A Crafty Chai

12
Feb
2011

Buttons

categories: Crafty

I love buttons. Always have. I like the different materials, colours & sizes. I like new & vintage. So imagine my joy on Christmas Day when my OH’s mum gave me her mother’s button collection! I was overwhelmed. Not only that, my mum also gave me the ones that were filling up her sewing box. I also inherited my Nana’s buttons when she passed away last year. This all means that I have a very awesome button collection & I love the fact that it’s from collections spanning three generations.

So how was I going to make sure I used these wonderful buttons? I was worried that I would just pack them into a box in my cupboard and forget about them. But then I had a brainwave. I’d seen pictures of people putting them & ribbons into jars. Genius, I thought, I can do that so that I can keep them out. So I ransacked the kitchen cupboards to find as many jars as I could & managed to get enough to start colour co-ordinating my beautiful buttons. (Words cannot express how much joy I had doing this!)

They are now all displayed in my study on the bookcase & look amazing. It is definitely the start of a crafty relationship!

07
Feb
2011

Crafty Nana

categories: Home & Garden, On Tour

As you may have seen from my previous post, I was lucky enough to go to Cirencester last weekend. While walking around, we stumbled onto a fabulous shop called Sorted. It has a wonderful mix of new & vintage; clothes & furniture; art & jewellery. Just my kind of place! There were certainly plenty of things to spend your money on, not many of them cheap as they really are vintage pieces. They range from Victorian to 1960’s but all have clearly been chosen because they will sell well. And at least two of them sold well to me!

My paternal Nana died last year & left me a small sum of money. I wanted to buy something specific that would remind me of her & that she would approve of. I spotted the flower brooch first. I think that this would definitely have been something that Nana would’ve worn ‘for best’. I knew I couldn’t leave it in the shop because I got ‘the feeling’. This is the feeling that I get when I’m going to buy something that I hadn’t planned for! It was very reasonable at £50 and not something that you buy everyday.

The second thing that caught my eye was this beautiful floral oil painting. I’ve never painted with oils, but Nana & Grandad always had very colourful oil paintings in their house. I used to touch them as a child because I was intrigued by the lumps! This was a bit more at £130 and really is vintage. It adds some brightness to my study & makes me smile whenever I look at it.

My purchases definitely reflect the style that my Nana had & I’m very grateful to Sorted as I’ve been looking for something for a while.

An interview with the owners of Sorted can be seen in the February edition of Homes & Antiques magazine.

06
Feb
2011

Green Thumb

categories: Home & Garden

I think I need some gardening help! I bought this beautiful orchid & it’s lost all it’s flowers. I’m concerned that I’ve not watered it enough & then watered it too much. If anyone has any tips or pointers about how to rescue it, I would greatly welcome them.

I love orchids. They grow such a graceful looking flower that always makes me feel calm. For me, though, their delicacy & grace is always their downfall as I’m not graceful or delicate enough to get the balance of water right!

Although it could be that it didn’t get enough light in the study & that caused it to lose the flowers.

I hope I haven’t killed it 🙁

It’s not like I kill all plants. I can keep some alive & I can even grow some from seed. I received a ‘Grow your own chives’ kit from my OH’s mum for Christmas. Brilliant, I thought. I can start to practice my gardening skills before I’m let loose in the garden.

I followed all the instructions in getting the plant ready & was very impressed when I saw little shoots sprouting through the compost. I even managed to remember to move it off the windowsill, away from the single paned window when it was really cold during the night, just in case the cold managed to give the chives the kiss of death.

But now I’m worried. Have I watered them too much? Have I not spoken to them enough? Has the cold somehow got through & hurt my little baby chives? Who knows! They seemed to have stopped growing for the moment. Should I eat them? Would that encourage them to grow? If anyone has any chive experience, I would very much appreciate the help! I don’t want this two examples to be an omen – I don’t think my poor garden would cope with that.

06
Feb
2011

Crafty Cirencester

categories: Crafty, Food & Drink, Sewing

My lovely OH is very patient with me & my crafty ways. He sent me an email Friday lunchtime telling me that he was taking me on a little trip on Saturday but wouldn’t tell me where! So Saturday morning comes & we head of in the car. A little while later we arrive in Cirencester. I’ve never been before, but knowing my OH like I do, I knew there’d be a lot for me to enjoy (& spend some cash on!)

The first place we visit is a fab shop called Lexi Loves… & what a shop it is! With its pink decor, material, buttons & craft galour, it is truly worth a visit. The buttons in the picture were great value at £3 a scoop & I couldn’t resist the material, though I have nothing planned for it yet! There were so many lovely materials there that I will definitely be going back with projects in mind. My final purchase there was the lovely lavender bag. The lavender is lush & my whole study smells of it now. This is wicked, as a lot of lavender bags only smell when up close & personal. Am very impressed!

After a little more mooching, we have a coffee & cake (Saturday ritual) in an amazing little place called Keith’s Coffee Place. We weren’t sure if we’d get a seat, but managed to squeeze ourselves in. I had an Americano & a Bakewell tart. Both were LUSH! The coffee wasn’t too strong or bitter, as black coffee can be in places. The tart was really nice, very moist and plenty of jam. My OH had a cappuccino & a cheesy scone. I could tell he was pleased as he wolfed both down in minutes! Not that mine hung around for any length of time either!

Further down the road that Keith’s is on, we came across Pulp,which is a new stationary shop in Cirencester. I love stationary and cannot leave a stationary shop without buying something! There was so much choice here & I took a long time deciding what to get. I spent a long time drooling over some Orla Keily stationary, but finally settled on these super cute sticky notes (another obsession of mine!) I cannot wait to have an excuse to use them. There was also an excellent range of Filofax inserts & designs, which also impressed me. I can see me ‘needing a new note book’ next time I’m there!

Our final stop before our parking ran out was at Coln Art. It wasn’t so much the art supplies that drew me in, but the massive collection of Emma Bridgewater pottery that they had on display. However, that’s not what finally caught my eye! This beautiful bright green wooden bowl, which is fairly traded would look great in my study, I thought. And it most definitely does! It is really bright & spring-like and I really love wooden objects so this was a really good find.

Everywhere we went in Cirencester, everyone we spoke to were really lovely, friendly & polite. I’ll be going back, & quite soon too, as there were some baking shops that I need to have a good ol’ mooch about in. Better start saving my pennies!