It feels nice to make something

Even if it's something quick and simple like these origami shirt father's day cards- tutorial here.




I need to make something else soon (other than wedding invites of course).

A weekend by the sea

Some of you may know I live fairly near the coast but I rarely actually go to the beach. This weekend we rectified that and headed an hour down the road to Mersea to enjoy sun, sea & seafood.

We went to the Company Shed for amazing seafood followed by a mini-crabbing championship off the jetty.

And we enjoyed the beautiful views.

A bit of colour...

My garden is currently full of gorgeous colour so I thought I'd share some here (especially as the sun seems to have gone somewhere else recently)...







I hope the sun comes back soon so I can take photos of the stunning poppies that have invaded my garden.

Taking it slow...

So often I rush around when I do things whether it's cooking, cleaning, working, reading or surfing the internet. So this afternoon for once I slowed down and enjoyed cooking. It started with the Tesco delivery- no bread. So I got out the granary flour & yeast and got on with making bread. I have to confess to using my Kenwood Chef for the kneading but it was still nice to make something so easily bought in the shop from scratch. Bread is something you can't rush, it has to be left to rise twice, and then baked, filling the kitchen with a lovely smell in the process.

And I made a lovely rhubarb & Bramley apple crumble; the fruit was picked up from the farm shop earlier this afternoon.
After gently stewing the fruit, I topped it with oats, flour, sugar and butter that had been rubbed together by hand (no gadgets this time).
Baked in the oven for 30 minutes and topped with homemade custard. Perfect.

A corner of my home...

Sorry for the quietness lately there are just not enough hours in the day.

Here's a little photo I took the other day of a corner in my living room; the pretty embroidery was a charity shop find. It was originally in a not so pretty frame- I think it looks much better like this.

I'll be back soon hopefully!

One man and his shed

I like taking photos of people when they don't know I'm doing it. That could be perceived as stalking but I think it's okay when it's photos of my fiancé putting up our shed. It took nearly all day Monday to do it but it's looking good. Next stage is actually putting something in it but we don't like to rush these things...

Hope everyone had a lovely Easter break. It was so nice to have four whole days of relaxing. I managed to get our invitation wording and layout done and finished my tiara. I'm still not sure about wearing a tiara but at least I have the option. I'll post photos on crafty bride soon.

It's Easter so...

enjoy a lovely slice of Simnel cake.

I'd never even eaten it before, let alone baked it but it was very easy to make. I used this recipe from Waitrose.

I love eggs...

And not the Easter kind (well yes I like those obviously but that's not what I'm writing about here). I was looking for a recipe yesterday for a quick lunch and I found this one. It was the first time I'd ever tried baked eggs and it was delicious. So today I wanted another quick and easy lunch for one and I found this blog. So a simple combination of spinach, egg, nutmeg and cheese gave me this...
Will blog again soon, I promise!

The best crafty read on the Internet?

Well I certainly think so, but then I'm biased. Take a look for yourself...

Been making lots of lovey dovey things

So it was Valentine's last weekend. Not only did I make a lovely meal, I also made a few crafty things...

Card:

Just white punched hearts stuck on the blank card with foam pads. Planning to recycle it and mount in a shadow frame. Talking of shadow frames...

Present:

I printed lots of photos of us on my new favourite gadget (polaroid pogo) and mounted them at various heights (using foam pads again) added some hearts and a nice quote and some vintage letterpress blocks. All mounted in a shadow frame et voila.

Hearts:

I cut out hearts from an old woollen winter coat, sewed round the edge with blanket stitch, stuffed them and added a button.

And finally, I discovered another use for my pogo prints, they're perfect for making magnets. I just stuck them on a magnet and done. Perfect for quick and easy presents.


Ben bought me some beautiful tulips that are making me very happy...



So there we have it, lots of crafty love here last weekend. I've also been busy making my wedding veil. I'll take some photos of that soon. Have lovely weekends everyone x