Early days at the allotment.

With the snow now melted and a fine, dry Saturday afternoon we headed down to the new allotment to get stuck in with the preparation of the plot. The council have said that they have no funds to plough the soil so we decided to 'have a go' at digging one of the new raised bed areas.

It was indeed hard work but pleasantly easier than I had anticipated and it was lovely to be outside in the fresh air.



As you can see below, even little p was on hand to help out!



One hour in and two thirds of the 4m x 6m bed dug.......where on earth do we put all the couch grass though- there's only so much you can disguise at the edge of the field!

Hair Clips...

Made time for some crafting today, and managed to get to grips with a project that I have been wanting to start for ages.......Felt Hair Clips! I have started the range for little girls and babies and will hope to have a range of stock items and then produce a few bespoke designs for commissions.
Sadly by the time I had finished for the day today I lost the natural light to take good photographs, so I intend to replace the ones posted today. Just thought I'd include some today more as an achievement for myself than anything else.

Hope to have these available for sale on Etsy soon..........

Mmm.....Muffins

We seem to have been inadvertently stockpiling blueberries recently. You know the thing, the 2 for 1 label calls out at you in the supermarket and you know the little one loves blueberries in her lunchbox, but you end up having two thirds of a punnet sitting in the fridge quietly going soft. Well not this week! I decided to get to work using up those little bursting berries of loveliness and stumbled upon a low fat recipe for blueberry and apple muffins. The only fat comes from fat contained within the egg yolk ( I would have thought they would probably work just as well by only using egg whites, making them fat-free!) Anyway, after a blissful hour baking, here are the results:-

and here is the recipe......

Ingredients

250ml skimmed milk

250g caster sugar

2 medium eggs

1tsp vanilla essence

350g plain flour

4 tsp baking powder

200g blueberries

2 medium apples peeled cored and chopped

zest of one lemon, grated

preheat the oven to gas mark 6 or 180*c and then line a muffin tin with 12 muffin cases.

mix the eggs, sugar, milk and vanilla extract in one bowl and set aside.

In another bowl sift the flour and baking powder then add the blueberries, lemon zest and chopped apples and mix well. Make a well in the centre and then gently fold in the wet ingredients. Spoon into the muffin cases filling each one almost to the top. Place in the preheated oven and bake for 20-25 minutes. Enjoy with a steaming hot cup of tea! Alternatively these would make a great low fat breakfast option......enjoy!

Red Riding Hood's Ready!

Last week I mentioned that Little p had Book Week at school coming up....... Well the event is upon us and I was feeling under pressure to finish her 'Little Red Riding Hood' costume.

Wednesday is dress up day and all the children in the school are to dress up as a famous book character. Little p could have chosen a pirate, a fairy from a princess book, or a vet, as she has dressing up outfits already for these characters- but no, she insisted on Little Red Riding Hood. So it was out with the scissors and sewing machine and today I got to work making her costume......

The cloak was made from an Ikea red fleece throw that I bought for just £2.79 and the apron was made from one of Mr B's old dress shirts, so it ended up being quite an economical outfit. Here's hoping it manages to stay in one piece and mess-free ready for the big day on Wednesday!

Icy!

I took this photo yesterday- the slowly melting snow has been dripping off the edge of our roof and freezing on it's way down, causing some fantastic icicles to form. A similar process is occurring on our conifer trees- I just love the way the conifer, once encased in ice, takes on an almost florescent colour.

I thought we were seeing the start of a slow thaw but alas it snowed heavily again last night and this morning, leaving another 4 inches on top of the already deep lying snow. Little p's school is closed again freeing us up for a day of baking bread, gluing and sticking and sledging!

Finally got around to making a snowman yesterday, whom little p has named 'Helly', I have no idea why! It seems now there'll be plenty of time and snow to make Helly a little family of snow people!

Muffins and Makes!

Little poppet's school has reliably informed us that they will re-open tomorrow so I thought it was time to rustle up some Apple and Carrot breakfast muffins. I've had trouble this term getting little p to have a decent breakfast before school so I'm going to give breakfast muffins a try. They were incredibly easy to make, I'm hoping they're going to make my school morning routine a lot easier!

Also got stuck into some crafting today- made a large batch of thank you cards for the post Christmas Thank you. They just consist of a card blank adorned with a square of leftover wrapping paper. I then made a small gift tag with the words 'Thank You' printed, trimmed and then stuck on the tag using sticky pads to give a slight 3D effect. The tag then had a hole punched through it and I tied a bow of raffia or ribbon through the hole and then glued this to the middle top of the wrapping paper square. It was a very easy and effective design that can be adapted for birthdays too, just use birthday wrapping paper rather than Christmas paper.

The big project for the coming week is to make little p a costume for school on Wednesday. It's book week and the task is to dress up as a favourite book character- watch this space!

Frozen Britain

We have been in the grip of some very cold weather recently. Little poppet's school has been closed for 3 days now and we're all starting to suffer with cabin fever being cooped up inside. The time has come for some makeshift sledge action, and we found the perfect makeshift sledge....the sandpit lid! Here is little poppet enjoying the snow.

We acquired an allotment on the 1st January on a brand new site in the village. We have campaigned for nearly two years for the site to be opened and now it finally is- the only trouble is the snow has put pay to our plans for developing it for a couple of weeks. We had marked out one of our proposed raised beds but now its just resting under a foot of snow- it's as if we'd never been...

Have managed to fit in some crafting too- check back tomorrow for an idea for quick and easy thank you cards.

Hello, this is me!

Hello- I've arrived..... After nearly a year of talking about maybe starting to write an online journal, and many, many happy hours spent reading established blogs, I've finally plucked up the courage to start my own.

I'm a thirty-something stay at home mum living in Surrey with my fantastic husband and beautiful daughter. Having had the past two years overshadowed by sad events for us as a family, I wanted to start this new year by focusing on the positives in life, to find beauty in simplicity and to celebrate all things handmade and homegrown.

This may be a journey I make on my own or it may be that someone might stop by from time to time. I hope that my pages might become a good place to settle down with a cuppa to relax a while.......