Friday 30 December 2011

Yes!!!!!

Two brilliant things have happened at Toad Hall over Christmas.
The best is we have a new member of the family, he is so lovely,
And I found my ribbons!!! All of them, I've counted, 24 were in a drawer in the sitting room, not as exciting as a new dog, but very good news.

Sunday 25 December 2011

Merry Christmas 2011

We ended  up spending Christmas at home. The upside, I know how the cooker works, the downside, half of Christmas is up at the cottage. This isn't Toad Hall but I love this nesting box.
This has meant my simple white trees are up there and already decorated and 180 miles away from our Christmas. Fliss came home yesterday and we set up the traditional tree. She told me her friends were very sniffy about fake trees. Now there fake trees and fake trees. These are the needles on ours. It doesn't smell like a real tree but it does take the weight of the decorations which a real tree cannot.

 And a couple of hours later it is decorated.

I'm writing this just after 1pm on Christmas day when most people are sitting down to their Christmas lunch. We don't do that, we've had a late brunch and shall have our Christmas meal at about 4pm with pudding at about 6pm if there is room...

Tuesday 13 December 2011

Saving you from watching paint dry.

I haven't blogged because I'm painting. Not anything creative, just the gloss work throughout the house. And when I'm not doing that, I'm making curtains.

We are getting some basic white wardrobes for the cottage. To customise them I thought it a good idea to put some fancy knobs on the doors. I learnt the hard way, it is not a good idea to Google Pink knobs. I will not make that mistake again.

My Christmas wrapping is done and dusted.

Thursday 8 December 2011

New studio in progress

 You know that Chinese curse, "May you live in exciting times". I think someone cursed me. Half my studio was already at the cottage and the other half was coming with a 'Man with Van'. Only it didn't arrive. Hours later we heard his gear box had disintegrated on the Motorway. So instead of Sunday, we eventually got it on Wednesday. Three damaged bookcases and as you can see a couple of the boxes have been squished. (I cannot bare to see inside them yet, my stress levels were through the roof.

 This was taken hours later and now I have had enough of sorting but there is so much more to do. Somehow I feel more comfortable calling it my studio on the ground floor than I did when I had one upstairs. Why is a room designated as a sewing room more acceptable as a studio than a room designated as a bedroom?

A slight nod towards Christmas.  I love my little forest of white trees with red and white decorations. I do hanker back to the days when decorations came ready threaded. These curtains are blue and white and I found a box full of them, they 'nearly' fit the windows so shall suffice until I get round to making them. It takes a little of the pressure off me and the room is so much warmer with them.