DIY and new arrivals

Hello all my lovely followers, thanks for sticking with me during these last few months.

Unfortunately I don't have anything crafty to share with you at the moment, but for two very good reasons ..... we are having some big cosmetic surgery jobs done on the house which are long overdue, including the ceiling reboarded in our lounge (the original one had no less than SIX holes cut in it by previous occupants to accommodate lights!), a stone-clad eyesore demolished - you may recall my post prior to Christmas when we painted said eyesore white in an attempt to brighten up the room, all the lounge walls plastered to cover over some lovely red and yellow lead-based paint (that's when you know the house was definitely built in the late 1950s!) and along with this is the need for new skirting boards, new cabling for light and power and eventually (not there yet though) a new carpet. On top of this, we're about to rip out the kitchen and fit a lovely new one which we bought in the sales recently. It's currently sitting in boxes in our shed and I'm itching to see the old kitchen out and the new one in its place! BUT, this also entails some mammoth electrical work, including a new consumer unit and associated wiring as the existing one isn't up to the task of powering a modern home!

The existing kitchen is custom-built pine, which sounds heavenly perhaps, until you know that it was custom-built for a kitchen WITHOUT an electric cooker or hob and WITHOUT a dishwasher and half of the cupboards don't even have a back on them, AND they are only 450mm deep front to back, unlike standard base units which are 600mm, so they're not big enough for all our stuff. The previous occupants had a little gas cooker in one corner of the kitchen which they must have had all their married lives because it was ancient and disgusting, so when they moved out they took that with them and we knew we would be all electric so the gas feed was capped off too. However, the tiny corner space was not a safe place for a cooker, being right next to a wall so not safe for saucepans at all, so that space got taken up by our fridge/freezer. We have been managing to cook our meals for the last 2.5 years with a combination microwave oven and a portable two plate electric hob which my sister and brother-in-law kindly loaned to us! This has been less than ideal as I am sure you can imagine, and Christmas dinner was a real challenge, I can tell you! So, it's high time it was all sorted out, even if only to give me a proper oven and hob! Also, the worktops are a hideous dark green (and there was equally hideous dark green paper on the walls when we moved in, AND hideous dark green venetian blinds at the windows - needless to say they went pretty quickly!). I can't wait for our new beech kitchen with granite worktops to be fitted and to have a proper oven and hob for all the cooking and baking!

So, chaos and mess have become the order of the day for the last several weeks and this is set to continue for at least another six weeks I suspect while everything gets sorted out. I am hopeful that by the time we get to May, we will be somewhat straighter!

On top of this, we became the proud new owners of two 3-yr old male guinea pigs, which my gorgeous son has named Phineas and Ferb after his favourite animated TV characters! Their previous owner had become bored with them and they needed a new home. They are lovely and have such quirky personalities and I really don't understand how anyone can become bored with them since they're always up to something! When they arrived they were in a tiny hutch which wasn't big enough for one, let alone two fully grown Rex breed guinea pigs (for those not familiar with guinea pig breeds, Rex is one of the largest guinea pig breeds and ours each measure about 25-30cm long which is quite big and weigh in at just under 1kg EACH), so straight away we had to go out and buy them a new and more suitable home. We ended up with a two-storey hutch far more suited to the needs of two big boys like Phineas and Ferb! But they currently don't use the lower level and we think this is because the ramp is too steep with rungs too far apart so they really struggle to get back up once down there, so this will be modified as soon as possible. Of course, they need to be indoors during the winter, so this posed another problem for us - where to put them! Naturally the only option was to sacrifice half of the craft room to accommodate their hutch and associated gubbins - hence the other reason for no crafting going on - I have nowhere to work at the moment! But, I wouldn't have it any other way. The piggies are cosy and safe and being inside means they've been able to get used to us quite quickly, whereas if they'd been outside or in a shed they'd have hardly seen or heard from us on any given day. Equally, it's meant we've been able to get to know them!

We also give over a big chunk of the floor in the lounge to a run for them when there's no painting or other DIY going on. They need space to run around, get some exercise, and to do what guinea pigs do so well, forage and popcorn! Yes, guinea pigs jump around like popping corn when they're happy, and we've seen a lot of this from our two. They really are the cutest things ever. Here's a photo - I'll try to get a better one of them for next time.

Ferb in front with Phineas right behind, just off to explore! This was their first time in their new run!

So, whereas there's no crafting going on, there's a lot of other stuff happening, including continuing to teach my gorgeous boy amidst all the mess and chaos of the DIY. But, at least he's been getting some opportunities to see first-hand all the steps involved in these DIY jobs, and has even helped with wallpaper removal and eyesore demolition! If in school he would now be half way through Year 6. I've been teaching him myself for 4 years now - can't quite believe it and wonder where the time has gone! But it's so rewarding - I love it.

Anyway, that's all from me for now.

Thanks for popping in, please stick with me as I will be back crafting in the very near future.

Take care in these wet and snowy conditions and keep warm.

Love from me xx

No let up for me!

Hello everyone

I don't have any crafty items for you to look at today - sorry! I've been incredibly busy these last few weeks keeping stocks replenished in the lovely gift shop where I sell my makes. Seems as soon as something goes in, it's sold, and I have to start all over again! Not that I'm complaining of course. And I'm still in the middle of making my own Christmas cards for close family - can't believe it's almost the middle of December and I still don't have them all made, let alone any written! AND I now have a commission order to fulfil for a special Christmas card for a beautiful 3 year old girl, and we still have Christmas shopping to finish AND we also have a date with two nieces and a nephew to take them to do their "secret" shopping for their auntie (who they live with) and their grandma. So, mega-busy doesn't even begin to cover it. Oh, and not forgetting still teaching my autistic son!

But all of this hasn't stopped me getting a bit hands on in the house this weekend! We moved into our place just over two years ago and it needs EVERYTHING doing to it, including but not limited to: needing extending front and back, new kitchen, new bathroom, new cloakroom, totally redecorating throughout, which includes a new ceiling in the sitting room! But with one thing and another very little progress has been made. One of the things which definitely needed some drastic work was a stone clad chimney breast in the sitting room. It was typical sandstone cladding with wide cement joins between stones, and this being quite a narrow room, it was definitely "in your face" and it made the room feel very dark too. And none of the other walls had been painted since we moved in either and were a horrible aged magnolia - very dark and depressing, with bits missing here and there too! So, we did no more than get out the white emulsion, and my husband got a quick coat on two walls while I slapped a coat on the cladding - nothing to lose as far as I could see, it would either look great or look terrible and was one of those things that we were seriously considering removing altogether, which would probably leave exposed brickwork which would also need something doing to make it look nice! So with a "let's go for it" attitude I set to work. It had to be a "quick coat" because we had promised our son that we would put up and decorate the Christmas tree on that particular day too and if that hadn't happened he would have been heartbroken, especially as so many people around us already had all their decs up! Anyway, here's a few photos of said chimney breast.

In this photo you can see the original colour in the top half, yet to be attacked by me with the paint brush! But don't get me started on that ceiling! That needs major cosmetic surgery to put it right!

How much better is this? The little built-in shelves have been left in their original state as they are done with grey stone and we felt it made quite a nice contrast and served to break up the white a bit too.

And here's a close-up showing our lovely little woodburner flanked by a waving Santa with his sleigh full of gifts and a Nut Cracker soldier keeping guard!

I hope you will agree that the white is much better than the original sandstone colour! The whole style of it may not be to everyone's taste, and is certainly not something we would ever have chosen ourselves, but I think it can be lived with for a bit longer now that it is white! Who knows, we may even decide to keep it! And our lovely woodburner stands out really well now. We've got a fire going this evening and we're now using our own wood too! Last year and the year before it was fuelled with wood we had to buy, but now, almost two years on from having three rather large conifers, several old and manky Poplars (rotting from the inside out) and an old and well-past-it plum tree cut down, we are reaping the benefits of keeping all of the wood in a big pile at the bottom of the garden in a fairly sheltered spot. It is well seasoned and ready to use! So my husband invested in a chainsaw and set to work on the first few logs today, and it feels quite satisfying knowing that the wood we are now using is ours, from our own garden. Although we had the conifers cut right down to ground level, and the stumps ground so they would not try to regrow, the Poplars were cut down leaving a good four feet of trunk in the ground. The reason for this decision was because there were lots of little cracks and crevices, great for insects to hide and hibernate in, and so great for birds (especially Great Tits we have discovered) to hunt around to find little juicy morsels to eat, so although we cut the trees down, we didn't entirely wipe out the insect habitats. And we have also planted a lovely native White Beam which in time will be a beautiful big tree full of pretty white blossoms in the spring and juicy red berries in the winter which birds love. We do try to be quite nature-friendly where possible.

We've been lucky to have a few drier and more sunshiney days so that we could have windows open to help disperse the paint fumes from the decorating (even low odour paint has an odour which lingers for several days), but isn't the weather topsy turvy at the moment? We've had really cold with heavy frosts, then mild and sunny with glorious blue sky, damp and grey and just plain non-descript, not to mention all that heavy rain which left so many areas flooded again. What a mess they have to sort out, and totally at the wrong time of the year too (not that there's a right time to be flooded, but I'm sure you know what I mean). The park near us was under several inches of water and more or less impassable in places, as my husband and son found out when they went over for a walk/bike ride last week. I've included a couple of photos below so you can see what it was like about a week after all the heavy rainfall.

Look at that glorious blue sky! Makes the scene quite beautiful, even though under all of that water there is a field!

Probably not a good idea to try riding the bike through this!

So folks, that about wraps it up for this year. In this next week I have more makes to complete for the shop, my own cards to finish, my son needs help making all of his cards (he's made a few but has quite a long list!), and he has several other items to decorate for Christmas too, I have my commission order to work on and Christmas shopping to finish - wish me luck! And after that I will be doing nothing more than the "Santa run" where we deliver all the presents around to our respective families (and eat lots of mince pies in the process!), the last food shopping before "the big day" and meticulously planning how to cook yet another Christmas lunch using only a combination microwave oven and a two plate electric hob! Fun!

Whatever you're doing, take care, and I'll see you all in the New Year. Thank you for sticking with me this year, and I hope you'll stick around next year too, to found out what exciting adventures I go on, whether crafting or DIY!

Have a great Christmas!

Love from me xx