Crown and Heart biscuits

. . . for a Royal Wedding street party - well it had to be done!!

Easter fun

Yay, the finished crown!!  I'm so pleased with how it turned out - a great hit with both Little Roo and Flopsy Bunny.  Little Roo did look sweet in his Easter Crown running around in the garden for our Easter Egg Hunt.

The inspiration for the crown came from Cupcakes for Clara's blog.  I remember seeing her post about the birthday crown she had made for her little girl and thought, ah, a crown and stored it away until the right crown moment came along - which is now!  Cupcakes for Clara got her crown idea from SouleMama, who has a pattern for the crown in her book The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections.  Anyway, lots of lovely crowns to have a look at and get inspiration from.  I wanted mine to be more king like rather than for birthdays etc, hence all the jewels and also it's because I have slightly magpie tendencies and got a bit carried away in the shop!

So talking of Easter Egg Hunts I found these darling little egg tins from Maileg (I just love their things) and thought they would be just the thing for collecting and storing Easter Eggs.

 I hope you all had a lovely Easter Weekend

Fairies in the air

There were lots of fairies in the air yesterday, dancing and twirling around, floating lightly on the currents of the air.   I tried not to think of all the new dandelions that would spring up where they settled!!! 

Easter is nearly upon us.  Flopsy Bunny is very excited by the prospect of alot of chocolate - I hope she won't be too disappointed . . .!  Little Roo is just excited because his big sister is but I don't think he really knows what is going on!  We've been making Easter biscuits for everyone and in usual tradition, and still to much mutterings from DH, an Easter Tree has been created.  It looks a bit busy, my tree, this year.  Maybe its the wallpaper behind or maybe I've succumbed (as my sister feared) to the commericialisation of Easter and just bought too much stuff!  Cute little bunnies though! 

This year to get some inspiration I ended up doing a quick search on the web for Easter Trees.  It seems that decorating branches for Easter stemmed from Germany (the Germans obviously have a love of bringing trees indoors - I'm sure Christmas Trees first started in Germany too!)  Anyway, I digress, the tradition was to add a decoration each day during lent.  I feel slightly better now, as I'm sure I don't have 40 decorations on my tree - my self-control is still there - just!!

Anyway, while I was out with the secateurs searching for suitable branches for my tree, I ended up collecting bits for this arrangement.  I just love this yellow pom-pom shrub (sorry I don't know it's name - if anyone out there does please let me know!).  The colour is amazing and is brightening up our kitchen no end.

Settling in . . .

. . . nicely on the dresser is my lovely new teapot.  I'm just settling in with a nice cup of tea.  I hope you have been having a happy Monday!

Fit for a King

My lovely friend Sarah has just started a blog.  She's doing a 30 day challenge - a post a day - so do pop over and take a look at sarahwoodonline I'm sure she would love a visit.  

One of Sarah's talents (her best one, in my opinion, are the amazing cakes she rustles up!) is her ability to find unusual things and things you never realised you needed or wanted on the web.  A couple of months ago she sent me an email with a link for - wait for it - yes a knit your own William and Kate.  Of course I had to download the pattern but in the end I haven't got round to making it - maybe you will?!  But on that Royal theme I thought I would let you know what I'm currently up to on the crafty front.  A secret (well not that secret as Flopsy Bunny has got in on the act) present for Little Roo for Easter.  His own crown - does he need one? Probably not - but recently he has taken to wearing his wizard tabbard and calling himself a king - and every king needs a crown, plus his sister is not going to tolerate his using her sparkly hair band as one for much longer!  So an Easter Crown for Little Roo and he will be all kitted out for the Royal Wedding Tea Party (theme prince and princesses!) later in the month.

Lots of Easter crafts planned for next week so do pop back.  I can't quite believe a week of the holidays have gone all ready - all too fast.  I'm trying to savour those lovely moments - lying on the sofa cuddling both Flopsy Bunny and Little Roo - wonderful.

It's all go in the garden

Phew, what a lovely couple of weeks we've had - so much gardening, sorting, pruning, cutting back, weeding and sowing.  And still so much to do as well . . .  I was so thrilled to see that my gorgeous tulips survived from last year  and bloomed again, maybe not as many flowers this time but still as lovely.

OK you might be forgiven in thinking that this is the same shot of our new veggie patch but from a different angle!   You might also think that not much has happened since the last photo - but it has had a lot attention over the last couple of weeks.  It has been dug over and a hundred weight of ground elder roots and nettle roots and other weeds have been dug out along with a couple of dozen bricks.  Then last Sunday I spent the morning planting out our chitting potatoes - we may have over done the amount of potatoes we have planted in fact there is little space in the bed for anything else now!  Does anyone know of any good tips for storing potatoes . . . .?  DH has been busy in the greenhouse and gave it a big spring clean and tidy up and then set to work planting more seeds.

Tomatoes, courgettes, peppers, chilli peppers, beans - yum - just hope they survive the multitudes of slugs, snails and deer in the garden!  We also managed to sort out our compost area and are now back to composting again - which I am feeling very happy about.  The grass snakes that live in the bottom of one of our compost bins were not happy to have their home disturbed but once we had cleared it out and started it again they all seemed to have made their ways back in again!  Now is the exciting time of waiting to see the little seedlings appear!

Mothering Sunday

So I have had a lovely day today with my gorgeous family.  Cards, chocolates which Flopsy Bunny managed to keep in her bedroom without eating too many . . . and a sweet little pot of flowers!  This afternoon was a very crafty one for the girls.  Flopsy Bunny made her entry for the Royal Wedding decorate an egg competition for school - entries need to be in tomorrow so cutting it a little fine - but I love what she managed to do - OK with a little help and guidance from me . . . !

Happy Mothers Day to Mothers everywhere!

A bit of spring madness

I do wonder sometimes about the little ideas that pop into my head.  Where do they come from?  This latest creation is no exception.  The brief was to make an Easter Bonnet for Little Roo for an Easter Egg Hunt next week.  Well boys don't wear bonnets (although I think Little Roo would look mighty cute in one).  So into my head popped an idea - I'll make a bird's nest hat!  An upside down pill-box hat shape, with stripes of coloured felt and some chicks!  Hmmmm ......

 He's not so sure about it, but Flopsy Bunny loved it!!

Flopsy Bunny especially likes it as it features the famous chicken ribbon which went on her Easter Bonnet all those years ago (I've been searching for a photo of the bonnet but no luck so far, will add one if I find it!) and which she tried to persuade me should be added to the PJ's I was making her.  Anyway, here it is, strangely pleased with myself, even if it is a bit left field!  I especially like the larger chicks I managed to find!!