... with a whimper more than a bang, but we so rarely get any snow living by the coast that its a rare wintry treat. It's trying to snow again but I can't see our snow shovel getting any action anytime soon. I've nothing but feet on my mind at the moment, alas mine, (warning of nudey shots to come) - sorry, but I cut my heel. I hate shoes and in fact socks and will walk barefoot in the house and sometimes out of the house i.e in the garden or down the path to the shed in al

Well the forecasts for next week are somewhat chilly with promises of weather courtesy of Siberia but today whilst a tad nippy is a beautiful sunny day here in St Annes The weather inspired me to venture into the shed to make some new fabric brooches in time for Mother's Day I'll be launching the Mother's Day Collection tomorrow with 2 weeks to go, whilst I've created some new cards just for Mother's Day, many of my cards, particularly birthday cards as I hand make on order,

I've always wanted to be musical, hugely admired those that can play a musical instrument. The problem with my achieving this is two fold, firstly I have no natural musical ability and secondly I have the attention span of a gnat; so the dedication required to learn and practise has been to date (and probably still the case) beyond me. Still my yearning has gone unabated. Last birthday Mr E bought me a guitar and it has sat in our lounge as an ornament since (ha) so now I

I know it sounds like a poor pantomime mash up but it does succinctly sum up my day today. I'm spending, what has turned out to be a cold and dull Sunday into a washathon, whilst lovely to have guests the bedding and towels for a small army need to be laundered and today is the day. To help me through I'm watching what is my all time favourite film The Mummy, now this is the one with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz not the god awful recent Tom Cruise offering (which include

..... and relax. So after the spring clean to end all spring cleans and baking and cooking in preparation of our lovely house guests, its time to breathe. It was so lovely to be so busy and to have a house full including 3 boisterous, funny, beautiful boys bringing lots of joy and laughter ..... thank god for the Netflix though to kick start wind down time ;) Darcy wasn't fazed and ambled around the house mainly bemused by all the comings and goings, so now our house guest

Well this not working for a living milarkey is a breeze, I'm totally smashing it ;), still feels incredibly surreal and I haven't really got my new life organised and properly planned, I suppose I'm still in wind down mode before I wind back up again. Well I say wind down, not quite as I'm on a massive Spring Clean. I don't particularly like cleaning but I love a clean home and I can't really have one without doing the other. I spent 6 hours on Monday deep cleaning the kit

I had a hankering for some fresh homemade soda bread. The thing with soda bread is you need buttermilk and as such its not a bread that you can (unless you're in the buttermilk business) make just in the moment without schlepping out to the shops, or can you (ha) .... I do have a buttermilk hack , you'd never know and it really does work. You just need Milk and Lemon Juice. Buttermilk is not really milk its a sour liquid that is left over after making butter (ooh get me) a

The marvellous Mr E went with me to my first Craft Exhibition/ Fair. I have been to lots of craft and art fairs and very soon I will be selling at one or two, but these are usually small and artisan and pretty. This was a Craft Fair on steroids with what seemed like a million stalls exhibiting tools and products and craft demonstrations, seriously hard. The fact he went is akin to him dragging me to a football exhibition looking at different footballs or whatever such thing

Welcome to my blog, whilst there will be some crafting and card making posts, it will be filled with general ramblings about life, home and aimlessly trying to live a more frugal, simple, thoughtful life. I faced the fear and there were lots of fears and resigned from paid employment to go it alone ... well I say alone, that really is not true, it was only with the huge support of the most amazing human I know and luckily he married me (ha) that made it all real, I'm blessed,