Swanage

Thanks for all the responses on my blanket colour dilemma!  I will update on that in my next post, as I've been a bit distracted with a lovely break away in Swanage with the Lumberjack!

We had a great time - above is a vase we bought as a souvenir of our holiday.  (It looks better in real life actually - the photo looks a bit dreary)

We took the steam train to Corfe Castle...

One day, after a misty walk...

...from Worth Matravers to Winspit...

...and back again, we visited a lovely tearoom in Worth Matravers...

... and rewarded ourselves with a delicious Dorset cream tea!

Scrumptious!  That tearoom was probably my favourite bit of the break, it was just lovely.  It had a pretty garden too, and even the toilet was nice, with vintage tin signs hung up in it.

Well, I won't bore you with any more holiday pictures!  I'm still off work until Monday (yay!) so hopefully next time I will have more crafty things to show you...

For now - it's time to clean, tidy, and go to the supermarket, as I have friends coming round this evening for food and a catch up.  I've made a coffee cake for the occasion, but I'm struggling to make myself do the housework!  (Anyway, you shouldn't have to have an immaculate home for friends - it's not natural!  But I guess I should definitely sort out the food part of the proceedings - it's unfair to starve them, a cake can only go so far...!!)

Blanket Colours - Opinions?!

Hi all!  Thanks for the kind comments on my last post about my dresser makeover!  Very much appreciated.

I am really feeling the need to crochet myself a stripy cotton blanket.  My friend Anna has made a few over the years I've known her, and they always feel so soft and lovely.  I'm a bit of a cheapo and usually go for the acrylic yarn... but the time has come - I must make a cotton blanket!  And it must be stripy!  Stripes in cotton yarn just seem to work so perfectly.

So... I am thinking of some colour ideas, based on yarn I've found online.  I wanted to do bluey colours - but I thought of perhaps adding some richness and warmth with a cherry colour:

OPTION 1

What do you think?  Or... I remove the cherry:

OPTION 2

Next to each other for comparison:

I can't decide - they both have their plus points.  Let me know what you think!

For either option I might change the order of the stripes - for example, colours 2 in a different order:

Or I could go with random stripes.  (Well, when I say random - they order of the colours would jiggle about through the blanket - but they would be carefully planned and charted before I start!)

Anyway... the order doesn't really matter, I'm getting carried away - it's more the colour choice at this point.

So, what do you think - 1 or 2?!

Dresser Makeover!

Thanks all for the lovely comments on my last post - really appreciated!  Here is a little bit more progress in the living room - a dresser makeover...

We acquired a free pine dresser from someone we know who was moving and wanted to

get rid of it.  (I always wondered how people manage to get lucky enough to get bargain dressers to do up - and this time it was me!!)

It had a few knocks and dinks, and some missing knobs...

But we sanded, primed and painted (and were well fed up of it by the end!) and this is the result:  (Unfortunately the light was a lot better when I took the before pictures - and it was in the conservatory - so they are a lot warmer and brighter - typical)

We used Laura Ashley eggshell in cotton white:

We thought it was more of an off-white than it looks when painted, but we still like it!

We bought these lovely porcelain knobs off ebay for it...

(All piles of rubbish have been moved out of the way for these photos - in fact the whole table complete with it's covering of junk has been moved out of the shot!)

Then it was time to fill the dresser...

I'm sure I'll keep moving the arrangement around!

Baking!

I baked my first cake in our new house the other day, in the very OLD oven!  I don't think it got hot enough, as the cake didn't rise that well, but we still enjoyed it...

(New sofa and armchair arrived that day too, which you can see - very exciting after an 8 week wait!)

I think there will have to be more practise baking to come, until I get the oven doing what I want it to...

Must just add... this is a very carefully aimed shot which doesn't show the piles of junk and the 'in-progress' parts of the lounge/diner!  Don't be fooled into thinking all is perfection!

Craft Room Preparations...

Hi all - thanks for the lovely comments as always!  I've been making progress with my crochet squares... but I'll save that for another time, as I'm not finished yet.

I thought I'd share bits and bobs relating to my craft room!  This is the little third bedroom, known to us (from the moment we viewed the house) as my craft room!

I've bought a couple of pretty bits from Tiger for the room:

A cutwork bin, which I've currently shoved wrapping paper/brown paper/cellophane in.  I think it might be too nice for rubbish!

Colourful baskets:

Look at that organised fabric!  The room was a complete bombshell of paperwork, craft stuff and who knows what other random junk, scattered all over the floor.  I spent aaaages folding up that fabric into that basket, and afterwards declared triumphantly to the Lumberjack "I feel like I've made some real progress here!"  His face said it all as he glanced around at the practically untouched chaos!

It's not all as organised as that yet...

But it will be... eventually!

Helping me in my challenge are these items of furniture from good old Ikea...

The Expedit!

A glimpse of which you could see in my previous picture.  Complete with a bright pink drawers insert:

This fits into one of the squares and will be useful for hiding the less pretty crafting paraphernalia!

I also have a desk... the Ikea Micke desk:

I nearly copied Hydrangea Girl's desk set up but the one I bought has a 50cm depth, as opposed to the 60cm depth, and a radiator in the way dictated the narrower depth was required.  Very happy with my new desk, though!  (And I'd better be - the Lumberjack said it was the worst flatpack bit of furniture he's ever assembled!)

And to go with it, this Snille chair, for a bargainous £12!!!

I find it so comfortable... and £12... would you believe it...!

I will reveal more as I get things more sorted.  However, I want to strip the wallpaper and paint the room, but we've had enough of wallpaper stripping at present!  NOT a fun job, and the whole house is wallpapered, eurgh.

This room isn't really a priority, because it's by far the nicest wallpaper in the house, a lot less dated than other rooms - we think it was done recently:

I actually don't mind it, but it's not the right look for my craft room.  As a feature wall in a living room or bedroom, accented with creams and reds it could be really nice.  But not on all the walls, and not in my craft room!

But as there's not really anything wrong with it, and as we have a million other jobs to do... it's quite far down the list.  I'm just happy to have a craft room at all!

Crochet, Cranes and Crafting!

What with all the house stuff taking over lately - I felt the overwhelming desire to crochet again!  I had to give in...

Simple granny squares using leftover baby yarn from old projects.  Quite quick to whip up a square here and there, to give me a crafting fix.

In between I'm fitting in some origami cranes...

These are for a friend's wedding - they plan to have 1000 cranes in various shades of green decorating the venue!  I've been tasked with making 25 of them... I'm getting there...

I've also been doing some organising of my paperwork - (I've called it 'Crafting' in my post heading - as 'Organisation' doesn't begin with 'C' !)  The crafting comes in with the magazine files that I've covered in wrapping paper:

This was some wrapping paper that I had lying around - I really love the bright colourful pattern.  It's not the best quality paper - a bit thin and flimsy - but it looks alright.  It does the job, and makes me happy!

I also designed some quick simple labels for the files... which made me ridiculously excited!

It's the simple things....!

Fireplace Fun - a Transformation!

Thanks for the lovely comments on the Lumberjack's paintwork - he was very chuffed with your kind words!  He says there are more Ikea transformations to come...!

In living room news... pictures below of our fireplace transformation!!

And the finished fire.........:

We love it!!  Although trust us to get a fancy fire fitted in the middle of the hottest weather we've had for a long time!  But, as it was cooler this weekend - we thought we'd grab the opportunity...:

A little kindling fire!

We just need to find a picture to go up on the chimney breast - and maybe a floating shelf too we think.

We love it!!