Kitchen Pretties...

 AAaahhh, Spring Pretties in the Kitchen : )

I confess, there is little of excitement happening in my kitchen at present.

I am one of the *many* (i imagine) who have taken the New Year as an opportunity to lose a few extra pounds that seemed to leap on me during December...

 But the *new* all singing - all dancing - custard yellow KitcheAid is being put through it's paces.

^^^Be still my Beating Heart^^^

This was an adored Christmas Gift to me & my Kitchen and she and I have been getting to know each other.

This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

 Smoothies and chopping and batters and some future cocktails (sshhhhh...)

 And then there is the Joy... of the Tassimo...

I know, yes i do know, there is nothing simpler than boiling a kettle in order to make Oneself a hot beverage.

Buuuuut - come on, it is a tidy wee kitchen gadget that makes all sorts of drinks using little pods and pressing buttons and a wee hiss. I bloody love a kitchen gadget. "Hello Joy-ous tassimo" (in red!)

I am mostly reading HUGH at the moment and loving his Every Day book.

But, how pretty do all these pinks look sat on the Kitchen Book shelf?

Oh hurry up diet and make me stick thin.

I want:

Toast & Marmalade

Cinnamon Bagels

Pecan Fudge

Lemon Cheesecake

A whopping great Hot Chocolate finished with Squirty Cream and chocolate shavings....

i love it, i love it, i love it... The Other Me....

 It was the 'Hallowe'en Half Term' Craft Cafe on Thursday.

This marks the start of our 6th year! How time flies... and what a gorgeous sight to meet the children who have grown so much over  the years.

 Some of 'my girls' are too grown up now and this sort of environment is too tame for them. One of these girls came along to help me with the pom-pom spider table this time *waves at Jo* and that is such a warming thing. Community, Craft, Childhood,Friendship...

 And, with the passing of time, older children make way for new little hands and faces. I love meeting the parents and carers who all 'amaze' at how much effort their children put in to their works. I enjoy the barrage of questions about how and why!? we put on these workshops.

The continual comments to me "you should be a teacher, Kirsty - you should you know"

 There is another 'me'... inside me (if you know what i mean) and she is fat with happiness and home baking. She has 4 children of her own and a few fostered children. We sit round the farmhouse table 'Home Educating' and make models from Junk and obsess over making bird feeding fat balls.

For many years i thought that is who i would be.

 So, selfishly, The Craft Cafe is my way of slipping into that 'Other Me' skin and playing at that life for a while.

I LOVED it when 4 year old Meg was shouting Kirsty... kirsty... K I R S T EEEY at the other end of the room because she wanted help making a bead necklace and did i have "any more Sea Beads"? Who knows what she meant by Sea Beads? 5 months previous that child wouldn't join it without sitting on her Mothers lap and now she is hollering for help from 10 meters away.

 And generally, i am a person who hates chaos. I am not good with noise. I find children very hard work and i like to craft alone in silence.

So why, oh why, do i find myself stood in the centre of this mess - telling children how great their painty created mess is, positively welling up with pride for them and 'loving' my own centralness to all this madness?

It is the Other Me.

I like her. I would want to be her friend if i met her outside the village shop. I would want to sit in her messy kitchen drinking tea and having a gentle gossip. And weirdly, i would love to go home to my own neat little house afterward and enjoy calm and silence.

Maybe, this is the secret to our long enjoyed success of the Craft Cafe?

Many parents are putting on this Other Me overcoat? We are all enjoying the feeling of facilitating 2 hours of creativity and fun - where we all live in messy kitchens and let our children be crazed with creatvity?

Just thinking out loud..... x

Sometimes people let you down...

My LittleFish and I were disappointed that someone we were expecting for dinner - didn't bother to come.

That level of disappointment can be hard to stomach. The joy, anticipation, preparation, looking forward to... 'gone' in that briefest moment when you realise 'it's just us'.

But HEY! it isn't 'just us'. it IS US!! so what do the Fishes do in this situation? why we get Mamma's favourite tea cups out and make tea.  

I'm not that great with words, but it sorted of lifted us straight out of that melancholic tinge. All of a sudden the slow mouthed dinner was transformed into something teetering between ceremony and party! In that teacup moment, i swear, our downturned faces slipped into smiles and everything seemed just that touch brighter.

Resourceful Mamma found 2 halves of a Milky Way, tucked away in the back of a "party paraphenalia" box and Joy! they were still in their UseBy date...

We had forgotten to open the parcel left outside the back door (in our haste to make dinner for the special guest that never came) so we sat with our tea and sickly sweet confectionary and opened the parcel....

The spontaneity of enjoyment and sugar was enough to make us feel like a Circus had fallen out of the packet. It was little vintage tins but it felt like clowns juggling on a tightrope, pulling gargoyle faces...

The special guest didn't seem so special any more. LittleFish was happy and replete. MammaFish felt suitably sustained, like the sky wasn't 'always cloudy' and all those grey day feelings would eventually give way to some sunshine.

It was just tea cups. It was just tea in pretty cups, sat on matching saucers. It could have been the world on a plate, for that's how we felt in our moment.

Button BUGZ!

Let's hear it.... Ladies and Gentlemen... put your hands together for..... the Button Bugz!
IF you are coming to the OCTOBER half term CRAFT CAFE in Upper Boddington - then these might be on the Craft Menu. Mwah ha ha ha - (said in a sort of 'Hallowe'en' voice)
They are creepy, crawly, buttony and sprawly.

My LittleFish and i gave the recipe a trial and error run. They came out even better than i had imagined and they leave plenty of room for a childs own artistic interpretation! (we like them to take an idea and rrrrruuunnnn with it)

This is one side of those MINI selection cereal boxes - to give you an idea of the size of body you need. Don't make it much bigger or the legs might not hold up the body. Before you start, punch a few holes down each side. I made FOUR holes on each side of the body.

I told LittleFish to keep the holes FREE of stuffs when decorating. Obviously she didn't, so i had to rummage through the body's fluffs n' stuffs to find them again.

As demonstrated by my angel (below) stick lots of great stuff on the body, including many goggly eyes. Use whatever you have? pompoms, ribbon, tissue paper, eyes, pens.... always use good strong sticky glue.

I use this glue>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> for everything. Tis fantastic! water it down a bit and use it as a varnish too.

Cut 4 PIPE CLEANERS into 8 legs.... (who smokes a pipe nowadays?) and that is: EACH pipe cleaner in HALF for those who struggle with the maths :)

Thread a button on to the end of each bendy fluffy stick. They want to try and be the same length as each other - but the world won't stop turning if they differ in length muchly.

And... thread the un-buttony end through those holes i warned you about at the beginning.

They might not stand very well till the whole body is DRY - warn your child about this when they start to cry as the bug won't stand on it's own. This will get better - later.

COOLIO! me luffs the bugz. I'll let you have this idea and use it too if you like! i love crafting with kids. I could suggest you buy your buttons through me, but if this is not your first visit to the blog, you know that by now xxxx happy bugging people x

meet my mother...

...we begun to wonder whether Grandma's new carrot diet really was the best thing for her...? Bless.
It wasn't even Easter Day x

An Ordinary Day...

Some days are lovely, but quite like any other...It started to look good when BIGGERMummyFish and SisterFish popped over to share a pot of fresh coffee and freshly baked LemonChoc Biscotti (inspired by this lady)

The dog was outside enjoying the wamest Spring sunshine...

The beautiful child was outside enjoying the warmest Spring sunshine....

The beautiful child was outside enjoying the novelty of having Mummy's digital camera...

(we title the above frame "Dead Cow")

I might title this photo "Mad Cow" x

I love her photography skills!

And this pot of blooms was planted out for me as a birthday gift last week - it has just 'bloomed' and it brightens my garden no end.

Just an ordinary day, in the extra-ordinary life, of little ole me and my folks x

Dearest Friend...

Thankyou for (yet another!) fantastic weekend.
You have made a very hectic lady, very happy. And a fairly dis-jointed family feel a little more 'glued'. Thankyou for the time, the effort, the DETAIL, the love that you put into our stay. It was all noted and all appreciated.

Thankyou for being 'oh so' pretty and fun. Thankyou for looking so good in that shirt (i must get me one the same...)

Thankyou for the sweetest Birthday presents and for making my birthday as relaxed and as lovable as i wanted it to be.

Thankyou for playing, buying, wearing and enjoying! all those crazy glasses. I even KNOW you are wearing yours today! You must have known i wore mine to drop the littleone at playgroup too?

I could eat you in these glasses with your fantastic pink Mac x

Thankyou for tea and cake and talk and laughter and sharing cheese fondue.

This is me .... always watching you! (Life thru a lens x)

Thankyou for sharing your home and your family because, even though i know you love us too, sharing your home can be an invasion of sorts, and always a little bit worrying...

Thankyou for letting me have the greatest 'chubby cuddle' i have had since mine was 8months old and pleeeaasssseee forgive me for sharing her gorgeousness with blogland when she isn't mine to share at all.

To my Dearest friend,

thankyou, thankyou, thankyou.

Yours, Monday morning, sad but happy, still a little hungover, woozy with love for us all, enjoying the thoughts of what we'll do next time....

K x

"Our House", in the middle of our street...

I love that song by MADNESS - sorry to all those non-Uker's who don't have a clue... But tis a song about an 'average' family in a suburban street going about their 'everyday lives' - i like it. And hhhmmmmm, What's this? New 'house' products KirstyFish? They look suspiciously like items handmade and reatailing by SUMMERSVILLE how dare you??

I dare, because Lucie Summers said i could! I bought her AVENUE fabric in Sky, Red and Apple and i have made gorgeous new NeedleBooks with them. The little Houses lend themselves perfectly to the small round design of the NeedleBook. It is a joy and a privalige to use. Delicate however because the screenprint is onto linen so the fabric needs a gentle touch when it is being 'fiddled' with over and over and over again, as is the nature of making these books.

New Buttons in BigFish "1 inch pairs x10 colourful pairs" - i launced them the same time as the NeedleBooks because of the colour / round / dolly-ness of both items. I think they look yummy together....

OH! I nearly forgot to talk about the 'final' page in the SKY NeedleBooks - the pocket page has a 'secret house' stitched on - it was a last moment inspired addition to the page and i love it. I wish i had done it to all the Books, but i only just 'idea'd' it so, only 'Sky Blue' have this treat x

No matter where you cut Lu's fabric, the design looks awesome and 'works'. Each cut gives a whole new little scene - an 'avenue' / a terrace / a grand house with trees / a cul-de-sac...

AND because i love her work so much I have bought some mini-button badges and i am giving them away FREE with the first 6 Avenue NeedleBooks purchased. I feel like I am mad giving away so much gorgeousness but i have this intense desire to share with the world right now!!! and this is my simple message:

"There are so many talented people out there MAKING wonderful, quality, unique

items with their own hands and hearts - Mass production has no soul. Share your

handmade treasures x"

I didn't mean to write a sermon (whoops) just share some stuff...