Barbara Good's Bag

Sorry for the lack of posts for a while. Everything that can go wrong seems to be happening to us here at TFHMH. We lost a relative, have all been suffering from a horrible cold and to top it off I needed to see the emergency dentist :(
But we have to carry on with things don't we!!!
As some of you may know I am utterly obsessed about The Good Life. If I could be anyone I would be Barbara Good, in fact my mum joked that I married my partner because his name was Tom lol.
And thanks to the wonderful invention that is Pinterest my obsession can grow that little bit more. My current challenge is to recreate Barbara Good's bag. You can see it in this photo just behind Tom's hand on the hook. I love the shape, the style and the idea of owning something just like Mrs Goods. The bag above looks like straw/wicker which I am sadly lacking in so mine will be a crochet version. Wish me luck folks, I will post my progress later on.
x x x

Wedding items for sale

30 x clear glass tea light holders
8x copper tea light holders
16x tea lights (Prices brand)
£10 (inc P&P)

10x wedding favours in handmade bags.
(6x copper, 4x clear)
£5 (inc P&P)
Wedding odds and sods
(5 handmade favour bags, 3 assorted pieces of ribbon, 3 novelty wedding bubbles, Approx 30 party poppers, wedding day gift bag)
£5.00 (Inc P&P)

Lots to do

100 down.............

1,000,000 to go! I picked up this bag of stamps in a charity shop a short while bag for just £1. They all need peeling off the backing or cutting out but think of all the wonderful crafting possibilities!!! I'm having thoughts about using them as mosaic tiles and covering something.
Any suggestions?
x x x

P.S Sorry for the short post but we have a grumpy toddler full of cold here today, I sense that not a lot will be achieved today x x x

Back to reality

Well ladies and gents I am officially a married woman. I thought I would pop up a few pictures to share our day with you. First up is us signing the register.


Me with my parents. They were fantastic, and helped organise everything.
OH and his parents.



Our wedding cake was a tri-force cake from The Legend of Zelda. One of our favorite computer games. We had this at our reception but I just had to pop a photo on here.

All together at Jamies Italian in Gun Wharf Quays at Portsmouth. We chose to have a nice family meal out for the wedding party on the day, as our reception was a few days later.

Hope you like the photos, normal blogging will resume tomorrow.
x x x

24 hour countdown

Exactly 24 hours till my wedding sooooooooooo excited.

Movie day

 It's been a lazy day today. The weather first thing was pretty awful so we decided to spent have a jammy day with lots of movies and blankets. First up we watched Solaris. I'm normally into sci fi and spacey films but this just didn't work for me. I had to look up somethings on IMDB which is never a got sign after watching a movie. It's quite a dark and depressing movie as well which is kind of annoying as I thought it was more of a romance from the trailers. This is definitely not going in the "to keep" pile and will be passed back to OH's shop for sale.

 After a tasty lunch of 10p noodles with grated cheese on top, we continued our movie day with Crocodile. This is a classic monster movie and its so incredibly awful it's good. I personally love a crappy movie and this ranks high up there. I have a feeling that if this movie was remade with today's special effects then it would actually be a pretty big hit.
  What films have you watched lately?
x x x 

Bargains galore

Good evening lovely readers. I made a fabulous discovery yesterday. A wonderful scheme called Healthy Planet one of their schemes is Books for free all the books above were from our first visit. The top two are OH's, the Fairy Tales are to read to DD, and the bottom two are all mine mine mine. I'm hoping to try a few things from each of them shortly so watch this space.

2x Cath Kidston tissues £1 - Book for DD 40p -
2X Key rings £2.00 - Vintage pillowcases - 50p

This is my charity shop haul from today. One of the key rings and tissues are for someone for Xmas and will be put away. The book is for DD, and the vintage pillowcases have an undecided fate for now. I hardly ever see vintage pillowcases so these were a wonderful find.

This is my current project, can you believe this chair was in the communal bin shed? I think its beautiful and under the scuffs and dinks I could see some potential shining through. So I brought it indoors..........

... gave it a good sand papering. It took me about an hour but I found it really therapeutic. And then..........
... gave it two coats of Wickes Petal. It not the biggest of painting projects, so I used a tester pot and even after two coats I still have a healthy blob left for touch ups.
My job tomorrow is to give it a light sand down to even out the paint and then a coat of varnish.
Then I can move onto making a nice cushion to finish it off. I promise to keep you posted :)
x x x

Busy busy busy

All this horrible weather we've been having was keeping DD (and us) far to cooped up. And we all know that there is nothing quite as bad as a bored cooped up (almost) 2 year old. So we splashed out on a trip our local soft play centre. At £4 a time it's only an occasional treat but on this visit we were given a loyalty card. Every 5th visit is now free making it now an average of £3 a visit. I can these this being a firm favorite this winter as the general consensus it that this year its going to be a bad one.

DD and Mummy (me) playing in the ball pit. At first she wouldn't go near the ball pit bit but once mummy climbed in and should her it was safe and actually pretty fun we couldn't get her out.
My first 2 crocheted winter hats for Japan. I'm currently working on a handful of winter knits to send to a friend in Japan to distribute through their church to those in need.Sadly as its now old news japan and its suffering has been forgotten about by many people.
And finally a little bit of nap time crafting. Take one 2012 diary (£1 on local market) and one bag of foam stickers (ELC) and stick on gems (poundland). And hey presto.........
....one much improved diary for my handbag next year. No way could I stare at the that horrible puppy all winter.

DD approves. She loves trying to pick off the foam shapes and pushing the gems like buttons while singing "beep beep beep". I think I will have to reattach several of them next year but who cares if she's happy.

What have you all been making lately?
x x x

Taking charge (UPDATED)

Hello readers,
I hope all this nasty weather isn't getting you girls and guys down! It's been dire around here and poor DD is a big ball of pent up energy.
Your never guess what I've done? I've put a message on my local freecycle for a tea buddy. I've asked for someone to meet up with me in a cafe in our town on friday for a cup of tea and a chat.
Fingers crossed the mods on my local freecycle think its an okay request.
Might be a fun way to meet someone new :)
What do you guys think?
x x x x



EDIT; Well my advert never made it to Freegle. I have no idea what happened to it, although I suspect the mods decided that I couldn't post for friends. I will just have to find other ways to meet people. :(

Shop but don't drop

Vintage Bird Book 50p - 2 Swarkofski crystal charms 50p - Disney CD 50p - Hot choc sachets x4 £1 - 20 sheets of vintage wrapping paper £1

Today has been horrible weather wise around these parts. If your not being soaked to the bone, you being blown over! I was trying to keep DD out of the worst of it which happily meant hiding in charity shops :) And the best news is that one of my favorite charity shops has just reopened after its August break. Big whoop.
Most of the above will be put away in the present cupboard for Christmas. Except the hot chocolate which is definitely needed on a night like this before snuggling into bed with a good book and a mountain of blankets.
Any crafty ideas for using up the wrapping paper? I might use a little for gifts but I can't help feeling all that paper has some crafty future ahead of it.
x x x
x x x

Sunday treats

Look what my wonderful OH picked up for me. A beautiful little olive bush. I'm hoping that I can keep this little guy happy in a pot for the moment and pop him outside when we finally get a home with a garden. What a wonderful addition to our self sufficiency plans for the future :)
And even better he was 80% off. I think I love him even more.
x x x x

Experimenting with Minimalism

I've been wanting to experiment with minimalism and simple living for a while now, and have decided it's time to stop procrastinating and try it out. So I have emptied out one of the drawers beneath our bed. I think its a pretty reasonable size to live out of. Step one is to empty assorted crap out of the drawer, in this case spare bed linen and DS game cases.
Remove drawer and give it a good spritzing of Dettol and a dust down. The whole drawer had a musty quality and needed a freshen up.

I decided to add a little bit of jazz to my drawer so I lined it with some rather sexy jelly bean wrapping paper.
And here is my drawer back under the bed with my capsule wardrobe. I will take another photo in a few days to show you how it has progressed. Lots of downsizing and space saving posts coming this way soon lol
x x x