Poppy Update

Two new poppies have opened up, they're a bit bigger than the first one and while they are the same colour, they're a darker shade and the purple is more pronounced. My sister was visiting so I used her hands to show the scale of them. Aren't they sweet?

PS Do you like how much bigger my photos are showing up? I learned a nifty trick from Rita over at Coffee Shop Actions. It involves clicking on the image to make it bigger, copying that image URL, pasting that into the html code and making the pixel dimensions bigger. It sounds complicated but it's not.

Better late than never!

I had poppy and love in the mist seeds from my in-laws' garden last year. But, I forgot to sow them when I was supposed to, and only scattered them after all my self-sown poppies were already flowering.
Well, look whats growing in my garden right now...

A bonsai poppy? These poppies, when growing in my mother-in-law's garden, are huge and gorgeous and leave those great big fat opium seed pods. I threw the seeds in the pot with my Japanese maple, and the plants have grown really dinky. Do you think they knew whose house they were at, lover of all things teeny tiny? This one's diameter is 15mm!

My sister-in-law gave me a shade loving climbing hydrangea, and soon after planting it I noticed a dicotyledonous seedling growing right next to it. My plant knowledge is not that great, but I can tell a weed from a vegetable looking seedling, so I consulted my neighbour, who declared it either a courgette or a member of the pumpkin family. I transplanted it to where it would have more room to grow, and now look! Flowers! I can't wait to see what it is.


The love in the mist has grown quite happily where I sowed it. True, the little plants are quite delicate and small, but at least it still bore flowers!

And then my passion fruit, which very nearly didn't make it after our terrible snowfall in February, slowly responded to my careful pruning and has taken over the wall where it has a trellis to climb along. But, alas, I've had no flowers, probably due to the huge knock it took just when things were getting ready to start growing and blossoming. But, can you see what I saw this morning? Four little flower buds along the stem!


Here's another shot of my dinky poppies. These ones are a bit bigger than the first one, and I have no idea what colour they'll be. Shall I show you when they open?


And then, off the topic completely, but still better late than never, some more shots of Wales. I don't have a fancy photo stitching programme so these are all done by hand in photoshop. I also didn't shoot on a tripod so hence the fact they go up and down a bit.
The first is our camp site. That's our tent on the far left, and the children's play area was behind the row of trees on the far right, so we were quite happy to have got the pitch we did get!
The second is from our walk beyond the harbour at Saundersfoot...the beach is in the third shot, and if you imagine walking round the right hand side and cross the little stream at low tide, you'll get to the rocky area. It was a beautiful corner of the world to camp in, and while Pembrokeshire isn't considered terribly Welsh by the Welsh, it was beautiful and very Welsh as far as we could tell!

Wales in Miniature

Just a little fun I was having with a free tiltshift action I found. It blurs a regular image in a way that makes it look like a shot of a miniature world. This is Saundersfoot beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales on the hottest day of our holiday. Bliss!

For Ava

Saturday, 22 August 2009. The day Ava would have celebrated her 6th birthday. It would have been filled with pink, cupcakes, pretty tea sets and sweet friends. It would have been her mum's favourite day. Yet Ava still worked her magic and brought mothers and daughters, friends and families together from all corners of the world, to share a slice of cake, a glass of pink milk and to say I love you.
Sheye, thank you for your strength to share your story, to share your family, and most of all, to share your beautiful daughter's birthday with all of us.

Phew!

Hello again! I am at the end of a two week period of fun, fun and more fun, and I can't wait to share some of my stories and photos with you! In the meantime, let me tell you about last night - the most glorious and beautiful wedding I've ever been to. My sister in law Lyndall tied the knot with Will, after more than a year of planning. They had the most perfect weather you could wish for, the prettiest setting, and everyone who meant the most to them to celebrate it with them.

I was over the moon when Lyndall asked if I'd be willing to help with the cake, and I think she was just as happy to hear that I wanted to do them more than anything, so gave me complete control. After asking for carrot cake cupcakes, and windmill decorations, she left the rest up to me. I decided to make some chocolate and strawberry ones too for the children and for those with nut allergies, and also thought a little cutting cake for on top was nicer than a single cupcake, and of course, what's a wedding cake without a bride and groom topper?

You can see more of the cake pictures on my Flickr photostream, link on the left or just click here ;-)

A Challenge from Mercedes!

I have received a challenge from Mercedes

1 Open the 4th file where you store your photos

2 Pick out the 4th photo and publish it to your blog

3 Explain a bit about it

4 Pass this challenge to 4 other blogs

Now, my problem is that I move my folders around so much, I have them grouped in clients; kids; england; holly; liam etc etc, so the forth folder in my actual pictures file is a client one, which I'd rather not use. So, I looked through everything, and found the fourth chronological folder since moving to England and getting this computer! The first was Littlehampton, the second Moving In, the third Neighbours, and the fourth, well, it's simply called Wino.


Our furniture hadn't arrived. I was keeping my camera in the kitchen cupboard and I'd left my glass of wine on the very low mantelpiece. When greeted at the kitchen door with this sight, I was very grateful to have my camera right behind me, and worried about cleaning the red wine off the magnolia walls later. I'm saving this for Liam's 21st. Do you think he'll ever forgive me?

I pass this challenge on to

1. Sarah

2. Kerrith

3. Susanna

4. Farrah

Have fun!

100 Posts, and a Chance to Win!

So. I can't believe I've made 100 posts, in just over a year! I love blogging, whether or not I have visitors or regulars, I will always be a blogger. I love blog hopping, and I really love how I can find so many like minded people out there who share so many of my interests. The internet has made my circle of friends so much bigger, and so much more interesting!

So, I'd like to follow in my friend Sarah's footsteps, by having a little celebration on my 100th post, with a give-away. Now, since I started making my elves (and yes, I've decided they are too Christmassy to be confused with pixies, so elves they are!) I've had so many requests to sell them, or queries about whether I would do a commission one or just plain give one away, that I have decided to do just that.

This little girl elf is called Tilly, as you can see she's not quite finished, her feet are missing and she's still looking a bit pale, but I'm afraid my posting habit caught up with me before I could finish her so here we are at post 100 and I've got to announce my giveaway, ready or not! She will be finished before I can send her to the winner's home, and seeing as we're heading off on a camping trip next week, she'll probably be ready to travel around the end of the month.

So, how do you win her? Easy...leave me a comment. That's it. I'll leave it open until after we're back from camping, and then do a draw out of a hat. I could use the random number generator thing, but I think it's so much more fun to write everyone's names and put them in a hat. I'll get one of the kids to draw a name.

Thanks for visiting, and hopefully this will draw some of my silent regular visitors out of hiding! Oh, don't put personal details in your comment, I'll email the winner when it's time to;-)

Post 99!

This is my 99th post! Which means...there's going to be a 100th post celebratory give-away soon!
Keep visiting, it's coming up this week ;-)
Meanwhile, if you're a scrapper, check out Shimelle's blog. She's having an inspiration party to introduce her new class that's starting on Monday on TwoPeas. She did ask me to take part, but as it soon became apparent - my printer is totally too crappy for the job and it involved using printables, I had to pull out, but Oh My Word, the pages that she's got on her blog are awesome so go visit her!
Otherwise, I've been dabbling in a new crafty project - clothespin dolls. I found the head beads at HobbyCraft - the last two packs available (8 beads), and seeing as they've been discontinued I haven't a clue if I'll ever be able to make more :-( But, what a good mommy I am, when Holly said how beautiful they were and could she make one, I gave her one and she's chosen the colours (pink, of course, with blonde hair!) and I've only helped her paint the fiddly bits!