Emm's birthday present for her little friend

This was a last minute project. Emm drew on coloured paper with her favourite pencils ('Stabilo 3-in-1') then we printed some photos from a playdate (using a polaroid 'pogo' printer) and stuck them on. She picked some decorations and sparkly bits and we stuck them onto the picture, and onto an IKEA 'NITTYA' frame.
Her friend shouted "I love it, I love it!" when she unwrapped it.
Happy faces all round!

christmas surprise

we're back from germany today, pretty tired with a grumpy nearly 9 week old, but happy!!

we surprised my parents for christmas with a visit, which was great fun! we didn't think we'd make it home with getting a passport for our little one and everything, and told my parents so for weeks, but we did get everything sorted in time! we let my sister know and she picked us up from the airport on christmas eve, and put us up at her house for the afternoon, then in the evening she and her boyfriend went in to my parents, as they had planned, and told them to stay in the living room for a minute as they wanted to set up their present in the hall, then they went to the back door, let us in and told my parents they could come out now. the look on their faces was priceless! it was such a happy evening! they had been disappointed but understanding that we wouldn't be coming to germany this year... a lovely laid back week was spent, with the cousins getting to know each other (my 2 year old nephew was besotted with her, he licked her face!)

as i like to blog with photos, and have nothing much to show myself (except for a gorgeous daughter, but i'm not sure yet how i feel about posting lots of pictures of her on the blog... or how my husband feels about it... i probably won't, apart from the 1st day picture i already posted), here a picture of my mum's christmas pyramid ornament (these are traditionally pyramids of angels, and you use small candles to power the propeller that makes it go round, but mama puts hers onto the swedish stove that heats their living room (so hot... we were close to melting point!).



i love discovering little things i made years ago, that my mum still keeps, like this candle (old candle stumps sorted by colour, and poured into jam jars and similarly cheap containers, that can be broken off when the wax is hardened). this must be at least 20 years old, because i seem to still have considered stick on gold stars an essential!


or this salt dough sheep (i hadn't realised salt dough could keep so long! maybe i varnished it??)

the wool is made with a garlic press... mama displays it with her collection of christmas angels

home again...

Back home, back commuting, back in work and mountains of laundry done!
I made the mistake of heaping all luggage, laundry for drying and shoes into the guest room, out of sight I thought!
Unfortunately I forgot about my friend from Switzerland being in the country, and that before the wedding I'd invited them to stay over when they'd be around. So yesterday I got the phone call to say they'd be here this evening and we quickly had to do lots of tidying up, move all that laundry to the study, set up the 2nd guest bed, hoover and hide lots of bric-a-brac under the beds... and generally give the house a dusting...
The garden will just look the way it looks, after 4 weeks of not mowing the lawn and rain every day it's quite wild, and it's still too wet to mow!
So much for impressing friends from college...

While in Portugal I noticed there are still many women doing crochet and embroidery of every day items, like tea towels, towels, tablecloths and napkins, the shops sell fine cotton thread that is used to make lacey edges around these towels, they used the tiniest crochet hooks. Of course i couldn't resist and bought a few balls in great colours and the teensy crochet hooks, unfortunately they didn't sell any patterns. One shop had a folder of photocopies of actual lace edges, but no diagrams or instructions, my phrase book Portuguese was just about enough to figure out that these photocopies are all the average Portuguese crocheter needs as a pattern...
I also saw some cute crochet flowers, so on one of the occasions when i was soaking up the evening sun (can't do it before 4pm, am to fair!) i decided to give it a go and came up with this little flower! I was extremely pleased with myself, no pattern, and it's the 1st flower I've made, ever!



We were in Coimbra and there was a Folklore Festival on, with craft on sale and (the most delicious!) sardines on the BBQ, rice pudding for desert, and elderly ladies dancing in the street in broad daylight, while waiting for the main event to start on stage. We just came across it in a Square and decided to linger!




And this little gem was bought there for me by my husband, it's a love poem (or so we've been told) in Portuguese and had a crochet edge. We're going to frame it! What background shoud i use?


When we got home I felt like doing something crafty in the evening, and so repaired my favourite PJs with this little hear patch, (I also had to a split seam in the hip area! what's that telling me!?) while watching 'the illusionist'.


And finally, 2 photographs from the Bucaco Forest

home made playdough