Spring in the Garden

Things move too quickly in the garden, don't they?? Sometimes for the best and sometimes for the worst.....Spring suddenly arrives with new shoots and lush green leaves, like on this Golden Hop:

I love these bleeding hearts, but now as I blog this, they are past their best :-(....

This was a great week though, they looked lovely:

And this euphorbia looks great, but the stems are now quite long and need propping up.

We have a lilac tree in the garden, it smells just lovely, I didn't manage to capture is though and now the flowers are turning brown which is a shame. We're off on holiday for a week and the one thing I rush home to check is the garden, what has bloomed, grown or sadly not enjoyed our vacation and decided to wilt.

Hope the neighbours and in-laws remember to water my tomatoes at least!

I've had a busy week!

Living so close to London, about 45 miles, you would think it was easy to 'pop' down for the day to see an Exhibition or do a 'bit of shopping', sadly or probably sensibly it does not happen very often.

But with some child care shuffling and a friend who wanted to go to, I was able to escape and venture to the Victoria & Albert Museum in Kensington to the Vintage Quilt Exhibition. We were not disappointed. For those in the Quilting world, you may have seen reports in the press about the collection and projects inspired by this amazing collection. It's going on tour after London, look out for it in a City near you!!

I knew there would be danger in the air of course, a spending mine field of temptation, I would have to be restrained. So I didn't buy a guide. Will probably regret this and have to back to get one, a false economy if ever I saw one. The V&A in an inspired merchandising ploy have got together with Liberty and produced a range of Reproduction cotton lawns and this is where I tripped up. Oh and the 2011 pocket diary, with a good selection of photo's from the exhibition and textiles collection. It could have been worse, believe me.

My other problem is that it was very dark and dimly lit to enhance the beauty of the quilts, and preserve their colours, so I could not take photos. mmmm, you will just have to go and look for yourselves, sorry :-)

However, in the courtyard cafe we found some lovely lemon trees with real lemons. Yes, lemons in London in May!

I know!

And then on the outside, there were a couple of Elephants. A London wide parade celebrating these endangered magnificent creatures and bringing colour and fun to the streets of London. A great idea, the children would love to spot them and it probably means we will be popping down with them soon to do such a thing.

Just encase you cannot get there yourself, have a look at the website and donate here :-)
So we had a great day, thanks for coming with me Sophie, I will probably have to go again it would be a shame not to......

Handmade & Vintage arrives in Stony Stratford.....

I have seen 'Handmade & Vintage' mentioned many a time in other lovely blogs, promising just that- handmade treasures and vintage or pre-owned delights.....oh have I dreamed. What has stopped me going to such an occasion? Life. They are always too far away, or we are busy doing something else or I have missed them (note to self, do a bit more research perhaps). Of course the other problem might be that I am too easily drawn into NEEDING new and lovely things and our house is already jam packed with 'stuff' and children :-(.

Anyway, back to the plot, I was invited by the lovely Shelly to join her for a new venture just up the road from myself and I fair jumped at the chance. This delightful day was yesterday and I was not disappointed:

The only problem with these photos is that it looks quiet, believe me it was not! It's just I took these at the end of the day when things had gotten quieter and I had some space to snap away.

My new egg-box display idea took along time to arrange, too much tweaking for my liking but I was happy with the result, what do you think??

The table mat, was one I rescued from my Nan's house when she moved onto the big Charity shop in the sky, I have a lot of her vintage treasures and cannot part with them. I have lots of ideas for up-cyling but not always the time. This however, seemed the perfect occasion to stitch a much needed sign for my stall. One day it might say 'for your home and your coat' but I ran out of time. It did provide a good place for my cards though, so perhaps it will stay blank.

And then there were the cakes......mismatched tea sets, vintage Royal wedding mugs and a whole lot of Union Jack flags made for a lovely tea time feel all day long, I think we were British and Proud of it!

York House In historic Stony Stratford provided the perfect setting for this occasion and there was a lovely array of both Handmade and Vintage, it's just this blogger is a bit scared and not famous enough to ask to take photos....one day perhaps.

This is my friend and she didn't mind, thanks Yvonne. A lovely talented lady, always wise and funny. Her beautiful jewellery made from handmade felt, textiles and vintage beads are lovely and she had a great day. (Thanks for the donut Jeff)

Other attractions included a proper ice-cream lady, you can see her wares being eaten in this picture I think. She ran in at the end of the day, sad that we were packing up and she had been too busy to come and look.

I didn't speak to an unhappy person, it was a joy of a day. I sold to new and returning customers and bought a couple of things, there was more temptation of course, but I was very restrained and remembered the size of our house.