Autumn Card

I decided to take a well-earned break from making Christmas cards and do something a little more appropriate to the season, before it finishes and I've missed it completely. For the first time in ages I was wide awake at night, with ideas flowing through my head. And in the morning, this is what I made:

I've decided to make something like this once a month. This is partly inspired by Floss's Blog where she uses a colour scheme from a particular calendar as inspiration for a display that changes each month, and partly by Margaret's blog where she makes beautiful little inspirational placards that I really like.

I wanted to reflect what autumn, by far my favourite season, means to me, so there are many elements to this card. It actually has a 'bottom' so you can stand it up, but I've put string at the top so I can hang it up. It's actually hanging at my kitchen window and I've used the window sill to display a few more autumnal items. I don't object to doing the washing up, but it's definitely enhanced by having a few pretty things to look at while I work.

The basic design for this card can be found here but I am going to be featuring the whole website in a new little series I'm going to be doing on Fridays, as I am finding some fabulous websites useful for card makers, which I think I ought to share.

You can tell it's autumn because:

1. I have finally put all my T shirts away and got all my jumpers and polonecks out. It's like greeting old friends.

2. It gets too dark at night for Mr O to be able to ride after work during the week. To say he is depressed about this is an understatement.

3. My garden is full of leaves, which I will now go and sweep up.

4. The cats start treating the house like a hotel again. Honestly, if you miss having teenagers at home, just get a couple of cats. We've been like ships that pass in the night all summer, but the moment the temperature drops below ten degrees, I get two little waifs sitting shivering on my doorstep, telling me how much they've missed me.

5. There is a dramatic increase in the consumption of hot chocolate (which will be discussed in a later post) custard and pies. Mostly pies.

Never mind, only 67 days until Christmas!

Mrs O.

Horse in the House

Looking around Tiny Cottage the other day,

I began to wonder...

If I invited you to my house...

And didn't tell you we had horses...

Would you work it out for yourself?!

I think so too!

Let's just say, these aren't for human consumption!

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Busy Bee

Just popped in to say that I have been busy on the craft making front. For the first time ever I'm going to have to show you a work in progress (WIP) as this cross stitch is not going to be a two minute job. This is for Daughter 2's wedding. The bottom section was really tricky, one of those where you do two stitches in one colour, then two in another colour and so on, which is why I'm making myself sit down for an hour a day to work on it.




I've got all the top section to do, finish the border and do all the back stitch, so I'd better crack on if I'm going to finish it by the end of the month. Now I'm beginning to wish I had a separate craft room as I have to pack it all away in between sessions. It would be bliss to leave everything out.


I've been having a fantastic time making cards. This first one was my first foray into my Kate Knight papers which were free with my magazine. I felt they were quite a sophisticated paper and required a sophisticated treatment, so here it is:


The two little birds in the oval have glitter on, just to give a little bit of sparkle. I so wish I had a Cuttlebug. It's on my Christmas list, but it's killing me to have to wait that long!
And now for the card I've really loved making. It is my first go at a shaker card. I don't know if you can see, but there are little tiny flowers inside the baby's bottle. This was my first go with a white gel pen, around the top of the bottle. I love the effect. I have got a 'thing' about newborn baby cards, so expect to see several more.

I am really pleased with this one. The idea was in a magazine I bought when I very first started card making, and wouldn't have had a clue how to do it back then, and wouldn't have had the tools either. I made it a couple of days ago, and love it. There are little tiny green gems in the centre of each flower. I stamped each flower, then painted them with my water colour paints before cutting them out and using sticky fixers to give them depth. I made a mistake because I forgot to put the strip of ribbon on and tuck it round the spotty paper before sticking it down. I went to the craft shop yesterday and found some self-adhesive ribbon, (what a godsend!) which worked out much better anyway. I am going to make another one for Missis' mum's birthday on June 10th.








And finally, on a bit of a spree yesterday, I spotted this box in W.H. Smith and couldn't resist it. Obviously it will soon be full, but the drawers are really handy.





This is the top:




I mean, it's got cupcakes on it, I'm hardly going to resist that, am I? Do you like it?

Happy blogging, everyone.

Better To Have Loved and Lost

For some time now I have had it in my mind to buy a welsh dresser, and have glanced in various shops, just casually looking. I had one years ago, and gave it to Daughter 1. Why? Why? I've regretted it ever since (no disrespect to Daughter 1!) There is a limited amount of space in this teeny tiny cottage, and I particularly want a pine dresser for a kitchen, not a dresser for a dining room, with any kind of glass doors.

So imagine my joy when we found the perfect dresser this morning in a shop in Chesterfield. The only drawback was that it was quite wide, but it was lovely. The price was right, too. I stroked it affectionately and assured it that it would soon be mine. We decided to do the sensible thing and go home and measure the space in the kitchen to make sure it would fit. Sure enough, there would be the perfect amount of space without having to complicate things by moving the fridge. Mr O rang up to say we were on our way to pay for the dresser, and what did the shop owner say? "Oh, I'm sorry, I've just sold it." D'oh!

I sat down, struck dumb, and let the waves of disappointment wash over me. It had been love at first sight - what was I to do? To assuage his guilt ("I knew it would fit!") Mr O offered to take me into Clay Cross to check out the shops there. I thought it was a bit pointless, but decided to humour him and go along for the ride, it wouldn't do any harm.

We went into a couple of shops, but there was nothing crying out to be bought. Then suddenly, in Pop's Attic (where we bought our table and chairs) there it was, the dresser of my dreams. It didn't have a price (always a bad sign) so I went to the desk to ask. Let's just say it was a third of the one we'd seen in the morning! I think I may have said, "We'll take it!" before the words were properly out of her mouth into the public domain. I nearly went to sit on it. I was prepared to sleep next to it until it's delivery day (Tuesday). I can't wait until it comes to grace our tiny home. As soon as it's here, you'll be the first to know.

The other success is that I have bought my outfit for Daughter 2's wedding in July. We saw it last week. If I tell you it was in the Co-Op you'll think I'm a bit barking, but our Co-Op is a big department store like Debenhams. Basically it's an off-white silk, sleeveless dress, that falls to just below the knee. It has big blue spots on it. I also bought a matching dark blue jacket, and what I suppose is a cross between a fascinator and a hat. I just hope it doesn't look like a saucer on the side of my head, but I can live with that. It's a beautiful outfit, something one could wear to Ascot. All I need now is some blue strappy shoes to go with it. I will take a photo of me in it when I've got some shoes, so it'll look a little disappointing that it's me in it but at least you'll see what the dress looks like. Honestly, I felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, you know, in the shopping scene. And I can seriously say that the shop assistant did in fact have obscene amounts of sucking up to do, especially when she accidentally pressed the wrong button on the till and brought the total to six thousand, four hundred and thirty-two pounds! I did mention that she might want to check that and it turned out she'd typed in the item code and not the price, thank goodness. It was worth it to see the look on Mr O's face, though.

I bought this a little while ago from a very sweet gift shop in Chesterfield. It actually says, 'Bless Our Home with love and laughter.' It's the sort of shop where you want to buy one of everything, and it's not expensive, either. Expect to see regular additions from now on, especially after the welsh dresser has made itself at home.

This is going on my wardrobe door. I saw it today and couldn't resist it. To be honest, there isn't much room in the tiny cottage to have many ornaments, but I've realised I've got lots of places where I can hang things up, and this is perfect. I love the colour and the buttons.

And finally, I've been meaning to show you this since my birthday, as Missis bought it for me as a present. It holds six eggs at the bottom, and you unlock a catch across its back and it opens out, to hold the two eggs shown. It's metal, and it fascinates me as an object. This may have pride of place on the dresser, I haven't decided yet.

Well I'm off to throw some ingredients in the breadmaker.

Blessings, everyone!

Less Is More

There are two reasons for the title of today's post. The first one concerns Zak. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how to muck out (English style!) and commented that I am not a fan of rubber matting. The tradition here is to put rubber matting on the stable floor and only put a little bit of bedding down, usually shavings. I'm not keen because the horse will lay in it's droppings and make their rugs smell.
But no matter how much bedding I put in Zak's stable, he absolutely trashes it. He is by far the muckiest horse I have ever had to muck out (and I've done a few). He must box-walk and kick his droppings about all over the place, which leaves him with no clean bedding in the morning. It takes hours to muck him out as you try to save a few wisps of straw so you don't have to put a whole bale of clean straw in every day. The deeper the bed, the worse it gets.
Missis has rubber matting, so I asked her what she thought, and she said she thinks it definitely helps with her horse's stiffness. She does put a full bed down on top of it, though. I started to mull over the possibility of rubber matting. Then, to my surprise, last Saturday, Mr O, totally of his own volition, said, "This horse needs rubber matting!" I couldn't agree more. So Mr O has ordered some, and it came yesterday, and we'll be putting it down tomorrow. It's not like Missis has got, which is very hard, it's like what I used to have for Penny, very thick and spongy, and comes in sections cut like jigsaw pieces. Imagine the time saved on mucking out, if this works. It'll be a real godsend.

I have finally, at last, finished the christening card. I knew roughly what I wanted, which was:
1) it must look like a christening card, not a new-born baby card.
2) it must be personalised. If you're going to put 'Baby's Christening' you may as well go and buy a card from a shop.
So here is the result. This is the other 'less is more' item for today. When I make a card I'm often tempted to use lots of patterned paper, but it doesn't work with a christening card, and card making is not scrapbooking, is it? I'm really pleased with the result, and feel I can meet Abby next week and talk 'wedding invitations' with confidence.





My Kelly Marks book still hasn't come. I am so annoyed. It was dispatched on the first of February. Grrr!
So today I took matters into my own hands and decided to do some 'de-spooking' exercises with Max. I put a couple of (bright, flappy) feed sacks on two electric fence posts and stuck them into the ground. I pulled the bright blue barrels out and stood them up. Then I had a brainwave and got a piece of the old, rubber matting that used to be on the walls of the lorry and laid it down in the lunge ring as a 'bridge'.
I hadn't realised the three horses were watching me set all this up, and Max's eyes were on stalks when I went to get him in. At first he refused to move, and just stood, transfixed, staring at these new items on his horizon. I managed to get him in, aided by Barnaby, and then put his lungeing gear on.
I walked him round to the lungeing pen, and he expanded to at least 15.2 with the shock of being confronted by all these spooky objects.
I gradually led him round, and he snorted and stared (and probably looked rather good with his head down like that!) and pranced round everything. He went round once and I gave him a mint, then took him round again. This time he was marginally more relaxed, and at the end I let him eat some grass. He wasn't bothered by the blue barrels, just the 'sacks-on-sticks', but gradually got closer until he was eating right next to them. I was very pleased.
Then I walked him over to the rubber matting, and decided to lead him across it, exactly as if I was leading him up the lorry ramp, and he stepped straight on it. I was thrilled. He was a bit wary of the sound his feet made on it, but I let him have a bite of grass, then went round again, and he walked straight on as if it was nothing. I know he doesn't have a foot phobia, as he will load in the lorry straight away, and will walk through water, so I was fairly confident. Now I just need to keep repeating it, until I can bring the sacks closer and closer together, and get him to walk in between them, then I'll put them one either side of the rubber matting. I will keep putting different objects in front of the rubber matting, by which time Mr O will have made me a wooden bridge at work, that Max has to step up onto, then when he's confident with that, I'm going to get on him and ride him over it. I was thrilled with his progress today, though, and he knew I was pleased. He seemed to enjoy doing something different, something that occupied his brain for once. He's very bored just going out to the field, and coming in again every day.

And finally, as you know, Missis' aunt died a couple of weeks ago. Missis has had the arduous task of going to the house and sorting through her aunt's things, never an easy thing to do. However, as she was sorting through the cupboards, she came across a couple of things and thought, 'I know who would like those!' and brought them home to me, so here they are:
This is a butter dish, from the days when butter was sold in round pats. I don't know how old it is, but I think it's very sweet, and it now occupies centre stage on my kitchen table.


Then there is this little chap. Isn't he cute? It says 'pork dripping' and is also quite old. I think I might use it as a mustard pot, or for apple sauce or something.


Have a good weekend everybody, and let's hope it doesn't snow!