Christmassy things

The tree is up and as usual we have had fun adding new decorations to our collection.

This I my favourite - Because Bea made it at nursery!

I got this one from Jo Heckett on Etsy for Eleanor and its lovely.

Bea chose this one for Eleanor too.

And this was her choice for herself this year!

Now the rush to finish my customers Christmas orders is over Bea and I have started on some festive projects - including this toilet roll and cotton wool snowman.

I'm very much feeling the Christmas spirit this year as Bea is sooo excited - she has even been waking in the night thinking its Christmas day!  Cute, but not much fun being the one to tell her it was just a dream...

Waiting...

Its not easy being 3 days over due - especially as Bea was 9 days early.  We didn't have to do this horrible trying to be patient thing last time!


We have been doing lots of home based activities this week as I don't feel like straying too far from home, including baking cakes.  Bea decorated these all by herself.  

A pink post

One of the best things about June is that I can have a lovely bunch of Peonies on the table.  Made me feel a little bit summery despite this ridiculous weather!

I made some more teeny baby shoes as a gift for another baby girl due soon.  I got the pattern here on Etsy and made them in a couple of hours - just the quick kind of knitting project I like!

A few finished projects

As the biggest project round here is finally nearly finished (the new baby is due next week)  I have been trying to get a few other things finished.

The nursery is done but has nothing on the walls yet so I made this little embroidered initial and elephant.

Bea has been ousted from her cot bed as we needed it for the nursery so to make the transition to big bed more appealing I made her a couple of new cushions (she is a girl who loves cushions) with this very cool vintage fabric I bought on Etsy (here)

And finally a little dress for the baby to match this top I made Bea a while ago.  Hopefully we can get some cute photos of them in their matching clothes!

Corners of calm

Don't let these pictures fool you - the whole house does not look like this - but after 3 weeks and a lot of hard decorating work we are finally starting to carve out some corners of calm amongst the chaos.

Just the hall and girls bedrooms to decorate now, which should be the most fun to do. I have finally almost finished the Daisy chain sampler (I'm on Z!) to go up on the nursery wall.

Just need to get it all done before baby arrives!

The best room in the house

I thought I would take a few photos of Bea's nursery while it was tidy! Its my favourite room in the house and we had lots of fun decorating it before she was born and have continued to add things ever since. We rent so were restricted in what we could do but I thought I would share a few details here:

Here is her bed where she spends (most of) the night. It has a Cath Kidston spray flowers bumper and I made the matching hearts at the end of the cot.

We bought the little shelf/photo frame at a craft fair last year and her little coat and dressing gown look so sweet hanging there. The candle on the chest is Yankee Candle Baby Powder which is a much loved scent in this house!

Here is the Lloyd Loom we restored last year with matching spray flowers fabric and although you can't tell here, the curtains are white broderie anglaise. I have put the quilt I made on the back of the chair as it can feel a bit chilly at 3am!

And this is the other side of the room with changing table and Gisela Graham growth chart picture frame that we still need to put photos in!

Toadstools

I have just added a new cushion cover to Little Green Button. I do love a cushion cover - both making them and using them. They are a great way to add a bit of colour to a room or tie a theme together. This one has toadstools on. I also love toadstools!

You can buy it here.

Happy new year!

Hello! Happy 2010! I'm back, and my new year's resolution is to post more regularly!

So to start things off here are some snaps of one of my fave christmas presents - a little metal bird tealight holder. He is white really but looks dark here with the light behind.

He is hanging merrily in the kitchen window, currently looking out on the neighbours snowy garden!

Two sites I'm loving today

I've just come across these gorgeous prints by Peagreen:

I think this owl (£45) is my favourite.

I'm also loving EVERYTHING on Lapin and Me:

Dear Father Christmas,

Can I have all of the beautiful things please?

Thanks

Love Julia

Quilting

My latest project for the nursery is a decorative quilt for the cot. I have never made a quilt before but am enjoying the process so far. I will have to get a move on though as we only have about 2 and a half weeks to our due date!

I am keeping it quite simple with patchwork squares and some appliques. Hopefully it will be finished soon and I will reveal the whole thing!

Blood, sweat and Lloyd Loom

We bought this 1931 Lloyd Loom armchair in Newmarket a few weeks ago for the nursery. It was badly painted in a light blue and had a few areas of damage to the weave but as it was just the shape we had been looking for we decided to do it up ourselves.

It was a bigger job than we thought it would be! The cleaning up and repairing of the weave wasn't too bad apart from poking out all of the old paint clogs with a palette knife and screwdriver, but when we started painting we realised it wasn't going to be as simple as we first thought. We ended up painting the entire thing with tiny water colour brushes as we found it was the only way to get the paint right into the weave without clogging it up. I don't even want to try and work out the hours of labour it took! When you're eight months pregnant you do not want to be sitting on the floor with big swollen feet at 10 o'clock at night painting a chair with a miniature brush!

Finally we got it painted just before losing the will to live and I have made a new seat pad and matching cushion and got it settled into the corner of the nursery.

We love it and hopefully baby will appreciate all our hard work!

Pink peonies

Peonies are one of my favourite flowers.  I made my wedding bouquet with pink peonies.

As its June I had to take advantage of the very short peony season and buy a bunch and they have made me very happy this week.

I can't decide if I like them best when they are new and form their tight buds....

Or when they have opened and look like fluffy pink pom poms.  I think they are fabulous either way!