Grandma's Kitchen

This embroidery has been hanging in my grandmothers kitchen for as long as I can remember. My grandparents on my mum's side used to live in Heartfordshire before moving nearer to my family in Cheltenham. My family and I would spend a lot of out school holidays staying with them in a little village called Letty Green.

My grandparents had a lovely old country house with a huge garden. I remember spending hours in the kitchen helping my gran bake all sorts of goodies. This embroidery used to hang just to the side of the Aga cooker. The smell of toast drifting up the stairs in the morning will say with me forever.

These holidays are where my obsession with carfting began. I had a very short attention span as a child and my gran would set us activities which often envoloved making something or baking to keep us entertained. I would say my gran has been my main inspiration for everthing I do now. She was a very talented lady who made toys, clothes, embroidered and won many a competition with her work. 

My gran recently passed away in January and we are currently sorting out her house. Unfortunately my younger sister now owns this sampler but I have aquired some fantastic table cloths and white work which I will hopefull take photos of and blog soon. I will really miss her as she had lived a fascinating life and always had funny interesting stories to tell.

Happy Mothers Day

Well as you know today was mothers day and my siblings and I celebrated by inviting my mother around my house for a cream tea. My family love cream teas, if you are a  non British readers a cream tea involved scones, cream (clotted cream if you can get it) jam and the essential cup of tea. This is a very summery British tradition, very unhealthy but very yummy. My younger sister and I spent saturday afternoon making plain scones and chocolate chip muffins that accidently went a shade of blue! Nothing to panic about, i didn't have enough chocolate chips so I added some M&M's I had. The blue colouring changed the colour of the cake mixture. But they still tasted delicious.  I also made some butterfly cakes, just in case I didn't already have enough goodies for everyone.
The weather has been stunning the last couple of days so I thought we could sit outside. I thought this was a perfect opportunity to use a recently inherited table cloth that had been hand embroidered my someone in my family. It really is stunning these pictures do not do it any justice. 

I love a pretty mini tea cup.

Just after I left University I moved in with a lovely girl called Gill. Gill and I shared this philosophy that a cup of tea will solve any problem that was troubling us which is a belief I still hold today. It was her birthday back in January and I decided to make her something tea related and wearable so that she could be reminded of this philosophy where ever she went. I saw this cute china dolls house tea cup and saucer and just had to turn them into a pendant. I'm quite sure my other friend might thought I was a little insane but I could tell she was quite touch. As soon as she put it on I knew I wanted one as well and I've only just got round to attaching the chain to the one for myself. However I'm now going to coordinate an outfit so I can wear it to work tomorrow.

Your a star

This is the mothers day card i've made in preparation for Sunday. It's quite a simple design but I felt like dong a tiny bit of embroidery.  My siblings and I (there are four of us in total) have decided to have a very british cream tea at my house to celebrate Mothers day. So I will be baking scones and cakes on saturday in preparation and if the weather is nice we might be able to take our high tea in the garden.

I was very excited when I got home from work today because my new magazine subscription to Making Jewellery had dropped through the door. This is a new British jewellery making magazine and it's much better then I thought it was going to be. I was a little worried it was going to be a little chintzy and basic but I'm amazed at the range of projects and abilities it's aimed at. The magazine came with a supplement full of projects which I'm going to try as soon as I get the chance as well as helpful silversmithing hints and tips with interviews and fashion advice. I worthwhile investment which I'm sure I'm going to really enjoy throughout the whole year.

Bread and Wine

I went out for a lovely meal earlier this week to a place called Hotel du vin in Cheltenham, the food was delicious but I couldn't stop looking at the beautiful chandelier. It had been made from lots of cut glass wine glasses. Absolutely stunning and a great idea if you have a 100 or so spare wine glasses hanging around the house.
I also inherited a bread maker this week and got straight to work on my first loaf. I love the smell of fresh bread running through the house. These machines are so easy to use for a basic loaf but i have also branched and made malt loaf which was very yummy.

Hello stranger, it's tea time.

Well what can I say it’s been months since I’ve written. All I can say is I haven’t neglected you dear blog out of choice. I have recently moved house and have only just got my internet access sorted in my new house. I have also just about got all my crafting supplies in there rightful place and so can now carry on creating. It feels so long since I made anything.

Well, I have eased myself back into creating by making my new housemate a birthday card. We have got into a bit of a new routine of having our English tea from the pot instead of just making it mugs (very unsophisticated) so I thought I would make her a tea themed birthday card. I cut the base of the tea cup and tea pot out of vinyl and then used a glitter glue pen to add the detail. I hit a few technical difficulties when making this card which don’t really matter but something I will bare in mind in the future. The glitter glue pens were great fun to use but did take about 4 hours to dry, I might have just used them a little too thickly. Secondly once the glitter had dried it fell off! The good news is it was in one piece but still not what you want to happen to a birthday card. But lesson learnt, don’t mix glitter glue and vinyl.