Pin up boy

This post is for Sophie.

An overload of the Gorgeous George!

Curious George

With the very butch pink frisby which sadly is no more - Lilly ate it! 

Control station - middle stair on the turn by the window so he can see out down the lane and midway between whoever is upstairs and whoever is downstairs, within sight of the front door too!

On the beach with the new frisby, not going to let Lilly play with this one!

Checking out rockpools

Clearly the model for this picture

There is a very good reason why George has pink balls and frisbys - they are easily found out on the beach and in the fields!  Tried a yellow ball and then they grew oil seed rape - fields of yellow, it didn't help!

Must go, been called in for dinner!

Take care all

Sarah x



Fire and wine

We came

We saw

We conquered.

We went

We ate

We've come home to defrost and dry out!

Just written this on my friend's blog in her comments section and it seemed very apt for the weekend I've just had!

More later, for now I'm just concentrating on the defrosting and relaxing with a roaring fire and a glass of red.

Take care all, hope your weekends have been good.

Sarah x

Stalls through the ages

Before I disappeared off to Milton Keynes for the latest craft fair I thought that I would have the time to post quickly in the evenings when I returned home.  Well, I forgot that it is quite a drive to MK from my house and after a 12 hour day at the fair with travelling added either side of the day, I wasn't up for much once I returned home!  So here are the requested pics of my stalls, a little later than planned!

This is one of my very first craft fairs with only a couple of baskets of stock and my clever bath tap box that Hubby made to hang my aromatic bath bags from by way of demonstration.  As it turns out, I could have sold the tap itself many times over!

Then I started out on the Biggleswade Farmers Markets.  This is from the days when we were at the top end of the market square (or rather oblong) which I think worked better as the stall could be seen from the road as you were driving through the town.  A bit of a windy day - arent there just so many of these when you work outside!!

Now we have Bedford craft market on a sunny Saturday morning.  Right outside Marks and Spencers so we wern't allowed to put the back of the gazebos on so that people could still see through the stand to the shop windows, which is why it looks like I have a manequin on my stall!

At this time I discovered the use of wine boxes for shelves and getting height onto my stand.

This was taken at a nice event I did in a marquee with accompanying music and beautiful surroundings of a stately home.  As I write I cannot remember the name of the place though!  I sometimes use two tables together to give a deep space if I don't have the width to spread out either side.

This is my regular market now down in Welwyn Garden City in our easily spotted green and white gazeboes.  I like this as I know the space I have to play with and each time I set up differently mostly depening upon the impending weather and more often than not I set up for wet weather!

Then at Christmas I get to spread out lots at Wimpole Hall and out come the fairy lights and tinsel!  This is a great show as I still have oodles of space behind the stand too, can even fit two of us behind so I can have company for the weekend!

And now right up to date this was taken this last week at Milton Keynes.  I have streamlined the colours a bit more for this time as I was getting concerned that things looked a little too muddly with summery colours and winter ones all together.  I was pleased with how it looked and didn't change it over the 4 days which is most unusual for me!

This was my favourite little area of the stand with my new lavender hearts tucked in a lovely trug.  See the tap has made a re-appearance too - could have sold that this weekend!

I think one show I shall just sell all my fixtures and fittings, maybe I need to think about stocking mainly fixtures and fittings and use my stock as little 'extras'!

That is only just a few pics of my stand through the past few years, I rarely do the same thing twice but I do like to take pictures so I can check different set ups in different spaces for future planning.

Right now I am off to catch up on what you have all been up to!

Take care

Sarah xx

All things green

This little piece of green plastic was the reason behind nearly 36 hours of frustration, hair pulling, sitting on the floor in disbelief, a little (ok rather a lot of) blue language and a large glass of wine.

For it is a very clever little gadget that I use to neatly finish off my memo boards and having used it once yesterday, I then put it down. 

Big mistake!

I should know by now that if there is something I would like to use again then I need to keep a hold of it because there are little piskies that live in our house and they love nothing more than to move things around.

So, having put it down, somewhere, it disappeared.

I turned the workshop upside down looking for it, even got Hubby to come and look too and nothing turned up.

I was last seen last night walking down the garden with a glass of wine, hugging a large bag of wadding.  That is what it had driven me to!

So imagine how pleased I was later this morning when I found the little piece of green plastic - in it's proper place in the little bag with the little blue and little yellow pieces of plastic which make up the set!

Don't know how it got there because clearly it wasn't there when I checked half a dozen times yesterday!

I don't know about piskies but I do appear to have the makings of a couple of Leprechauns here.

The gorgeous George after mowing the lawn

And then I noticed that the pair of them had green paws/hands!

Aaahhh, bath time for two me thinks!

Now just to catch up, I thought I'd posted this yesterday but turns out I didn't so it is now Wednesday and that all happened yesterday!  As for today, I am getting ready to go and set up at Milton Keynes for a 4 day craft fair in the shopping centre there.

As the next few days are going to be rather hectic, I may not get to post a lot so taking a leaf out of Sue's book (or should I say a screen shot of Sue's blog) over at Our New Life In the Country, I am going to ask if there is anything you would like to see pictures of - be that dog, cat, chickens etc and I'll raid the archives and see what I can reminisce about!
And so back to work, signs to make and table plans to change!

Take care all

Sarah x

One man went to mow

Morning all, well not quite but I've not had lunch yet so therefore - still morning!

How were your weekends?

I'm being nosey, what did you do?

I took no pictures at all this weekend, not one!

So this is all I have to show you - my button magnets!

I have been busy making some Autumnal pot holders, treasure boxes and memo boards but not yet got the photos taken.  I'll have to wait until Hubby has finished mowing the lawn.

Just ran out the workshop and snapped the washing dodging in progress!

Not easy to do especially when you have to entertain the dog at the same time too!

Right, I am back to it, plenty more to do and soon it will be the afternoon.

Note to oneself - take pictures!

Take care all, til tomorrow

Sarah xx

A problem aired........

Sometimes when you share something with others they can actually help you.

This is something I am beginning to learn.  Having spent many years trying to do things all on my own it is becoming very apparent that this doesn't always need to be the way forward.

Thank you to those who helped today.

There is no reason for this picture, other than the fact that I like it, and that is enough right now!

Take care all

Sarah x

New Feathers Please

My lovely three ladies are beginning to lose their feathers for this year.

These aren't recent pictures as dear little Vera has only the one tail feather left she asked me not to show her in her disrobed state!

I'm feeling rather like moulting myself but not in the form of feathers. 

My little Land Cuckoo is feeling very cluttered and jumbled.  I don't seem to be able to get a clear picture of what I want to do or make which is a little concerning due to the amount of events I have coming up!

I'm fairly sure that it will all fall into place soon but that doesn't help with today.

I suppose I should just call it a day and head in, away from the fabric and spices.  The thing is, I want to make this work but I just don't know how or what to do right now.

Maybe in the morning my feathers will have started to grow again and I'll get back into it.

Apologies for feeling very sorry for myself in this post but that is just the way it is today.

Usually I'd not post anything when feeling like this but maybe if I do I'll get it out of my system quicker - here's hoping!  Not all is lost, I can still laugh at myself, its just that I'm not doing anything funny right now!

Hey ho

I'm going in for a cuppa

Take care all

Sarah x

Visitors from near and far

Just recently we looked after our neighbours bird whilst they were away.  I've never really seen the appeal of having a bird as a pet but was more than happy to help out with looking after one for a couple of weeks.

Well, what can I tell you - it was a pleasure looking after little Molly!

She is quite a character, can you tell!

If she was on this perch all you had to say was Molly Tickles? and she would come scurrying over to the side and tilt her head so you could scratch it.

On no account should you put your fingers inside if she hasn't said you can though!  Fortunately we were told about this first and managed to keep all fingers intact throughout her visit!

So is this my best side?

No maybe this is.

Molly came to us fully equiped with the Laurel and Hardy and the Adams Family theme tunes not to mention the smoke alarm impersonation which she was rather too good at!

I had no problems being woken up to either of the first two, infact it did make me smile lots!  Then each time you walked into the room where her cage was, she would kindly give you a wolf whistle!

When she first went back down the lane to her home, I really quite missed having her about, she had a running commentry from me everytime I was cooking!  We did need to keep her just for another week in order to be able to have sent her home with the A Team theme tune properly rehearsed!

Last week I had a lovely visit from an Australian friend who is travelling over here at present.  Many years ago when I was travelling I stayed with her on the farm where she lived and worked and I helped to look after her children.  If it wasn't for the fact that those children are now grown ups we could kid ourselves that no time at all has passed, it was just like picking up where we left of last time we caught up!

Now it is back to work, lots to do for the next couple of weeks, will try to keep on top of blogging things here too!

Take care all

Sarah xx

Back to it

I think I am just about recovered from an absolutely mammoth weekend!  Trying to split Land Cuckoo between two shows in different counties was rather more hard work than I had bargained for!

Our first port of call was the lovely Wrest Park, these photos show it after the torrential rain that we had last week.  So much for my comments to a friend earlier in the week which went along the lines of  'you never see waterlogged gardens in stately homes do you?'

Mind you, there was very little in the way of water logged areas where the craft event was taking place.

As I was busy on the stand all weekend (apart from my trip out on Sunday to the other event) I didn't get any other pictures but we did have blue sky and sunshine!  This is the croquet lawn above, I would have liked a go myself having only ever played it as a child in my back garden.

Whilst Hubby kindly took over the stand on the Sunday I went over to Gransden to the air show.

Ok so taking photos into the sun is not recommended!  Also you can't really see them but they did look a lot closer in real life - these two little planes were flinging themselves around in the sky and we managed to step out of our craft hanger for a while and have a watch.

This funny little contraption in the sky is a gyrocopter and it just looked like someone had attached a couple of rotary blades and a lawnmower engine to a dining room chair and taken off!  It could do the most nimble of moves once it was up in the air though.

Along with gliders and spitfires, flypasts from big loud jet planes that I don't know the names of it was a great day out, oh yes, I was working wasn't I, still it is good to be entertained whilst you are working isn't it!

I am off to the kitchen to bake cakes now for the village show and sale this Saturday, unfortunately I cannot be there as I'll be off on the market again but will leave those fingers crossed for this lovely sunshine to continue all weekend!

Take care all

Sarah x