My Ruffle Beach Bag

Well, its not often that I blog twice in one day.   But as I've just finished this, I need to show you.  It started life out as a cloth Lidl bag - a bit ugly and only for emergency use.  You know, when there are no bags in the car boot because they are all in the kitchen drawer.  


The girlies came back from their dad's with some new 3/4 trousers (from the market - so cheapies) that their Aunty had bought them.  There was no way they were EVER going to wear them, so into the charity box they went.  Then, I came across this tutorial and had a lightbulb moment.


The bright summer colours put me in mind of a beach bag, and as I find it really hard to source material here - and it is so expensive to order from overseas.  I decided to have a go.  Resulting in....

As this is my first ever real effort at sewing anything, I am really pleased with how it's turned out.  Especially as I also taught myself to plait with four strands.  Google it - there'll be a tute that works for you.

Girlie #1 hates it obviously -sighs.

So, it WILL be accompanying us on every single trip to the beach.  Especially when we go with friends!!

And here it is again loaded up with two big beach towels and plenty of room to spare.


Next sewing project is going to be some quilting, if I can just pluck up the courage to make the first cut into the material - oops.

Blue Drawers

So, here I am back and as I said before I have been very busy.  I don't know if you remember this

Well, I finaly finnished painting it, and not the rainbow stripes or off white as I had first thought.  But this lovely blue

I have to say that the selection of paint available over here is somewhat under whelming to say the least.  This paint is by Luxens and is sold as an enamel for furniture, doors and radiators.  It's called Grecian Blue, and unfortunately I didn't notice that it was in fact a Matt finish.  I have a feeling I may have to either wax or polyurethane over the top of it, as it tends to show a lot of marks.

Luxens is the only range of water based gloss paint that I've managed to find here, and it does have quite a good range of colours too.

This past weekend, Girly #1 and I made our crocheted twiggy vase, which is here on location, but will actually live on my reclaimed wood shelf in the sitting room.

So, that's two of the projects I've been up to recently, off to check out my photo files, to remind me what else I got up to in my long absence.

Tempus fugit...

And it's another whole month since I've blogged again! You would've thought that with having the girlies away at their dad's it would give me more time.  It appears that the opposite is true though.

I have however been a very busy bee, tackling jobs that I wouldn't usually have the time for whilst they are here.  All the hunreds of books I removed my book case - they were double and triple stacked have been sorted and I have kept those that I would definitely read again.  The excess are all going to be car booted when we've finishd clearing out the toy room.  So, not only did I get rid of the detritus, I also arranged the keepers into rainbow order!  Look how pretty.

I also made myself a headboard, from some old picket fence posts and painted it.

And a close up, really pleased with how it turned out, and I'll be able to change the colour as I please.

I just need to get some paint now for the bedroom walls, I'm thinking of a nice light bluey grey, something along these lines

Going for a bit of a beachy theme I think.  Shame the wardrobe and chests of drawers are all to new and nice to paint up.  What do you think?

Next up was this old chest of drawers, that has lived many years in the shed, mostly use for keeping tools and crap junk in

 

 
 They don't look too bad from this pic, but up close they are quite scratched and a bit ropey
 

So far these have been rubbed down and undercoated and are awaiting their top coat, of which I am in two minds - eek.  My first thought was white surround and rainbow drawers, but the girlies aren't too impressed with this idea - they think it's babyish :(  And I will probably go with a dark (Grecian) blue instead.

On top of all this, I started my spring cleaning and going aginst the norm I started in my bedroom.  Well, the sitting room has just been repainted so it's really only washing the sofa covers there, and I decided to put myself first for once.  The kitchen has been done too - just the infernal windows to clean and next up are the girls bedrooms - once I pluck up the courage to get in there!!!

So, I have beeen very busy, just not blogging. 

He's nearly here...

And I'm so not ready for Christmas yet. It's been nearly three weeks since I last posted and there has been such a lot going on. 

Unfortunately we lost Coco dog, which was pretty upsetting, and surprisingly he keeps popping up in my dreams. However, he had started to become a bit aggressive, so maybe there is a bit of a silver lining in there somewhere. 

Both girls were on crutches at the same time, and we have had numerous doctors, vets and dentists trips.  Culminating in an overnight stay in A & E with girlie 2.  She had stomach pains and they kept her in over night on a drip, to make sure it wasn't appendicitis.  I turned out to be a reaction to her painkillers and they have now been changed and she is recovering well.  If only I could say the same, I have a very hurty shoulder from spending the night in that blue chair you can see in the background.

December 6th and 8th were Fiestas here and Girlie #2 had the 5th off as well, so we got into full on crafting and decorating mode.  The remit from school was to make a Christmas ornament from a loo roll roll.  So with one of her friends from school, they came up with these.

I of course had to get in on the action too and came up with this

Secretly quite pleased with it - shh!


I've managed to do all my overseas shopping, thank you Amazon.  And will hopefully start. Oh yes start my "real" Christmas shopping this weekend.


Wish me luck

Sign Making

We decided that this summer was going to be a summer of arts and crafts, if they are acitive, they don't tend to fight so much ;-).  And, in part it was.

Rooting round some of the crafty blogs I decided I wanted a sign for my field gate, and once I realised how easy it was, we were off.

Girlie # 2 was on a sleepover at a friends house, so Girlie # 1 and I started.

Find piece of scrap wood and sand it down
Paint
Print lettering and pictures on PC
Trace on to wood with a ball point pen
Colour in with acrylics
Sand in places to give that distressed look
Wash over and wipe off a wood stain
Varnish
Hang
This is what we ended up with, and needless to say we were both very pleased with how it turned out.

The following day Girlie # 2 returned home, along with aforementioned friend, indignant that we had made this without her!!!

So, off we went again. 
 

They decided that as it was their daddy's birthday coming up soon, that they would make some for him, and this is what they came up with



and

 Now, we need to do a couple more to be hung around here.

The Old Barbecue - Re-Made

Lurking in the garden was this old barbecue, the grill part still works and will be used in another project later.  But the "trolley" had definitely seen better days.  I should've taken a picture of it in it's entirety, with it's naff plastic wheels and all.  Too good to chop up for firewood, I decided to give it a make over.

As you can see, it was well sunburned and also with the removal of the griddle, very unstable.

 

We leveled the legs off after the removal of the wheels and created a new mid level shelf with some equally old and weathered timber I had lying about.

 

A light sanding and a coat of varnish and I now have a pretty shelf to put my plants on.

I originally had the Bizzie Lizzies on the top, only to discover, that they don't actually do too well in the full sun.  Hoping they will recuperate here down below.  If not, they'll go to the front terrace to recuperate and I'll have to find some sun hardy plants to put in their place. 

Didn't We Brush Up Nice & Look What I Made...

We were invited to a first communion the other weekend.  Some pics of me and my girlies in our posh togs.

 

 And look what I made for #2 with the spare hem we cut off the bottom of her dress!!!

 

We had a really super time, were well fed and watered and of course I took loads of photographs.  To be seen at a later date as I'm making an album for the "communista" (?) and don't want her getting any sneak peaks.