Finding my marbles.

I remember when I first heard the phrase "losing one's marbles" - it was when I was in year 4 at primary school and I had my marbles stolen from inside my desk. Back then the school had lovely old wooden desks with lift-up lids and ink wells that had been very well used through the years. I remember I went home and told my parents that I'd lost my marbles - despite themselves, hilarity ensued, followed by an explanation of why what I had said was funny!

I remember I used to be pretty good at the game back in the day, and after most of my collection was stolen, I quite quickly managed to win a lot more. While I was staying with my parents last week, my mum gave me my stash as they'd been sorting out their attic and found it up there amongst my old school books.

It's amazing how nostalgic I became while I was looking through the box - trying to remember what all the different kinds were called - I just about remembered that one size was called a "donkey" but couldn't remember much else. I found my favourite ones though - the large pearly one that you can see at the bottom of the jar, and another smaller pearly one that was a lilac colour.

I don't even know if children still play marbles like we used to. I doubt it somehow - if conkers have been banned in loads of schools, I would have thought that a game that encourages children to hit spheres of glass with other spheres of glass risking shards splaying everywhere including potentially into their eyes, ears, hair etc. would have been a gonna a long time ago.

Did you used to play marbles - what did your favourites look like?

Little Gems.

My friend Gemma creates typographic prints, and she's just set up a very cool graphics blog called Little Gems that I want to share with you. Both her husband Dan, and Gemma are graphic designers and we went to their wedding last year, which was a very stylish affair! As you would expect, they designed their own wedding invitations and the whole wedding had a tea theme that you can see from the retro inspired invitation below, as well as other inspired examples of their wedding stationery that Gemma has featured on her blog.

Image from here.

To see more lovely examples of Gemma's work, make sure you hop over to Little Gems to take a look!

Some bright letters from Denmark.

Gosh it's been a while hasn't it! I've just got back from a week in Kent where we all had a lovely time visiting zoos, soft play centres and making three trips to Bluewater (!) Today saw us back to earth and life with two under three with a bump today as David went back to work and I spent a whole day doing washing and putting clothes away!

Before I went, we got a lovely little package through the post from our friend in Denmark - he sent these bright letters for Astrid's room. The roundness of the base of the S and the D means that they won't stay upright on a flat surface, so they'll have to be stuck onto the wall or her door so I'm looking forward to finding a space to put them!

Thanks Mads!

I'd also like to welcome my twelfth follower Anna who writes Craftiness for Beginners - very much looking forward to reading through her blog and getting ideas for craft projects - hi Anna and thanks for following!

Yarn covered letters.

In preparation for a little craft I'm planning on doing as a present for someone, I've been looking at lovely pictures of yarn covered letters.

These are some of my favourites:

An unusual way of displaying initials from Let Birds Fly.

Image from here.

I really liked the choice of colours in this pile of letters, as well as the addition of the flower.

Image from here.

This cheeky addition to this cosy grey letter made me smile:

Image from here.

Covering letters in wool/yarn looks so simple, but I have a feeling that it may be a little harder than it looks. Any tips for making it easier?

I'll post a picture of my finished object when it's done - won't be until next week though as I don't fancy taking both children to Hobbycraft by myself!

Winter de-cluttering.

The big clear up of the back room continued this weekend. I spent Saturday afternoon clearing the room of a lot of junk and paperwork, and moved the existing furniture around a little. I won't post any progress pictures as there's still a long way to go, but will hopefully soon be able to put up some pictures where you can actually see it looks like a bedroom! I went to the dump on Sunday and threw away: 

• two massive picture frames
• an old canvas that I'd covered in fabric
• a dinner tray that you can use in bed (we used to have our TV on it!)
• an old IKEA stool that we used to use as a bedside table
• three laptop bags
• a suitcase
• three bags of paper
• two bags of other rubbish

We then posted ten books for sale on Ebay and, there's still more to go!

Tonight someone's meant to be coming to my house to buy one of our IKEA Helmer filing cabinets. 

Image from here.

The other one is now David's bedside table (because we threw away the old stool). He  rather likes it, describing it as his "man drawers"!

I also posted an advert on Gumtree (similar to Craigslist) because I'm also selling an IKEA Ottava pendant light that I found in the cupboard in the back room - we bought it and never got round to putting it up.

Image from here.

Slowly, slowly we're getting there.

Phil Spencer, the perfect breastfeeding support.

I don't know if any of you have ever breastfed a baby, but those of you who have will certainly know that once they're plugged in (to coin David's phrase for it!), you can't really do much for a good half hour (give or take depending on the baby). I remember when I was feeding Torin, I watched an inordinate amount of daytime TV, simply because I couldn't really do much else. When it comes to feeding Astrid, I also have to try and keep Torin occupied, so these days the daytime TV has pretty much been replaced with CBeebies. 

I have to admit though, that for her evening feeds after the little man is in bed and David is either cooking my dinner (I know, I'm lucky!) or painting miniatures, I've been taking guilty pleasure in watching "Phil Spencer: Secret Agent" on More4. For the last few weeks, the show has been on daily, and it's perfect grazing material. I record it when it goes out, and then I'm able to dip in and out of it when I'm feeding Astrid.

Image from here.

The show's pretty good - it's a mix of snooping around properties with the hope of finding a buyer's "dream" home (as in Location Location Location), combined with a home makeover show. Phil Spencer wants to get the market moving again, so he's "on a mission" to shift houses that aren't selling by making them over and acting as an estate agent showing people around houses in a certain area.

I've just watched half an episode where Phil tries to help  a couple sell their family home in Harrogate - he's just told them they need to drop the price by £50k. Astrid is now happily sleeping in her bouncer, so I'm grabbing a little time to write this - I'll have to catch up with the programme and find out what happens tomorrow night!