Tales From Pixie Wood

Tin Can Posy Vase & Deciding To Step Back

I'm not sure if Typepad is going to behave today, so if this post comes out looking a little untidy then I'm afraid that Typepad are still having issues. I blogged the other day and lost the post whilst saving it TWICE! Not happy!

Anyway, today's post shows a little idea you may want to try. Tin cans are ugly if not very useful and they can be re-cycled very easily in most areas. However, if you'd like to transform any number of tin cans that you have in your re-cycle bin then this is a pretty nice idea and one that goes very well with al fresco dining as they can be left outdoors overnight.

Take one used tin can and clean it out thoroughly.

Wrap it up in either your favourite fabric, this particular design can be bought from my on-line store right here, or you can use oilcloth. I hope to be selling oilcloth in the very near future.

Having wrapped the fabric around the entire can glue it in place using your crafty glue gun and trim around the bottom of the can so that it will be able to stand on the table, the windowsill or wherever you decide to put it.....I can't guarantee that if you decide to put it on top of your head it will remain upright, although you're perfectly within your rights to give it a shot!

If you decide to use your tin can as a planter then don't forget to add drainage holes in the bottom of the can. I did this, carefully, by using a small screw driver. It punctured the bottom of the can fairly easily but if you're doing this with the kiddos then I would do this bit for them.

And......voila!

I have covered the seam where the fabric meets with chunky buttons, again they have been glued in place.

A closer look perhaps......

I stuffed mine with Sweet Williams - plant your seeds now for full blooms next year - and I shall pop them about the place as a sunny greeting for visitors. There are two things I like about this idea -: these posy cans are very easy to make and they are a 'pretty' way to re-cycle. Have a go at this, I'd love to see your variations.

This will be my last regular blog post for a while. I have quite a bit going on right now and I am getting my house in order. Alongside all of my personal busyness, wedding, party etc...I am also making some changes to my website and there are only so many hours that I wish to be in front of a computer. I shall of course contiune to be a regular visitor to my forum as I love it there.

My website will continue to be updated so do feel free to drop by and see what bits and bobbles I have uploaded there but I don't have the time to do everything twice right now. Something's gotta give!

See you very soon over at www.cherrymenlove.com and see you in a little while here!

I will still be contributing to the fabulous SheerLuxe every fortnight and you can read my latest article  right here! If you'd like to register with SheerLuxe, and I highly recommend it, then pop along to my homepage and use the button on the right hand side. It's a fabulous resource for all kinds of wonderful, surprising on-line finds!

Have a great week folks.

Would You Like To See My Whatnot?

This, I'm told by my mum, is a whatnot. When I saw this in one of my local thrifty shops I wasn't sure what I would call it apart from a cake stand/plate holder/stuff storer thingy. But apparently its a whatnot. My mum inherited my Nana's wooden whatnot when she passed away and I love the fact that now three generations, perhaps more, have all had a whatnot in their home.

This whatnot came to me in good condition and was already painted white. I go for the 'white thing' in my home and have a hard time with dark corners so ordinarily this would have stayed the way it was but as its going in to my bathroom, an all white room, it could afford to be touched up with a bit of colour. Off-white colour you understand, lets not go crazy!!!!!

Here is my finished whatnot. Right now, as I said, it shall reside in my bathroom but what I love about this particular find is its flexibility. It can be dressed up for any holiday, event, party or season you wish to use it for and I know for a fact that it will be put to good use this coming summer as a cake stand.

  

I finished the frame of my whatnot in a chalky pink and the shelves in a very pale blue. The small pitcher and bowl was also a thrifty find. I spotted it in the window of one of my local charity shops and they kept it for me until I had time to pop in....they ended up keeping it for a WEEK! Bless them and all the hard work they do.

The middle shelf is holding some guest soaps. These are ordinary lavender soaps that were in my bathroom cupboard and they needed a little sprucing up. This is something I have done many times in the past and its a great way to add dots, not splashes as the soaps are too little for splashes, but dots of colour. If you see a single sheet of wrapping paper with a design or print that you love you can use it in this way in your home. A really inexpensive trick!

On the bottom shelf I placed a ceramic soap-dish that I bought for my Nana on a trip I took to California over ten years ago. She loved the strawberry's that sit on either end and in fact kept this little dish on top of her television. When I asked her why she didn't keep it in her bathroom where it was 'supposed' to go *tut-tut, shame on you Cherry*, she looked at me as if I were a loon and simply replied "because then I wouldn't get to look at it half as much". I love that answer and it told me there and then that there are no rules for items that you love.

Hello Boo!

And so this is my finished whatnot. You can see some other super posh whatnot's here and you may even have one yourself. What do you use yours for?

This week is a lovely week as LBH has some time off work and is here with me. Granted, there is a lot of wedding stuff to sort but none of it stressful and it means that we get to be here together. The characteristic of being here together that I like the most is that even though we may not be in the same room or even spoken to each other for a while I know that there is another heartbeat in the house.

Hello hon!

Floral Fabric, Spot Fabric, Gingham Check Fabric and Being Glad To Be Finished

I now sell fabric!

Gosh, this is a really happy day for me and saying that, typing it really, out loud feels very cool indeed. I think that this last couple of weeks has seen me blog more sporadically than I have since I started a couple of years ago, but I'm glad for that. I'm glad that I screwed myself to the chair and built the web pages that these fabrics now sit in for all to see.

When deciding on which fabrics to add to the collection I only had to look as far as my own stash. I use these prints all the time and so it made sense to me to follow my own style instead of trying to enforce another one.

You can choose from, in no particular order, Cabbage Rose, Cottage Bramble, Cottage Garden, Picked Posy, Peony Parade, Picnic Check, Garden Check, Patchwork & Spot fabric in five, pretty decent, colourways. Here they are in fact.......

Adding these fabrics to Like Snow in Rosebud  - my on-line store - was exciting, if a little bum numbing, and at the time of it all going through I was shopping for bridesmaid dresses with my sister and best friend. Excited calls were made on the street telling various folk the news and we happily continued shopping.

I feel now that my shop is getting to the point that I one day dreamt it would get to. It feels like something to be proud of even though it has taken me a long time to get to this point. I don't come from a business background, my family are almost entirely of an artistic bent, but the thing that fascinates me is making a life out of something that you love doing and so business will always play a part in that. The trick for me has been learning to marry the two sides of my brain. One being markedly more developed than the other but worse things have happened at sea, no?

Anyway, what has that got to do with me launching a range of fabrics? Well, I've always wanted to keep shop, amongst other things. Sell pretty parcels of goodies to folk passing by. Package them up nicely and send them on to a new home. This isn't world changing stuff by any stretch of the imagination, I realise that, but this tiny piece of life does fit in to the bigger picture in its own sweet way....and that is all one can hope for.

I hope you like them and if I can answer any questions then please don't hesitate to contact me and I should take this moment to add that a range of oilcloth is also in the pipeline and arriving soon!

Phew!

Can I blog normally again now???

Natural Interlude

Ah, hello there!

It was around about this time that I wanted to be telling you all about the last week and revealing to you a wonderful little progression in my corner. Alas, I'm still not ready. Jeez, its taking longer than I thought and of course we're having some great days of sun right now so the temptation NOT to be in front of the computer is a great deal higher.

I did take an afternoon off on Friday though. Jo-Jo and I went with the girls to Petworth and had a lovely day. We bought bras for the wedding, oh yes, drank tea while the girls drank milk and then came home for bath time and lots of kisses. I went back to my work with more baby infused vigour than had previously been in attendance.

That's all I have to say today you'll be pleased to hear but I will just take this opportunity to say a huge 'HELLO' to the people who are members of my forum. We currently have 443 registered users which is 'wrinkle my face up and look a little baffled' more than I ever thought would join. The reason I am so proud of this forum is not because we have that many members but because of the atmosphere that has been created. We have seen people go through the torment of buying a house, planning birthdays, seek out new ideas for baking, share Eco-friendly ways to clean house and have also had folk feel free to ask advice and get a few really tricky situations off their chests. Although I don't comment all the time on every single post I keep a VERY close eye on content as the safety and the trust issue is a biggie and I want to keep that intact. Not that this have ever come close to being a problem so far. Beware forum members I may be calling on one of you to help me manage this little sucker in the near future.

So, I'm off again. Hopefully next time I check in I'll have something substantial to show you, otherwise it may just have to be another 'Before & After' project!!

Have a great start to the week!

Jam Jar Covers

Last summer I made this style of jam jar cover (picture above) on a whim. The idea of the shape and the way it would fit around the glass jar came in to my head and then translated into fabric and ribbon.

I didn't make them to sell but I did find that I had private messages sent to me via email asking for certain quantities of them, which I duly made and whizzed off. That experience was exciting for me as it showed me for the first time how something that I liked but didn't even think of adding to my shop was also liked by others.

This last Sunday LBH and I were out and about and I picked up the latest copy of Country Living magazine. I saw that they had included an article on how to make jam. If Country Living are getting ready for jam making season then so am I!!!

So, this year I am making and selling a set of three different jam jar covers for your kitchens. The set contains one of each colour group...

Green & Gingham

Floral & Pink

Red, White & Blue

A set of three can be purchased by following the link below......

Set of three jam jar covers by Cherry Menlove

The weather here in England has been a bit drizzly this week even though the 5 day forecast predicted a scorcher. This is ok as it has meant that instead of tending to my Sweet Peas in the sun I have been revving up my crafty mojo and have finished another two items for my on-line shop Like Snow in Rosebud.

Dreary clouds + crafty lining = full shop.

Here comes the sun.........

Table Make-Over ...... FINALLY!

Today is a holiday in England and we were going to wake up this morning and go out for a run. However the wind is racing through the trees outside of our house, the rain is horizontal and its really chilly, even indoors. So instead of running in the the morning sun I am blogging. Which is just as nice as it means I get to show off a long standing WIP.

This table was painted white about a year ago and has had the recipe books that I keep in my kitchen on it for that length of time. But it was Yvonne and this post that pushed me into finally doing something a little more imaginative with it and although I use a slightly different technique to Yvonne I have her to thank for the push!

So, here it is. Painted white but needing a little extra something.

I cut some green polka dot oil cloth to size. I didn't want to cover the whole table but only to add a runner to the top of it. Leaving white wood on show along either side.

I pulled the oilcloth tight across the table and secured it both sides with upholstery nails. It was tricky in parts to get the fabric as taut as I would have liked but this is only noticeable if you look closely at the underneath, which is not something I intend to do on a regular basis.

Here's what the table looked like once the oilcloth was in place. I thought that this was all I was going to do to this particular piece of furniture but I wanted to add a touch more colour and something a little fancier.....

                                                                                                                                                      

....and it came in the form of a contrasting oil cloth. Genius, eh!!

I secured two narrower runners in place and ............

VOILA!

Here's another view.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out. This year is 'garden' year for us at home and when the weather is warm and sunny and the bees are flying around the honeysuckle I'll place an elderflower cordial on this very table and rest in the warmth of the rays....when I'm not jumping up and screaming as one of the aforementioned bees comes a little too close to my ear!

I'd like to say thank you for all of the lovely comments and messages concerning my last post and the success we had buying LBH's suit. We are both so looking forward to our upcoming nuptials and it's rather amazing to be sharing it with you and have your thoughts and wishes sent to us. I'm looking forward to swinging by your blogs and checking in on you all over at your place too!

Stepping Out With My Baby

 

Yesterday was LBH's day. We left our town in the morning and headed off in the direction of the station. Weddings are so focused on the bride for nearly all of the time, and quite right too, but I felt it only fair to let LBH have a special day out from behind his desk and get involved in the frivolities. Let's see how he got on shall we?

 

Fortunately for us the weather was on our side and although it was sunny and warm it wasn't sticky. Let me tell you we would not have bought a thing had it been sticky. LBH doesn't do shopping and sticky on the same day.

We picked up our tickets just before the train pulled in and headed off in to London. I love our train station. When I first saw it I knew that I'd love living here. It has won all sorts of floral and decorative awards and at Christmas, well at Christmas the girls who work there make a huge effort to make it sparkle. Good on them I say!

 

So we left the green and the yellow.....

 

...and arrived in the blue and constructed. It was at this point that I think we were both wondering how the day would go, if LBH would be successful in his search for a suit, ring etc

"I've got such a headache" said my nearly husband.

With that we went and got two very large lattes.

 

We needn't have worried although I did enjoy my coffee. There is a shop that LBH likes to buy clothes from and he ALWAYS seems to be able to find something that fits and looks really lovely, they also happen to sell suits. I did not see the point in dragging his cheeky bottom in to some super slick store to buy a suit that makes him feel all 'trussed up' in or anything less than absolutely relaxed, chilled and really happy.  

 

It took me thirty five minutes to find my wedding dress. It took LBH about the same to find his wedding suit.

"That's the way, uh huh uh huh, I like it, uh huh uh huh. Thats the way, uh huh uh huh, I like it!!"

 

With that taken care of and the suit being sent away for some minor alterations we headed off down a fancy street. LBH wears a watch and that is it for him on the jewelery scene, so buying a ring that he will wear for the rest of his life is a big deal. At this point in time it still feels odd on his fingers and the whole process of going in to a shop trying on a ring, looking at it a couple of times on your hand and being expected to make a life long decision about it is so strange. He tried on two rounded, 6mm bands in gold and platinum and then we left the store.

"I just don't know what metal to go for" he told the sales assistant.

"That's alright, sir. Here's my card, no pressure, but give me a call when you have decided and I'll do the rest"

Customer service can leave a lot to be desired in this country on occasion, but on this day it was second to none. I'm not kidding we had angels given to us yesterday to serve us, do their jobs well and make what could have been a rather tough day absolutely dream like. Seeing somebody do something well, no matter what it is, is inspirational to me and I witnessed this in abundance yesterday.

Thank you, people. 

  

We took a break for lunch at that point and then headed off to the store where our wedding gift list is held. We duly walked around with our scanner and scanned various items on to the list. I think LBH and I both feel a tad uncomfortable with the gift list concept as we already have a house that contains lovely bits and pieces. But having been asked many times by friends and relatives where our list is held we tentatively signed up for one and even more tentatively went around the store and added to it. Of course we found items that we needed and would never buy for ourselves. We also added super expensive items and very reasonably priced items. It was fun. As was the lemon drizzle cake I devoured when the scanning was done. 

 

 Me : "What are you thinking about, angel?"

 LBH : "My speech"

Awwwwww, bless him.

Me: " Come on, lets go and get a drink. You've done so well today and we've had such fun. Lets go and have a glass of something nice in the Moet bar"

 

Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

That's the way, uh huh uh huh, I like it, uh huh uh huh!

 

And then it was time for us to scurry back to whence we came. You can see LBH, arms folded and a smile on his face in the window's reflection. It was a good day, a day that I'll remember forever as the day we bought his suit for our wedding and I spent a lot of the day either pinching him because I think he's so choochy or shaking my head at how lucky I feel.

If I was honest more pinching took place than head shaking, but really, what's a girl to do?

 

Daily Confetti

Mention the word confetti and immediately you think of the stuff that’s thrown at weddings. Be it rice, bits of paper in the shape of hearts and bells or even dried flowers at some weddings, although I’ve never had a penchant for pot pourri to be tipped on top of my bridal gown, each to their own I suppose.

These days however confetti can also be used in the home and most notably at the table every single day. You can be so imaginative with table confetti and it really is only our imaginations that will stop our tables from becoming not only culinary delights but visual treats also.

So, in the name of all things delightful here are some ideas that you may like to try.

• Petals. You can see from the picture how I have used petals in my own home. The ones shown are silk rose petals and I chose a very soft green to go with a more vibrant pink. Petals of this sort, be they real or not, are my top tip for a day with the girls, a bridal party or a baby shower.
   
• Flower heads. I think that if you are to use an entire flower head then stick to large daisies, gerberas or Marguerite's. You can float them in the punch bowl – yes along with the punch, have them poking out of the cupcakes/crust- free sandwiches or use them in the same way as the petals and scatter them near and far.
  
  
• Bows and trim. I have used bows, ribbon and trimmings forever and I find this to be the way in which you can give your table a make-over in the easiest, prettiest and surprisingly most cost efficient way. Pick out a length of ribbon that you love, choose another contrasting but complimentary length and tie bows to all and sundry. I mean tie them to the backs of chairs, to your candle sticks, to the bread sticks and to your wrist also. Can’t have you clashing with the table!
  
  
• Sweets. Sweeties are a tremendous way of spoiling your guests in a way that they may not allow themselves to indulge in every day. There are some wonderful suppliers of old fashioned sweets on-line so if you decide to go for this theme then try and hunt down the most nostalgic and memory inducing sweets you can find. Flying Saucers, Cola Cubes and Pez Dispensers are all great examples of what to use.

This is not about reality or whether the ribbon will spoil if it gets a blob of mayonnaise on it or whether you should be feeding your guests strawberry bon-bons; it is about your guests “ooohing” and “ahhing” as they see the supposed ‘effort’ that you have gone to in order to make the table they are about to dine at a wonderland of creativity and prettiness.

 

If you like some of these ideas but would rather pop on-line and order some table confetti as opposed to making it yourself then click here for my latest SheerLuxe article  . You'll find some great suggestions there.

 

One Year On

We moved in to our house a year ago this past weekend. The last year has been an amazing ride. I remember sitting out at the front of the house in the early morning sun last summer and saying to LBH's mum "There is no buzz bigger than having your own house"

She replied with "Until you hold a baby of your own in your arms"

So true, so true.

It seems appropriate that the first rose from the climber that surrounds our front door has peeked out to say "happy anniversary" and I am becoming more and more convinced of the fact that we only ever need look to the earth and nature itself in order to be truly inspired by what is the first, the one and the only genuine creativity. I say this as I'm starting a new project and I can only thank my lucky stars that there is so much loveliness around at the moment to look at and scribble down.

I include in the loveliness all the recent comments to this blog about the honeysuckle, the Italian seasoning that I apply to EVERY dish we eat and the wonderful sense I'm feeling of planning a wedding with so many good wishes from folk that I have only met through their blogs or emails. HUGE MONDAY HUGS for everyone!

The Sweet Simplicity of Happiness : Part Six

Our garden was given a great surprise recently with the growth and flowering of this magnificent honeysuckle. Our brilliant neighbours planted this before we had even moved into the house and just look at how it has spread over to our side of the garden too! The colours and the syrupy fragrance are well known and LBH and I are both feeling rather grateful to have this welcome visitor.

Last year was entirely focused on the inside of the house and this year we have been pottering in the garden at every spare opportunity. Boo rolls around getting to know the other feline neighbours, I add organic compost to the beds and LBH lifts bags of sand and heavy tiles. You can see who got the short end of the stick in this year’s project.

And the honeysuckle?

The honeysuckle just is and in so doing reminds us to ‘just be’ from time to time too.

Cherry xoxox

PS

My latest SheerLuxe article can be found here! Pop on over and have a browse......