Things I Loved This Month...August...

This month I've loved...

* My beautiful niece, she is sooo squidgable and gorgeous, I can't believe she's nearly a month old! * crocheting * lazy days * skype-ing far away friends * tomato and courgette and broad bean harvest * lovely work-y chums * home grown potatoes * butterflies * Open mic night * lots of charity shop bargains * take aways * buying some goldfish, calling them Claude and Horace, deciding they looked miserable in their tank and setting them free into the pond in Mums garden * Big adventure up north * Especially visiting Charlotte Brontes house! * Watching Pitch Perfect, Zombie Land and Princess Mononoke * Reading Maus * Great British Bake Off!! * Meeting up with my friends from uni * Marks and Spencers iced buns * presents from Reading Festival * Getting my first Crafty Creatives box - exciting! * Booking tickets to see Wicked next August! * Watching Doctor Who Proms on TV * Walk round National Trust Walled veggie garden and pig visiting with Mum * ice lollies * Ikea trip *

Hope you've all had a lovely August! 

from here

Vegan Junk Food...Oreos...

I think pretty much everyone knows that Oreos are vegan, I'm kinda late to this party.  They are my new favourites! Amazing!

Here's the ingredients.  There's a suitable for vegetarians label on the other end of the packet too.

What have you been eating?

Displays and Drawings...

This is some of my recent 'art' work, I don't really do much drawing apart from little bits of doodling for myself, but some of the stuff I do at work is for display to the general public!  Luckily I'm better at sticking big bits of paper together, cutting stuff out and staple-gunning it to a display board!

This is the display I made for the childrens area of one of the libraries I work in.  It ties in with this years Summer Reading Challenge theme of 'Creepy House' (which I think is a bit Halloween-y rather than summer-y, but I went with it anyway.)...

I put spooky characters in each of the windows, my favourite is this zombie guy...I imagine he's saying 'braaaiiiinnns'...

I also made a little Creepy House for near the library desk...

I love my job!  I also drew this recently, it's big, about 3 foot long, for the Pirate Party we had at the Rainbow unit I help out at...I coloured it in with crayons, which was the best bit cos I love crayons!

Have you been drawing or making anything awesome?

Great Northern Adventure...Day Two...Todmorden, Howarth, Bronte Museum, Hebden Bridge...

So, day two of our Great Northern Adventure.  

First we headed to Todmorden.  This was my idea because I keep reading about Incredible Edible and I wanted to check it out.  We only spent about an hour there, but Todmorden is lovely, I bought a lovely skirt in the charity shop from a girl with a rainbow-y mohican, there are lots of cute cafes, interesting graffiti, a lovely library (I can never resist having a quick look at other libraries!) and  the community growing spaces I'd read so much about.

Then we popped over to Yorkshire to the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Howorth.  This was my favourite part, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is one of my favourite books and I Loved seeing the school where Charlotte taught, the church where the Bronte's are buried and the house they lived in.  Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights were written in the dining room, and you can see where they sat and wrote, as well as their pens and writing boxes, it's lovely!

On the way home we had a quick half hour in Hebden Bridge, because it looked pretty when we drove through.  I bought a plant pot from a charity shop and some nice hand made dishes from a pottery shop, so I was pretty happy we had stopped.  It had a nice canal with some ducks and a nice little library too.

And then we headed home - phew! A lovely but busy couple of days.

Have you been on an adventure this summer?

Great Northern Adventure...Day One...Gawthorpe Hall, Townley Hall, Pendle Hill...

I've just got back from spending a lovely couple of days in Lancashire and Yorkshire, visiting places my mum grew up and some new places too!

We went to Burnley, where Mum grew up and where I visited my grandparents when I was little.  We went to Gawthorpe Hall, which is a National Trust Property with a lovely textiles collection.  

We also went to Townley Hall, where there's an art gallery with art by John William Waterhouse and Edward Burne Jones.

(these aren't my photos - I nicked them off google, apart from the lady with the bottom, that's my photo! On the left we have 'Wood Nymphs' by Edward Burne Jones, top right is 'Destiny' by John William Waterhouse)

Next we went to the school Mum taught at, her old house and then a pretty grave yard where some of my Great-Great Grandparents are buried.

Finally, we drove up by Pendle Hill, to the Pendle Witch Shop, my grandparents ashes were scattered on Pendle Hill, but we didn't walk up it, as it was about to rain and I have a foot injury at the moment (by foot injury I mean I Really hurt it doing a workout DVD in my living room! Owch!)

I shall be back with day two tomorrow!

Buddleia...Butterfly Madness...

I've never seen as many butterflies as I have this year, but especially on the buddleia in Mums garden there are loads.  I counted 35 just on the side of the buddleia I could see!

I've helpfully pointed out all the butterflies in the above photo!

Do you have an influx of butterflies where you are?

Charity Shop Treasure...Hornsea Heirloom Haul and Retro Plant Pots...

I've had some fab bargains recently!

This set of Hornsea Heirloom pattern biscuit, coffee, tea and sugar containers, and the matching coffee pot were £5 for the lot!  The seals have pretty much withered away on all of the lids of the jars, but I'm not going to use them to store food in anyway (I don't drink tea or coffee and I have a hedgehog jar for my sugar), so it doesn't really matter.  Totally worth the arm ache I got carrying them home!

Have I ever shown you my sugar hedgehog?  My mum bought him for me...

I bought these Hornsea plant pots on the same day, but from a different charity shop, as the rest of my Hornsea haul!  They were £1 each...

The mustard and brown plant pot was 50p and the snail one was £2...

And this retro beauty was £1.50...

One can never have enough retro plant pots in my opinion!

Easy Green Things To Do This Month...August 2013...

Here's this months list of easy, eco actions...

Sign this petition to ask for imported bumblebees to be banned, to prevent the spread of disease and protect native species.

Sign Lush's petition against fracking in the UK.

Check out the Soil Associations new campaign, Small Changes Big Difference, which will launch next month.

Sign up for Zero Waste Week, which starts 2nd September.  This years theme is 'Use it up'.

If you have any ideas to be added to this months list, then let me know in the comments section and if I like it, I'll add it!  And feel free to share any of this info (or the whole post) wherever and with whoever you like! 

Baby Crochet...Bunny, Cardigan, Viking Hat, Panda Hat and Panda Booties...

Yesterday my first ever niece was born!  I have been so excited to meet her, but because I am a terrible procrastinator I only made all of these things for her this week!

(This pic is her holding my mums hand!)

This is the first item of clothing I've ever crocheted, it has arms and cuffs and everything! I'm very proud of it, even though there are some imperfect bits (button holes, I'm looking at you!).  The pattern I used was 'Pocket Trim Cardigan' from Nikki Trench's Cute and Easy Crocheted Baby Clothes, but I left the pocket off, added some flowers and altered the arms.

For the panda hat I used the 'Beanie Hat' Pattern from the same Nikki Trench crochet book.  The pattern says it's fits 3-6 months but it seems huge.  I have no concept of the size of babies heads and have been eyeing any children I see trying to guesstimate the circumference of their craniums!  For the booties I used this pattern as inspiration, but kind of winged it and shrunk it down.  Once I had the base of the hat and booties done I just crocheted some circles in black and sewed them on for panda eyes and ears, and embroidered the panda mouths and noses on.

I made a Viking hat, using the same pattern as for the panda hat, I added an extra round near the top though to make it a bit pointed at the top, more like a helmet.  Then I added the horns to the sides.  I can confirm that babies look hilarious in Viking hats!

I made another crochet bunny, like Herbert, this one is also called Herbert.  He has a felt tail this time, which is safer for a baby than the pompom previous Herbert had.  Even though I think the pompom looked nicer.

I bought this little sweatshirt and added a pink bow to the baby peanut's head.  This baby has been known as peanut for as long as we've known about her, so I couldn't resist buying this!

I always make cards rather than buy them, these are extra snazzy 'cos someone gave me some proper card making stuff they cleared out of their garage!  I did the one with the R on for baby Rosie and the pink and green one for my brother and his girlfriend.

I am soooooo looking forward to being Auntie Sooz!  And to crocheting loads more cute tiny baby things!  Any recommendations for my next project?