by Helen on June 18, 2014
Here’s a quick peek at the cover of the July magazine – nice and early this month as I’ve finished it already (need to concentrate on THE BIG DAY from now on).My jam jar decorating is coming along nicely – a coat of chalk paint and some fabric scraps transforms a plain jar into something really rather pretty ….
And not that I’m excited of course (eek!) but I’ve hung my wedding bunting in the kitchen already …..
Of course Daisy made it into the photo again. I don’t know where Ben was, snoozing in the hall I expect as weddings are far too girly for him. They’re off to their favourite kennels next week safely out of the way. I won’t have any time to spare for them over the wedding period and Rosie (although she loves them loads) quite understandably doesn’t want her beautiful wedding dress covered with black newfie fluff! I’m sure they won’t mind though, they always have a lovely time with their “Auntie” Gillian.
The July issue of the Bustle & Sew Magazine is published on Thursday 26 June.
by Helen on June 11, 2014
And what nicer way to celebrate than by scoffing cake!?! This project will be in the July issue of the Bustle & Sew Magazine – and will also be decorating Rosie’s cake table – in two weeks and two days time!
I can hardly believe it – just six – yes SIX weeks left until THE BIG DAY!! I don’t know where the last year has gone, time has just flown by, moving ever faster as we hurtle towards Rosie & Dan’s wedding day on 28th June. And there’s still so much left to do! This morning, had anyone been watching, they would have seen me in the summerhouse, with a snowstorm of notes around me, trying to organise my to-d0 list…..
Stacking up the coffee cups as I shuffled, reshuffled, crossed-out and annotated my notes. The mint leaves in the teapot aren’t for tea, but rather to help keep bugs away – quite successfully too I’m pleased to report. After a while, the organising became all rather too much, so I decided to take a break and try out my bunting idea for the kitchen instead …..
Apologies for the poor image quality, it was a bit dark and I was using my phone. I have now worked out that I need strings of 10 flags to cross the room from side to side – now all I need to decide is how many strings to use, then add bunting-making to my list! My bedding plants arrived today too. We have grown quite a lot from seed, but after planting out it became apparent that a few more were needed …..
They’ll need planting out very soon indeed, but that’s a nice relaxing, fun task! I also had a lot of fun making a couple of new cushions for Rosie & Dan earlier this week – another project for the June issue of the Bustle & Sew Magazine ….
Mr Right and Mrs Always Right!! I’ve seen quite a few Right and Always Right ideas online, but this is my own version – hope you like them – and that Rosie & Dan will too!
by Helen on March 12, 2014
First of all, thank you so much to everyone who said such lovely things about my newly redecorated kitchen – so very kind of you all. Lots of people also wanted to know about my herb and spice jars….
Now looking very smart on their newly repainted shelves. I must admit that, until now, I didn’t know very much about them either as I inherited them a long time ago. So I thought I’d do a bit of research …
I have a set of 24 jars and I use most (although not all) of them. They sit on their own shelves which were a sort of boring brown wood shade before I repainted them as part of my kitchen makeover. After some googling around I was able to uncover that they were made by an American company – Lenox – in 1989 and are known as the Lenox Spice Village. The shelf I painted (probably a terrible thing to do!) was the original display shelf, and as well as these little houses, just 3″ tall, there were various larger cannisters for flour, tea, sugar, cookies and so on. A lovely touch, I think is that the insides of all the lids are labelled with the jar to which they belong – so you can be sure that after washing you always return the correct lid to each jar….
They are just as beautifully decorated on the back and sides as they are on the front. They’re also easy to find on eBay – as I discovered when doing my googling. Full sets only seemed to be available from the US, but I discovered odd jars on eBay UK. The full sets are between $100 – $150 on eBay including the shelves.
After all that googling and loving the Lenox village set, I thought that maybe my spice jars would be set off nicely with the addition of some of my own Village bunting…..
I’ve always found bunting to be one of the most difficult things to photograph. First I tried in the garden – and after taking probably a couple of dozen photographs was only happy with this one. So then I thought I’d try in the kitchen …
Better, but still lacking something. Could that something perhaps be …..
The prettiest (and naughtiest!) little newfie in Chillington? Perfectly posed – thanks Daisy!
And if you’d like to make your own village bunting, the pattern will be in the April issue of the Bustle & Sew Magazine.
