Wonderful Winter

Morning everyone - hope you are waking up to sunshine as we are.  Lovely to see blue skies again.

Last weekend was a different matter - we woke up to snow still falling, everything covered in a silent blanket of white.  After lunch, the snow had stopped so DH and DD and I set off for a walk from our home to our local outwoods.  All told a round journey of 8 miles, usually takes 2 hours - but this time it was 4.5 hours - well, it is more challenging walking in deep snow, I was stopping every few minutes to take photos, and then we went for a hot chocolate and a sit by an open fire at the half way point!

I thought I would share a few of my photos with you....

I loved the snowman and his snow dog!  In  my part of the world we often miss the worst of the snow as we are just about as far away from the sea as it is possible to be on this island.  But this time we were in for a treat.

By the time we had warmed up by the open fire and yummy hot drinks, it was getting to be dusk, so these photos were taken as we walked through our local villages on the way back home

Dusk is my favourite part of the day when Im out walking, I love to see the lamps coming on in the houses, makes me feel all cosy and toasty.

Im not sure which set of photos is my favourite....

Hope you are keeping warm, have a lovely weekend.

Helenxx

52 weeks of happy 4/52

Hi everyone - great to be back!!  Sorry I havent been around for a while!

Something thats really making me happy this week is that my laptop is back from being repaired - I was so lost without it.  Luckily, when DH bought it for my birthday last year he took out cover for it, so it is all back to normal!  Very impressed with the service from Currys I have to say.

So Im very happy!



picture from Google Images

And of course the snow has been another thing making me happy - I could go on and on and on about the magical beauty of the snow, the fun we have had playing in it etc - but I will keep that for another day.  This is one of my favourite photos taken this past week

This is a 17th century cottage, built by a man who was escaping the Plague in London.  A gory tale, but a very idyllic scene.

Have a great weekend - yet more snow forecast!

Helenxx

Scandinavian inspired Felt Heart

Hi everyone.

I have been feeling so inspired by all things Scandinavian just recently.  I have treated myself to a couple of books, found some lovely blogs and just generally mooched about the internet getting ideas.  And I found that although I had thought that red and white were the main colour ways for that Scandi-look, in fact this is usually only the case for Christmassy things.  In fact, our friends over in Scandinavian usually go for lovely, light colours, icy blues, steely greys, snowy whites, etc.  And, although I usually go for those rich, warm, autumnal colours, I found that I like this icy-palette quite a lot.

So, feeling quite inspired I had a rumage around in my craft box and found some scraps of felt, wool, ribbon and buttons and started to play around.  This is what I ended up with...

 



 

 

I think Im going to replace the chinese lanterns with some white branches, would be a bit more in keeping with the colours dont you think?

Here is my new heart with one of the cross stitch hearts I made during the holidays, I think they go quite well together:

I have bought some steely grey wool felt to make some more hearts, will let you know how I get on!

Helenxx

A Birthday, a Bloggiversary and 52 Weeks of Happy 3/52 :)

Good morning everyone, and what a chilly one it is too!  Just an icing-sugar type dusting of snow on the roofs and gardens around here.  But the sky looks very very foreboding, so a bit more of the white stuff might make its presence felt later...time will tell...

Well, what a busy time it has been!  Back to work with a vengeance on Monday, boy was I shattered by Friday night!  So on to the happy things...
I had a lovely late afternoon early evening shopping trip out with my bestest friend Sue on Friday, as a lead in to yesterday which was my birthday!

I had a lovely day being totally spoiled at home.  Lots of lovely presents including a new all singing all dancing top of the range MP3 player to replace the old one which got stolen from my desk at work this week.  Luckily I have most of the music backed up on various hard drives etc so spent an hour yesterday loading up the new one. 

So linking in to 52 weeks of happy etc let me present the lovely cake my wonderful daughter made for me

It was so light and fluffy and so darn chocolatey!!

This is what is left this morning...

Yum!!  That's elevenses sorted then...

Another thing that has made me happy is this lovely cheerful daffodil on my kitchen windowsill

I bought a pot on my first day back at work, the flowers were in tight bud but came out in time for my birthday!

And here we go with yet more happy...Sue from @home bought me a lovely bag of goodies for my birthday, and look at these beauties which were included...

5, yes 5 fat quarters and a charm pack of the loveliest fabric you ever did see, all in my favourite autumnal colours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  This lovely friend is going to help me put these, together with a charm pack I treated myself to, into a quilt.  We will do this on our regular Monday craft evening get-togethers.  I haven't had the sewing machine out since before Christmas so had better give it a bit of a dusting I think!!!!

So plenty to make me happy this week...

And today is my second bloggiversary!  I started this little blog 2 years ago today, Sue encouraged me to do this and I'm so glad she did!  I have loved having a space to log what goes on in my life, it is so good to look back upon...to remember the little, but oh so special things that make up my life.  And it has been wonderful to "meet" so many talented and thoughtful people out there in blogland. 

Well, I guess I had better go and tidy up a bit, the house got a bit messy yesterday what with all the celebrating!!

Have a lovely day and, to quote a line from Home Alone 2 (Lost in New York) "do bundle up, its awfully cold out there"!

Helenxx

52 weeks of Happy 2/52

Hello everyone, hope you are enjoying a lovely and relaxing weekend. We certainly have - today is the last day of the holidays before returning to school, college, university and work. So feeling a little wistful, and wishing we could turn the clock back and live the last two weeks all over again...but, a New Year beckons and we will just have to put our best feet forward and embrace all that 2013 brings!

So I thought I would post a photo of what has made me especially happy today

The first little shoots of daffodils in our front garden.  I so love spring bulbs, especially daffodils and hyancinths.  In fact, I think I might pop to the little flower shop that is situated oh so conveniently across the road from my place of work to see if they have any little pots of daffs and 'cynths as a little "back to work treat to myself" tomorrow - well a girl has to have something to look forward to after all....and my kitchen windowsill needs cheering up...

DH is cooking us up a lovely pot of his legendary lentil soup, to be served up with big chunks of bread...something to make us feel comfy and cosy...this is also making us all very happy, but cant get a photo of the proceedings as the camera lense keeps steaming up!!

have a great evening!

Helenxx

52 Weeks of Happy 1/52

Hi there!

Just a quick post today - I have seen quite a few bloggers taking up the 52 weeks of happy challenge and rather liked it!  It seems a lovely way to ensure that we take time to really acknowledge what has made us feel happy.

So, amongst the many, many things that have made me happy this week is our trip out yesterday which included this favourite place of mine

As you can see from the date stamp, this is an old, but favourite photo of mine, taken at this time of year though - and yes, the place is Matlock Bath.  I dont know why but I have always loved the place.  When I was little we used to go every autumn for the Venetian Nights boats, fireworks and illuminations.  Its just a really nice spot for a potter about, with more challenging walks nearby if thats what you feel like doing.

The weather was very gloomy yesterday, so no photos worth sharing.  But a lovely time out with DH and DD all the same.  Eventually we ended up in Manchester to do a bit of shopping in some of specialist food shops we like up there, followed up with a delicious Middle Eastern meal at our favourite eatery!!

I could really get used to this being on holiday lark...I guess I need to work though to finance the hols ha ha!!

Hope that there is much this week that is making you happy. 

Helenxx

Introducing the Moonstruckcreations Make It Big Challenge 2013

Good morning everyone.

Im very blessed in that I dont have to go back to work until Monday (yippeeee!!!!!) so Im still enjoying the hols.  Im off for a jolly with DH and DD in a bit but before I go I would like to introduce an idea that I have been mulling over during the holiday.

I am, by nature, quite an impatient person - although everything I do, at work, at home etc requires shed-loads of patience!  Hence when Im crafting I tend to always go for fairly small scale projects, something that can be completed reasonably quickly.  And there is always a need for these quick crafty fixes, whether it be crafting something for a gift, something to cheer up a dull corner in the house, or whatever.  But...I always admire (and lets be honest, envy - albeit in an entirely appropriate way!!) those of you who take on big projects, and stick them out to the end.  For example, blankets, patchwork and so on.

Soooo...I thought I would set up a little challenge for myself which I would love you to join me in if you would like to.

Amongst all the many quick fix crafting projects I am going to try to complete a few much bigger scale projects during this year.

These will (hopefully) be:

• My biggest cross-stitch project for many a long year, it will measure 16x16 inches and is chock-full of stitches
• A crochet throw
• A patchwork throw - this may be a lap quilt or something a bit bigger, will see how it goes

Do you have any big projects lined up for this year?  Are you up for joining in the challenge with me?  If so please leave me a comment and add this charming (!!!!) little pic to your sidebar:

I will update you all with pics of progress (or lack of, hence requiring a bloggy kick up the rear end!!) of whichever big project Im working on at the end of each month (or thereabouts, no need to feel pressurised if not on time), and hopefully those of you that join the challenge will do the same.  We will therefore be able to log the journey made towards crafting something big and wonderful!  And encourage each other as we go.

I do hope you will join me!

Helenxx

...and Welcome 2013!

Happy New Year everyone!

May it be a happy, healthy and prosperous one for you and yours.  And of course may it bring creativity and craftiness in abundance!!

This is a little felt heart I made for my bestest friend Sue - we always spend New Years Eve at her house. 

We always enjoy the evening so much - we used to just spend the evening at home watching rubbish on telly, both families have 4 kids so no real scope for going "out on the town"...having said that we never used to do that even before kids as its not really our "thing". So a few years ago we agreed that both families would get together to see in the New Year.  And even though the kids are older now, and not all of them are at home on New Years Eve, we still get together and have fun.  Check out her post from this morning to check what we got up to.   Thanks again for a super evening Sue!  Hope the summer house is still standing this morning....;)

Have a lovely day everyone!

Helenxx