Five More Sleeps.....

  
 Honestly, when it came to writing this post yesterday  (I’m posting it today because I ran out of steam last night) I reeeaaallly didn’t feel like it; being happy for people I don’t know about things that mean a lot to me: it just seemed a little too much to ask. We’ve been suffering from the attack of even more germs this past week and just as the air was clearing,yesterday happened. It was ‘one of those days’ but on an epic scale. It began with the new carpet being fitted in the hallway, stairs and landing. YIPEE! I had been looking forward to this for months and working very hard to reach this point. But when the fitter unrolled it I was a little shocked; was this really what I had ordered? He checked, it was. Um. Ok, carry on…? I had another look half way though. No, not sure about this now. Worrying begins, heart beats a little stronger, and I put on my positive voice to convince myself its all ok.

Once the job is done and the man has gone (he was soooo nice about it, but even he couldn’t come up with anything more reassuring than ‘…but it’s really hardwearing’), I am left alone with the carpet, face to face, and its horrible. It looks like a tweed jacket threw up all over my staircase. Crap. What do I do? What would you do? I rang my mother, she’s brilliant at a time like this, she wont feed you any old crap to try and make you feel better, she’ll just listen and be with you in it. Her advice was to eat cake, so that was my next move.

Little H and I enjoyed warm croissants and coffee (He had a hot chocolate), and I felt much better by having him share my grief. I was amazed at how sympathetic he was and how emotionally intelligent he seemed. I explained to him that I was a little upset about the ugly carpet, but before I could even finish he said ‘I know mummy…..I know…’ and just left it at that. It felt nice….until the hot chocolate was thrown all over the wall and soaking itself into the crevices of the wallpaper. Oh. Great.

Could it get worse? Yes it could, but thankfully not too much worse, only extracting a piece of pizza out of one of Little H’s nostrils during dinner! I have only recently had to get a raisin out of there, and I thought he’d learnt his lesson but clearly not. Tweezers are my secret weapon.

To top it off, Little A then did a poo in the bath. Once he realised that I’d seen he dived down into it as an attempt to get away from me (duh?) and just made the whole thing worse.

All of this on the night that Hubby wouldn’t be home until very late.

HOWEVER, having said all of that (sorry, wallowing over) as I sat down to upload the photos on my camera and see what we have been up to that we might share some with you, I found many things that reminded me why I really ought to be happy. And here they are…

Jamie Oliver Magazine; oh boy, I do love good food and when this little number arrived on my door mat I couldn’t wait to dive in and begin my Christmas meal planning. This year I even have my Nan on board to work together on an epic Christmas dessert….YES!!! I’ll try and remember to take a picture, but it will be hard as it won’t take long to be devoured!

 Soap. Yup I know, I really am a little simple, but honestly, a good bar of beautiful soap can just do it for me. This beauty has been sitting on my bathroom sink for a while now, just waiting to be used. Every time I walked into the bathroom I got the most amazing whiff of Christmas spices. Its called Yog Nog (from Lush) and it’s made with soya yogurt so its super creamy and nourishing. It looks and smells edible!

We began decorating by pimping the cactus in the kitchen; easy and instantly satisfying!

We baked dinosaur biscuits; a bit of a double whammy because not only were we using dino cutters but I had recently discovered that Morrisons sell dinosaur shaped sprinkles for cakes….WOW! Things like this make me really glad that I have boys!

We cut paper snowflakes; Little H REALLY enjoyed this, but the only ones that I had to photograph were my own as he enjoyed the cutting process so much he reduced his to confetti.

We have a growing collection of nativity themed decorations made by Little H (with a lot of help from various other people!).

We put our tree up and decorated the dresser. This felt super good!

I enjoyed a few quiet moments writing Christmas cards to people that I really love and some that I really miss. This had been one of my favourite parts of Christmas this year; I am blessed with some lovely friends and enjoyed taking time to think about them as I sent them Christmas messages.

We filled some plastic baubles to decorate the kitchen. This was an interesting process as Little H wanted to fill them, and empty them, and fill them etc. but we got there in the end.

My personal favourite is the melted snowman (which of course was made by me so no wonder it’s my favourite!).

I received the best gift ever: a box of home baked goodies. I truly love getting things like this, it means so much to know that someone has spent time creating something for me. Its so much better than just spending money on something for the sake of it, its all about the thought for me at Christmas.

We made some Christmas cards, well, we tried. Little H was far more interested in using the ribbon to disguise Buzz Lightyear; can you see him?

And, amazingly, I got to go and have lunch all on my own (yep, no children!!) in our local bus cafe. It was sooo peaceful and the light was so beautiful, I thoroughly enjoyed over an hour by myself reading my book and sipping good hot coffee.

So, after all that I’m not too sad about the carpet. It’s just a carpet, a really ugly one, but still just a carpet!

Have you been up to anything exciting on the lead up to Christmas? Have you had any days like mine? If you have, or even if you haven’t, I strongly recommend taking time to count up all of the good things you’ve got going on and I guarantee you’ll feel better.....

....only Five More Sleeps

Merry Christmas everyone!

Hayley

xx

It's (K)Not Wrapping!

 Hello! I bet you’re waaaaay ahead of me and have all of your gifts already wrapped and under the tree don’t you? If that’s you then you might just kick yourself in a minute; If its not, then you’re in luck because I’m going to share a little wrapping love with you. I’m always looking for ways to make life a little greener and when I discovered Knot Wrapping last year I thought it was the smartest thing since …EVER. Why hadn’t I already thought of this? Its so simple and even more beautiful, and its green which makes the world happy as well as me :)

Really it’s nothing new; it’s another name for the Japanese art of Furoshiki, which is the giving of gifts wrapped in beautiful cloths. Traditionally the recipient of the gift returns the cloth to the one who gave it, but I don’t see that ever happening in my family!

So, here are three VERY easy ways to wrap your gifts this Christmas. The first two are quite similar, the first being the easiest version. The last one is easy peasy; your kids could do it.

Get yourself some pretty materials, square shapes are best. Size depends on how big the gift is; you’ll just have to give it a go. I found mine at charity shops, in my loft and a few I bought (coz, y’know).

Bow wrap:

Start by assembling your gifts in the middle of your cloth with each corner pointing to the four points on the compass.

Bring the top corner down over the gift.

Fold the bottom corner in a bit, and then over the top of the gift so you have no ends poking out.

Then bunch up each end, giving a little twist if you like, and tie in a double knot. 

You can leave it like this (I like this look) or you can poke the very tips of the corners under themselves and back into the knot to make a bow. Cute!

Bow and Tails Wrap:

Start with your gifts in the wrap as before. This time bring the top and bottom corners together in a large, loose knot. These will be the tails of your bow.

Then tie the opposite corners as for the bow wrap above, giving you the ‘bow’ to go with your tails. Alternatively, you can tie them in a real bow, but pull them through far enough to give the same appearance.

You might need to faff and re-tie a couple of times to get it right, but once you do you’ll be made :)

Last, but knot least (sorry) is the Drawstring Bag Wrap:

Begin by piling your goodies into the centre of your cloth with a flat edge facing you;

Loosely tie the right hand corners together…

Do the same for the left.

Then tightly tie a double knot from the top two ends…

And the same for the bottom two…

Pull and Voila! you now have a little bag with two handles. You can tease the bag open to add extra things by wiggling your fingers in to pull the large knots apart.

I can’t help but think that this technique is made for giving gifts to fabric addicts. Imagine giving a quilter a beautiful quilt book tied up with a yard of quilting fabric? Or giving a bag of sewing goodies made from a yard of fabric that matches the little charm squares inside?!! Mmmmm….

Happy Knot-wrapping everyone! If you get stuck, just search for ‘Furoshiki’ or ‘Knot Wrapping’ on the internet and you will find loooads of great tutorials and videos; I have really given only just a taster here, I hope it is the beginning of something beautiful for you :)

(Sorry for some of the photos, the light is terrible and it was a case of 'use the flash or see nothing' so i chose the flash! When I make it big in the crafting world, I'll get a professional photographer! ha!)

Thanks for stopping by! I hope your plans for Christmas are panning out nicely? We are a little slow here, not much is getting done despite being very busy (why is that?) but I'll share our festive fun with you soon.

Merry Christmas!

Hayley

xx

Perks

We have all been suffering from an ugly cold that has left us with a very stubborn cough; the little ones got it first and I knew it was only a matter of time before I did too. I absolutely loath being ill, it’s the most annoying waste of my life and I get pretty angry about it when it happens. However, there were a few unexpected little perks this time around that I felt I should share with you in case you too were stuck inside feeling sorry for yourself.

Firstly, after dragging the kids out to the shops for the necessary supplies to feed ourselves, Little H was feeling particularly sad that he couldn’t go to playgroup. (He kept informing me that he needed to go to the doctors because he had germs, but that the best course of action was if I went to the doctors and He went to play group instead!) So on the spur of the moment I took him down the biscuit isle and said that he could choose ANY packet he wanted (I NEVER do this!). It took him a little while to get to grips with what had just happened, maybe he thought it was a test (!), but eventually he settled on a packet of party rings, great choice :)

Then, on the way home I swung by the drive thru and bought a coffee and a tiny hot chocolate. He was very excited about this privilege and couldn’t wait to get home. When we arrived I announced that we were having a picnic in the tepee. I pulled out a tray and some fancy china plates (these always make kids feel more grown up), piled everything on and went upstairs to squeeze into the tent. It was really nice to just sit and chill out with them both, all of us feeling just a bit crap and taking comfort in hot drinks and sweet treats. (Kids seem to love watching adults squash into spaces that are too small for them…?)

Secondly, I had an incredible bath. There’s nothing like a good soak, but there’s definitely a difference between the average bath and a Lush bath! This beast is called a Golden Wonder and its packed full of Lime and Orange oils, not to mentions tiny golden stars :)

Little H was in charge of putting it in the bath and was amazed at the different colours. Once I got in I made it clear that under no circumstances was he to play in my bath (it was MINE!!), so instead he ran to his bedroom to get a book, pulled up the little step and read to me. It was so sweet and made me feel much better.

(By the way, if you wish to feel like a mermaid at any point in your life then you need one of these bath bombs, it will do they trick every time!)

Thirdly, whenever I get unwell I constantly have the urge to surround myself with beautiful things, and this time around that need converted itself into crochet. I opened my wardrobe door and saw this huge ugly ball of artificial sheep that I had been ignoring for ages. 

It looked as much of a mess as I felt and so I set to work making something from it. Nothing fancy, just a basket. I used a large hook and doubled up the yarn so it would give me more satisfaction, more quickly and just hooked until it ran out! It felt so good to use it up.

Lastly, as I began to feel better I realised that what I really wanted for times when I was poorly was a place to go and be alone; one that was peaceful and visually quiet. And so I went to town on our bedroom which always ends up being a dumping ground for everything that doesn’t have a real home, and I gutted it all and cleaned it up good. It’s very calm in there now and I’m hoping to keep it that way :)

In other news….ITS ADVENT!!! Hooray, Christmas has arrived and we can all open our calendars. Our first family activity was to get out the Nativity set, the first of many Christmassy things to come down from the loft! Yay!

And today our advent activity was to bake mince pies…YUM!

I hope you’re as excited about the beginning of Christmas as we are, and if you’re feeling poorly, as a lot of people seem to be at the moment, I hope you feel better soon. Try surrounding yourself with things you love, or feeling like a mermaid in the bath :)

Thanks for stopping by,

See you soon,

Hayley

xxx