We *heart* books!

A while ago Alex from Daisie Days wrote a post all about the books in her house and I thought what a good idea it was so here is my post about the books in our house. It's no secret that we love books so be warned as there are a lot of pictures ahead!

Utility room - all cook books

Dining room

Front room - the bottom of this cupboard is also full of books but I forgot to take a picture!

The girls reading corner which is at the bottom of the main stairs.

Tara's room

Bathroom

Anya's room

Matt's side of the bed - I forgot to take a picture of my side!

Craft room

Study - this is where we keep most of our books. And please note that the huge pile of Nat Geo mags have since gone and the whole room is a lot tidier as it is also our spare room and we had guests!

The landing outside the craft room and study.

So we have a fair few books! There is a box of books that are on Amazon waiting to be bought  so we are getting rid of a few of them :) One solution to the 'book problem'* is to stop buying books although with a local post office that sells second hand books at 50p it is tricky to resist temptation!

*I personally don't think that having a house full of books is a problem but some may disagree :)

Do you have lots of books? Show me pictures!!

Carte postal

Near where we stay in France is a fantastic brocante (junk shop) which I always visit when we are in the area (which is about once a year) It has boxes and boxes of postcards that are fabulous. Here are some of the ones I bought from there and also a local collectors fair.

This isn't even all of them!

The guy in the bottom left looks a heck of a lot creepier in real life!

I love the shading on them - some is done with such care and others aren't.

As you can tell I like the ones of people best!

Does anyone else think this looks like Ed Miliband? That last reference might allude those of you not interested in UK politics!


I buy these cards because they are very pretty and they make a nice collection. I am also planning on using some of them to make humorous greetings cards - I have a few catchphrases up my sleeve for some of them. I should say that my sister, her boyfriend and Matt all came up with humorous sayings too :)

I know that I have broken my nothing new pledge but I only get to go to the brocante once a year, if that, so I feel justified in buying them. The fact that I have also got phrases ready shows that they will be used soon too :)

Lazyish holiday

So we have been in France over the Easter break and it was lovely. I deliberately didn't take any work sewing/making with me (first holiday in ages where I haven't) and as there is no internet access I couldn't faff around online! I made sure that I didn't just laze around in the sun and read although I did manage a fair bit of that! I took some personal projects to do and here are the results.

My spirograph bag was fixed using nice bright crazy embroidery and I am very pleased with the results. It took me ages to decide which colours to use and in the end it went to a vote. I'm pleased to have it back in use as a bag and think that I may add some more pockets inside so it will become very useful to have around. I hate loosing things in my bags but need a big bag to carry everything around!

The cross stitch sampler was started but is nowhere near being finished yet - it's destined to become one of those pick up, put down projects that will take a while! I settled eventually on a colour scheme of 5 colours - 4 pastel shades (not as washed out as they appear) and a grey (not as dark as it appears!) All the little people around the edge are going to be grey except the 4 corner people who will be in a pastel colour. I have no idea what any of the other items are going to be - there may even be an injection of another colour at some stage!

The quilts for the girls teddies are nearly done! They just need the binding adding and then they can be popped into the present cupboard ready for Christmas! I have an idea of the binding I want to use but I need to see if I have enough of it left over. I got it from Sams and I'm pretty sure that they will have more but I am still in my 'no buying for two months' pledge* so I will have to make do with what I have. The orange linen on the back is brighter in real life and I got it from Ikea.

*more on my no buying pledge tomorrow, ahem!

My bedtime reading........

.....is not going to be books for the next few nights. I *think* I might try and make my way through the 1000+ items I have in my google reader instead!

That will teach me to go away on a holiday with no internet connection, no phone signal and no work sewing! Actually it won't as it was lovely :)

Business cards

For those of you who have been asking to see what my business cards look like then here they are. I have punched a fair few since my last post and some of them have been used in these.

I like making these cards as they are very easy to do, use up my fabric scraps, lend themselves well to my recycling ethos, make people stop and chat at my stall and people seem less inclined to throw them away when they see that I have made them myself.

I have made quite a few so far for a 3 day fair I have at the end of May. I want to fill this box completely before then!

In my future - part two

I have been making lots of business cards recently but have run out of ready punched cards!

I foresee lots of punching in my future! If you come round for a cuppa then you may be asked to help out :)

In my future - part 1

While sorting out my scraps basket (it used to be a mending pile too!) I came across this bag that was accidentally broken by sister in law in a pushchair incident a few years ago. I have decided to use the embroidery threads that I have recently sorted to mend it.

I thought about mending it discretely with similar coloured thread but I am going to go for bright!

I'm thinking some sort of jazzy stitching too but we will see!

Tidy shelf

The shelf is now tidy :) And the skeins of thread now have a home outside of the kitchen!

Whilst tidying I found these things. The cross stitch came from Sams I think and the girl panels came from the lovely Ric Rac. I have plans for the little girls and it doesn't involve swear words coming out of their mouths!

Easter time

It's the Easter holidays here so I will be trying (hah!) to stay away from the computer a little bit* and spend time with the family. We have lots of fun things planned so you might get a sneaky peek of them!

Or you might just be shown pretty pictures like this one of my fabric drawer - lots of bits waiting to be turned into quilts :)

*I may be back sooner rather than later........

Part of my day today

Has been spent playing with these little fabric squares that you may well remember seeing here.

They have since been turned into this lovely pile of patchwork strips (ends now tied off too)

They just need to be sewn together to form the quilt tops and once I have found the offcut of wool blanket* that will be used as batting then I will show you what I have achieved.

*offcut of blanket was seen in the big craft room tidy up of 2011 but I haven't seen it since. Lets hope it turns up soon!

P.S. As these are going to be for the girls teddies for Christmas (well the girls really but you know what I mean) then I feel quite smug in saying that I have nearly crossed one thing off the list!