Lavenderhouse

Orange Wednesday - it has been great focusing on a colour as the weather has been so grey.  My husband and son's favourite colour is orange.  They have a few bits of clothing in orange, Jasper has orange crocs, they always choose orange smarties but we have yet to paint a room orange.  Jasper (age 3) has expressed a desire for a white and bright orange bedroom. 

This fleece is my husbands and it is a favourite for all of us.  It is extremely old and yet is still as bright as the day we got it.  That is almost a description of my husband too!  Ha ha!  Unfortunately, as you all know, Sainsburys opted for this bright orange fleece look too.  It features on this teapot I painted.  Please note the appropriately bright orange cake in the foreground too!


This is Pasha's swimming bag.  It is bright pink and orange and says PACHA across it - you know the night club in Ibiza - no doubt she will want to visit one day with a group of friends - gawd help us!

Last of all, after all my bright orange, I thought I would post some of nature's bright orange.  This is a butterfly we took a photo of the other day - it was just resting in the heat on someone's car.  The children loved looking at it.

Yellow Tuesday

Here are my inspirational photos for yellow.  Today has been a grey, grey day so the antidote of yellow has been fab.  I forgot to take a picture of my yellow Roberts radio.  I am going to tag it on to Wednesday as it just has to be included. 

This little toy was given to Pasha by Auntie Maureen and Uncle Ian when she was a baby.  In turn the children have all held on to its stripy black and white legs and rattled it.  Due to its smiley face and happy memories attached to it, it just never seems to have been put away. 

This is a pretty stunning yellow photograph.  I wished I had looked that cool when I drove a tractor for one of my 30th birthday presents (yes - I did request a ride and yes - it was a long time ago).  This photograph is taken from the Gudrun Sjoden catalogue.  She really understands how colour works in clothing. 


I love the writing and pictures in this lovely book.  It is a bit way out there but is about a little boy's idea of his dream house.  I hope my children find a few of their dreams in our home ....

Green Monday

Yesterday, Monday, was supposed to be green day according to So Tread Softly and a whole load of people following along.  Here are my green inspirations:-

Green buttons.


My green china cupboard.


My lovely green indian mirror - the gap one day to be filled with a lovely log fire once the children have grown up a bit.

One of our many pots of pens and pencils.

We took the children and their cousins to potter round Woods Mill again.  It was lovely seeing them running through the wood, following the trail and eating a lovely picnic outside in the evening sun.  Today - Tuesday - has been one of those grey days that hit us frequently here - I can't imagine eating outside at all at the moment and yet only yesterday early evening it was perfect.  I have a humdinger of a migraine today though so nothing seems possible! Yuk!!!!!  I am doing another post today to cover yellow - the theme for Tuesday.

Life is a box of colourful chocolates

Whisty went to Zurich recently and brought us back some lovely chocolates.  Needless to say, they disappeared very quickly.  I kept the tin and the children made some replacement ones today.




Just to warn you, just like real chocolate, making fymo chocolates is addictive too!  This is Jasper's plate:-

This is Skyla's plate:-

& this is Pasha's plate:-

The children's handiwork is the only thing that can improve the lovely bluebell plates, of which I only have two, thrifted from a charity shop.

Whilst posting this the children have gone back to the table for the third time to make more chocolates.  They have used a whole multi-pack of crafting fymo!

You can't get too much pink!

Yesterday we picked up Mr Let's go fly a kite from Heathrow.  The children made a 'Welcome back Daddy' sign. 



On the way home we thought we would go to Wimbledon Common to stretch our legs, run about, have a lovely meal together and reminisce.  We walked through beautiful Cannizaro Park, which leads off Wimbledon Common.  The rhodedendrons and Azalaes are out in force and looked amazing.  There was not a single womble in sight!


Whist and I spent our honeymoon night in Cannizaro Park Hotel before going on our honeymoon.  We had some lovely photographs taken on a special tree there.  The branch swoops down low and you can perch on it under a beautiful canopy of leaves.  We asked someone to take a photograph of what we have managed to produce since that day - Pasha, Skyla and Jasper! - who can all shriek at 100 decibels according to the decibelometer at Drusillas!  No wonder I get headaches! But I still love you sooooo much!

Bluebells

There wasn't a good enough font colour to match the colour of the amazing bluebells in the wood today.  After a very early lunch, Jasper and I went bluebell searching with Mum and Dad.  The smell of the flowers was lovely. The bright green of the leaves, the white anenomes and the amazing carpet of bluebells was fantastic.  Skyla saw the photos and said they were purplebells. 


Mum and I reckoned living on the edge of a bluebell wood, with an orchard as the back garden and the front garden leading down to a little cove by the sea would be our ideal house.

Pink

If only for this one reason I was right to marry my husband - both his and my favourite colour is bright fuschia pink. 



He has great taste in flowers!



and if I don't say so myself I have great taste in chairs.  This one cost £10 from the Salvation Army shop but a lot more to cover with exquisite Designers Guild Fabric but I love it as it is unique and lovely.  The most important thing is that it is very pink!  The one at the back was bought on ebay and then reupholstered in lovely DG fabric too!


I have a lot more lovely pink things - Part II coming soon!

Sisterly love!

On Tuesday, whilst out for our seafront morning walk before Jasper's swimming lesson we popped in to M&S for some fruit.  Jasper (who incidently hates shopping) begged to go upstairs to the clothes and toy department for a little bit of retail therapy.  He could not believe his luck when he spotted a superman costume.  Anyway, because of his love of all Superman things I agreed he could have the costume.  He showed it off to his sisters when they came home from school.  The first thing offered to do was help him fly. Skyla is dressed as a flamingo (flamenco) dancer - of course!

Hope this makes you laugh Whisty!

Last of the Easter Holidays

On 21 April 2008 we went to Woods Mill.  It was lovely the bluebells & anenomes were in flower.  The place is magical. 


The children threw bread to the huge gawping carp that suck it up from the lake.  There are several little hideaways, that will be brilliant in the summer.


Amazingly, in this world of not being allowed to do anything - we were allowed to do pond dipping on our own - yeah! 



We had a very fruitful catch - including 5 newts!


Despite a few last minute things to sort out for school we managed to go out for a cycle ride in the afternoon, visit the shops and the children ate ice cream at the ice cream cafe.

Madeleine Millington

I love this cushion.  It is one of my treasured possessions.  I discovered who the artist was on holiday recently in Cornwall.  The lovely owner at the Jellyfish Gallery in Portscatho stocks Madeleine Millington's art work. 


I bought the two lovely little pictures from the Jellyfish Gallery.  The rainbow picture was done by Pasha when she was 6 years old.  She did a lovely version of it at school and was so inspired she came all excited and said she wanted to paint one for me in my colours.  It is extremely treasured!