Postcard club

I recently joined in over at the Postcard Club. Here's my first swap with Ed Cheverton.

He sent me a collage play card, and I sent him a paper collage illustration of my favourite houseplant.

If anyone else wants to do a swap with me then do let me know - I really love sending and receiving nice things in the post!

Orangutan

Some more drawing practice.

Ben and I have been watching the new Planet of the Apes films and I've fallen in love with Maurice the orangutan.

secret seed swap

As I mentioned in a previous post, Lyndsey let me sign up as a late entry to the What You Sow secret seed swap last month. I haven't done a swap for a while so I was really pleased to be taking part, especially as I have a new garden to get growing in.

I really enjoyed preparing my package to send out. I picked out radish, rocket and aubergine seeds (some of my favourite vegetables) and added in some Limnanthes seeds too, as it's nice to have some flowers in the garden.

I illustrated each of my packets with paper collage pictures of the plants, and typed out some labels for the back.




I hadn't heard of Limnanthes before, but it is nicknamed the 'poached egg' plant because of the appearance of the flowers, which won me over immediately.



I was pretty happy with how they turned out. Nice and colourful!

And I received an equally colourful package in return from my fellow secret seed swapper. Just look how cute they are! Thank you Gabriella.



Beautiful packets, and a great selection of edibles, a lot of them themed around Puglia in Italy.
I've since found out that Gabriella has a great blog called Mangia Bene - filled with 'edible stories from a British Italian kitchen', hence the Italy connection.

Cicoria are bitter greens used in Puglia's national dish, and Gabriella described the Cima di Rapa as Puglia's equivalent to purple sprouting. She also included Carosello Mello Lungo which is an Italian cucumber, and some nasturtiums which are pretty and edible too - perfect!

I had a day off work yesterday so I decided to sow a few of the seeds (some nasturtiums and some of the cucumber seeds). Nice to do some gardening on such a lovely warm day.





And here they all are, sitting in our mini greenhouse alongside the runner beans (which are beginning to sprout!)

Thanks once again to Lyndsey for organising such a great swap. I'm looking forward to taking part again next year.

llovely llamas

I hope you all had a lovely long Easter weekend.

It was perfect spring weather on Monday so we went on a drive to the Ashdown Forest and popped into the Llama park while we were there.



It's definitely worth a visit - the llamas and alpacas are so cute! And really friendly too (particularly if you have some food).

Just look how fluffy they are!



Their necks are super woolly when you stroke them.



I'm in love.



There were some other sweet animals too. Some (stinky but cute) piglets, guinea fowl, donkeys, and some super friendly goats. Like this one...



Nosy.

It was great to feel the warmth of the sun too.
I think the spring has finally made a breakthrough this week!

runner beans

We bought a mini greenhouse for the garden this weekend and decided to plant a little something to put on one of the shelves now that we have it set up.

We started with a tray of runner beans - three different varieties. Just look at them! Such lovely colours.

Hopefully it isn't too cold out there for things to start growing.

I'm lucky because Lyndsey let me sign up as a late entry into her Secret Seed Swap and has set up a mini swap for me and a couple of other latecomers. I sent out my packets yesterday so will share some pictures after they have made their way to their secret recipient.

Such a nice idea. And it means maybe I'll be ready to add some more things to the greenhouse in the next couple of weeks.

pimp my fridge

I gave our fridge a little makeover this weekend.

We had this tub of coloured letter magnets which we were debating whether to add to the charity shop bag, but I spotted some gold spray paint on a trip to the local DIY shop so thought I'd give them a little uplift...







I gave them a couple of coats, and that seemed to do it. I really liked the shapes left behind on the cardboard after spraying.





Not too shabby!

a bunny for a baby

Here's a little rabbit comforter I made last month for a little one called Saul.

It was based on this pattern from Lion Brand yarns, and is hopefully a nice thing for little hands to hold onto.

I just realised I also made a bunny themed present for his big brother a few years ago. I hope they are a family of rabbit lovers!
   

make the house a home

WE'VE MOVED!!!

We have been in our house for just over a week now and it's great. It's been a pretty exhausting couple of weeks what with packing/unpacking/cleaning/etc, but we're starting to get on top of it all now and the place is beginning to feel cosier and more familiar. A nice home.



To make it feel a bit more homely while there are still lots of boxes everywhere I've been populating most of the rooms with flowers and houseplants. Just a little touch here and there.

This morning I popped round the corner to the car boot sale and picked up a couple of mini succulents to add to the collection. I planted this super mini one in an enamel espresso cup I picked up from Workshop in Brighton a couple of months ago.





I also finally got around to planting my little cat Chuppon that I got from What You Sow towards the end of last year.



The little cat drinks through a straw which helps grow the little mint plant that sits in his backpack. It's so cute! I think Lyndsey said they were one of the most popular items in her shop - I'm tempted to grab myself another one next time they are back in stock.



I hooked the little cat over this little vase that Ben bought for me at Art Junky just before Christmas. Such nice colours!

Oh, and talking of presents, I couldn't not share a photo of the housewarming present my brother Tim brought round for us on Sunday...



He found it in the street on the way to our house (thrown out by a granny no doubt). It's pretty dated but it matched our wall so exactly that we had no choice but to put it up.

And I do like donkeys.

packing

Ben and I are moving on Friday - hooray!

As a result I spent most of the weekend indoors packing, which I quite enjoyed. It's nice to rediscover things you haven't seen for a while and take stock of what you've got.

Here are some things that I was pleased to see again... 

Clockwise from top left: Ben makes lovely cards // the naked bike ride 2009 // wonky pigeon // miscellaneous

things I like this February...

1  •  2  •  3  •  4  •  5  •  6  •  7  •  8  •  9  •  10  •  11  •  12  •  13  •  14  •  15

Some more favourite from Pinterest. 

Green and blue and bears and mountains.

Black bear

Some drawing practice from the weekend.

I like bears.

B is for...

We're not hugely into Valentine's day around these parts, but it's nice to do a little something for the one you love, so this year I decided to make some personalised handkerchiefs for Ben.



I got the idea after I borrowed some his other handkerchiefs and misplaced/ruined a couple of them with leaky pens and such, and wanted to replace them with something nice.

This time I'll keep my hands off!

The monograms turned out ok I think - especially as I was free-styling a bit. I like that the hearts are quite wonky. I haven't done much hand embroidery before (can you tell?) but I'd definitely like to try out some more on projects like this.



I hope you all had a nice weekend, whether you were celebrating Valentine's day or not.

We had a pretty quiet one, and went out for a huge roast at the Basketmakers on Sunday. It was delicious!

Paintwork by Ben

As it's Valentine's day I thought I'd share this lovely photo series taken by Ben last Sunday, on a seafront stroll we took along to Hove lagoon. In his words, "Some of the beach huts could do with a lick of paint."

I think they're great! I'm in love with all the colours and textures - especially when you see them together as a set. So pleasing.

You can find Ben on instagram as @benbenbenbenbenbenbenbenben 

watercolour

Here's a shoal of watercolour fish I painted the other day.

I've decided I need to make a determined effort to make some more time for drawing and image-making, and as a start I have signed up to the 'Birds of Prey' wildlife drawing session in Brighton next month.

I'm pretty excited about meeting some falcons and hawks.

potted plants

Remember the avocado seeds we started nurturing way back in the summer?

Well, we finally got round to potting them over the weekend. We probably should have done it a lot sooner, but it's pretty amazing how big these things managed to grow with just some water and the nutrients packed into the seed.



They're pretty bizarre looking really, and weirdly totally different. My one on the left grew very tall and thin - too tall to fit in the photo! - and Ben's is short and thick with little fat leaves. We were wondering if they might be two different kinds of avocado?

I hope they continue to thrive now they're in soil - fingers crossed their leaves keep growing and they start looking a bit less odd.

Here they are all planted, and ready to go back indoors...



Ben's pot was too shallow to cover the seed, so it still looks pretty bonkers. Oh well, it's that kind of gardening experiment I think.

a growing collection

One of my vague new years resolutions was to resurrect (and possibly finish off) some old craft projects. I started this crochet stitch library way back in 2011, and while it hasn't been totally abandoned, I have neglected it a little over the last couple of years.

So I've decided to make a more specific resolution to try and crochet a new square each week until I have a big enough pile to bring them all together in a blanket.

It's going well so far. I've added a few more to the collection using some of the leftover colours from Ben's winter scarf.



I especially like the basketweave stitch. In fact, I might use it to make some cushions in some chunky wool over the coming months.

I think winter brings out my productivity with wool crafts.

giveaway

I have one remaining catnip sardine from the batch I made just before Christmas, so decided to have a little giveaway over on Instagram. You can find me over there as @debbie_hill and I'll announce a winner on Monday.

Oh, and if you have any sweet pictures of your cats over on your account then please do share!

things I like this January...

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Some favourite picks from Pinterest. See more here.