100 happy days

A few weeks ago one of my friends posted this link to Facebook. It's called 100 Happy Days and it's a challenge to submit a photo every day of something that makes you happy.

I decided to join in, even though the bit that said '71% of people tried to complete this challenge, but failed quoting lack of time as the main reason. These people simply did not have time to be happy. Do you?' annoyed me a bit because I'm not sure that forgetting or not taking a photo means you're not happy. 

Some of my happiest moments since joining have actually been impossible to photograph, but I've given it my best!  If nothing it's got me using my camera (phone) more so that's always nice.

Ok I know we've all seen them... still in love

Knitted stripes ♥

Work tea break

Finding our ceiling rose was perfectly intact after moving this monster of a light fitting

Plastering beginning

Making the best of our fireplace

Absolute joy!

A birthday present

My birthday!

Imagining...

More flowers :-)

Mmmmmmmm.....

The best way to eat fruit (in mulled wine)

Portable yarny project

Chinese lanterns

Feeling giddy over organising!

Our first major DIY achievement

Why not join in?
#100HappyDays

x x x x

Stripey stripes

Good news my lovelies, my RSI which I was telling you about last year is much much better again.  Hooray!  How long it will last I'm not sure but I've been really good with my crafting and haven't been overdoing things and I won't be setting myself any unrealistic deadlines in a hurry that's for sure!

So with that in mind I've given myself plenty of time to knit up a blanket for one of my oldest friends who will be having a baby boy in March ♥

Now I don't like gender stereotypes and I'm not the kind of person that thinks girls should wear pink and boys should wear blue (although I do love pink myself).  I don't like the shelves in toy shops that categorise cars for boys and dolls for girls.  I don't mind if other people do but that's just my personal opinion.

I tried really hard to apply this ethic onto this blanket (I really did!) but it is h-a-r-d I tell you!  I have wanted to use Stylecraft because it is beautiful to work with (important), lovely and soft for a baby (essential) and I have a tonne of it (useful).  The problem I found was a lot of shades from my stash have been used up like Meadow green and I was a bit concerned that too much pink and people will just assume my friends child is a girl, which wouldn't bother me but they're not me you see.

So after playing around with loads of colour combinations, some very terrible, some very retro (which I'm sure friends husband would hate) I have admitted some defeat and am knitting a blue blanket for a boy...  Well it's got yellow, red and purple in it too.

So far so good though.  I quite like that the 'back' is even stripier than the 'front', it took me a few rows to realise that the colour changes needed to be in even rows, but once I got around that it started to work out nicely.  I even painstakingly sewed in a different colour (following the knitted stitches) and ripped out the original just because I didn't think it looked right.  Yikes!

I'mn knitting on my circular needles for extra length and it's just plain old garter stitch because I just think it looks fabulous, especially in stripes.

A nice shot of my new white goods as well.

I also have a yarny confession...  Actually does this even count as yarn?  It's recycled t-shirt yarn!  I think it might be factory left overs and I've seen it on the internet before but never in the shops.  These were from Hobbycraft on 3 for 2 so about £12 for all three.  I thought it might make a nice floppy snood but actually it goes very thick, so it might be more handbag or pouffe material.  We will see!

Hope all is well in your world!  Much DIY has occured here as well, I'm looking forward to boring you with photos soon ;-)

x x x x

Christmas 2013

Christmas is my favourite time of the year, but last year we had so much to do I really struggled to get into the Christmas spirit.  I stopped worrying about "x sleeps til Christmas" and managed to focus on what it's all about.  Eating, drinking and family!

I've always wanted a Christmas wreath.  I'd love to hang one on my front door but I'm worried it will get wet and stolen!  I made this from pieces bought in Wilkinsons.  It's quite simple (aka cheap) but I'm really pleased.  It could do with lights, but where to hide the batteries?

This year we spent Christmas day with Js family.  Our nephews were very excited about the whole thing, the biggest enjoying opening presents more than the presents themselves I think and the youngest enjoying the little things like Duplo.  It's always weird not being 'home' for Christmas but now we have our own home to make lots of memories in, although I'm not looking forward to cooking a Christmas dinner for lots of people...!

J and I agreed we wouldn't really do presents for each other because our home was a big enough present but we still got a few silly things.  I even bought a tree to replace our weedy one, £50 down to £25 and free with our Nectar points, win!

I was able to hang a very exciting decoration which arrived in November...

  

My very own Percy Pecker!!  Thank you Jooles, I love him!

I baked mince pies (jar & ready to roll puff pastry cheat)

Our enormous (slightly unsightly!) fireplace became adorned with Christmas and new home cards ♥

Loved decorations came out of their boxes

We visited the markets in town (I might have been more than once...)

 

And I got some amazing Dr Martens boots.  Swoooooon!



♥

We went down to my family after Christmas and because my brother works Christmas day we had Second Christmas on Monday which was so much fun!



My poor mum hadn't much time to decorate this year, she's spent most of December at mine!



But she did a great job and we had a lovely time



Wishing you all a very happy 2014!

x x x x

And a happy new year

It's been a while hasn't it?  Better start with Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year :-)

 I just wanted to say I'm still here but I've been a bit busy buying something rather big...

We did it! We bought a house!

This last month has been absolutely exhausting and I was so ready for the Christmas break I could have fallen asleep on my desk at work several times!  I've been very much away from blogland unfortunately but I've started to catch up (a little, over 100 posts to read in Feedly!) It's been one long journey but it feels lovely, and where I was worried that I miss my flat I haven't thought about it at all, although we did have a pretty amazing view ♥

This time last year I couldn't possibly have imagined owning our home, our circumstances made it seem like a bad idea right now, but then when we realised how much less we'd be paying (plus our landlord put up our rent by a lot) it just made sense.

Anyone reading this who had bought a house will know it's not easy. We both fell in love with a lovely Victorian terrace, which sadly wasn't meant to be and even worse for me was every other house we viewed had to live up it.  I negotiated a price on our second choice at Glastonbury Festival, which wasn't easy and then it all fell through because the seller was a complete bum hole.

Then FINALLY our home appeared on the market.  Perfectly timed because we'd viewed or ruled out everything in our price range and preferred area.  I won't say that the sale was a breeze because we ended up choosing an incompetent solicitor and our mortgage lender could never find our paperwork, but the vendors were lovely and the good news is the solicitor was so incompetent they've yet to bill us.

Check out my awesome kitchen!!  ♥ Ikea

I hope not to be too much of a stranger to blogging this year, seeing as I've a lot of DIY to write about, but more importantly lots of knitting & crochet projects!

Much love x x x x