Treasure Box

Hi everyone

Thanks everyone for all your comments on my last post, much appreciated!

And the crochet squares are indeed, as Little Blue Mouse suggested, destined to be made into a box - to hold a square box of tissues.  Something pretty with a nod to usefulness!  I only have one square left to do.  Will post some pics when it is done.

In and amongst my rather chaotic life I sometimes get time for a little browse around our local Flea Market, which is held each Friday in our market place.

And as I was browsing I happened to come across this

I don't know the technical name for it but to me it is a folding workbox.  And it is so spacious inside, lots of room for buttons...

 Fabric...

 and threads...

Here it is fully opened (excuse the kitchen paraphernalia in the background!)

I love the fact that it is so nice to look at, but also very pleasing to use.  And it was very cheap too - bonus!!

What has been your most recent thrifty treasure?  I would love to hear about it!

Helenxx

Keeping calm and crocheting on...

Good morning everyone, Saturday is here at last!

What a week - very stressful, mainly work related it has to be said.  And there is every indication that next week will be stressful as well.

But there are always moments to be savoured along the way.  My bestest friend Sue from crafts@home came around on Monday for our usual crafty/chatty get-together.

I was doing a bit of messing around with crochet and completed this

 which ended up like this...

...so far there are two of these squares...

...I only need five of them.  These five will be made into a little gift for my mum-in-law who has been really ill this year.  She is recovering from her illness, but is now quite depressed.  She always used to be the one running everything, now others are having to help her (which they are happy to do).  But she is fiercely independent so as you can imagine she is feeling very down and helpless.  So I hope a little gift might just cheer her up even if just a tiny bit.  Any guesses as to what 5 crochet squares can be made into? 

Also, I'm a big believer in having a sweet treat when times are stressful.  So my daughter and I decided to make this:

A yummy trifle!! We used a veggie friendly jelly which was simply scrummy, and used biscuit rusks (these are like biscotti) instead of sponge fingers as these give a lovely substantial texture.  The custard was strawberry flavoured and the topping was a strawberry flavoured whip we bought from a Turkish Supermarket.  And then of course we loaded the strawberries on top ( one or two from the punnet had to be tested for quality first of course)

Hoping to grab a bit of stress-free time this weekend before going back into the maelstrom next week...

Have a lovely weekend, whatever it is you get up to!

Helenxx

Theres no place like London!

Hello everyone - at least the sun is shining and here we are in June!

As threatened promised last week, I'm back with some photos of my wonderful day out in London last week with my DH.  Some of the photos I wanted to share were taken in the incredibly expensive but oh so lovely Fortnum and Mason, but my phone (which I was using to take sneaky pics) has packed up :( got very wet on a sponsored walk with my students.  We did however raise over £150 for our chosen charity so that was very good.  And my students don't usually walk much further than the nearest corner shop to get ciggies and energy drinks so 15 mile walk, in torrential rain with no moaning was an incredible achievement.  We were very proud of them all.

You might want to grab a cuppa and even a cheeky biscuit as quite a lot of photos will follow....

Anyways, back to London!  Back in January I booked tickets for us to visit The View from the Shard as part of our Silver Wedding Anniversary celebrations.  I thought "if the Queen can have a year of celebrations so can we!!".  So last Saturday saw us staring up at this astonishing building

Currently the tallest building in western Europe

 

It takes seconds to get up to the 72nd floor

 

 



And once up there, wow what a view....

So here we go, some of the most famous sights in London, seen from a birds eye view....

Canary Wharf

The Tower of London

The BT Tower

Wembley Stadium, the Champions League final was happening the day we were there.  Both teams were from Germany, and the fans were so well behaved.  Great atmosphere!

St Pauls Cathedral

Southwark Cathedral.  The line of green marks Borough Market, which we visited when we got our feet back on the ground.  Yummy food - we had falafel sandwiches, always a great favourite of ours!

River Thames, rolling away towards Westminster

River Thames, rolling away towards the East End

The Olympic Stadium and the Orbit

Greenwich

Sun sparkling on the 30 St Mary Axe, more popularly known as the Gherkin

The Monument, marking the site where the Great Fire of London started in 1666.  We visited the Monument last August, when the Shard had just been finished.

The London Eye, with Buckingham Palace in the Background

Tower Bridge - I had to wait a while to get a red London Bus passing over the bridge, but I was happy with the result!

With our feet firmly back on the ground, we took a river cruise back to Westminster and then walked around to take in a few more of the sights

 

  The Houses of Parliament

 Horse Guards Parade, getting all ready for the Trooping of the Colour

London Eye

Buckingham Palace - and look, the flag is flying so Her Majesty was at home!

Guard at Buckingham Palace.

Then, after a slap up meal the sun started to set and we decided to go on a leisurely stroll along the Thames



An absolutely wonderful day out with my DH.  I love visiting London, I love the sights, the sounds, the smells, the sound of all the different languages from visitors from all over the world...I don't know if I could cope with the pace of actually living there...but I would love to be able to go down to visit every month - if only I could afford it!!

I think you deserve another cuppa (and possibly even another cheeky biscuit!) for sticking with me to the end of this quite lengthy post.  But I hope you enjoyed joining me looking back at my visit to "the Smoke".

Enjoy your weekend, hope the sun is shining wherever you are!

Helenxx

PS I don't know if any of you are Sweeney Todd fans, if so you will know which song the title of my post comes from :)