The Sun Has Got His Hat On, Hip Hip Hip Hooray!

Oh, doesn't the world seem a better place when the sun shines?  After such a hideous weekend weather wise, it is absolutely glorious here today.  So washing has been done and hung, doors and windows have been flung open and the little sweetpeas have been plonked in the garden :)

Someone else enjoying the sunshine is our kitty - Pansy.  She's found the perfect spot lounging on the trampoline.......

Also whipped up some sweet meringues this morning after being inspired by Vanessa's although we don't have any sprinkles so may have to enjoy them with some fresh berries and cream instead....

Hope you're all having a sunny Monday

xxx

It's arrived!

Yay! My long awaited bookcase has arrived!  We took possession of this lovely piece of furniture late Friday afternoon.  It came from my lovely Mum, who dabbles in the antiques trade, and she had this bookcase for displaying her items.  But when she said she no longer required it, I jumped at the chance to take ownership!  Oh and it is GoRgEoUs!  Painted in Farrow and Ball's French Grey it fits perfectly in our pale green living room.

So here she (don't know why its a she, but there you go) was on Friday all empty, awaiting an adorning of books, nicknack's and of course, bunting.



***

So, as it was still raining yesterday, I spent a lot of time sorting through cupboards, collecting together books, cleaning and dusting and arranging until.....................

Ah, I'm so pleased with the result (sorry it's a bit small but the camera died this morning and this is off my phone and won't enlarge for some reason).  Now I can find books without having to take everything out of the cupboard and there's still some room to display pretty treasures too.  Might have to take a little trip to the charity shops to see if there are any more treasures to be had :)

It's still raining today and feels more like mid-winter than spring, but there is promise of sunshine tomorrow so fingers crossed that we can get out.  Little Miss, I think I can say, is potty trained! whoop whoop! She has done so so well.

Hope it's not too damp in your part. Enjoy the rest of your weekend....

xxx

There's a Giveaway going on..............................

..................................over at the gorgeous Mary Jane's Tearoom. Go take a peek!

xxx

It's Raining, It's Pouring..................

Yuk.......it is so so gloomy here, how about where you are?

Well we are on Day 3 of potty training and all going well so far but we do feel we have been shut away from the outside world for years :) but with the weather being like it is I'm glad we're cozy indoors. We may make our first outing tomorrow - only to visit Grandma tho, not too far.

***

So, being cut off from the world we have done some baking....

These scrummy little vanilla buns are plain and simple yet so so tasty. I use the same recipe for most of my cakes just little variations here and there (raisins, chocolate chips, white chocolate and cranberry etc) sometimes I frost them with buttercream and other times just a glaze of icing sugar. For any of you that are interested it's just:

175g butter (or I sometimes use Stork)
175g vanilla infused caster sugar
175g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
A slash of vanilla extract

I use the all in one method and mix all the ingredients in one go - this makes 12 buns/cupcakes and they go into a pre heated oven (180 degrees) for about 10 to 15 mins until golden and springy.

We've done lots and lots and lots of tea drinking....

And some crocheting (excuse the spotty pyjamas!) and crafting too....

I have been in need of a little injection of colour what with the whiteness of my giant granny and the greyness of the sky so today I decided to have a little go at joining granny squares as you go (using Lucy's method over at Attic24).......

Not looking too bad, I don't know what these little squares of cheerfulness will turn into (I hadn't thought that far ahead but I'm thinking either a tote bag or a cushion cover) lets wait and see.......

Hope the sunshine returns soon

xxx

If You Go Down To The Woods Today (well yesterday actually).........

Hello Lovelies, hope you've all had a lovely weekend?

Saturday was quite quiet here, just pottering about at home.

A healthy start!

A few more rounds of the Granny Square were completed, a bit more playing with paper was done - more bunting for my new bookcase which is arriving in a few weeks so I shall save pictures until then as it may well be a bit of a bunting OVRLOAD :) - but here is a sneaky peak...

Yesterday (Sunday) we woke to glorious sunshine and crystal blue skies so we decided to take a little outing to Winkworth Arboretum to visit the bluebell wood. This was our first visit to the Arboretum.  StUnNiNg!

It's part of the National Trust, of which we are members, and it's somewhere we've been meaning to go to for a while now. I have a loooooonngg list of places for us to visit from the National Trust over the coming months so stay tuned for those :)

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Right back to yesterday, as I said the weather was beautiful - not too chilly and lots of sunshine which has been lacking for the last week. The bluebells were gorgeous and the smell was quite heady in the air...

The photos are a bit lacking sadly (I charged my camera in the morning then for got to take it, doh! So these were taken on Hubby's phone) But we had a lovely morning and I highly recommend visiting if you're in the area, just outside Godalming Surrey.

Here are my Friday Daffs.  They BuRsT! open yesterday, all gorgeous and yellow....

Ooh and finally today Little Miss has started potty training (bit stressful but she's doing so so well) and Little Mister can sit up all by himself!

Wishing you a happy Monday!

xxx

Sweet Friday..........

.............well it's Friday again and my Friday baking time was dedicated to something of the sweetie variety - courtesy of a recipe from Made With Pink and it only has 4 ingredients (coconut, icing sugar, condensed milk and vanilla extract) and requires NO cooking at all!

Coconut Ice

Oh, it's so scrummy, it's nostalgic, it's coconutty (is that a word?), it's soft and sweet and oh so pretty and pink.

I love the tiffany blue colour of Made With Pink but I fancied the more traditional pink plus that's what I had in my cupboard!

My Friday flowers are lovely spring daffodils again.... All tightly closed awaiting to reveal their inner yellow gorgeousness! But the lighting is so poor here today thanks to very dark, cloudy skies so I'll be back over the weekend with, hopefully, some lovely pics.

Wishing you all a beautiful weekend...

xxx

Playing with Paper

Since making my mini heart bunting and looking at such inspiring images around blogland (in particular, ones from Jooles @ Sew Sweet Violet) I have been playing about with pretty papers, scissors, stripey twine and glue...

to create....

sweet pink floral gingham and green stripe paper bunting to decorate my kitchen shelf. 

This bunting was so quick to make and I used a tutorial from this gorgeous blog A Sort of Fairytale.

I'm really loving working with paper at the moment and I know some of you are too in various ways.  I like it as it's fairly quick for create something lovely so whilst browsing amazon today I came across a book by Clare Youngs called Papercrafting In No Time. Some of the projects in this book look gorgeous!  Can anyone recommend or recommend a papercrafting book?  Some of the projects in this book look gorgeous!

Can anyone recommend or recommend a papercrafting book? 

Also, it was my parent's wedding anniversary yesterday (32years) and I decided to make their gift this year. They both LOVE Cornwall so I created this vintage scrabble picture 'Cornish Love' for them. Mum was really chuffed with it :)

I sell these on Etsy so please feel free to take a look - some pre-made and others personalised made to order.
Well I hope you're all having a lovely week and hello to my new followers......

xxx

A Bit of an Obsession?

Well this is what Mr Postie delivered at the weekend...



I fell in love with the title and the cover (I'm a sucker for beautiful images) and also because I have a bit of a penchant for books - in particular cookery books.  Below are some of the images taken from the book and boy oh boy I cannot wait to give some of them a go....

This is the first one that caught my eye, Daddy Sweetpea LOVES profiteroles and I've just bought a piping bag so I'm sure some of these will be in the making very soon.  These are called Rose Queen Profiteroles made with rose water cream and crystallised rose petals Mmmmm...

Next up is the Malted Nougat, beautifully studded with Maltesers - yum yum....

And finally Peanut Butterflies.  I never liked peanuts or peanut butter until I fell pregnant with my son when I must have eaten the worlds share of peanut butter and banana toasted sandwiches (I'm really paying for it now! Diet starts Monday)

This book is full of pretty images and delicious recipes for all occasions - it's definitely a coffee table book but well worth buying. 

I will leave you with a sneaky peek of some of my obsession.  At last count there were near on 70 cookery books in my possession (Sssh, don't tell Daddy Sweetpea!) Not to mention all the crochet/craft/fiction/children's books too.

Do you have a bit of an obsession?

xxx

A Quiet Weekend

Well this weekend was a quiet affair for us. Hubby had to work all weekend poor thing so I just pottered around with the little sweetpeas which involved:

Lots of tea drinking and sweet treat eating...

Some washing...

Beautiful skies Sunday morning

Some simple crafting...

This sweet mini bunting was made using paint colour charts from the DIY shop, a heart shape cutter and some invisible thread. I was inspired by this (3rd picture down) Vixen Made

 

Some daffodil admiration...

Some colouring...

And.... Mr Postie bought me something lovely on Saturday but I think I will leave you in suspense until tomorrow as it's a bit of an obsession of mine and probably deserves a post all of its own :) I hope you all had lovely weekends.

The sun is shining here today so I think we may head out in a while for a little walk. Bere is Pansy our cat enjoying the sun by the window. Until next time...

xxx

Friday Baking....

We always do our 'big' shop on a Friday so that usually means, along with all the usual mundane everyday things, buying ingredients and baking something yummy for the weekend and also getting some pretty flowers for the kitchen windowsill.

So this today I knew what I was going to bake.  Jooles over at the gorgeous Sew Sweet Violet posted a recipe for Raspberry and Marzipan Muffins.  When I saw them I knew I had to have a go at making them as I absolutely LOVE marzipan and they looked so so scrummy, and boy they did not dissapoint!

In pretty Cath Kidson cupcake cases with a lovely cuppa in a pretty cup this was the perfect afternoon pick-me-up.  Little Miss enjoyed them too!

And here they are with my pretty daffodils. They are the palest cream colour with a gorgous peachy colour centre, more pics to follow when they fully open.

Also before I go I just wanted to thank all of you who have stopped by to leave me some lovely comments and welcome me to blogland, its lovely to know I not jabbering along to myself :)
Wishing you all a beautiful weekend whatever you are up to.

xxx