Butterflies and landscapes.

On Saturday, I managed to tick two things off my to-do lists. I cracked open our drill and put up a picture in the little area outside our bathroom, and some ceramic butterfly wall art up in our bedroom.

Here's the picture:

The clock has been here for a while now, and when I put it on the wall I positioned it with this picture going underneath in mind. The picture is by local artist Nick Comerford, who is also an art teacher in the school where I used to teach. I was so touched when he gave me this picture as a leaving gift, as I had previously been to see and admired his paintings when he showed them in a local gallery.

I think adding this picture to this wall has really made this strange little space into more of a room in its own right.

These are the ceramic butterflies I put up in our bedroom:

David bought me these a few years ago and I'm not sure why they didn't made it onto the wall for so long, apart from that I wasn't quite sure where to put them in order to show them off well. I decided to just go for it, and I'm really pleased with how they look above my bedside cabinet. They look pretty against the paint colour during the day, and the bedside light glows pleasingly through them in the evening.

Even though these were tiny jobs, I feel like I achieved something this weekend, and it feels good!

Can't stop looking at . . .

Each week, I'll be sharing with you something that has caught my eye. It may be a picture, blog, product or website.

This cabinet from Graham and Green, featured on the front of this month's Ideal Home magazine, is beautiful and would be absolutely perfect for my bathroom as it can be hung up on the wall. Unfortunately it's quite expensive at £295, and therefore beyond my price range (which at the moment is pretty much £0), but it is lovely.

Image from here.

I'll have to keep my eye out in second hand shops (and HomeSense!) for something similar. Actually, that may be better, because although this cabinet is gorgeous, it is new and therefore the distressed paint is a deliberate effect, albeit, "carefully considered" as it says on the website. A genuinely battered cabinet may in fact look better. We'll see though - I don't usually have much luck with finding pieces I like in second hand shops.

Pitter patter . . .

I wanted to share our exciting news with you . . . we're expecting another baby! It's due on 15th November, so I'm just over 15 weeks at the moment.

I've been feeling so so sick - feeling nauseous all day every day (which hopefully explains some of my absence from here recently), but things are improving now, so hopefully the nausea will stop completely soon!

We've told Torin that he's going to have a baby brother or sister, and he thinks it's funny when we ask Torin what I've got in my tummy, to lift up my top and say, "Baba!" I guess though, that he has absolutely no idea what that really means yet.

Toys, toys, toys!

I've got two words on my mind after Torin's party . . . toys and storage! 

He got so many lovely presents over the weekend, but now our living room is somewhat overrun! Since Torin was born, keeping his toys tidy in both his bedroom and the living room has been an ongoing process. Room for storage in his bedroom is limited, so most of his toys are kept downstairs, and our attic isn't boarded out at the moment, so we can't store anything up there. Therefore, I've moved his toys in and out of boxes of varying size, tried to streamline them by storing his most babyish toys in the wardrobe in his bedroom and given over a bookshelf in the living room for his books. Part of me struggles with this a little though, as I feel a bit like who am I to decide when he's lost interest in a certain toy? - he may not want it to be relegated to the back of the wardrobe.

What I'm wondering now is what to keep things like Lego, Playdough and crayons in. Before his birthday, he had a few coloured pencils and crayons, and today he was given some felt-tipped pens (so glad I painted the chimney breast in Endurance paint as I've already wiped off a thick line of orange pen from the wall!). I'm sure his collection of these will continue to grow, so what I'm wondering about is what sized container should they all be kept in? Do I find something that will house them as they are at the moment? Or, do I pre-empt a growing collection and go for something much larger?

I also don't want to end up with piles of individual storage boxes in our living room, so I think I'll need something large enough to put most of his toys in. I really don't mind having all of his toys out during the day - I somehow manage to look over them and don't count them in the annoying clutter I notice everywhere else, but it is nice to be able to tidy them away at least a little bit, when he is in bed, or when we have guests.

One of our friends keeps her son's toys in a large wicker storage trunk, which I do like the look of; however, I really don't trust our cats. We have IKEA's MELBU mirror (with a rattan frame) in our bedroom, and shortly after we'd hung it on the wall Rufus managed to get upstairs and began clawing at it - honestly, it was like he was drawn to it. So, I'd be a little hesitant to spend good money on something that could quickly turn into a giant scratching post for the cats.

We do have an old blanket box in our room that would work quite well. The only thing is that I don't think it'll quite fit in the space where the toy storage needs to go - under our stairs next to the sofa that is there.

Believe me people, this is NOT all of them!

Any suggestions?

I'm forever blowing bubbles . . .

We had a lovely time throwing Torin's 2nd birthday on Saturday. The rain held off and the sun even came out for a while too! We spent the morning making the house more party-friendly before the guests arrived at 11.30.

I'd decided to give Torin a party with a bubble theme as he loved blowing bubbles so much at a recent family wedding, and enjoys blowing bubbles when he's in the bath. So, a few weeks ago, I began thinking about decorations for the party and decided to keep things very simple - I bought pearlised blue, pearlised white and transparent balloons and hung them around the house, on the front gate, and in the back garden using curling ribbon left over from Christmas.

I was particularly pleased with the transparent balloons as they really looked like bubbles! 

I continued the bubble theme with the food. We cut up filled wraps into small circles, served vegetarian Scotch eggs and falafel balls along with cheesy puffs, hula hoops and cherry tomatoes amongst other things.

Thanks to Adam for this picture!

Between the main course and dessert, we all went into the garden where it was sunny if a bit breezy, and played with bubbles! Torin and the other children loved it, and I think the adults had quite a lot of fun too - competitions started involving not only who could blow the biggest bubbles, but whose bubble would travel the furthest on the wind!

I gave each child a goodie bag containing bubble wands, and then poured bubble mixture into a bucket for them all to dip into - they all got the hang of it very quickly!

I found the bags in a supermarket and then stuck the same labels onto them as I had used for the cupcake toppers, I simply wrote the letters of their names into the bubbles.

Each adult had a pot of bubbles too, but I think most got stuck in to the different shaped wands belonging to the children!

Thanks to Jo for this picture!

For dessert, we enjoyed chocolate bubbles (Aero bubbles, Maltesers and giant chocolate buttons), Jammy Dodger and Party Ring biscuits, round fruit, delicious fairy cakes (thanks Mum!), and of course, jelly and ice-cream.

Thanks to Jo for this picture!

Thanks to Jo for this picture!

Thanks to Jo for this picture!

Then, after a bit of relaxing and the children dancing, it was time to bring out the birthday cake. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the cake before it was brought out, but you can see it from the photo that was taken while we were singing to Torin.

Thanks to Adam for taking this picture!

Thanks again to Mum for making the cake - she made the sponge and brought it with her to our house, and I decorated it on the morning of the party. Teamwork!

Most guests had left by about 4pm, and then it was just family left so we all went out and relaxed in the garden for a while. Torin soon began watering the plants, which is one of his favourite things to do at the moment. 

Thanks to Jo for taking this picture!

Happy Birthday Torin, beauty boy xx

Thank you to everyone who made the day special!