Tales From Pixie Wood

Must Have, Latest, Simply Can't Get Through S/S 2008........My Bonny Blue Basket!

I have several baskets like this mooching about the house, as I'm sure many of you do. I tell them that if they are to stay and not be given away as part of a gift bundle or housewarming present then they have to look like they are enjoying themselves and make themselves somewhat useful.

This particular basket paid no heed to my warnings and skulked around looking awfully dull.

I even moved the basket to a position with a much better view. From atop this pile of books one can see right across the kitchen and down the hallway. I got no change in behaviour at all and something had to be done. Now I like love the shape of this basket. Its classical and romantic, not too big or small and has a super handle so because of this it was spared re-homing but I did insist on giving it a make - over.

And this is the result. I'd really like to say that the inspiration to go for the colour blue was my idea but my mother was the bright spark there. We were in a wonderful french inspired home ware store in a town not far from me and she spotted a pale blue painted basket. I loved the blue but I have a few pieces dotted about the place in paler shades and wanted something bolder. Something that reminded me of the type of blue that adorns a small fishing boat or a beach hut.

 

Once I'd finished the paint job I lined the basket with a fabric drawstring lining which will make shopping with it easier and if I pick up something fragile or 'rollee aroundee' it can all be kept safe and tight.

The fabric  lining allows the ties to peek out at the points of the handle and on the ends and I've tied said lining in place.

Here I am wearing the disobedient basket minx, standing on a chair as I'm not super tall. This is an original way to get around using plastic bags (for the love of god and all ocean life please don't unless you re-cycle EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.)  or the ubiquitous re-usable shopper. The little old ladies in my town are regularly seen sporting their baskets and I figure that if it's chic enough for them then I'll have to give it a go! I'm not expecting Paris, New York and Milan to follow suit by any means but I may rustle one up for my Mum and sister and bear a look of false dejection if they even hint at resistance!

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

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

A Draw And A Thought

Ahhhh, that's better! I was getting into a muddle a few days ago and needed to step back, work out what needed to be done first and simply begin. As soon as January arrived I think LBH and I both realised that our wedding was to take place in exactly seven months and we still had heaps to do before then. We counteracted feelings of stress by popping out yesterday and coming home having bought my wedding ring. I wasn't sure whether I'd ever actually find myself skipping down a crowded street again but I did yesterday. LBH made me laugh by saying that he liked that kind of shopping as he got to sit in a chair and have things presented to him. I'll have to take him shopping for diamonds more often!

And of course the babies are now here, oh the babies, my goodness we had no idea that our hearts were capable of such outpouring. My entire family has become a cliche in the truest sense of the word with statements like "are they not THE most perfect children you've ever seen?!?! I'm serious, I have never seen SUCH beautiful babies" falling from our mouths whenever we so much as wipe a bit of vomit from their mouths or smell something 'nutty' coming from their nappy area! I'm saying it loud and I'm saying it proud, I'M AN ADORING AUNTIE AND PROUD.

Anyway, on with the magazine draw. Thank you so very much for entering your names into this draw. I believe that we now have four copies to give away and I'd like to thank Ms. Maxwell, Barbara, Diane (could you email me your email address Diane so that I can send you the address of the person to send the mag to? Thank you sweetie!) and WritersHand.

So I will pick two people from the USA, one Canadian person and one person from Australia using the random number generator.

Cheryl is our Canadian winner.

Poppy is our Australian winner

Jan Fraser from California is an American winner.....

as is Zee from the fabulous Pixie Blossoms, Arizona.

Congratulations ladies and thank you so much to everybody who took the time to enter. I need the four winners to send me their postal addresses and I shall then pass them on to the folks who offered to post out an issue to a winner. All of this will be done in the strictest confidence you understand.

After blogging a little hint of the projects I have been working on in my last post I had some really lovely emails asking me when I would be opening up my shop again. Well, having scrapped a previous collection that I started before Christmas I am only ready to go with these hand embroidered lavender and rose hearts right now as the rest of the collection is still a few weeks away. Although as soon as my shop opens up again, proper, I'll be telling the members of my forum a few days before I post it on the blog as I promised them I would. We now have over three hundred members over there, all chatting away about their adventures, swapping tips, stories and homemaking tales. Hello, ladies!

However, on Tuesday I will be selling these ubiquitous items through this blog so do feel free to pop back and make a purchase if the mood takes you. I have made a finite amount of them so they won't go on forever but I have enjoyed taking my stitching with me on my travels, it lulls me into a sense of wellbeing and for that they hold a rosy place in my heart. Besides which they are entirely seasonal and feature blossom aplenty, so it would be rather unfortunate to still be selling them in August!

See you on Tuesday.

Cherry xoxox

UPDATE
This product has now gone on sale to members of my forum!

Well........

....there's just time to stop by and tell you that right now I'm at this sort of stage in the 'getting the house ready for the magazine shoot' proceedings........

I look at this pile and think " but you haven't even cleaned the bathroom yet...PRIORITISE MENLOVE!!!!!"

So that's where the butter dish got to!

Okay, who put the wreath in the fridge?!?!?!?!?!?!

Anyway, that's what it's like around here right now. Organised chaos. Moments of tension occur but only when I run up the stairs, trip on the top step and land ribcage first into the walnut set of draws at the top. I lost an entire day doing that! I haven't run that fast up the steps since, let me tell you. Or when my alarm went off one morning and it was SO early and I was SO not allowed to wake LBH up that I hit my head SO hard on the corner of my nightstand that the blood made my hand wet in the dark. LBH got up after that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is a short post as we are now entering the evening and there is still a lot to do. I should tell you that it was a conscious decision of mine to turn the comments off. For no particular reason at first except for an inkling that it may provide me with a wondrous sense of freedom. I was right. I have also been lucky enough to receive some wonderful, heartfelt emails from some of you this week and I have even managed to respond to several of them and that fills me with peace. I'm a doer, I like to get things done.

I will of course open them back up when we do the round up on Mrs Dalloway but I need the freedom to potter about the house and then tell you all about it. If you feel like getting in touch after that I would love to hear from you.

I had a meeting this week with the team of people that I work with on all things great and good. I love and adore meetings, this may change down the years, but right now I love them. Many things were discussed and plans were talked about. It's an exciting time with hard work down the road and changes too. There was a time I didn't like change, I liked to keep everything just the way it was. But if remember my own personal mantra, to not be afraid of anything and to always be kind, then change can only ever be positive.

A 'Good Thing' you might say!

;-)

KIDDING!!!!
I'm kidding I promise!!

Lots of love
Cx

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or thoughts at cherry (at) cherrymenlove dot com
I love to hear from you.

"Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With String...."

One of my most favourite things in the whole world is strawberry jam. Not raspberry, not plum, not even marmalade but strawberry jam. Seeing as 'jamming' time will soon be upon me, if it isn't already, I thought it might be a good moment to make some super dooper jam pot covers. I love the old English gingham ones that are tied on with butchers string or simply held in place with a rubber band but I wanted something a little more special. I wanted jam covers that were a little over the top and slightly fancy. Jam covers that you may find in a boutique country hotel or when staying with a friend who has nothing else to do all day but make bits and bobs like that. This is my definition of luxury. Simple, useful tools that are made in an altogether non-simple & non-useful way. Who in their right minds would spend this long tying the cover back on to the pot and getting the bows just right? Name one person who has time in their busy day to deal with details such as this when there are so many other important things to do?

But, I'll say it again, this defines luxury to me and boy do we need a little touch of that occasionally. I don't care if I have to stand over the pot of strawberry jam for a few extra moments tying the cover back on so it looks just right. I'll knock that time off the time I spend in front of the television. I don't mind that they are a little fussy because I do, really & truly, find it creative, fun and altogether heartwarming to have something this sunny on my table, at all times of the day not just breakfast or lunch. Strawberry jam pots with fancy covers are one of my little luxuries and I'll proudly declare it to anybody who's interested. They are wipe clean as the top is made from oilcloth and the ribbon can be changed as often as the weather.

I am having a stand at a fair, my only one of the season, for all the beautiful yummy mummies in Notting Hill in just two weeks so I made a whole heap of jam pot covers yesterday to take along with me. In case you'd like to make your jam at the same time as I'm making mine start putting your empty jam jars aside for the next few weeks and we can all do it together. And if anybody would like the measurements for these simple jam pot covers in order to make them themselves then let me know in your comment and I'll post the deets on this blog.

Thank you by the way for all your 'new phone table' love! I can hardly see LBH turning around now and saying that he simply can't abide the thing and it churns his tummy to have it in the house. The show of camaraderie presented by you gorgeous women was simply too strong methinks and I feel that the table will be happy there for a very long time.

I jest....partly. I think LBH knows a good thing when he sees it however I think I helped my case by putting his mail on it for him to conveniently pick up when he gets in from a day at the office. I made the new piece of furniture useful, you see, and we know how the chaps in our lives like things a great deal more if they are useful.

Is that manipulative?

You betcha! But have you seen the table?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

;-)

Love Cherry

P.S. I'm dealing with my inbox shortly and will reply to any messages as soon as I can. Thank you for being so patient.

Solace In The Work

I have been feeling very weepy lately. Walking around, going about my business with tears always ready to form behind my eyes and roll down my cheeks. I'm not sad but I feel sad. I'm not unorganised but I feel terribly unorganised. I'm not restless and yet I feel like I have ants in my pants. I'm achieving all that one person can with only 24 hours in a day and yet I feel like I'm getting nowhere. Trying to perform the butterfly stroke through treacle while dressed in a ball-gown.

Does anybody else ever feel like this?

Our bodies never lie and I realise that these weepy sessions, always followed shortly after by much giggling and hugs from LBH, are only because I'm a little tired. But it has got me thinking about counteracting this with an activity that, in times of prolonged busyness or some stress, I can simply 'get down' to.

There is not time right now to join a new yoga class. I won't be attending it after we move. I can't cook up a storm in the kitchen as all of my equipment is in boxes & I'm wishing I hadn't packed my piping kit away so early. There is something tremendously meditative about creating patterns on top of a cake. Squirting little piles of butter-cream frosting in myriad shades of pink and blue takes me to a nice place. Cupcake Land. Where all is well, calm and .......er........pink!

But when Cupcake Land is but a dream and I am limited as to what it is I can do to combat feelings of tiredness or anxiousness, where do I go? What do I do?

I found the solace I was after in the strangest place. I found it in work. I've noticed recently that each time an order comes in I am washed with a sense of relief. My mind will leap out of weepiness and into a state that wiggles for joy and sings "Yey, I get to go off to the sewing machine again and create, create, create"
Of course there is no way I can put this activity off. I can't persuade myself that there are more important things to be getting on with because even though we are moving I still have a business to run. And I don't want to put it off. Needless to say my orders have been going out a great deal faster over the past few weeks ;-)

I'm pleased with this discovery. I once again find myself feeling entirely fortunate. I love those two words together, entirely & fortunate. I'm not sure how I got to this point of fulfilment but I think it has a great deal to do with the choices that I began to make. Choices that were different to ones I would have made at other times in my life. That's growing up I suppose. We never grow up completely as we'll always feel twenty one even when we sit on the porch in an eighty one year old body. I am also under no illusions that this time of satisfaction will last forever. How can it? It's life and I'm a player. Life is cyclical, a series of tunnels and sometimes the light that we see up ahead is indeed the end of said tunnel but sometimes it's another train, heading directly for us.

My home, my business, my creativity, my cooking, my clothing and even the mischief that LBH and I get up to are all based entirely in the seasons. How can they not be? And so I shall continue to rest in the season I find myself in right now. The season that calls itself Entirely Fortunate.

Love Cherry xx

PS
I am putting together a list of the best re-cycling, carbon footprint etc sites and blogs that I can find and shall add the list to both of my blogs in the not too distant future.