Good Mail Day

Yesterday I received a wonderful piece of mail art from the lovely Alison over at Life in the Slow Lane. I love the colours and the stamping on the envelope and even the postage stamps added to the overall colour combo – just lovely.

Inside I found a beautifully handmade notecard and a lovely fridge magnet quote. Thank you so much Alison, it really made my day.

In other news, I have signed up for Shimelle’s latest class.

Just how much I manage to get done remains to be seen but, as always with Shimelle’s classes the pdf’s are all available long afterwards. Now I just need to get myself organised and get stuck in.

Thanks for dropping by and please feel free to leave me a comment.

Wendy xx

Ten books awaiting

I always have a pile (or ten) of books waiting for me to get around to them, this is the pile that awaits me in the conservatory. From top to bottom then:

1) & 2) Junk Style and Comfortable Country – I love these little books. I can’t say that I have actually read them as such but they’re packed full of gorgeous photos that every so often I drool over.

3) Why does E=mc2? by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw – Hmm, I think it was the sound of Brian Cox’s voice that sold me on this one but I’ve yet to get around to reading it.

4) Exit the Actress by Priya Parmar – I have actually already read this one and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Recommended by my favourite historical novelist and narrating the story of Nell Gwyn, the style was quite different I found but I really enjoyed it.

5) & 6) The Queens Man & Cruel as the Grave by Sharon Penman – This is my favourite historical novelist herself but these two are a departure from what I’ve read thus far in as much as they are historical mysteries. I’ll have to wait and see.

7) Lionheart by Sharon Penman – back to the format I love, this book is brand new as it has only just been published. Telling the story of Richard Lionheart it fits into the timeline of her other novels well and should be a fabulous read.

8) 52 weekends by the Sea by Brigid Nelson and Craig Easton – I first picked this up at the library and loved it, hence the purchase. Featuring the coastline of Britain it winds it way around the country highlighting 52 fantastic weekend destinations. With some yummy photography it has me drooling over many a destination.

9) Decorate by Holly Becker and Joanna Copestick. Another brand new book, Holly Becker is the author of the very popular Decor8 blog and has applied her talents to this new book which I think came out in March. I’ve yet to dip into it, beyond a quick flick, but it promises to be a fantastic source.

10) Living Rooms – love this book and it has my lounge on the front cover. Ok well not exactly ‘my’ lounge but my plans for my lounge lol.

That’s all for now folks. I’ve been missing in action just lately, partly due to my disappointment over losing all the photos from my blog and partly due to ‘stuff’. You can see more 10 on the 10th over at Shimelle’s.

Thanks for dropping by and please feel free to leave me a comment.

Wendy xx

Disaster

Just a very quick post to say that I have spotted that ALL of my photos on my posts have disappeared. I have re-instated the most recent but it going to take a fair bit of work to get them all back (in fact that may never happen). Please bear with me and normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. Sadly I think it’s all because of my new (replacement) phone!!

Thanks

Wendy xx

Mail Art Exchange

Yay my package arrived safely at its destination in Spain on Tuesday, which is actually the estimate the post office gave me when I sent it off on its merry little way. The recipient was Alison over at 'Life in the slow lane' and she seems to like it.

I’d decided to use a google map of the area Alison lives in Spain as with her address this was easy but I also wanted to use a page from an old road atlas I had stashed away for crafting purposes. This took a bit of detective work but I did track down a location prior to Spain and used that page as the basis for the front of the package.

Picture taken prior to posting so stamps were added but phew, they didn’t cover up anything critical.

The mail exchange was arranged by Ginger at ‘Gingers life of spice’ and the theme was ‘earth’. I decided to try and use as much recycled stuff as possible for my take on ‘earth’ and so the package itself was an old one, the map page on the front was old and the patterned papers I used were from my scrap box etc etc. I did have to use ink to print the google map on the back (which you can’t see here because I lost those photos when my phone took its dive) but I printed it onto paper from the scrap pile. Finally, the smiley earth was taken from the earth day campaign. I thoroughly enjoyed myself once I got going so thanks once again Ginger for arranging it all and roll on the next one.

What Alison very kindly didn’t tell folks in her post was that I had written a little note to pop in the package and of course, said little note was still sat on my desk AFTER the package had been securely taped. So Alison received a rather boring little white envelope too lol

Thanks for dropping by and please feel free to leave me a comment.

Wendy xx

I don’t believe it

You need to put on your best Victor Meldrew voice and re-read my title, that’s the clean version of what I yelled as my phone (the all singing, all dancing new one) leapt from the back pocket of my jeans and dived head first down the pan. Now, IF the last occupant of the bathroom had closed the toilet lid or IF I had been in any other room when my phone suddenly leapt into life I may not have uttered those words but they hadn’t and I wasn’t and I did so now my lovely new phone is kaput. I’ll not dwell on my sorry tale, I am insured and I still have a smidgen of hope that after a weekend of drying out it may end well – I know, I’m not holding my breath.

In other news I have crafted! All please take a moment whilst this news sinks in but I have. I can’t show you a photo because, you guessed it, it was on my phone. Actually I think I do have a copy on the laptop but I can’t show you anyway because it was my contribution to Gingers Mail Art Exchange and so I’ll not share until it has arrived safely at its destination. Ginger – thank you. I’m so glad you spotted I was back and contacted me before your deadline, it was wonderful to sit and craft again, although I did struggle a little for inspiration. I am determined though to get back into it.

As I can’t share my crafting at the moment I thought I’d share an odd little shot but one that shows another persons craft. Unfortunately I didn’t think to take a before shot and this is probably the oddest thing I have (publicly) enthused about but take a look at my pitch fork.

What about that then, and the spade too. Both of these items were inherited at the hovel and both had seen far better days. They were pitted, rusted and sporting stubby broken handles. A few weeks ago we happened across a market stall selling similar items and as we chatted it transpired that the owner ‘repaired’ these very implements. A few weeks and less than thirty pounds later and look at them now. I’ve never owned a pitch fork before lol.

But now I guess with that I’ll leave you. Thursday saw the Victor moment, Friday saw me obtain a wasp sting as I’ll climbed over a farm gate (you can imagine where can’t you) but I did get a better harvest from the two remaining potato tubs and Saturday, well lets just wait and see shall we – bring it on! Thanks for dropping by and please feel free to leave me a comment.

Wendy xx

Under pinning?

After the really high winds over the last week or so we were slightly nervous about what we might find at The Hovel, especially given the number of large trees behind the property and most actually within reach of it! Thankfully, apart from the black bin wedged in the stream, there was nothing to report.

Our main aim this visit was to meet with the structural surveyor, queue ‘uh oh’ or similar cinematic effect please. Yes, after a year of owning the property we have now decided to consult an expert. Personally I would have done this way back, before we actually signed on the dotted line but t’hubby felt that there was every chance it would cause us enough concern that we would chicken out of buying it. Of course that was highly likely and because it had been love at first sight, especially for t’hubby – we went ahead.

It wasn’t long after it was ours that we started to notice the cracks. They weren't new, they’d been there all along it was just that the rose tinted spectacles had hidden them. Now The Hovel was built in 1768 and as it is still standing we didn’t think it would be disappearing down the hill in a hurry but, at some point in the distant future we (or our children, maybe even grandchildren) will want to sell. And so now we needed to know, so that we can take whatever measures may be deemed necessary. My thoughts up to this point have been that if drastic measures were required e.g. underpinning then we’ll take the opportunity to extend, sympathetically of course but to me it makes sense to take advantage of the situation. Lol, my one daft concern was that if that WAS the case it would throw out our lovely new doors, but I guess in the scheme of things ……

……… And so the man arrived.

And he looked

And he walked around

And he looked

And he walked around some more

And he looked

And then he made his pronouncement ………..

Nothing too severe, phew. There is obvious evidence of past movement and we need to take some remedial action to ‘tie’ the front wall to the back wall (not as bad as it sounds I’m told) as it has moved 25mm since the ceiling/floor was replaced – 41 years ago! Then we need to place ‘tell tales’ to both monitor for any further movement and to provide evidence when there is none (fingers crossed). That way we are also safeguarding a future sale. So all in all a reasonable outcome.

And would we have chickened out if we’d had that done in advance. We’re not sure but we may have done. Because we didn’t ‘know’ the hovel then we may have thought it wasn’t worth the hassle. And so I guess t’hubby was right all along and as I sit here typing watching the sun start to burn off the cloud and rain and reveal our view, I am glad, although had the answer been underpinning I might have been yelling at him, right here right now lol.

Thanks for dropping by and please feel free to leave me a comment, oh and yes, the campanulas survived on their house bricks.

Wendy xx

Please note this post was scheduled to upload after the time of writing

Happy Pinning

I think I need to give myself a strict time allowance for Pinterest, otherwise one of these days I may never return.

I thought Blogland and the internet were bad enough on their own but Pinterest beats them all. I suppose it does depend how you use it. If you browse then ‘repin and run’ you will probably be ok. It’s when you browse, open interesting stuff into new tabs, look at said new tabs, follow the link to the source, nosy around that source and open other interesting looking links into other new tabs – are you getting my drift? I sometimes emerge from one of these ‘I’ll just have a quick 5 minutes’ sessions to find I have lost yet another hour plus of my life.

But I do have some delish piccies and new ideas to show for it. Here’s just a small selection of my latest, click on the picture to take you to Pinterest where you can follow the link to the source. Just remember – you have been warned.

Aren’t these just the cutest, I think I could make some and colour co-ordinate to suit the room.

I want to give this a go, I’ve lots of blank canvas’ somewhere that would work just fine.

Cannot wait to give these a go – need to keep my eyes open for proper pots

Sometimes it’s the simplest of ideas that are the most beautiful

I so want to try this out at The Hovel, I’m sure I have that bottom set somewhere.

Well there you are, that’s just a few of the ones that have caught my eye recently. Now I  have a question for you Pinners out there. Do you ever ‘pin’ to something you’ve posted about on your own blog or is it always to other folks or sites? I’d be really interested to know.

Thanks for dropping by and I do hope you’ve seen something you like. Please feel free to leave me a comment, I love to hear from you.

The small print - I take no responsibility whatsoever for any lost lifetime hours you may incur during the reading of this post.

Wendy xx