A dedication to my friend BRIDGET! Who never fails to Inspire, enthuse and motivate me!

This blog post is dedicated to Bridget, one of my bestest, most creative and lovely friends who requested that I start my blog again - which was really nice :-) And to Stripey Monkey - who I met on line blogging and who is also very inspirational. B represents why I keep my blog - to keep in touch with my creative friends who are spread all over - and Stripey Monkey represents all the new and exciting people I have met through blogging - I've had a big break over the summer / autumn so I thought I would share what I have been up to in my new house!

We've been so busy - going back to work and juggling child care, trying to keep in touch with family - it has been crazy over the last few months, but it is my new years resolution to make creativity and family / friends my absolute priority for 2010.

Here's the exciting things I have been doing:

1. Getting Cal to paint our new front door azure blue.
2. Having a Mediterranean style courtyard built (then spent the summer projecting studio gibley animations onto the back wall and sitting out the back drinking wine - great way to meet the neighbours!!)



3. Having creative soirees with my friend Charlie :-) Making these lanterns was a particularly funny evening - B, I'll have to tell you all about it when we next catch up.



4. Teaching Morgan to drive a car during weekend away in Southend at the Quentins.



5. Taking photo's of the sky from our new house. As were near the racecourse we also get loads of hot air balloons going right over the top of the house - so close that we can wave to the people in the basket!
6. Reading Frida Khalo's autobiography after watching the film 'Frida'. I LOVE this woman - I want to start painting in vibrant colours and wearing ginormous beads!



5. Attending a wedding in a tee pee.

6. Wearing silly hats (an absolute must!)

7. Enjoying our quirky new home.

8. Thinking I should be doing more of this.

9. Drinking tea from the travelling tea box that arrived courtesy of ravelry.

It feels really good to have had a blogging night and catching up with what everyone else has been up to as well. :-) I also look forward to reading everyone elses recent news XXX

For those of you who love buttons....

Ever thought about collecting bottle caps too?
Check out this artist Grange Art totally fab and the same appeal as buttons! I've got a jar full of tin bottle caps but I think I'll start on the plastic ones too!! :-)

I'm Back!!!

Hi Folks, we've had an eventful month. We moved house, had Morgan's first birthday and took a holiday in the lakes. All in all its been very busy and it took a month to get back on line at home (REALLY ANNOYING!) However things are gradually now getting sorted and I'm back in the blogging world... HOORAY!

Here's a few pics of the little one, oh and a nice beach pic from the holiday to keep the family up to date: (House photos to follow soon)

Sadly - No / Treasure

Ok so here is my first post for the Monday Project.

June's theme is 'Sadly-No' I decided to post what automatically popped into my mind - which was the amount of times I have to say 'No' to my cheeky little monkey who turns one very soon. And it is very sad saying no to some of his explorations as he has such a wonderful and curious nature, at present he is very keen to:

• Eat cat food
• Post all manner of things into the DVD player.
• Torture the cats.
• Turn the tv, dvd, digi box, stereo on and off, on and off, on and off.....
• Learn about gravity by dropping all manner of things off the side of the high chair and bombing the cats with his food bowl when they come to investigate.
• Open the kitchen cupboards and empty everything out and then generally post it into the washing machine... now I understand why I keep finding Tupperware in my wash pile!
• Eat fluff, mud, cat fur, grass, rabbit food, fish food, mobile phones, generally anything he can get his mits on.
• Hide the remote controls - today I found a bouncy ball in the remote control holder - and am still searching for the controls - I found them posted into my sewing machine case the other day.
• Unpack the boxes packed for moving
• Unpack my make up bag
• Scramble my necklaces
• Pull Daddy's ears when in the back pack

The list goes on. The photos are of him 1. stealing my make up brush from my wash kit and 2. having just been lifted down from climbing the stair case at Granny's looking a little sad because I told him no :-( I loved capturing the pictures for this post and it gave me lots of time to monkey around with him.

Treasure
The second half of this post is in response to the Monday Project treasure theme. It made me realise how much I have my very own little stash of treasure. Here are a few select pieces:

1. Bird box - bought when I was ten it contains a precious stone I found washed up on a beach in Turkey a year later.
2. Muscle shell - collected from the beach at Staithes where I grew up. Beach combing is one of my favourite hobbies.
3. Catholic rosary pouch. I bought this at a car boot antique stall. I'm not religious but I love the way this has been lovingly hand stitched and cherished. I added two of my favourite buttons to the empty pocket.
4. Silver cat pill box. My granny bought me this when I was a little girl. I've kept a tiny key, that I found in the house we moved into when I was seven, inside it for years, and of course a tiny shell button.
I've got loads of bits of treasure like these - I like to have them all around me when I do creative stuff they make me feel inspired. I loved the treasure box in the film Amelie, she is very much a girl after my own heart :-)

Discoveries

I've recently stumbled across the following blogs wish jar and the monday project.
I recommend a perusal of both! Keri on wish jar also recommended imaginechildhood which is pretty cool too :-)

The Lost Tribes of New York City on Vimeo

The Lost Tribes of New York City from Carolyn London on Vimeo.

This is great fun - just stumbled across it :-)

My first etsy purchase.. so exciting!!!!

key bottle 2, originally uploaded by stripeymonkey.

Thank you to the Lovely Linda of Stripeymonkey I am now the proud owner of this fab necklace. I just had to buy it after seeing the cool vintage button and key.... I LOVE IT!! Linda packaged it so cutely as well - complete with little box and ribbon, and she also sent me these gorgeous stitch markers complete with my initials engraved on, also wrapped really sweetly. Its so lovely to have surprises! Thanks Linda :-) You are a star! (P.s Hope you don't mind me using your photo - I've been trying to take a good one - but realised your pics show it off much better!)