Ain't It Great To Be Back Home

Aah, it's good to be back! It's the right sort of holiday which leaves you sorry to go, but happy to be home. We've been away for two weeks - with no internet and, for some of the time, no electricity. A real break. A road trip.

After The Great Caravan Controversy of last year, we travelled sans trailer. Just us, one bag each and plenty of books. We started with a bit of this:

at Hadrian's Wall; and then an afternoon of this:

at Blists Hill Victorian Town. After that we travelled down England for some of this:

and every evening we warmed ourselves by the woodstove in the tent and read til bedtime with the help of this:

There was lots more, too. But right now my Google Reader is stuffed with good things and I need to get busy. Everything you've been making and doing over the past couple of weeks is waiting there ready for me to enjoy. I have new readers to say hello to, so hello and welcome to anyone who has come over from Posie Gets Cozy. Just before I left, Alicia was looking for volunteers to help out with her Summer Book List project and you know that's just my kind of thing, so I stuck up my hand,  put on my librarian's badge and had a lot of fun doing it. If you like a bit of nostalgia just as much as I do, have a look!

And I haven't forgotten about our own book chain. It's all in hand. More soon, then..

Taking A Break

I'm taking a blogging break for the next week or so...

...but I'll be back soon with some new projects

49 Things...My New List

Who remembers the 99 Things list which did the rounds a few months back? I posted mine here and enjoyed it so I started trying to compile a new list: different things, different places, different ideas. It turns out that coming up with a whole new 99 was quite a bit harder than I expected. But you probably could have told me that if I'd thought to ask..

So, how about 49 instead? How many of these have you done/tried/avoided/run away from?

1. 
   
   Seen The Terracotta Army in China
2. 
   
   Cross stitched a sampler
3. 
   
   Kept a friend for more than 20 years
4. 
   
   Made your own jam
5. 
   
   Seen the Crown Jewels in The Tower Of London
6. 
   
   Attended a school reunion and enjoyed it
7. 
   
   Kissed the Blarney Stone
8. 
   
   Learned how to tap dance
9. 
   
   Seen one of the Wonders Of The Ancient World
10. 
    
    Ridden a tandem bicycle
11. 
    
    Commissioned a piece of furniture
12. 
    
    Sold for profit something you made yourself
13. 
    
    Seen Sydney Opera House
14. 
    
    Walked up the outside of a volcano
15. 
    
    Met an idol
16. 
    
    Found or sent a message in a bottle
17. 
    
    Held a stranger's hand, just because they needed you
18. 
    
    Thought you might have seen a ghost
19. 
    
    Been caught speeding
20. 
    
    Won a bet
21. 
    
    Visited a penpal
22. 
    
    Published a poem
23. 
    
    Had your appendix removed
24. 
    
    Pierced an interesting part of your body
25. 
    
    Seen your name in lights
26. 
    
    Had a handsome man buy you Champagne
27. 
    
    Had tea at The Ritz
28. 
    
    Found a peacock feather
29. 
    
    Made a collection of more than 50 objects
30. 
    
    Crossed The Equator
31. 
    
    Partied through til breakfast
32. 
    
    Found a fossil
33. 
    
    Seen The Northern Lights
34. 
    
    Built your own house
35. 
    
    Started a Mexican Wave
36. 
    
    Judged a competition
37. 
    
    Flown in a hot air balloon
38. 
    
    Spent too much money on something you've only worn once
39. 
    
    Scored an own goal. Figuratively or otherwise
40. 
    
    Appeared on live tv
41. 
    
    Asked for your money back
42. 
    
    Had your photo taken with someone famous
43. 
    
    Grown your hair long enough to sit on
44. 
    
    Been locked in somewhere overnight, or long enough for it to start getting scary
45. 
    
    Found something valuable and made sure it was returned to its rightful owner
46. 
    
    Taken part in some kind of endurance event or attempt
47. 
    
    Driven from one end of your country to the other
48. 
    
    Been publicly recognised for bravery or special community service
49. 
    
    Gone out on the town in an outfit you've made entirely on your own

There you go. If you have a try, let me know and I'll come and check it out

A Bit Of Better Blogging Part Three

It must be time for another Better Blogging round-up, what do you think? I hope there is something new for you to enjoy here:

• WriteMindSet...all kinds of writing advice, from avoiding grammatical errors to writing opening paragraphs.
• smartpassiveincome.com..lots of other good articles, but I especially liked this one on The Bloggers Guide To Facebook.
• My3boybarians.com.. love this! Great list of 10 blogging mistakes and how to avoid them. There are lots of other good things too, though, photoshop tutorials and tips..take a look.
• cinnamongirlstudiodesign..one to think about here. It's a tutorial on helping to protect your images on blogger
• Beautiful Blog Designs..a good resource for free backgrounds and templates and other tutorials
• Creature Comforts...guide for better blogging series. You need to have a look at this for the beautiful photographs . Stunning stuff.

If you have found this useful, you can find Part Two here and Part One here

Love Your Pictures, Love Your Pages

Progress might be a bit slow, but that doesn't mean I'm not loving my pictures and loving my pages from Shimelle's new class. I've managed a couple of layouts so far and this one is my favourite:

I used Shimelle's very clever combine-a portrait-photo-with-some-kind-of-landscape suggestion to make a page about The Tall One and the start of his GCSE exams, with a picture of the man himself and a photo I took to illustrate a post about exam weather. I think I'll be coming back to this idea again: it's such a good way of using up all those "what will I do with that one?" photos.

Displaying The Doilies

I'm in a mood for finishing up projects at the minute. Better make the most of it while it lasts, I thought, and set out for Ikea where I found exactly the right little square box frame to display my embellished doilies:

I only had eight doilies to start with so I added in a little centre square with my name and the year and framed it up ( this picture shows it before the glass went on ) and I think it's going to turn out to be my favourite project of the year.

Lots of you have said you would be interested in a "Pass The Book" chain like the one featured on Silver Pebble. Let's do it! I will be taking a blogging break of about a week or so shortly and as soon as I'm back we'll make a start. But I need some suggestions: what sort of book would you be interested in?  A craft book? A cookery book? (Or would they be too hard to pass on!)  A classic? A book about writing, maybe? Please let me know what you think and we can give it a go. Now, where did I put that librarian's stamp? I know I have it here somewhere....

July At Gotta Craft

Today I get to show you the layouts I made with the July Gotta Craft kit. I think it sold out pretty quickly on Friday night - and I'm not surprised because the Echo Park Sweet Summertime papers are just beautiful. Double sided and loaded with colour, they are a real pleasure to cut into. And the stickers?  Bunting and pinwheels and a hot air balloon all on one sheet..

When I'm using stickers I often put them onto a piece of plain card and then trim them out (you can cut them close so that no one knows, or add a little contrasting border) - that way they lose the sticky back and I can move them about before finally sticking them down. It's also a way of adding a bit of dimension and sometimes I'll add even more with pop dots.

I picked the quote here because I wanted to show how many letters you can get from one alpha sheet. It's a little reference to my parents being teachers and bossing their flowers around. That's me in the very short blue dress.

And this is The Small One in a photo I have used before; but I thought her big buttons were a great mix with the spotty paper so I "did" it again. See the pinwheels? I cut those from one sheet of paper.

And I still have lots left for something else! (If you want to stretch your Sweet Summertime supplies even further, check out Echo Park designer's Creativity By Crystal for free downloads.) Although the kits are gone, Sandra does have all the bits for sale here. And do keep an eye out because there is a new selection due in very soon.

Oh, and if you really love pinwheels you might like to try making a fabric one with Betz White's tutorial here. Have a good Sunday!

Coconut Ice

It's bad when the power goes off in the kitchen. It's good when you can turn to your tall son for help.

I go:  Oh, no, the washing machine has tripped all the switches

He goes:  You can't reach the fuse box, can you Mum?

I adopt a suitably helpless expression and go: Could you please have a look in the fuse box for me?

And he punches the air in macho delight. Sorted. Apart from the washing machine. And so, instead of doing the laundry, we made a batch of coconut ice

Coconut Ice

375g (13oz) icing sugar

125ml (4 fl oz) milk

pinch of salt

25g (1oz) butter

60g (2oz) desiccated coconut

pink food colouring

• 
  
  Heat the icing sugar, milk, butter and salt in a saucepan, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Stop stirring and bring it to the boil.
• 
  
  Cook until it reaches softball stage. we use a sugar thermometer to check this.
• 
  
  Stir in the coconut and let it sit for 5 minutes (much longer and it starts to set)
• 
  
  Divide in two and colour half of it pink
• 
  
  Put the white mixture into a buttered dish and then pour the pink onto the top
• 
  
  Let it set and then cut into squares.

It's very sweet, but it's very delicious.

Today I'm Loving...an idea from Silver Pebble which I found via Sandie. It's called Passing a Book On . I'm thinking we should start a chain right here.

Shopping For Sherbert

With it being the school holidays an' all, I'm more likely than usual to say yes when I hear Can we buy one of those? But even I didn't need much persuading when The Small One spotted these yesterday:

How long is it since you had a Sherbert Fountain? They were never my favourites (actually I think I only ever had one); but just one look now reminds me of the sunny 70's - the sugar, the e-numbers, the weird feeling when a sharp bit of spangle cut the top layer off your tongue - ahh.

Rhubarb and Custard chews, colour changing Spacedust (wasn't ever allowed that one), Tutti Fruttis: recognise any of these? "Budgetary constraints" (not enough pocket money) usually meant that Penny Chews were at the top of my list. Or Highland Toffee I'm not sure if my teeth would be up to either of those delights anymore; but in case yours are, the Small One set to work this morning and came up with a few sources. Roll up, Roll up, Get Your Pear Drops Here..

• 
  
  Bag Of Sweets  for "retro boxes" and penny chews
• 
  
  A Quarter Of  for Space Dust
• 
  
  Sweets For U for Flying Saucers and Treacle Toffee
• 
  
  British candy for Pear Drops and Rhubarb and Custards

If you fancy making some retro Edinburgh Rock, you can find my recipe here

Today I'm Loving..if you like creating better than chomping, I've got a brilliant mailorder woolshop today. Jannette sells bargain end-of-line and hard-to-get-hold-of yarns and I've found her service excellent.

The Dinky Donuts

So, the very day I get my lenses sorted out for fine sewing I go into my needlework box and, at the bottom of it, I find a tiny piece of cross stitch I did many years ago (I think the chart was from Jo Verso's World Of Cross Stitch

It looked a bit lost and unloved, so I had a think about what I could use it for and I decided to add it to a page about donuts and to give that page a 4th July theme. I have other stories about donuts (which of course I should be spelling doughnuts, but sometimes you run out of "g"s, you know?) because round here we know them as "gravy rings" and...but that's for another day. Today's page is dedicated to my American readers with wishes for a Happy Fourth July. Have a good one!

Everything Is Illuminated

If you drop by here often you'll probably know that I'm big on celebrating small. On noticing the little things, and cheering them on. 

Today I'm thinking about actually seeing the little things. And that means only one thing, of course. I've been back to the opticians. Yes, I did take a photo (very, very quickly this time), but it wasn't really the same without my small accomplice and it's not even worth a look, so moving on...

..Now I can see! I'm fine with my glasses on; but I've been noticing for a while now that close work seemed, um, trickier with my lenses in. So I went. I said  I can't see to cut and stick. The optician ( lovely girl ) said ( something like ) Don't worry about it Sian. We're all getting on a bit. Try these..

And I did. And they work! Too well, almost, as it turns out. First day in had me reaching for these..

Was I really walking round with my eyebrows like that? Please don't answer that. Bookshops, magazine racks, they'll all be seeing a lot more of me, now I can see. Just in time for me to make a start on this too:

I shouldn't have broken into it really. It was supposed to be for the holidays because it comes with everything, even little scissors, but when I opened it up and saw this:

it was too hard to resist. It's from inspire co and it's coming along quite nicely.

Today I'm loving..what's that? The optician photo? Oh, go on, then..

I'll be seeing you ..