Cheeky chalk paint

I love this stuff - no surface prep required, slap it on and play around to your heart's content.  

Secret Christmas present goings on aside, the main event was the refurbishment of a chair that had spent several wet winters under my Ma's oak tree - my lovely husband firmed it up with a spot of glue on its aching joints and then it was on with the paint, waxed up and re-seated - and now I have the perfect chair for my crafty corner.  Very happy!  And rather comfy too.

Crafty Corner

Not so much as a stitch on my (everlasting) quilt for months now, but I have been a wee bit busy moving house and trying to tame the new garden.  We moved from the countryside to the outskirts of a city, to be closer to the now-teenage step children for a few years - perhaps not quite so pretty but this house has SPACE - so much that I now have a) almost all of my fabric stash in one place and b) a lovely little corner where I have commandeered an old desk to store all my kit.  I know the summer will whizz on by so am looking forward very much to rainy days while the garden sleeps and my trusty sewing machine creaks back to life - happy crafty days to come.

I think they deserved these...

Two of my best friends moved house only days before Christmas (different friends, different houses, same challenges!) - and knowing them as I do, I'll bet they had everything unpacked and festived up in the nick of time; me, I'd be in bedlam for months.  So I made them a little card each and posted them off, one to the wilds of Devon and one to swanky Chislehurst, with lots of love and good wishes.  Not quite the same as being there to help of course, but I was with them in spirit.