Happy New Year!

My Mad Hatter New Years Eve Costume

I do love fancy dress, so when my husband and I were invited to a New Years Eve Fancy Dress dinner I found myself in dressing up heaven! I think all grown ups should take time to be childish every so often and fancy dress instantly takes me back to being a child and makes me smile. 

As for new years resolutions which I know I should be making, they can wait. Christmas seems to have gone by in a blink, the fridge is still groaning and the house looks like Hamleys! I don't want the holidays season to end and making resolutions makes me feel like its over so I shall make my resolutions on Wednesday when the Grace and Lottie (first day at Nursery) go back to school. For the meantime though I will ignore the laundry stacking up and spend as much time as possible playing with the children and enjoying listening to the amazing adventures that the newly acquired Sylvanian Families are having in our house!

A gift for a friend

A friends little girl is getting christened at the weekend so after much deliberation I thought I would make her a little doll as a keepsake. She is yet to be named and at the moment has a set of PJ's for bedtime and a little dress. If time permits she may get a handbag and some another dress!

A day of sewing

It's been a productive sewing day! I am doing a little sale event in my local town of Berkhamsted in the morning so I set myself a great big list of things to sew this morning thinking I would have the whole day to get through it all. This is generally a bad idea as I don't get even half way down my list normally. It is 12:00 so just managed it all today but I have made 12 cards, 2 appliqued pictures and 4 appliqued tote bags!

New Shoes

Great excitement in our house this morning as the children all got new shoes yesterday from the lovely Hippity Hop and I couldn't' t quite resist sharing Lottie's new shoes with you all. They are just the sweetest shoes ever and as she hasn't yet reached the age where she needs boring school shoes we went for the fun red option.

I have spent the afternoon making little cards (more on that to come) so inspired by Lottie's new shoes I made a little shoe card.

A lovely day

It's been a lovely Sunday with a good mix of family time, catching up on jobs and a bit of sewing time! The result is 3 content children, a very clean rug and this lovely tote bag for a little girls PE kit.

And thank you to the little girls next door for the flowers from their Granny's garden, they are looking very splendid in the little glass bottle that Grace dug up on a bottle digging session with her Daddy.

Rather Random Bits

Graces Mug and Plate

The beautiful haba dolls

The Girls in France enjoy so much space!


Well as the title suggests this blog may be rather random but I decided a random blog entry is better than no entry at all! I had visions before the summer began of me spending lots of lovely time with the children, making, baking and really getting to grips with some of the sewing projects I have had on hold. The reality of my summer though has been nothing so idyllic, we have had a lovely holiday to France but this was before the schools broke up (frowned upon I know!) We have really just been at home and as the weather hasn't been the glorious summer that was promised we have had a lot of time indoors and its all felt rather boring!

We have had some highlights, Grace turned 5 and we had a lovely day surrounded by a lot of Haba dolls that we have been collecting since Lottie her sister got one for her 1st Birthday. Graces party is not till September as most of her friends were all on holiday so we do still have this to look forward to.

We also had a lovely visit to our local pottery project cafe where a beautiful plate was painted and a very sweet mug which Grace now uses daily.

I am hoping we manage to squeeze in a visit to Great Granny Alnmouth and perhaps a little visit to Devon to Granny and Granddad's but as the time is whizzing by I am not so sure.

I am doing a little fair in my local church hall (St Peters) on the 26th Aug with my friend and her fab business Hippity Hop shoes so if anyone is free would be lovely to see you I shall be there till 2pm.

Little wooden bed

A while ago I bought this lovely little bed in my local Oxfam store that was in need of a little love and care and it has been sitting in the dinning room for some time now looking at me and bugging me as I really haven't had the time to clean it up. So today with my fayre, Birthday parties and holiday all behind me I made a little time for the wooden bed.
It now has a lovely red ticking mattress, an appliqued quilt, matching cushion and with a fresh coat of white paint it has scrubbed up rather nicely.
I am however rather convinced that I will come downstairs in the morning and find the cat snuggled up inside it!