I am sitting here whilst the 3 eldest watch Fantastic Mr fox ( I only have to listen - Mr Clooneys voice is enough for me thank you very much ) , 2 are feeling rather poorly tucked under a blanket ,the other tucking into sweets . Arthur on the other hand is stomping round the living room in his first pair of shoes leaving a trail of destruction behind him wherever he goes .

Another quiet week, weekend ,day with a few good finds in my good old charity shops this week , I have my favourite ones you know and I have come to the conclusion that the grottier looking the shop , the further away from the highstreet , and dare I say the stronger fousty aroma it has - the more i get excited and the more I find .

I love Mary Portas but she has a lot to answer for when it comes to smartening up the charity shops - personally I don't like the ones where everything is colour coordinated , they sell their own brand new goods and you end up paying £ 5.00 for a top from New Look that probably only cost £6.00 brand new.

Don't get me wrong I know these shops have to make money for their causes and I support that but some have most definitely got too expensive .

  Then we have the 'vintage 'rails where if its an item that somebody over the age of 65 would wear then its vintage and 3 times the price of everything else in the shop ....grrrr. So to conclude give me a  grotty, in the middle of nowhere , fousty shop and I am happy lady !

A few of my recent finds , my favourite being the floral chopping board which i hasten to add will not be used as a chopping board in this establishment , no sireee !!!

When i go out rummaging i do often have one book mad companion who will bury herself in the book area of the shop for as much time as i will give her - pound coin firmly clutched in her hand . On this occasion we went to my very favourite shop I made my way over to the fabric and off she went to the books however as we went to go our separate ways both our eyes widend a little when we saw this beauty ,

my young lady because she is positively horse mad and I because I just love the painting and the doe eyed look of this pretty pony and all for the princely sum of £3.00.

I also had this beautiful blooming beauty

I did paint the frame white and it makes me just a little happy .

On a non thrifty note ,

A ceramic owl from South of France on my mantlepiece

a pressie for the OH made from very old stamps ( not by me). On a recent getaway to Brighton - the only city I would ever want to live in , in a little street market there was a lady selling 1000s of old stamps , we spent an age just looking at all the different letters words, fonts . the OH was quite taken with them , so when I saw this in the Made By Hand show I knew I had to get it .

Finally a little make that I made for my girls bedroom

Hope you all have a lovely week xxxxx

A weekend of mess and sun .

Work on project Little Ethel continues and I am determined to wait until it is all finished until I reveal . It has been a relatively quiet weekend here , today has not been the best day children painting by 9am then playdough = one trashed kitchen = one exasperated  mother .

I did appreciate the cold crisp weather we had and we did escape to the park,

Time for scooting , time for swinging and sliding and time for doggy rolling in fox doodoo !!! I had already decided to avoid our usual woodland walk as I couldnt face washing off another load of mud so instead I end up washing off stinky stuff - I give up !!!  The eldest insisited on scooting and holding the dog so she could be towed but this inevitably ended up with her flat on her face - no injuries thankfully .

No recent makes to show you yet but I do have a little collage of some from the past year while I have been away from blogland

Hope you like them .

The christmas decorations may be put away finally but I thought I would give you a little peek at  my favourite christmas pressies

The book at the top is Dottie Angel , she can be found and the pictures are taken from here , the book , the blog are just beautiful , very inspiring , very entertaining - quite peachy !

The birdie brooch is from here, bought when we went here .

The lovely necklace can be found here.

The Mary Berry book can be found here

Heres to a good week for us all xxxx

Show and tell.

Not much to tell here, the weather is yuk , children back in school, I have a slow cooker (yay) and I am cream crackered because I keep staying up stupidly late to complete the next part of a little craft project that has embedded itself in my already cluttered mind and refuses to toddle off until I have done it all , resistance is futile I have to do it .
 I am hoping it will be done in about a fortnight  , its called Little Ethel  and its needlefelted and thats all the info I can give you folks .

As the title suggests I thought I may do some showing , I have an evergrowing pile of vintagey fabrics which I love but am doing nothing with at the moment , I am however learning to use the sewing machine as i would like to turn them into cushions,  patchwork thingies and bags ,but I have sneaky feeling that will be a long way off !

 This was given to me by a very kind crafty friend , I would love to turn it into a top / tunic kind of thing .

 A pair of curtains that cost 50p.

 Beautifully faded , I love this print , my eldest has the duvet cover on her bed .

 My absolute favourite , and I really want to turn it into a dress , I recently very wisely invested, my pennies in a vintage fabric dress from this clever  Miss , you can read more about her  here . Will post a piccie of said dress soon - i love it !!!! Have lots more fabric to show another day .

Two new pretties ( well I think so , hubby may beg to differ !) in the home ,

Below is an isak tea towel that is way too lovely to get soggy so  framed it in an old flea market find and I am delightedly happy with the result . I did request approval form my 2 eldest to put this up in my living room - would they be embarrassed when their friends came over, with ladies boobies on view , but they thought the whole thing hilarious as do many who frequent my home - cannot think why ?

Am off now to put away the 2 boxes of christmas decs that have been sat in my bathroom for the last 10 days accumalating odd bathroom type items within them ie empty loo rolls , toothpaste tubes - not really what i want haging on my tree in the next festive season .

Wind in our hair and sand in our eyes .

I thought I may try and get in a sneaky post while all is quiet here . We are all recovering from a trip to the beach , to give the dog a good run and try out the christmas scooters, George was really looking forward to scooting down the ramps super fast , but his plans were scuppered.....

On your average day this mound of sand is a sloping concrete path.

The wind was whipping around our faces , runny noses, sand and hair in our eyes , poor Arthur was so wrapped up he couldn't even lift his arms up, but somehow I was still glad to be there ,in the fresh air feeling very alive, the cobwebs well and truly blown away .

Christmas is packed away, we had a very manic one here 4 very close family members have birthdays on the 19th , 23rd, 24th and 28th - 2 of them are my children and one my dad who was 70 this year so a 2 night trip away was also thrown into the mix arriving home on the 23rd !!!!

We had a lovely time at Bluestone , in Pembroke which incorporated a trip to Elf school - (oh how i laughed at hubby with his rosy elf cheeks having to do an elf dance !!!)  .

Time now though to look forward to the year ahead and I am prepared in one very minor way

I have my new notebook ready for that moment of silence , that time when I can think reflect and start making my notes and lists . May 2012 be a good one for all of us !!!! I will leave you with 2 cutie pics - I made them both .

A custom made meer cat - my first attempt .

My now 1 year old having a late night cwtch .

A new look blog , a new year , a few quiet promises to myself - watch this space , i will be back once i have finished playing with pretty pictures and a few ideas . Cannot be wait to be back in Blogland .
     

                      sarah xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx