St Ives

When I woke up this morning there was a very definite autumnal nip in the air.  Even though it looks like we are forecast some warmer weather still to come it feels like the end of summer today.

Backing up the photos on my phone I found all those I took on our holiday to St Ives, Cornwall at the beginning of August.  It was the first time visiting for the children - the all day drive down has put us off since they came along- and they had a fantastic week.  The weather was a little mixed but we mostly had glorious sunshine and made the most of the beautiful beach.

It is such a pretty little town, although packed with visitors in the high season, and I quite enjoyed walking up and down the streets with the pushchair trying to get Nell to sleep!

Nell had her very first splash in the sea and was very enthusiastic, we had to hold her back from walking right in.

Bea was not so keen on the paddling but had days of sandy fun building sand castles and dams.

St Ives also has some lovely little shops.  I can't remember the name of the shop in which I took these photos but they had lots of pretty things.

Goodbye summer, until next year!

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...

Etsy eye candy

I am cameraless this week and therefore photoless of any of my own new creations. Instead here are a few lovely things from my Etsy favourites:

Tea bag holder from Kims Little Monsters

Hello greeting card from Tea & Ceremony

Animal pillows from Vintage Jane

Lovely lovely!

Bea turned one

I realised I haven't posted since Bea's birthday so thought I would share a few photos.

Here is the birthday girl herself at her teddy bears picnic.

This is Trixie, the special bear we bought her. You can't tell here but she is navy blue. We thought it would be nice to have a 1st birthday present she can keep.

We also got her this anniversary edition Fisher Price school house. I remember playing with the same one myself when I was little!

I can't believe she is one. That was the fastest year of my life!

French chic for babies!

I have just discovered the amazing Citronille and want to make everything! Including this lovely dress. The patterns are in French but look quite simple so I think I could muddle through...There are also patterns for older kids and women as well as lovely fabric.

I love the vintage looking illustrations as well. I'm expecting Bea to have curly blonde hair like this when she eventually grows some!

I am about to embark on a knitted dress as a 1st birthday present so when that is done I think I have found my next project!

The little man with the red and yellow car

We went to a christmas craft fair at Burghley House last weekend. Over all it was a bit rubbish but we did get a couple of nice things.

The best was this 1960's Noddy print for the bubba's nursery. We are in need of art in there but we are so picky we still hadn't found anything. I love the colours of this illustration, and the elephants! I wonder what the scene was about...

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

Baby post in disguise

I think I'm probably going to be boring you with quite a lot of baby posts from now on so I'm thinly disguising this one as a craft post.

I'm crocheting this baby blanket (although I have temporarily run out of yarn) which I started before we knew what flavour its going to be.  Luckily it will have a ribbon threaded through the border where I can add a girly touch.  I have to say its very soothing repeating the same crochet stitch over and over again on something this big.

And while we are on the subject of the blanket here is the project bag I'm keeping it in.  I got it from Loop and it comes with a choice of bird print.  I may have to go back for more as its very handy to keep projects separate.  (my knitting bag is bursting at the seams with halve finished projects, pattern books and balls of yarn so things tend to get a bit tangled!).

Nearly time for the tree...

We will be getting our tree this week so I got the christmas decorations box down and dusted it off to see what we have got in there...

Our whole collection is made up of things from the years I lived with my sister and various other girls and frankly we could do with some more impressive baubles for our first christmas as husband and wife!

Maybe something like these bell hearts from Graham and Green

Or these cute gingerbread house candles from Oliver Bonas

I think we need to go shopping...

Birthday wishes

Its my birthday in a couple of weeks so various people are demanding present ideas.  I'm always rubbish at thinking of things that I want but have come across a couple of things:

Such as this needle case to match my sewing box from Cath Kidston

Or this book by Jane Brocket of Yarnstorm

I can barely contain myself!

I am so excited about my new sewing machine! As I said we went to John Lewis on Wednesday night and picked it out. I didn't even take note of the model number in my excitment but it is a Janome one. It gets delivered on Wednesday, hooray!


I need to decide what to sew now - I definately am going to order something from Built By Wendy, maybe this one.


I also happened to notice whilst in John Lewis that they now do VV Rouleaux ribbon and have the latest Amy Butler fabric collection! We didn't have much time as we were going out for dinner so I am looking forward to having a nice long browse through alone!

Home sweet home

Hello,  its monday again after another busy weekend.

The husband and I did a bit of shopping for home things which is one of our favourite pass-times.

We have decided our living room needs an accent colour to go with all the cream and mushroomy brown and decided on a dusky pink.  We got this lovely soft spotty throw by Ditton Hill :

but unfortunately it is too pale to go with our other colours so it has to go back to the shop. Boo!  Its a shame because i really love it but the husband is right - it looks a bit insipid against so much cream.  The hunt will continue.

We also paid a visit to Laura Ashley one of our most favourite shops, as we hadn't been in for a while and needed a fix of lovely things!  We got a sample of beautiful wallpaper which we would love to cover a whole wall in but as we rent we are not able to.  Instead we have framed it to go on our bedroom wall above our new bed which will be delivered in 17 days!