The Longest Day

 

Yesterday was the longest day of the year! A fact I was unaware of as I wrote out my To Do List...

I gardened, transplanting plants into our new veggie patch at home...

I was serenaded by my friendly blackbird...

The bees buzzed around me....

I baked...

Updated the photos of my bags for my folksy shop...

 I even found myself thinking of xmas...Oops!



 Phew!  How did you fill your longest day?

Pyrex & Rhubarb Pudding

Yesterday I  brought these little lovelies home.

 I spied them in the window of my local thrift shop and thought they would make darling little bowls for crumbles (rather than the 'soup' bowls they were labelled as).

The design isn't my normal colour choice but its the exact one my mum so I couldn't say no!

When I got home I wanted to use them straight away, and, spying the overflowing pot of eggs from our chicken I changed the crumble in my mind to sponge and along with the rhubarb hubby brought back from the allotment the day before, i devised a recipe for Rhubarb Pudding

Rhubarb Pudding

You will need:

3 sticks of Rhubarb

2 eggs

125g Self Raising Flour (1 cup)

125g Sugar (1/2 cup) + extra sugar to sweeten rhubarb if desired

125g Butter - room temperature

Preheat Oven to  175C

Begin by pre cooking the rhubarb until slightly softened,chop and microwave for 5 - 8 minutes or heat on stove.

Strain off liquid from rhubarb and discard.

Spoon rhubarb into base of Pyrex dish(s) sprinkling with a little sugar to sweeten if required

In a bowl cream sugar and butter together.

One by one add eggs to the bowl and mix.

Sieve flour and stir into the sponge mixture.

Stir until combined.
Spoon mixture over rhubarb, and level off.
Place in oven an cook for 30 minutes until sponge cooked thoroughly and golden.


Serve hot  - delicious with a scoop of ice cream

Some rather exciting news....

Also the reason I've been quiet for so long!

I can finally reveal I have jumped into the World of Business and started my own business. Phase one is now up and running...

Visit it here

I have always loved to create, combine that with my love for vintage and you get 'Lil Vintage Makes'. From Bunting hand cut from vintage Ladybird books and strung on twine or crochet trim and tape, to bags made from handpicked vintage or vintage inspired fabrics, and lots inbetween, you can guarantee a nostalgic treat for young ones or those who just 'remember the days'....

So all of my time has been taken up, designing and sewing, not to mention the business side!! Now would you like to see picture of the paperwork or the sewing?

Silly question....

There has been non stop doodling!

 ....Careful sewing!

 ....Selection of fabrics

....and rather fun photo shoots!

And that al goes on even before I get near listing it in my shop!

I'm not sure how much this blog will be affected. I've started up another blog for the business which should showcase all the new designs and the work behind them, but as its part of my everyday life now, I guess they'll be a little more 'sewing bits' in my posts over here too. 

I hope you all agree its pretty exciting news, I'd love to know what you think...

A Day of Olympic Proportions....

Okay, so I hinted before that we'd had a bit of an Olympic Day in May Here it is in all its glory. As you know, I live near the spendid City of Bath, and a couple of weeks ago the children were given time off school to go and see the Olympic Flame as it made its way through the city, we were also given the opportunity to take part in a World Record Attempt to form the World Largest Olympic Rings. We were assigned Blue and along with Nanny, we headed off to the Victoria Park! 

The day was fantastic, amazing blue skies, and such a relaxed family festival type feel. The children were great, there was ALOT of waiting around and practising, so we climbed trees and ate picnics. 

You can see a time-lapse video of the whole thing here

So that was the morning...we headed over to the Guildhall and claimed our place to watch the torch go past later. We were so lucky and had a spot quite near the front with a stunning backdrop of the Abbey. Finally when we had sat through all of the sponsors vehicles, the flame arrived!!

All in all and spectacular day I'm glad we took part in!! How about you, did you see the flame?

What I did in May....

You'll have to forgive me for the lack of posts recently, I've been working on a little special something! You'll have to wait for the official announcement on that, but if you can't wait you go like my page over on facebook and you'll get lots of pictures of it all coming together....

Meanwhile hers a few photos of what I got up to in May...

Cooling off in the scorching weather....

Preparing for the Queen's Jubilee, i'm loving all of the 50s styling out and about in the shops at the moment - i hope it doesn't all disappear again after too quickly!

 Parties and celebrations at School - practicing my face painting for daughters Jubilee mufti Day!

 Being Blue - no not like that! We took part in a record breaking attempt of the World's largest Human olympic rings display in Bath.

Welcoming the new season, with lots of Summery (homemade) goodies!!

Gardening - Enjoying the flowers and Digging a new Veggie Patch in the garden...

While others merely watched!!

Family Picnics - this one was enjoyed at the Vintage Nostalgia Show, Wilts.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing what we got up to, i'll blog a little more in depth on a couple of them soon, but its half term here, and we're off on our holidays so you'll have to wait.......again. (sorry!)

There might be some updates here if you're lucky

Vintage or Modern? Part One

What do you do when you live in a modern house but yearn for vintage? You love the look of the old but need the technology of the modern day?  Last week I bought this lovely little 1950s cabinet on EBay, declaring it 'something a little special' to friends. Of course it doesnt seem special at all until you sneak a peek inside....

Its a 1950s Decca  Television - how cool!  Of course since the digital switchover here in the UK there was no way this was actually going to recieve a signal (scart lead? hdmi socket? this thing has screws to adjust placement and a lever to twiddle for focus!!) So what should we do, leave it as a curio prop in our already over crowded lounge , maybe not!

Hubby took it out into the garden and had a fiddle, 20 minutes later , the kids were watching a Winnie the Pooh Movie on our new fifties styled HD Television!!!

Birthday Bowling

Last weekend (amid the snow) was my joint birthday bowling bash with my Brother and Daughter. We headed over to Bristol with other halves, children and Parents and had a fab afternoon!!

We went for a Mexican first, where we were handed stickers sheets of moustaches - What Fun!!!! Cue hilarious posing for Camera session....

  

So glad we chose Bowling, it gave hubby a ghreat excuse to wear his Fab 'new' 1950s bowling shirt - didn't he look handsome!!!

So long 2011, and welcome to the new year!!

Oh folks, what a good year 2011 was for us! I can hardly believe this time last year I didn't know so many of you, and hadn't entered the world of vintage as I know it today!

Thank you for journeying along with me, for the advice and support and for the lovely comments along the way!

I'm wishing you all a happy new year today as...

We have plans tonight to have a very lovely evening with family here.

Which I am sure will be very civilised...

but hopfully will end a bit more like this!!!!

I hope you all have a wonderful night tonight and that 2012 brings you all that you wish for!!!

It takes a while to get a 1940s look!!

I'm not quite sure everyone realises how long it takes to pull together a 40s look.
I've read articles that timetable a housewifes beauty routines and these often involve a couple of hours before bedtime plus another in the morning! Now there is no way I ever would have time for all that and I positively salute all those vintage girls who take time to pincurl or set their hair in rollers ever night - I really am a panic at the last minute girl!

However, having an invitation to a christmas luncheon this afternoon I  set out with the very best intentions and did very well!!

I picked out my new Heyday Mary dress and laid it out last night, I  planned the rest of my accessories and set them out too. I even went to bed early like a good little girl!

This morning I  started my hair and makeup routine a couple of hours before we were due to depart. Of course, like clockwork my victory rolls flopped and I had to redo my hair in an elegant sweeping style instead- no worries, this is why I started so early!! All this was made easier as the children were at nanny's on a sleepover.  Taking a break, I rang nanny to see when she'd be dropping them back? 'Quarter to twelve' was the reply! Right, 11:45 that gives us 35 minutes to change the childrens clothes and head back out the door. No problem, I went up to their wardrobes and laid out a choice of outfits for them to change into (aren't I good - still smiling smugly!) The children return informed by nanny 'be quick now! We don't want you to arrive late for the meal', eagerly they run upstairs....

"Muuuumy I can't find my tights!"
"I've put your white socks on the bed"

"But I'll be cold, I want tights!"
"Ok!"
 I run about looking for a pair for her,finally i find tights - unfortunately with holes!!
Hubby runs to drier to retrieve another pair of tights, but they're still wet!
Puts tights on radiator to dry whilst reminding son he needs to apply brylcream to his hands before he rubs it on his hair or he'll end up with white lumpy bits
"but thats how daddy showed me to do it"
run upstairs and show daddy how to apply brylcream, whilst fixing a brooch into my hairsytle as an elegant flourish!
Run backdownstairs, grabbing vintage handbag and gloves!
Check tights are drying - they're dry -yay!!  Give them to daughter and lend her bobbypins so she can do her hair, whilst running out the door

Head out to the car, get in and check clock 12:30 'is that clock right' 'yes!'whoops we're supposed to be there! Drive quickly and arrive at Hotel!

As we are going in, stop and ask hubby to take a photo of me *daggers look*
'what?'
'we're late remember?'
'oh yes'

Finally we find the room where everyone is having pre dinner drinks. We walk through the door and everyone turns to look at us and smiles! Hey, hopefully we did something right!

Surely they must realise, it takes a while to look like this!!!!