Sign of life...

I've had a lot of problems with the sunflowers that I planted only a few weeks ago. Every time I went to check on them it seemed that an animal had been digging in the pot as there was soil and seeds everywhere. I couldn't think of anywhere else suitable to keep the pot so I kept putting the soil back in and hoping for the best. I checked them after the weekend and look

There's a sign of life! It's only small and not as many as I think there is meant to be, but even if I only get one I'll be very happy indeed. As you can see some gravel has made its way into the pot when I was trying to scrap the soil and seeds back into it, so I'll have to sort that out later.

In other news I've just found out my partner for the summer swap that I'm part of. It's my first swap so I'm very excited about it and look forward to introducing myself to my partner(http://thecolourcouture.wordpress.com/) later on.

I hope you're all having a lovely week.

Take care,
Kirstin xx

Brightening the kitchen - Part 2

Hello all. How are you? I hope you've been enjoying the long weekends. Only a couple more weeks and then there's another. That's what I've been telling myself back at work today. I had a wedding filled weekend this time. I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed watching the royal wedding on Friday and Kate in her beautiful dress. On Saturday I went back home to Folkestone as my cousin got married. Thankfully the weather held out and everyone seemed to have a lovely time.

Anyways, this is something that I've been working on for some time. My fruit bowl. It was one that my mum had lying about and gave to me when I first moved out so I had a fruit bowl, but it's never been really my taste. And finally I got round to doing something about it. This is what it looked like when I started

And this is what it looks like now

Ta dah! I painted it all over in white paint (it needed a few coats to cover up it's original colours). I then covered the outside in 'orange' decoupage sheets. I'm really pleased with it and think it looks a lot brighter now.

I'm not sure what to do as my next project in the kitchen as I cant touch anything that was already here when we moved in. I cant wait until I have my own place one day and I don't have to worry about that, but as long as I'm renting and David is watching over me, I'll be constrained!

I hope you are all well.

Take care,
Kirstin xx

Cambridge

This weekend David and I went to Cambridge. We'd never been before but wanted a few days out of London and Cambridge is BEAUTIFUL.

The weather was gorgeous all weekend - I was quite surprised for a bank holiday! We wondered round a couple of the colleges

And made the most of an opportune moment to get a photo of me 'studying at Cambridge'

Although I was struggling to keep a straight face. On the Sunday we wondered round the Cambridge Botanical Gardens

I hope you dont mind all the photos - I took over 200 so I am trying to restrain myself!

This weekend I am back home as my cousin is getting married - I love weddings! What are you up to for the long weekend?

Take care,
Kirstin xxx

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone, I hope you've all been enjoying a lovely and bright Easter bank holiday weekend.

I've been working on a knitting project for a while now that I've been waning to share, and now it's finally ready.

This is my little family of knitted eggs. You can fit an egg inside them to make a lovely little easter present. I got the knitting pattern from www.jeangreenhowe.com - it's a free pattern and fairly simple. Each egg takes approximately two hours to make.

I'm still very new to knitting and loved knitting these little eggs so just kept going.

I gave a couple to family and friends with a chocolate egg inside for Easter. I think they're utterly adorable!

If anyone has trouble accessing the pattern, please let me know and I can pass it along to you.

Take care,
Kirstin xx

Sunflowers

Happy Tuesday everyone. How are you all today?

I've finally got round to planting some sunflowers today, something that's been on my to-do list for a while. I found this in a well known high street store about a month ago

It's a lovely little bucket that came with compost and sunflower seeds inside it. Great for me as I'm quite a novice in the garden, and until I have my own garden I'm reluctant to put in too much effort outside. I don't want to leave all my hard work behind.

Here it is all planted and sitting outside ready for nature to do its thing and help it grow

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that some lovely sunflowers will grow from this.

What are you up today? I'd love to hear from you.

Take care,
Kirstin xxx

Getting busy and relaxing

I know I know, I've been very slack with updating my blog recently. I do apologise. I've been busy....relaxing! A well deserved rest after the marathon. This week I'm on holiday from work and can get busy with all the little projects I've been planning for a while. I was actually quite excited to go to bed last night so I could get up and get busy. Sad I know, but I feel at my most productive when I'm left to my own devices.

So today I've done all the boring jobs like cleaning and tidying the flat, doing the food shopping and paying off my credit card (a slightly painful job). This afternoon I started on the fruit bowl as part of my 'Brighten up the kitchen project'. Something I'll continue with and hopefully it'll be ready to show you by the end of the week.

What are you all up to this week? I'd love to hear from you.

Take care,
Kirstin xxx

Finished!

This weekend I ran the Brighton marathon with my lovely partner David...well we tried to run it, I must admit to walking some of it. But we finished!

And there we are with our lovely medals in the glorious sunshine. It was very hot on Sunday which made it a lot harder to get round, but as soon as we'd finished it was lovely to sit down and relax in the evening sunshine.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend and enjoyed the sunshine wherever you were.

Take care,
Kirstin xx

Last minute preparations

Well it's less than 36 hours until the marathon and I'm feeling pretty nervous. This week I've been getting myself sorted and have still managed to find the time to get a little crafty. It's meant to be a great motivation to have your name on your t-shirt so people can cheer you on personally. So I thought I'd better customise mine. I found some iron on fabric and cut out the letters to make my name. Then simply iron on!

You can see from my face that it's been a long week and I still need a bit more sleep to ensure I'm well rested for the big day. And on that note, I shall take myself off to bed now!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend whatever you get up to.

Night night,

Kirstin xx

Brightening the kitchen

Yesterday I started brightening a few things in the kitchen. I started with the knife block, a nice and simple task to begin with

Whilst I love the natural look of wood, I'm on a mission to bring colour. So I started with two coats of paint

And then put some masking tape around the bottom so I could neatly paint a white line at the bottom. And ta-dah!

The white line isn't quite as neat as I would've hoped for, but I'm quite pleased as a first attempt. Do you remember the lovely flowers that David bought me last week? The lilies have opened up and look absolutely beautiful

I love all the colours around at this time of year, they make me all smiley.

I hope you're all smiley and happy wherever you are.

Take care,
Kirstin xxx

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you mums out there. I hope you're having a lovely day.

I managed to go for a bit of a run today which I'm really pleased with. Only 1 week until the marathon now, and it's all becoming quite real now. I'm starting to get excited, thinking about the crowds, and the amazing feeling once I've crossed the finish line with my parents there. *fingers crossed* My legs will be ok on the day (well as much as they can be when running 26.2 miles!!)

I decided a little while ago that I wanted to brighten up my kitchen and add some colour to it. I went to Homebase and had so much fun walking around and looking at all the different paints, flowers, tools and everything else. It's sad isn't it? But I felt so grown up just wandering around, looking at all the things that I could use on projects here and there, to inject a little Kirstin on things. I bought some paints and headed home in the lovely sunday sunshine.

I've started with the fruit bowl and the knife block, but they're not finished I'm afraid, so you'll have to wait to see what I've done to them.

What have you been up to this weekend? I hope you've had a lovely one.

Take care,
Kirstin xxx

Fabulous Friday

I am so glad that today is Friday. It feels like it’s been a really long week, and I don’t feel I ever recovered from losing an hours sleep at the weekend. Sounds silly doesn’t it? But when it’s still dark when I’m trying to get out of bed makes it so much harder than when it’s glorious sunshine streaming through the windows. Still, a couple more weeks and it’ll be back I’m sure of it!

I’ve been having more physiotherapy this week to try and get my legs in the best shape possible before the marathon (which is only 10 days away now eek!!) I think it’s helping but I haven’t been out for a proper run for over three weeks now, which is quite worrying at this stage. Still I’m trying my best to keep positive and will go for a test run at the weekend maybe and see how they get on.

What are you all up this weekend? Any lovely Mother’s Day treats planned?

Take Care,

Kirstin xxx

Two weeks to go

Only two weeks to go until the marathon now. Two weeks. I can’t believe how quickly it’s come around (everyone always says that about these things don’t they, but it is so true!). As my leg has been so bad, I decided to take the plunge and get it looked at last week. I’d put it off until this point because I was scared they would tell me there was something seriously wrong, and thought ignorance was bliss. But with only a few weeks left I realised I needed all the help I can get.

The good news is that the physiotherapist thinks that I should be able to do the marathon.

The bad news is that it’s costing quite a lot and I wont be able to do another long run before the marathon. I think an investment in my health is a worthwhile one, and I’d much rather not do another long run, and be there on the day. It will be harder mentally, but that’s just part of the challenge. David was originally planning on running round himself to try and get a good time, but is now strongly considering running round with me which would be a massive help (he hasn’t done quite the amount of training he was planning on). I think it would be lovely if we did run round together, especially for when it gets really tough in the last 6 miles or so.

I wasn’t feeling too well last week so David decided to buy me a bunch of flowers

They're beautiful, I’m a very lucky girl. The added bonus was the cellophane they came in (I’m not sure cellophane is the right term, but I can’t think what else to call it).

I’ve saved it as it’s just so pretty. I’m sure I can use it on a little project later on.

I hope that you have all had a lovely week. Now I’m feeling better I’ll try to post more regularly.

Take care,

Kirstin xx

New skills - Decoupage

On Saturday I went to the Stitch and Craft show in Kensington, London. I wasn't too sure what to expect from it, but it was amazing. There was so many inspiring stands with lots of lovely craft materials and ideas. I thought that I would share my purchases with you along the way when I have projects in which to use them. I've started with decoupage. I'd never heard of this before, but it's "the art of decorating an object by gluing coloured paper cut outs on it" - thanks Wikipedia

It can be done on pretty much anything from what I understand and can look very beautiful

So I thought I would give it a go. I bought a brush, some glue, a couple of sheets of the special paper and a nice box to decorate.

You need to brush glue onto the surface that you want to put the paper on, and then brush glue over the paper once you've put it in place.

I did this in small sections along the box until it was finished. Ta da!

I'm fairly pleased with this as a first attempt. I've realised that you have to be really careful where you put the joins of the paper as they can be seen more clearly than I thought. Depending on what paper you're using it might be really important to ensure the patten is continued.

I might use this as a jewellery box, but it does have hooks on the back so I might decide later on to frame something in it and hang it up.

Any questions about decoupage, please feel free to ask me - i'll try my best to answer them. Or if you have any tips for a new beginner, I'd love to hear them.

I hope you are all having a good week.

Take care,
Kirstin xxx