Tales From Pixie Wood

Hints, Tips, Trims & Things - The Big 'O' and Starting Small

Over in my forum we have been discussing the big 'O' - organisation. We've been told for a long time by experts, lifestyle gurus  and people that have been successful in many fields how being organised is one key to all sorts of mini successes, and large ones come to that, within our lives, homes and businesses. I absolutely agree with them.

Its freeing to be organised and very disconcerting not to be. Over the last year since we moved in to our house my future hubby and I have been slowly getting sorted. As the postman has delivered papers and bills to us we have gradually worked out a filing system that works for both of us. The kitchen cupboards and the contents of them have been switched around and played with so that we are both happy when rustling up a meal and recently we've been working on a 'one in, one out' premise - we were given two new white bathroom towels recently so we re-cycled two not so white towels and removed them from the linen cupboard.... you get the picture, no?

I've had a category in my blog called Hints, Tips, Trims & Things sitting there for a while and I haven't really used it as much as I could have done. So, inspired by the welcome wave of relief that washes over my caffeinated body when I have pretty much everything organised and am able to get on with the fun stuff that I really want to be doing, I am going to add to this section more often. I would love to hear your ideas on any of the areas which are covered and if you think that there is a better way of doing it you simply must say!

I'm starting on two REALLY simple but oddly effective bits of organisation. One for the kitchen and one for the office.

Many of us have several cookie cutters floating about our kitchens. They can sometimes get lost or end up in odd places and just when you need to lay your floury hands on that daisy shaped cutter it is nowhere to be seen. I have tamed my errant cutters by tying them together with a piece of chunky string and hanging them on a hook...... that's it, no more complicated than that. They are all in one place and I like the way they look hanging there ready to be used.

My email inbox is an area that needs to be kept organised otherwise things can get very messy. I could miss important messages, orders that come through from my shop, notifications from people and questions that I have promised to answer. Not to mention messages from friends suggesting times to meet up for drinks and a Wagamama in town!

One thing that I am sure we have all done in our time is subscribe to websites & forums allowing them to send through daily, weekly or monthly emails. This is fine if they offer a service that we are interested in following up but not fine when they are clogging up our inbox with messages that are ignored. An example of this is a service that I subscribed to over a year ago when we were looking for a house to buy. I suddenly realised that this company were STILL sending me through properties to view even though we have been in our new house for almost a year. I don't need this information any more and I don't need the emails they send through complete with attachments that fill my already too small email inbox up! So I took two moments and un-subscribed from the service. I've done that with several of these over the last few weeks and it has made managing my inbox LOTS easier.

Ahhhhhhhh, now that is better. Starting small and working through bits and bobbles in my work life and home that make each day a day to relish and be excited about.

Have a wonderful start to the week and thank you SO VERY MUCH for all of the orders that have come in since I re-opened my shop. If you placed an order between last Sunday and Thursday you will be hearing it land on your mat very shortly.

 

Still On The Mis-Matched Tip

As a storm rages across England and I snuggle down into the depths of my study/crafty room/ place where if you don't look closely you won't see me for all of the STUFF laying around, I thought it was time to tell you of my love of postcards.

I love postcards.

OK, thats it, I've told you, see ya, BYYEEEEEE!!!..............................hee hee!

I love their size and shape, the classic postcard I'm referring to, and I love the fact that you could decorate your entire home with postcards picked up on your travels and it would appear as if you had little works of art all over your walls.

I have carefully chosen postcards on my fridge and an entire row of vintage postcards balancing on the skirting board of my guest-room. I am going to be sprucing up the frames that this collection sits in and I'll post them here. They are all from Lake Como and need a little more attention than they have been given of late.

Anyway, I picked up the three postcards in the first picture whilst in Salzburg, Austria. I loved the colours that are featured in them and as I'm constantly trying to add colour to my kitchen I thought that these would suit the room. I had three, rather sturdy, plain white frames from Ikea to use but I wanted to give them their own look. It has to be said that certain Ikea accessories are good for a little make-over. I remember someone I know bemoaning their partners love of Ikea and how all their house needed now were the yellow arrows on the floor telling them how to get to the market place and they'd be all set! 

So, I covered the back of the frame in three different types of fabric, this is great for using up scraps...

....and used my old pal glue gun to fix the fabric in place.

Then I popped the postcards front and centre and placed them on the wall to your right as you enter from the hall in to the kitchen.

*note to self* May have to think about getting a new light switch due to its un-photogenic qualities!

At the moment, as you can see, there are only six frames adorning this wall. I am aiming to fill it over the next few months. I think that this small section of wall could cope with being filled and I'm aiming for a colourful diversion as one enters the kitchen.......this is in order for the MESS and CHAOS of the rest of the room to be glanced over as opposed to dwelt upon!

At the top are two postcards I bought in 2006 on a trip to Cornwall. We visited the Museum of Gardening, Trevarno, and I saved them until the right place popped up. Again I used little wooden Ikea frames but added some hand-painted polka dots to the frames in primary red and green.

I'm not leaving my study/crafty room/ place where if you don't look closely you wont see me for all of the STUFF laying around today. The storm can rage outside my window all day long but I'm in the middle of prepping some bundles of products for a couple of magazines and I HAVE to get them finished.

Have a good day wherever you may be. My thoughts are with you all today, whoever you may be. I had two intertwining dreams last night which were exhaustingly awful and emotional in equal measures and dreams like that always make me contemplative and more aware of the smaller things. So if you're reading this I'm thinking of you, even if I don't know you're there.

Cherry xoxox 

Easter Bunny Cosy Project - brought to you by Cherry Menlove & Yvestown

When she's behaving my bunny cosy sits nicely, with the flowers and the easter nest.

She'll even give you a twirl and show you her cotton tail bottom.

Sometimes she is naughty and hops off to hide in the crocuses.

But she always comes back and will perhaps settle down for a spot of reading.

But when you can't find her ANYWHERE, she's usually to be found in the cookie jar!

Woo hoo! Today is the day that Yvonne and I launch our Easter Bunny Cosy project, Download easterbunnycozy.pdf 

Yvonne and I have had some great chats on the phone recently and she actually came up with the cosy idea, I promised to come up with the next one, which I'll be popping across to her any day now!

We really want you all to have great fun coming up with an Easter Bunny cosy or cosies of your own. Create a character or better yet a whole family of them and DON'T FORGET to blog about it and upload it in to the Easter Bunny Cozy Flickr group that has been set up especially. I suppose that the closing date, if there is to be such a thing, would be Easter Sunday, but we all know bunnies aren't only for Easter......at least my one, with that demented look in it's little stitched eyeballs, will hopefully be around for a lot longer than that!

Have FUN, FUN, FUN and we can't wait to see what you come up with!

Cherry xoxoxo

Mis-Matched Fun On Mothering Sunday

Yesterday was Mothering Sunday in the U.K. and so LBH and I invited everybody over to ours for a spot of lunch. We were going to be having ten of us around the table at two pm and when there are that many of us the table comes into its own mis-matched glory.

I have been collecting odd bits of crockery for years now. I often see one lonesome plate or a group of saucers which when put together with the rest of my collection seem to sit rather well. It would be nice to think that someday we'll be setting the table with Villeroy & Boch, but if that never happens I'm more than happy with my odd bits of Royal Doulton and Spode.

There is a plate in my mis-matched collection which is important to me and sits there so beautifully that if anything ever happened to it I'd be devastated. You can see it in the picture above. The creamy, pale blue trim of the plate, edged by the daintiest gold pattern you ever did see. It almost seems a shame to place anything resembling food onto the pretty flowers in the middle but I think Ms.Plate would prefer to be used than sitting on the top shelf and watching the proceedings from afar. This particular piece was sent to me by the lovely Susan of the NotQuiteJuneCleaver blog. It's taken me ages to post about it but I was excited about how the gift she sent me looked on this special day, although I can't quite remember which mother ate from the plate yesterday.

I was thrifting on Friday in my local town (I love it when you haven't been for a while and the stores are full to the brim of thrifty treats once again) and I came across this little fruit bike. Its wheels spin with ease and the fruit compartments can be lifted out and filled with miniatures. I left this on the table yesterday as I liked how it looked. There are NO RULES when it comes to entertaining if it looks good and makes nobody feel uncomfortable. My little bike was a reminder that Spring is well and truly on its way and before we know it the table will be filled with glorious sun fruits. Cherry pie, tropical fruit salad and blueberries for breakfast will be back. You can also see a small piece of green glass in the background of this picture. My mother passed that on to me just the other week and earlier in the day I had a tea light sitting in it. Until LBH said he needed a receptacle for the garnish he had made for lunch and the tea light was duly blown out and the green glass became a holder for lemon rind, rosemary and garlic.

I even managed to sneak in a Christmas plate yesterday, which is something I may not do every day but we had so many bodies in the house that every plate was needed. It was a lovely afternoon and I am struggling to believe that we are already in the third day of March. We have less than five months before we get married and there is still a fair amount to do .......Eeeeeekk! But its all OK, I think that the excitement of actually being married is far outweighing any stress that some little thing going wrong could bring, at least thats the way I'm feeling right now. Its also busy over here at Pixie Wood which is a great way to alleviate any stressful wedding thoughts.

I'm signing off now as I have a list to crack on with but I should take this time to mention two glaring points that I failed to explain before the start of the weekend.

The first is that in this post  I described the container for my Easter tree as a bed pan, when it is clearly a chamber pot. My cousin was good enough to point this out, which I'm glad she did as I had a feeling that I had got something a little wrong on that particular post and this was exactly it.

The other is that on Friday, just gone, I was meant to be telling you about a project/blog event which Yvonne and I are hosting. Having spoken on the phone last week we decided to put it back until this Wednesday as there were some bits and pieces we wanted to iron out and with both of us being a touch hectic we needed more time. I really hope you'll stop by on Wednesday and see what we're getting up to as it would be great to have you all join in.

Have a wonderful start to the week and if you have any mis-matched china collections yourself then let me know and perhaps it would be a good idea to start a Flickr group??

Cherry xoxoxo

The Start Of My Easter Tree

Here is the start of my Easter tree for this year. It resides in the hallway atop my Singer phone table and is no longer on the plate that you see in the picture. My aim for this year was to begin the run up to Easter with a fairly bare tree and see what goodies and random bits and bobbles I would end up attaching to its branches by the time Easter was done and dusted.

Recently, LBH and I rid ourselves of some Hazel branches which were growing in a crazy way at the bottom of the garden. So I nabbed one of them and painted it Green Ground, using one of my ever trusty Farrow & Ball sample pots.

When it was dry I plunged it into one of two white ceramic bedpans that I own, but which look far prettier as planters or receptacles for pretty Easter trees than their original use.

Bleugh..... bed pan..... BLEEEUUUGGHHH!!!!!

I covered the soil up with some bright green, 'straw like' material that I picked up in Salzburg and placed two tiny sheep in amongst it, in order that they may frolic in the sun which comes in through the front door each morning.

I also added some forget-me-not type flowers so that they may have some colour against the blinding green.

I added two painted bunnies. A pink one and a green one ,which was camera shy at the time of this shoot!

You'll also notice, standing guard, these wonderful little gnomes. I also bought these while in Salzburg from a lovely store called Mia De Roca. Regina, the owner, is a member of my forum and we had a lovely time meeting each other on our recent trip.

I've added some tiny hand embroidery......

...and the obligatory song bird.

I look forward to seeing how 'crowded' it gets as the weeks go on. There is nothing like the colours of Easter and Spring to revive me and whip me into a feeling good frenzy. Lashings of pastel shades, offset by vibrant greens are all I need to say '"Hello house, what shall we do today?" 

Does anybody else decorate their homes for Easter/Spring in a similar way to me?

Cherry xoxox

If It's There, I'll Decorate It - AKA 'Getting Up To Mischief'

Getting up to mischief is what LBH calls it when I have done something in the house while he is at work. This also translates to mean that he's doesn't necessarily like what I've done but he won't make a fuss about it. If he hates something he simply looks at the 'thing', looks at me and then looks back at the 'thing' - with absolutely no expression. It's amazing how so little expression can convey so much, eh?!?!

This exchange in glances usually makes me burst out laughing, thats if I don't mind un-installing the 'thing' I have done/put up/created/fashioned. If I do like the 'thing' and have no intention of removing the installation I stare back, just as expressionless and then declare that I like it and it's going nowhere.

I then leave the room.

This act is not an act of compromise, as it should be, but merely one of cowardice on my part. I'm not proud of it but the house looks pretty good.

I jest.

Since LBH and I have been living together we have undoubtedly begun to appreciate each others tastes. I would find living with somebody who presented no challenge at all and always agreed with me very frustrating and as attractive as living with a permanent cold sore  or a very hairy plughole. All three are unwelcome in equal measure. So I wonder what he'll think about the salt and pepper receptacles? Ordinarily I would only use scallop shells in this way for use on a summertime table. I simply wouldn't think about revealing them during the Christmas period. But I have these pretty, shiny, red, double berry things that I twisted on to the shells and I think they look pretty in their Scarlett-ness.

It's the hip that's done it - which is well on it's way to being much better and thank you so very much for all of your get well soon messages. Since I have been forced to take the pace down by about one hundred notches over the past six days I been getting creative in teeny weeny ways.

I have made all of my own gift tags, wired up another dozen glass jar lanterns, almost completed two projects for the grand re-opening of my shop early next year and wrapped most of the gifts. All from the comfort of the sofa.

I did have a moment of panic earlier today and it came in the form of my advent calender. I opened the door marked 18.

EIGHTEEN!!!!!!!

IT'S NEARLY ALL OVER!!!!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Did I ever tell you that apparently dislocated hips makes one SUPER DOOPER dramatic?
I didn't?
Well, I didn't believe it myself when they told me either!!!

;-)

   

Pinning My Plans

I picked up two double sided, cork notice boards from a stationery shop nearby a few weeks back. As you can see they were rather dull and plain and I didn't feel they would suit the room I wanted them to go in, namely the little office/craft room in our house.

I began the transformation by hot gluing * a piece of striped wallpaper to one half of the board and then overlapping it with a contrasting piece of patterned paper. I liked the look that the torn wallpaper gave the notice board so I really wasn't fussed by the lack of a straight edge.

I then did the same to the other side of the notice board, only this time I used a different colour scheme. If you look closely you can see that the bottom edge is a touch ratty. I made a note to pin something way down there as soon as the board went up in order to disguise a distinct lack of cutting skills that day!!

The boards that I bought came with two screw in hooks that I screwed into the top of the boards. Then I threaded some red polka dot ribbon through the screws and they became the means by which the boards would hang. I used two different lengths of ribbon, not to be arty or clever but because I got distracted by Boo while cutting the lengths and left it like that as a reminder to myself not to let the small furry one distract Mummy while she's in the middle of making super dooper notice boards.

If you don't like the jaggedy edge of the torn wallpaper showing across the middle of your new notice board you could add a length of trim to cover it up, as I have done on the board nearest to the camera (you should be able to see it poking out from behind some green ticking)

Ahhhh, that's a better view of it.

So far I have used these boards for samples of the fabrics that I have been using this year, notes written to myself (one written in scribble containing the name and version of the song that LBH & I want to go down the aisle to), very old WIP's, pictures of Ms. H. and some threads that I am currently using in a project.

I have also half painted the frame of the notice board ( I really must finish it off. Later, later, later) using a sample pot of Farrow & Ball's Green Ground. It's a beautiful green and I'm sure we'll be using it in a more prominent position one day.

But until then the notice boards have all the privilege. And, it would appear, the spotlight......for today anyway!

Cx

* My hot glue gun is my very best friend. I'm serious. When all the others let you down you can rest, safe in the knowledge that your hot crafty glue gun will always be there to.....to....well, to stick things I suppose.

Apologies. I was celebrating last night and have a headache the size of a very large mountain. Less glue gun talk next time, I promise!

Unabashed Romantic

I am unashamedly in love with the season. We have a squirrel who hops along the bank of earth that sits, heavily, outside our kitchen window. We watch him spring along with a nut in his mouth and scurry around looking for the perfect place to bury it. We observe in a very still, silent manner as this little man (I've decided he's a boy) digs a hole, places the nut into said hole, fills hole in and then pats, yes pats!!!!, the earth down firmly with his tiny paws. Then he either retrieves a nut from a previous hiding place or simply bounds off, lightly, until his next visit.

He's preparing and I adore the fact that my behaviour in my home mirrors that of nature at this time. I'm preparing, preparing for the winter, albeit unconsciously until now.

Our meals now contain a influx of red meats and root vegetables as opposed to the olives, breads and Italian meats of only a few weeks ago. I rise in the dark and have to turn the bedside light on when I want to go down and get my morning cup of coffee. Getting up to go down and get the aforementioned cup of coffee is also becoming increasingly difficult as the temperature drops. As a self confessed early riser I often find the appeal of my bed far more alluring on colder, darker mornings than when the sun is out and about at 04.00am.

Boo has achieved a much thicker, lusher coat, that LBH subsequently spends hours picking off his suits and I am already wearing my David Beckhamesqe cardigan.  This cardigan is SO FAR AWAY from how I would like to dress but these mornings are cold and a girl has to keep warm!!

There is a calm here right now. A calm that has little explosions going on within it but they are either wholly manageable or off in the distance. And so I settle into my evening here in England with the new addition of blankets at the bottom of the bed and my ski socks on my feet. The blankets are folded down the bottom of the bed so they are there, willing and able to pulled up around our necks should the night bring a chill. And the ski socks, well the ski socks are there due to the fact that I do not own a pair of slippers.

Cherry, circa 2003 -  "Slippers?! Good god NO!!!! They are the least sexy item of footwear you can own and not even that useful. I shall never own a pair of slippers, thank you very much!"

Cherry, October 2007 - " Mmmmm, those slippers look comfy! Where did you get them??"

Nuff said. It happens to us all, don't fight it, feel it!

Have a great week.

PS
Have you noticed that while I have been wittering on about all things autumnal I have subliminally shown you, through my pictures, how to make a 'Squash Lantern'?

Oh yes, you don't get run-of-the-mill 'How To's' on this blog. But what, pray tell, did I do with the lid of the squash that is now hanging outside my house & adorned with green & white ticking & sweet chestnuts??....

I hollowed it out, placed a tea light in the middle of it and packed the sides with dried cranberries. It now sits in the centre of a glass cake stand in the middle of my dining table and gives off a wonderful warm, reddy glow. The romance of Valentine's Day is not a patch on that of an autumn evening.

Cx

The Great Cover Up

That was good, great even!  Seeing so many different opinions and thoughts coming in was entirely fascinating for me. I was saying to Nonnie yesterday on the phone that when you blog it can sometimes be quite solitary, so it was very informative to see what other people say to the question "What do you do?"

I really don't think we need to have a set answer to that question. One or two words that encompass everything we get done in a day would be impossible to find. Impossible and rather unnecessary. But I am glad to see that I'm not the only one who is unable to put a hat on my life and call it something specific.

Anyway, back to business. I am calling a halt to my food blog for the time being. I am transferring it all over to one home, as I know you're aware, and the food blog is something that I am not getting the most out of. I cook a meal almost every night and invariably I photograph that meal. Yet I am updating my food blog once a month at best. Food is so important to me and I very much want the food blog to be rockin', but right now I need to take a look at it and point it in a much more manageable direction.

The new website is also going to be clearer and easy to use. I simply didn't know exactly how long it was going to take me to build the pages, import info and get it looking the way I want it to look. So I'm exercising discipline. When I really want to be outside sewing even more grass seeds for my new lawn next summer I am sitting here staring out the window while waiting for pictures to upload on to the screen. I'm not the best at admin, I'll readily admit that, but I know enough to know that if I am not 100% on top of the beast it eventually bites my right AND left bum cheek....hard! Hence the determination to get this website done!

I shall leave you with a tiplet.

As you can see from the picture at the top of the post we have some rather dashing plastic light switches in our front hall. I, not being a huge fan of white plastic on a freshly painted wall, decided to cover the blighter's up!

I used a box canvas to hang on the light switch and it makes for a nicer welcome when I poke my head in the door after a long day. The painting that you see is by a local artist that I have worked with from the start. I have several of her pieces in my home and sold her work on my website and at the fairs I have done. If you'd like any more info on Eleana's work then do feel free to contact me at cherry (at) cherrymenlove dot com .

Eleana works on a commission basis and I for one can vouch for the wonderful feel that her work adds to my rooms.
I'd also like to add that the front door is finished now and I took this picture before we filled in the door latch with filler.

I say 'we', it was slightly more like....

Cherry: WHENISTHATDOORGOINGTOBEFINISHED!?!?!?!?!?!?

LBH : *sigh*

Hee hee!

Have a lovely weekend

Cx