Why can't it look like the advert?

I'm really disliking the weather at the moment, just damp and humid, not warm in fact its more on the chilly side, not rainy just icky. I hate decorating in this weather, I just end up sweating silly amounts getting frustrated with how energy sapping the humidity is and not enjoying myself what so ever.

So instead I'm trying to organise the music on my iTunes. With nice hopes of it looking all pretty and organised and just like the Apple ads where they scroll happily through perfectly catalogued music collections.

Oh what a silly dreamer I am... after uploading my CD's I had be storing in the study (I don't want them back in my bedroom to gather more dust), and making sure all my tracks that where hiding in my saved files where accounting for I take a look at how many tracks I need to sort though.

5088 tracks...... What the f.... how the heck did I get that many... urgh this is gonna take a while.

Now to be fair most of these will be getting deleted, there's got to be a good few doubles of songs in there. Many are junky filler tracks on albums I bought because I like one or two songs. However I think the worst culprit has got to be the ones I download on mass from OC Remix, this is a website were people can submit remixed music from video games. There are some brilliant remixes on there however you do have to dig around to find them. This is because there no 'most popular' or rating system on the site, this is because the site owners want people to be able to not be bias toward one music style or one remix. So I just downloaded them all in bulk and left which trying to sort them out.

On the bright side, I can now see my crochet basket in my craft room, which means I can get back on top my many U.F.O (UnFinished Objects) soon. I'll get some pictures of those up next week.

All good things must come to an end

on Tuesday, Helen over at It's All Fiddle Fart, announced that she will most likely be ending her blog on 1st Jan next year, although it is very understandable due recent events in her life purely from a blogging point of view it is sad thing since I get so many wonderful ideas from the projects she shares with us all.

I'm going to spend some time pinning some of her wonderful crafts to a new board on my Pinterest (you can get there by clicking the logo below). It will in no means be all of the crafts she has posted, but a selection of my personal favourites and inspiration for myself once I crafting again.

A brillant morning

Gosh this morning has been a busy one, first and foremost it's my Mum's birthday. I was planning to treat her to a nice cup of tea in bed but she suck up on me as I was in the kitchen to let Mutley outside (he had other plans and refused to get off the bed).

After breakfast was done, and she had opened her presents, we headed out to Windsor for a morning out. We arrived at about 8:40am so not much at all was open so just had a wander until M&S opened, we went up to there cafe and enjoyed some tea and some delicious fruit scones.

After we had finished there we wandered around a bit and someone from the new L'Occitane shop which was opening that day was handing out little bags with some free samples in, since this is one of our favourite skin care brand we were delighted.

Our freebie bag contained a little sample of their face serum, travel sized bottles of the Almond shower oil and Shea face moisturiser.

Since it was their opening day they also were offering 15% of everything in store, I picked up a couple of bits I was getting low on. Rich Body Cream and the Protective Cream.

I also picked up one of their Nail and Cuticle Creams, my hands and nails are taking a bit of a battering with the painting I've been doing recently so that will be a treat for when it's all finished.

Mum bought a nice reed diffuser and fragrance for the upstairs bathroom once it's finished. She picked the Verbina scent which is a wonderful fresh zesty citrus smell. 

Finally because we were both one of the first 100 customers of the day we got a free gift, which contained travel sizes of the new Peony Shower gel, and Cherry Blossom Hand Cream and shower gel.

After we left there we headed down to B&Q to see if I could get a final look at the furniture I was planing to order when we got home but the only things they keep stock of in store is the sliding doors. But yes, we're officially starting to decorate another room. 2012 is the year of the Makeover for this house!

Repainting the dining room and good and bad movies

Well I finished off the living room and straight way I had the erge to paint the dining room, the two rooms are joined by some nice windowed French doors so we normally keep them the same colour. This was a nice bonus since I still had half a tub of the warm beige colour and a full tub of the soft sand colour left.

I whizzed around this room, it only took me about 5 hours to finish the whole thing, minus the small patches I missed. The one annoying thing about the darker colour I chose, when it's wet it near identical to the existing colour on the wall so it makes it rather hard to see in lower light where I've missed until it dries.





Now for some film talk

First up the Hunger Games it's based on the book by of the same name by Suzanne Collins. I've only read the first book (although know my fair share of spoilers from the other two books). Before I begin I'll say where I stand on the book, I only read the book after I saw trailers for the film. I really enjoyed the book and got through it within a couple of nights, it was by no means perfect but I'm glad the book seemed to make a point of Katniss not lusting after the two male roles rather that she had strong opinions against it.

The film however I thought was poor, I can wrap up my views on the film by saying. You have to watch the film as a book companion not as a film adaptation.
(Spolier ahead. Highlight the colours blocks if you want to read them
I'm happy to accept the deaths have to softened due to age rating they where aiming for, and Haymitch's heavy drinking was toned down out for the same reason (although I kinda was hoping they would have left him falling off stage in but that proberly would have added too much humor to the serious part in the story.


Yep, things have to be changed to for the film or cut out completely. How close to dying Peeta is, where the pin came from ect.  


But to me there was two things the film just glossed over, and they aren't small issues, and I think not really delving into them hurts the film. 1) How awful life is in District 12, if Katniss and Gale don't go out hunting illegally, there is a very real chance of them and their families starving. That's the reason Gale's name has been put in 42 times, they are so desperate for food they will take the meagre rations the extra entries award even though the worst case scenario for that is so grim. 2) How brutal the Capitol is. Yeah the games itself are cruel, but you know only for those 24 unlucky ones. Not if caught with a weapon, found outside in the woods, hunting illegally, trading illegally, running away from the capitol the best you can hope for is a fast execution at worst, having your tongue cut out and becoming a slave for the rest of your days.

In the end I kept going back to the thought, I only know this because I read the book. And I'm sorry but that is not how it should be, I didn't need to read LoTR or Harry Potter to understand what was happening in the film, the film explains it.

The one thing I will happily admit I liked was the scenes involving the game master since in the book (written in first person) we never see what's going on with him and it did give me a real scene of how in control of the game arena the capitol really is (it seriously had a whole Truman show vibe going on with that)

Now for the good one.

It's been many years in the making, all the way back in 2005 when the idea for a host of superhero origin stories (Iron man, Hulk, Thor, Captain America) culminating in a movie that bought them all together was announced. Since then each of these films had hints, teasers as to what would follow.

I was hoping the film would be good, equalling the films that came before it.... It blew them away, it pushes the bar of the super hero genre up a good few notches. There is tons of action, personality clashes from the team, some ace one liners in there which has the whole audience laughing, interestingly enough even though it was the action that drew me and I thought would be the focus, its the parts which reflect they characters humanity which I enjoyed the most.

On a side note, even though the Hulk (not Bruce Banner) is semi reduced to comic relief, I think they got him so right this time around. Despite me sleeping though the last two hulk films, if they ever make another Hulk film with Mark Ruffalo in it and done in a similar way as they have done with this film I'll be getting a ticket.

Decorating the Living Room

First of all my scheduled posts have gone out of the window. The reason for the that is we're having the upstairs bathroom redecorated at the start of May, and part of that is going to involve a wall being knocked down. In the tempt to keep my crafting stuff as dust free as possible while the work is being done I'm making an effort not to do any major crafting up there for a few weeks.

So while I've made some progress on my Crochet cushion cover and done a little bit of scrapbooking, everything else is on hiatus for a bit. I'll share some pics of those over the next week.

What I have been getting up to though is painting the Living Room, it's been a good few years or so since we last updated the colour in there and it was looking a bit tired. I managed to get 1/3 of the room done before dinner had to be started, so hoping I can get it finished off before the end off Friday.

We managed to get a bargain with the paint as well, we went for a colour called soft sand (for the top half of the room) and Warm Beige (on the bottom half). However when we started looking for the soft sand in a 5L tub we were told that size had been discontinued however it was showing on the system what they had a few tubs still in stock so the shop assistant was determine to track them down for us. It took her about 20 minutes but she finally found 3 tubs of the paint for us. Unfortunately  it was 2 matt and one silk (we was originally after the silk version) and for the size of the room/rooms we are decorating we needed more than one tub so went for the matt version instead. Then as she was checking out our paint she told us because this colour was being discontinued they had reduced the price from £22 a tub down to £6, we took a double take and then asked if that was the case with the Silk tub as well, yep it was, so we took that one as well to save it for some of the upstairs rooms. In the end we got £110 worth of paint for £40.

Back home

Me and Adam had a great week away, we started the bank Holiday weekend up in Warrington to celebrate Adam's birthday. I got a bit of crocheting done, continuing to work on my Link Amigurumi until I realised I had forgotten to bring my Aran coloured yarn with me and couldn't go any further. So instead I picked up my Cross Stitch magazine and started one of the patterns.

I really enjoy working on this, still have a little more to do on this piece but I'm happy I've tried with this small sample piece to get back into the swing of doing cross stitch. It's given me confidence to work on the Christmas patterns that inspired me to retry this craft now. 

I also finished reading the Hunger Games over the weekend. Despite being rather reserved about the story, I really enjoyed it. Some Mild Spoilers if you want to skip the next paragraph: 

It wasn't a perfect book by any means, I semi-dislike the whole love-triangle theme that I'm sure will be more prevalent in the next two books. I also feel that Katniss has it easy in the terms who she killed, the nice and neutral characters that would have caused her a moral dilemma for her were always taken out by someone else.

All in all though it was a good little read, and I was hungry for more once I had reached the last page. I'm even tempted to check out the film version and I never normally like seeing film versions of books I've read. (or reading books after I've seen the film version for that matter.)

On Tuesday we headed up to Blackpool for a couple of days. The moment got in the car the sun came out and even though the weather reports constantly said it would be raining all three days we had brilliant sunshine.

 I adore this windmill that's close to the holiday camp where we where staying, couldn't resist snapping a picture of it as we drove past.

On Wednesday we visited Blackpool Zoo, it's a rather nice little place, and I got some nice film on the Ipad (although it badly needs editing before I share). However the still photos are a bit lack lustre due to the fact that there is no zoom on the camera (digital zoom will never ever count).

On Thursday we had a walk down to the sea front. I snapped a couple of pics, before we had lunch on the beach. 

In the evenings we chilled out watching our way through all the films leading up the the Avengers (apart from the two Hulk films since I dozed off during both of those).

We headed back to Warrington for a few more days we visited my favourite wool shop, and picked up some more Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk DK yarn. Got 8 balls in both Buff and Treacle (which will be used for some cushion covers) and 1 ball in the colours Jou Jou, Smooch, Lido and Mango Presse (which will get me started on new ripple blanket for myself since Mutley has claimed my half finished pastel one for his bed upstairs. 

Off on a hoilday

Hey Everyone, just a quick blog post to let you all know I'll be off on my holidays for the next week. I have some scheduled blog posts that will be posted throughout the week but I won't be able to update some of my tutorial links until I get back.

See you all soon.

A wounded flower

This week I finally got my Birkenstocks out of the cupboard, to celebrate I put on my new nail polish I bought at the weekend. It's from LA Colours and the shade is called Apricot Fizz, its lasted pretty well so far and it was a bargain at 99p a bottle.

Me, Mum and Granddad were enjoying tea out on the patio while Mutley was stomping about (there were Magpies about) when he brushed past one of the hyacinth pots. Mutley is pretty much a Juggernaut when he is moving forward and he took out one of the flowers as he went past.

We picked the poor flower up and popped him in a glass of fresh water, even though I'm sad that it won't last as long as it would if it didn't get broke I am loving the beautiful scent that it is given off . 

Granddad happily getting on with the project of building some more window boxes. Having bought the decking planks and built the all the parts except form the sides yesterday.

Today he carried on and now all that needs doing on the first one is painting and adding some plants.

Adam's birthday is creeping around so I've been busy up in the crafting room trying to brain storm some cards, I have a few pics to share but I'll update later on those since he sometime peaks at this blog.

Things to Make

I love being inspired by things on the web, especially crafty things. So many things I want to have a go at or something I can take ideas from. The later I keep stored over on my Pinterest Boards. The former either I try or just keep getting put in the back of my mind in limbo.

This list is a part repost from another blog that was a 2012 project list. However I'm going to give it a tidy up a bit to reflect my crafting in general. 

Make more cards - Despite the price of stamps going up to stupid prices this year, I still want to do this. I got a lot of pleasure from making Christmas Cards for 2011 so I want to do more. I have a fair bit of supplies to use up so this one will be relatively low cost.

Two blankets for Mutley - My gorgeous pup (ok a few years too old to be a pup) likes to be warm during the winter. So I'm thinking making him a couple of fleecy blankets with a crochet border.

My teddy bear - he's been sat in the cupboard unfinished for the better part of 5 years and now I've gotten to grips with my sewing machine, I should be able to get his looking nicer than my hand stitching attempts so far.

Doorstops. I want to make a purple coloured one for mum's room since the pink one she currently has doesn't match the new bedding she has just bought. A neutral coloured one for my god mother, myself and my granddad.

Cross Stitch - Really didn't thing I would be interested in trying this one, but a few sample magazines I found on my my Ipad's Newsstand  has convinced me other wise.

Glass etching. - This one is heading towards my pipe dream crafting. I really would like to personalise some glasses for next Christmas, a nice wine glass for mum, pint glass for Adam ect. Just need to do some research into how best to do it. I've read that the acid etching cream gives better result and can be watched in the dishwasher.

Another pipe dream project. Silver clay. I see this stuff used from time to time on craft forums and recently on Kirsty Allsop's new craft series. What I would really like to make would be a leaf pendant, using a leaf from the rose plant Adam bought me when I finished my A levels. (no one thought that thing would last for too long, but it's thriving in a nice big pot outside the kitchen door, it even was flowering again a few days before Christmas).

Closing my other blogs

Over the years I have had several blogs on the go, some for my crafting, some for gaming and some for scrap booking. However I'm going to start updating links and reposting things onto this blog so everything is in once place.

It will mean I get to post and update a lot more and also I'll have all my links to my fav sites nicely listed instead of  being randomly scattered around the web.

A perfect weekend

What A perfect weekend for a first blog post. It started off getting surprised to a nice hot cup of tea from Adam before he headed off to work.

I got dressed and enjoyed breakfast outside. All of the bulbs we planted last October are now in full bloom and the scent from the hyacinths was beautiful.

Clear blue skies as far as the eye could see.

The Rose that Adam bought me when I finished my A-Levels is looking really healthy, although we did have to give him a spray to protect him from greenfly.

Mutley was chilling in his favourite sunning spot, before running about the garden to chase the magpies away.

One of the Hyacinth pots. I mixed the colour up when planting them last year, very happy with how they turned out. Unfortunately most of the yellow ones seem to be struggling a bit, the ones in this pot seem the best out of all of them.

The Daffoils have all shot up as well and so far haven't started getting droopy. Dispite buying mixed coloured bulbs, Its about 75% pure yellow ones with the rest being yellow and pale yellow, however somewhere in one of the planters there is a single pure white one.

Our homemade window box, now that is has some colourful plants in, its made the other windows look a little bare. So I think this year we'll be making some more up.

The Above are two little flower pot decorations that M&S sold last year. They are just cute, and we hoped to find another watering can one but they seemed to be sold out in very M&S we visited after we got these ones.


When Adam got home we headed down to town, I got treated to some fab new nail polish (£0.99 and it last for ages) and a few bits from Hobbycraft (Aida, embroidery hoop and some pieces of felt.). I drooled over a die cutting machine display for a minute trying to convince myself that I really don't need one. Adam wasn't helping one bit commenting on how many cards I do make myself.

On the way home we stopped by KFC (Our local one has really friendly staff and the food is always freshly cooked.) We arrived home and enjoyed our meal out on the patio.

On Sunday we spent the morning in the Black Forest park, we haven't taken Mutley over there for a while so it was a nice treat for him. Normally he's a little bit nervous of travelling in the car so we thought we would have to bundle him into the car but surprisingly he put up little resistance and hopped on my lap once I got in. He had a little shake once we started driving, but that soon stopped, and once he realized where we were going he perked right up giving happy little grumbles. We spent a good few hours wandering around, enjoying lunch (and a nice bowl of water for Mutley) at the open field part of the park, before we walked around the lake and headed back to the car.