chook update

Just a lil update as it is late! Chooks are settling in well bless their lil fluffy bums. They are in their new house (more on that in my next post!) and enjoying the life of freedom.

Lola, who has a wonky leg love her...

Tilly learning to take a dust bath...

and a beautiful pic of Ruby enjoying the sunshine...

I shall also update on my weekend in my next post...here is a lil peekypie of the main event, it was wonderful!

back soon, ttfn x

may I introduce...

Tilly (the turkey neck cos she is rather bald love her)



Ruby Roo



and Lola the showgirl



naughty lil tinker in my tomato plants lol



This mornings offering, one was very soft shelled and broken (only to be expected) but this one is perfect bless them



They are a bit unsure of things this morning, so they are still in the shed (permanent home is coming on Tuesday) I ordered a house and attached run but the shop didn't bother to let me know it was out of stock until Thursday when I rang them to see where it was (it should have been here Wednesday) so I have another on order with someone else, they will have a bigger run on the grass, and then free range when I am out with them. So in the midst of all of this I had to sort a house out, so I have converted half the shed for now. They have the door open at the mo, with a piece of board against the doorway to keep them in, let a bit of sunshine in, and some fresh air. Lola is asleep with her bum in the sun bless her!

Many many thanks to Amanda, who went in and rescued this batch of chooks yesterday. She brought them all back to her house and had them set up under a gazebo in her garden. It was so beautiful to see all the girls with grass under their feet as it should be, and making the cutest lil chirruping noises! The journey was obviously too much for my three beauties, who were all snoozing in the boxes when we got home! They soon sprang to life when they were brave enough to come out of the boxes and onto the grass in my garden (and stones, borders, tomato plants, strawberry plants...lol) they all had a good drink, ate some woodlice, carried some stones, headbutted the metal rotary line pole, tapped on concrete...it was all totally alien to them but they loved it!

I may not be able to offer these girls acres of fields to range on all day, but what I can offer them is more love than they have ever known, and hopefully a long and happy stress free retirement.
If anyone thinks they can help, please contact Little Hen Rescue

On a final note, ATF went live again last night. 'Parent's' was the theme. As Simba has never had a baby, mine was about him being a Mummy's boy!

ttfn, off to check on my chooks x

chick chick chick chick chickeeeeen...

May I bring this website and their fabulous work to your attention...
Little Hen Rescue
10000 chickens need to be rescued within the next few weeks to avoid being slaughtered. It absolutely breaks my heart, so we have decided to take some on and give them a new loving home. My girls come home next Saturday, and thought I could add the addy here incase anyone else fancies trying out keeping a few hens. LHR does fantastic work for these poor neglected little critters who have lived a shockingly awful life, and I really hope I can build these poor little, often bald, beauties back to the level of health they deserve.
I have absolutely nothing, no house, run, food, no anything! Beware credit card, you are going to work very hard over the next couple of days!
Thanks for looking x

Oh. My. Goodness

This just arrived in the post ...

From this wonderful lady here BAGLADEE'S ETSY SHOP EMMA'S BLOG

The attention to detail is superb, the little embossed metal dog tag makes it feel like it has come from an exclusive boutique (which of course it has), it is superbly made, is utterly comfy on my shoulder, and came wrapped in tissue paper (always a fab bonus).

It has a wonderful pouch inside, which shall be used to house my most used things, ranked in order of importance, my mac lipgloss, and my mobile phone!

I promise you, if you purchase one of Emma's bags you will not be disappointed!

Thank you SO much Emma, I will treasure this bag forever x

lotsa pics not many words

cos that is the kinda mood I am in today!

Been doing lots of hand stitching due to my lack of a working sewing 'chine!

Kitchen is nearly there...

and a cute lil bag I bought yesterday for £2 at Sudeley Castle's grand spring sale (along with some other pretties and some mac and toofaced make up!)

ATF is up, and this theme was 'Friends' here is mine; Simba and Jess playing together on the floor. They are a funny pair, sometimes they are lovely together and sometimes Simba will shout at Jess, and Jess will 'smack' Simba (never any claws involved though!)

where to begin?!

...well Easter is as good a place as any I spose! Hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend!
My mantelpiece


The girls egg cosy bunnies that I knitted for them (do you know how hard it is to find plain egg cups anywhere?)





and getting into the season I wore my bluebird socks...and decided to try and break in my new pretty shoes...ohhhhh the pain...don't I look attractive? No?



And of course we have had lots of this;


beautiful blue skies and sunshine...this pic went a bit wrong, I was trying to snap a lovely little robin sat in the tree, and as the shutter clicked, so he buggered off lol! He had kept me so entertained while I was in the garden sowing some seeds, the most beautiful singing, then I upset him by trying to get a photo *sigh*

Of course the weather has brought out lots of these...

I HATE it when they buzz right by my ear, and even worse, I hate wasps getting stuck in my hair like one did yesterday *shudder*

Then the babies made their grand entrance into the big wide world of the pond! They had overwintered in there and as it was a hard winter I wasn't sure if any would have made it.

Unfortunately I have had some problems with the pond over the last week or so, some of the babies haven't made it, along with one of my older goldies :(

Spring has a lot to answer for, the fish all start getting active but their immune systems are still trying to build back up from overwintering, along with the general bacteria levels of the pond, of course the babies still don't have much of an immune system yet so they suffered the most :(

My latest layout for ATF I chose to do Simba's first time in the garden ever, all the way back in 2002. Maybe we will get enough warmer weather for him to venture out there this year!


Been doing lots of hand sewing, mostly because my beloved vintage singer that I use for everything is broked *sobs*

I am really hankering after an embroidery machine at the moment, they are so expensive, but I really want one! Any experience/advice most welcome :)

surreal day...

that's what yesterday was!
I buried my Grandma (well not me personally!) yesterday afternoon, then yesterday evening was THE big night!
AMAZING
OUTSTANDING
SPECTACULAR...
just a select few of my faves, I took about 150! More here
'nuff said...

ATF

New post is up at ATF on the theme of Dr Seuss (in honour of his birthday) set by the lovely Shelly, using one of his many fabulous book titles. I chose 'Oh say can you say' for my layout, it would have been silly not to with a talking parrot!



I am struggling a bit with not being able to get into my scraproom properly (still) so having to grab what bits n bobs I can reach and make do!
Oh and there is a prize up for grabs this week too courtesy of the lovely folks at Helmar, all you have to do is create a layout following the same theme used for this challenge and link us up in the comments :)

Workmen have all finished in the kitchen now, it ended up being a tad pricier than first anticipated what with one thing or another, but tis done! Just in the process of sorting out all the kitchen stuff and finding homes for it all (and washing everything before it goes back in) plus finishing the decorating. Will add pics once it is done :)

Off for a very exciting evening out on Tuesday, as a special (very) early birthday treat for my wonderful Mum...cannot wait, and will share info after the event!

hugs x

Sorry, I am well aware how much I have neglected my blog lately.
Things have been so ridiculously busy (and mostly not in a good way!)

Where to start...
We are having some work done on the house, so have been living without a kitchen for a few weeks- NOT FUN! No running hot water, so lots of kettle boiling even if you just want to wash your hands...we have set up temporarily in the utility room, but my goodness everything takes about 10 times longer, we are having to prepare meals on a space of about 10 inches, and so on...it's ok but hard work! Of course as the kitchen is essentially just a shell of a room, that means its contents are in the garage, the conservatory, and my studio- so I can't even get out there to do my DT work etc, which is a huge 'mare! I can just about get into the room itself, grab whatever I can manage to reach without causing a kitchen appliance avalanche, and set up in the lounge, which is also filled with kitchen stuff and worktops.
I am fed up with the constant noise, mess, dust, clutter and not being able to make a cuppa when I want to.
In fact the kitchen resembled a bombsite until a couple of days ago (plasterer is here now so it will look better by the end of today - I hope)






Had a bit of a nightmare week last week...won't go into that really but again it was manic and not in a good way. Things are resolved there though.

Yesterday my Grandma passed away. I haven't seen her for quite a long time, another long story, but it was a shock to say the least. I am ok with it, but feel incredibly sorry for my Aunt who is also facing losing her husband soon. They all lived together in the same house, my Grandma had her own 'appartment' upstairs, and they were very close.

On a lighter note... I managed to get to the NEC on Saturday, it was so nice to just get away from things for a bit.
Bought loads, I save up for this show through the year and really enjoy having a guilt free spend!
It was a shame to see so few stands this time round, but I still enjoyed it.

ATF went up the other day too, here is mine (created with the few things I could reach in my scraproom)...



And a wedding card I made...



I thought it would be nice to stamp and colour on the inside too...



and whilst I am at it why not jazz up the envelope as well...



and one exciting thing did occur last week...
The proud Mama and her babies,



Now the plan was that in a few weeks the pond was going to be totally cleaned out, I have left the fish to go into their lil hibernation type thing that they do, not fed them, had the pump off etc, and it now needs a spring clean ready for the new season, however I now really don't want to disturb Mama frog and her froglets. I couldn't give it a thorough clean before everything slowed down for the winter last year as we had tiny baby fish in there...typical...now not sure how to tackle it but it needs doing one way or the other.
Really need to look at a bigger pond for this year too, thankfully when we bought the new pump and filter system we got one that was strong enough for a much bigger and higher stocked pond...
you see, this pond was a rescue effort from my brothers new house...one pond, and some goldfish, and that was how it was meant to stay. Since we have had it the fish have turned it into playfish mansion and bred like crazy, and so has the local wildlife, there are loads of damselfly nymphs in there too, along with the lil froglets. Plus of course we have Bertie the little koi in there too who will need more room as he grows. We'll sort it somehow, just not sure how yet...

Hoping to get working on some new stamp designs today :)

Anyhoodle, 'nuff blathering, not sure when I will be back to update...hopefully a lot sooner than this time round!

hmmm...

well I made it...just!

so, my birthday was...interesting!

There was sooooo much snow! Like, heaps of it. (just like the day I was born!)

I had a nice day all in all, I didn't open anything until the evening as I just couldn't face it! More on that in a mo...

Had a gorgeous lunch at hotel du vin, I don't have the photos of that yet as numpty here didn't take her camera, so they are all on Mum's.

Indulged in pimms, the best chips in the world (seriously, if you ever go to hotel du vin you must sample their fat cut chips...yummers) and as I was in full blown wrinkle meltdown I...erm...might have gone a bit mad in espa (downstairs in the hotel)...like....erm...£270 mad! *blushes*

It comes in such a pretty bag though!

On the subject of bags...some of my gorgeous pressies...

I had one of these; from one of my most favourite shops in the whole wide world (bless you Amy for driving all the way to Chipping in the piles of snow to get me this *mwah*)



Also had one of these...LOVE this!


and one of these (thanks Chris)

and one of these (thanks Chris again!)

and the msot special....one of these...

containing one of these (and yes, it is very real!)

as well as loads of other gorgeous gifts, cards, texts, messages, emails, phonecalls and visits. Thank you all for making my day of horror far more bearable, and actually something I could enjoy :)

back again...

I know my posting is somewhat erratic (or non-existent for the most part) just now...well I am in a bit of a meltdown. This Thursday sees me turn 29 years and 12 months old. I am NOT going to say that number beginning with 'T'...nuh-uh.
Once it is done with I will be fine (I hope) and I pray it is an anti-climax and I shall not awake on Thursday with grey hair, wrinkles that you could make trenches from and breasts swinging round my knees.
I don't know why, but for years I have been terrified about hitting this milestone. If the snow stays as it is, then I am off for lunch to my favourite hotel du vin, in fact, even if it reaches three feet I am STILL off to hotel du vin (in my bimbo boots, I can stab the stiletto heels into the ground so I don't slip), and I shall be stocking up on my favest espa products (divine, love their stuff) and a new range of Jessica nail polishes.
And for someone who rarely drinks, I shall be sampling rather a lot of pimms, maybe if I get trollied I shall forget the milestone-that-shall-remain-unsaid is actually upon me.
Don't get me wrong, I am ever grateful that I am still here, and relatively healthy (not that I have felt healthy for a while) and that for the most part my family and friends are still with me.

Anyhoodle, woke up today to a nice little (compared to other parts of the country) sprinkling of snow, and it has been coming down thick and fast ever since, with big fluffy flakes, rather than the icing sugar that was falling last night and earlier on today.





I hope you are all grabbing the opportunity to get out with the kids and making snowmen, snow angels and having big snowball fights and getting a bit of sledding time in.
Of course, as usual the UK has pretty much come to a standstill lol, we are useless when the white stuff falls!
Stay safe everyone, and enjoy it x