odd low level niggles so I want to boost my immunity and general well being. Healthy eating and less wine would be a good start I'm sure......well one the Christmas Quality Street and been finished!! 

Merry in Melrose

We had a few days away just before Christmas in Melrose visiting family and friends after carefully trekking through the snow.

We took the sledge and hadn't even got the car unhitched before the children were trying it out!  More snow than we ever get here, a magical start to Christmas. Luckily the site was just of the A7 so we could get there and home again safely. We were having so much snowy fun that we stayed an extra night, the evening was wonderful with the children playing snowballing by moonlight as the snow continued to fall. Very special.

It was wonderful to see people that we rarely get together with, chatting, eating, catching up. We had a trip into Edinburgh, such a visual city with so much interesting architecture and the castle standing guard on the hill watching over everyone.

 Mr FK and The Big Sister braved the ferris wheeeeel! Me, no I had to look after The Baby Brother of course!!

 We made our way home through the winter wonderland just in time for Christmas. Lots of present giving, mince pie making, cooking and feasting. We had friends and family over both Christmas Day and Boxing Day which was wonderful, lots of chatting and tale telling, baby cuddling and lego making. A festive family celebration. Hope yours was all you hoped for too.xx

Festive Whirl

Goodness aren't the days flying by!? We have ramped up the activites with a Guide carol concert, choir singing at the Salvation Army toy service, school carol service, trip to the theatre and that's just The Big Sister!

We have been enjoying the advent calendar activites and I'm glad I planned the 'big' things well so we had time to enjoy them. Ice skating was a huge success with much squealing when the envelope was opened.

  It was such fun, much harder than I remembered - or maybe I'm just more nervous about falling over!

We made a flurry of flakes to brighten up the window and once all the lights were working decorated the tree.

Teachers' presents were made and delivered and in a little over an hour the children finish school, hurrah!

With the house decorated and Christmas music playing all we need is a little more snow. We had a mini snowstorm for half an hour yesterday but that was all, not enough for snowman building or sledging.

We made some more of those magazine trees that were all over blogland last year, a great way of using up all those brochures that come through the door.

Right, cards to write or they wont arrive till 2010!!   

Christmas Inspiration

What to  do on a grey Monday morning when your to do list is lengthy but you're not in the mood?

Ah ha what is this?

Many years of collecting, I fished out as many of the Christmas editions as I could see, but there could be more as quite a few boxes were piled up in front of them. Surprising I know for a minimalist non hoarder such as myself!

So many Christmas ideas, things to cook, make, sew and do. Lots of lovely pictures, the perfect antidote to a murky Monday morning.

And here's one I made earlier......

 

Mmm delicious Caramel Crunch biscuits, no there's not many left!

 

I found I needed to cook them for a bit longer than suggested and mine aren't quite such tidy shapes. But who cares they are very tasty!

Right I wonder what else I make from my hoarded Country Living magazines?

Thank you for all the Advent Calendar love, it's going down well and all the activites have been popular so far!