Snappy Happy

In preparation for our Europe Trip (and because I love a good creative challenge!) I have grabbed some books out of the library on photography basics and set myself a challenge. For the next forty days of Lent I am reading the gospel of John and talking a photo a day inspired by what I have read. So far, so good. It's got me out into the early morning light, squelching through puddles and breathing some fresh air, and it's got me looking around more, absorbing my surroundings and thinking about what I see.

I love a new opportunity to be creative and photography is already grabbing me as amazingly fun. I'm certainly not much good at it and my camera is pretty basic but we all have to start somewhere. What I'm loving is the chance to see something from a different angle, in a unique light and see things in a new way than I normally do. Here's one of college from an angle I never normally look at it (I was standing in the middle of a muddy field!)

All this photography is also helping me to enjoy my countryside surroundings a bit more. As I've said numerous times I'm a townie by birth and upbringing. But catching the beauty of my surroundings on film (and probably the increase in day light generally!) is helping me to feel grateful for this place I've found myself in, even if I still get excited on the bus on the way to town! This is my favourite picture of the college surrounds so far, it's certainly not technically amazing but it just catches something of the place. The moodiness of the sky but the light breaking through. I love it.

 

 

If you'd like to follow my Lenten journey then I will be blogging it over on God Chat. This is my new blog where I am posting faith based reflections/videos/photos and so on but really they are just reflections on life. Being a Christian, that's the angle I'm looking at things from but you don't have to be of any particularly faith or any at all to pop by so don't be a stranger!

In the meantime, any new creative hobbies on your horizon?

Remember Africa

Remember Africa

the loop held in small hands

rolling towards me

it reached me like the rays of the sun

setting over the land.

 

 

Remember Africa

words spoken over the fire

flames lick the blackness

and we danced

sang a new song that day.

 

 

Remeber Africa

what you shared with me

on the sandy pathway

lifting up your eyes

to the hopes we created there.

 

 

Remember Africa

of dedications, things we kept behind

when tomorrow was as lost

 so we hung on to today

like children on a mother's arm.

 

 

Remember Africa

what we found there

a pearl in a holy place

one buried there

that spoke of richness, recovery, new beginnings.

 

 

....because sometimes it is good to remember.

 

 



Our new home

It's taken three weeks, with a slight pause for some sunshine in Portugal, but the house is finally unpacked and sorted. I really wanted to get this done before college started so that home would be a relaxing place to come back to (when I actually so get to come home!!) rather than somewhere that more work is lurking.

I got totally ridiculed my in laws and husband when I brought this table and jug but I LOVE it. It's right opposite the sofa and I just stare at it thinking, 'that looks utterly brilliant!' I'm modest, right?!

I love the feeling of the place. It's so light and we felt comfortable here from the first moment we arrived. Now it has a bit more personality stamped on it and has those all important little reminders doted about the place. You know the kind of thing, a gift from someone that reminds you that you are cared for, or a postcard with a slogan that reminds you why you're doing what you're doing.



The lantern in this picture was a gift from a friend at Uni. It says 'Let your Light Shine', a pretty good message to read every day!

I sewed this picture at the old house and it now lives on my dresser. I love this dresser. It was an old brown Ikea thing I picked up from Ebay and after about a year of looking at it and wondering I painted it bright blue. Best thing I ever did! It came alive and now it looks like it was made to be in the new house.

Isn't it gorge? The chair was a fiver from a local listing site and the crockery were all gifts or charity shop finds. The heart picture was an engagement card from a friend I met in Greece so it always reminds me of her and of how much fun it was being engaged. Speaking of Greece we found this lantern there on a recent holiday and I'm so happy it finally has pride of place somewhere. It took up my whole suitcase so I wore about fifteen layers to the airport but it was SO worth it!

 In the bottom right you can see a wedding pic and a black and white one of my beloved Nanny who passed away last year. I love the picture, she looks so independent, ready to face the world. The world was a different place then and she didn't have half the opportunities I have now. When I see it it reminds me to go for it, that it's good to have that same look in my eye!

One of the best things about the new place is that it has a garden. I love growing and most of them were in containers at our last place so, much to my Dad's dismay on moving day, I brought them all with me. There have also been some new additions like this gorgeous orchid.

I'm determined not to kill it. I've even been reading books about it! I know! Dedication! (Speaking of gardening books for total dunces, check out The Virgin Gardener by Laetitia Maklouf, all her instructions are so basic and for people with small amounts of space to grow like windowsills or patio gardens.)

I have a new lovely lavender to replace the bush that lived at our old house. It's such a deep purple colour and smells heavenly.

The garden is still very much in progress what with going into autumn and all but this is our little sun trap to sit in with a cup of tea and a good book.

Craft has been a big feature of this house move. I am so glad I bit the bullet and bought a sewing machine. I am also so glad that I googled 'how to make curtains' because they are SO easy. Seriously, if you can stitch vaguely in a straight line then you can make them. The fabric is so much cheaper and nicer than buying ones from shops. I used this tutorial to make these:

...for the office and these.....

...for the bedroom.

I also made these simple tab top curtains for the bathroom using Cherry Menlove's tutorial.

All this crafting is now very much assisted by having a craft desk. Every time I see it I swoon.

And of course the house is packed full of obligatory daftness. I have a particularly absurd sense of humour and I like having things around that break any tension I'm carrying and make me laugh. If you can't have it in your own house than where can you eh?!

Note this sign is conveniently located next to the books of church liturgy and a Greek New Testament. No further comment required!!

Ha! Hilarity!

And that is our new pad! :)

Best friends, beach bars and cheesy bananas

I spent last week in Portugal (ooh err what a jet setter eh?!) with two of my best friends. It was absolutely blissful. The sea was within touching distance from our pretty swanky but very cheap apartment, a white sandy beach with the world's coolest beach bar was a fifteen minute ferry ride away and there were more restaurants than we had hours to enjoy them. Best best of all was the chance to get away with two people I think the world of. To have a chance to laugh, talk about the future, to be silly and not have to think twice about it.

On the second day we discovered the aforementioned world's greatest beach bar. The island itself is largely untouched, just a lighthouse, an unspoilt beach and a handful of holiday homes. The sound system pumped out Jack Johnson and other silky voiced beach crooners as we laid back in our multicoloured deck chairs sipping pina coladas. One of my friends wants to open a bar in the sun one day. We decided I would come and do the décor and she would pay me in cocktails. 

I pretty much believe my friends can do anything. In fact, I know so. We've known each other since we were kids. When the discussion opens up to the future the chat nearly always comes back to the shared imaginings we have had of each others futures. They so often correlate, 'I always thought you would live abroad', 'Me too!'. There is a depth of knowing that has great hopes for one another, greater than we can even dream for ourselves. True friends are cheerleaders of the highest order.

On the last night we ate dinner in an Italian restaurant, bemoaning that we would soon be in the UK, cold and thinking of Portugal. We ordered a bottle of Mateus (when in Portugal...!) and scoffed our way through a carb loaded feast. When dessert came my friend decided to be adventurous and went for a 'Top Hat' having no idea what it was besides the fact that it contained bananas.

Oh hilarity. It arrived in an earthenware dish, two bananas, dusted with cinnamon and covered with what looked worryingly like cheese. It took my friend four mouthfuls to decide unequivocally that, dear readers, it was cheese. I have never laughed so much in all my life, side splitting, tear streaming, gasping for air laughing. Man, did I need that! That's a true friend for you, they'll even take on a cheesy banana to give you a laugh!

And so I've been reminded that the best thing in my life is my people. Those girls that are like a gift straight out of heaven for me. When I'm holding my ground on being a young woman in leadership, questioned and challenged to stay true to myself and what I believe in or taking the next step on a road that scares the life out of me I know where my confidence comes from. Those people that have got my back and let me know it. Friends, where would we be without them?

New home firsts

Now that I've had a few days to settle in and unpack (and managed to cycle up to college and back, hurrah! I really did make it up that hill!) the house is starting to look more like a home and less like a box factory. It's not in a state for any real recording to be done yet but I did take a few snaps on my mobile of our first few days here and how this homemade home is shaping up.

The first area I got to work on was the kitchen. I was dying to have an area to sit in the morning and this spot is bathed in sunlight from the patio doors first thing. The perfect place for a cup of tea at the start of a busy day.

On the left are my cook books and on the right my favourite poetry and gardening books. The bench is the monks bench I posted about and painted up. I then sewed the cushions for it from some offcuts I had laying about. The chairs were all ebay and local listing finds and I'm painting them in different pastel colours. The poster is my absolute fav and was actually found by my husband (I'll make a bargain hunter out of him yet!) It's a map of the world called 'Tea Revives the World' with the story of tea mapped onto it and is in a frame I picked up for a fiver and dragged home on the bus and then painted. So worth it!

Another first for the new place was a visit from my parents very mischievous and very amusing spaniel, Lily. She is going to be a frequent house guest and wasted no time making herself at home on the sofa.

A first today was a chance to sit down at my new craft table to knock up some curtains for the bathroom. It was so great to be back behind my beloved sewing machine.

And this was the finished result! The blue bottle on the left is an amazing art deco bottle that I found in a charity shop for three pounds. THREE POUNDS! There was a lot of mocking as I struggled home with that. It is rather thick and heavy. But whose laughing now, eh? It looks BRILL! I got the idea for these curtains from Cherry Menlove's blog, check it out if you fancy having a go.

And so there are a few firsts at the new place, more to come as it takes shape!

Lest you think I've thrown myself off a bridge...

.....here are a few things that that made me smile today.

A big bunch of yellow tulips and needing sunglasses to pop out and collect them.

Reading in my new amazing new granny-chic olive green armchair by an open window....

With this view.

It could be worse eh?

This week in pictures

After my post this week about recording more of the happy making moments in life I have been snapping away on my Blackberry whenever I see something that makes me smile. I'm no photographer but this photos tell a story of the last few days in my little corner of the world.

Laura Ashley paint, so twee but it was on sale! Please forgive me! I'm restoring an old dining table at the moment for our new flat. It's going from dark brown to 'Pale Ivory'. I could also chose from 'Ivory', 'Palest Ivory', 'Pale Biscuit', what is this foundation?! But anyway, I love nothing more than to have paint splattered hands and be a complete mess from sanding down. This ones going to be a beauty!

Here it is in all former glory. A pain to sand down but great fun to paint. Wonderful undulations (as Miranda would say!)

This always makes me smile, my sewing emporium! This used to house my perfumes and other bedroom bits but as all the perfumes were stolen when my house was broken into it became my sewing station. The hidden blessings of burglary, one way too declutter I suppose! Now that the handicraft sale is over I can start some sewing projects just me (and the new house of course!) and I'm loving it.

 And in true Blue Peter style, here's one I made earlier! I got this off-cut in a bargain bin in Summertown and knocked up this cushion at the weekend. I absolutely love it and have been gazing joyful at it since I made it.

So that's my week so far and I'm thankful for it. Any other bloggers sharing their week in pics?