Hearts and flowers

Good morning everyone - hope you are well and that you are looking forward to the weekend.  I have had a very hectic 6 weeks since Christmas at work.  I have fallen behind in so many things, including blogging.  But there have been very nice things happening as well, including my birthday, wedding anniversary and some little local walks out and about.  And now it is the start of the Half Term Break :)

As today is Valentines Day I thought I would share a few "Hearts and Flowers" themed photos.  My DH bought me two lovely bunches of flowers for our anniversary which are still looking great, and the scent of them is quite intoxicating (there was also a yummy box of chocolates but they disappeared quite quickly...)

A fabulous mixed bunch of lilies and roses in deep pink shades...

Then a bunch of lilies in a most unusual shade of purple, here in the photos they look blue, but trust me they are deep purple...

Here are our cards on the mantelpiece, together with a little pot of daffodils I picked up in the supermarket for £1 (bargain!!)...

We don't really celebrate Valentines Day as such as our Wedding Anniversary is so close to it, but I hope you have a lovely day, whether you celebrate or not.

To close, there must be a loving feeling in the air as even the cats (who don't get on that well) are sharing some of my crocheted cushions...

Happy Valentines Day!

Helenxx

Festive Makes and Festive Bakes

Hello everyone, well am I enjoying these delightful "in-between" days of the Holidays - these are some of my favourite days of the whole year. 

I thought I would share what I have been up to over the last few weeks with crafting. 

First off, we have my what has become a traditional (and expected!) gift from me, lavender scented hearts...

Each one is slightly different...

I love the wintry fabric I chose for the hearts...

A different fabric, loved this too (the fabric shop had some great selections this year, it was hard to choose which ones to purchase!)

Then there were potholders in festive colours...

Here is everything together...

Now on to edible treats... mincepies with homemade mincemeat...

 

Truffles...

Boxed and wrapped ready to go...together with bags of caramel nuts and peanut butter fudge...

The house smelled like I imagine the shop in Chocolat smelled like!!

I get such a lot of joy from making these simple things for my loved ones, and judging by the response folks enjoy receiving them too.  Yes, it would be easier (and sometimes cheaper!) to buy things from the shops but I do get such a lot of enjoyment making them.

Did you make or receive any handmade gifts this year?

Helenxx

Festive Giveaway and Advent calendar door 3



 

Hello everyone, hope all is going well with your week. 

 

Thanks so very much to all of those of you who have commented on my Advent Calendar posts so far - I really do appreciate the time you take to do this.  I am always so pleased to read comments on the posts I write, and feel that I have certainly got to know a lot of people through blogging.  In order to celebrate this I thought I would have a little festive giveaway!

 

The giveaway is...

 

 

 ...one of my Festive lavender scented hearts.  I have chosen a wintry fabric, with berries and winter leaves...

 

 

This is appliqued by hand onto wool felt.  The heart has a little gingham loop for you to hang it up by.  The closing date for entries to the giveaway is next Tuesday, 9th December.  I will then (if more than one person enters that is!!) draw the names to chose the winner.

 

If you would like to have a go at winning, all you need to do is be a follower of this blog and leave a comment on this post. 

 

And now onto today's Advent Calendar picture...

 

image from Google

Would love to make some of these cheeky little characters!

 

Helenxx

Hello 2014!

Good morning everyone - and a very Happy New Year to you all!

Hope you had an enjoyable New Years Eve - we had a lovely time at my bestest friend Sue's house where we had yummy nibbles and a good time catching up with what we had been up to during the holidays.  We watched Big Ben and the big firework display from London on TV, and popped open some non-alcoholic bubbly and fired off some party poppers.  All in all a lovely evening - thanks again Sue for inviting us, we really enjoyed ourselves.

I always make a New Year's heart for Sue as a little "thank you" present for inviting us round for New Year's Eve - here is this year's model:

As usual Sue had the most amazing Christmas Tree

I spotted a particularly lovely glass ornament tucked away within it's branches

can you see the glass dragonfly peeking from behind the baubles?  So pretty.

This morning it is only me and #3 son up, the rest of the gang are still fast asleep.  Later on we are heading to my Darling Mum's house for a New Year dinner, cant wait!!

But before I go I thought I would share a photo sent to me by one of my relatives via Facebook - I rather like the sentiments expressed.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year, full of blessings and happiness.

Helenxx

Festive makes

Hello everyone, hope you all had a wonderful day yesterday, and that today you are taking it nice and easy, as I am!

We had a lovely day yesterday, spent at my Darling Mum's house.  My brother had certainly gone to town with all festive decorating, hope to share some photos of all that later on this week.  I helped to cook the dinner, and DH served it all up in a very organised fashion.  Lots of wonderful presents for everyone, lots of laughter, not least when my Darling Mum opened a present from one of my cousins - it was a bottle of Ultra Sexy shower gel - why the laughter?  Darling Mum is looking forward to celebrating her 88th birthday on Saturday :)  of course we sang a jolly chorus of "I'm Sexy and I Know It", she didn't stop laughing for about 10 minutes!

In the lead up to the Big Day I had been making gifts for my loved ones, and now everything has been received I can reveal some of the results.  As usual I was busy with the wool felt and patchwork fabric, and made a batch of lavender scented hearts:

Usually the background of the hearts is made with red felt, but went for green this year by way of a change...

I always use wool felt, it is marginally more expensive, but it is so much nicer to work with and I like to think it gives neater results...

I loved using ric-rac braid for the hanging loops - have fallen in love with the look of it, so might well be using it in other projects!  Here are the hearts grouped together before being wrapped and sent to my friends and family:

Feedback so far from the recipients has been positive - it is a bit of a tradition now for me to make a variant of scented hearts for Christmas gifts, I started out doing this 4 years ago and everyone seems to like them.  They do take quite a while to make, but I love the process and like to think that the time spent on them is appreciated by those I gift them to.  I also include batches of home made edible treats, will post about this year's batch tomorrow.

Have a lovely Boxing Day, whether you are at home cosy by the fire, whizzing around the Sales, or taking a walk out in the fresh air!

Helenxx

Like mother, like daughter

Hi everyone, hope you are all just about sorted for Christmas!  I think everything I need to do is just about done, just a few more things to wrap and that's it.

I cant share photos yet of things I have made, but I thought in the meantime I would show you what my darling daughter made for her class mates:

She spent hours and hours on these, lovingly embroidering the names of each recipient onto the heart.  All were filled with luscious smelling lavender.  Here are a few close ups of her handywork:

I think her friends will love them!

Well, must away, I put a load of potatoes in to bake whilst darling daughter and super son #3 did their baking this afternoon, and they smell as if they are about cooked - beans and veggie sausages to accompany them, something simple but cosy, just the thing before all the rich food of the holidays.

Have a lovely evening, keep warm!

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