Nonnie

Happy Easter!

Yes I know I'm a few days early, but if I don't snatch this moment now to post something then I fear I will be wishing you happy May Bank Holiday instead!

Firstly I must apologise for being a really terrible blogger of late. Very few posts and hardly a comment left with any of you. I promise that I will get back to normal at some stage soon, but life has just been a bit of a whirl wind of late. A very very good whirl wind!

Secondly, apologies that the picture above isn't of the eggs actually hanging on Easter branches. They are now in fact although in a very rushed way and I haven't had chance to photograph them. The flat has been very neglected lately and will become even more so I think. I've been spending rather a lot of time in Oxfordshire just lately!

Gosh there is just so much I want to share with you all and I promise I will soon enough. I am literally catching my breath at how life has turned so completely around for me since the new year and I am bursting with the excitement of what the future holds.

Dear friends, I hope that you all have a lovely Easter weekend filled with love, family, friends and chocolate!
xxxxx

Sunshine and Spring

I'm relieved to say it's been a less stressful week than last. More early nights and less time spent at work. Not a lot to show creatively as it's all going on behind the scenes at the moment. I'm working on a couple of orders and making good progress with the website. Having said that there's still a lot to do on the website. So far I'm just getting there with the overall look and setting up all the different sections of the shop. But I think it's going to take some time to get the shop full, especially as I lot of the items that are going to be in the shop are still just sketches in my note book, or bits of pinned together fabric draped around the flat! But I'm feeling pleased with progress so far. I'd love to think it might be finished before Easter but I'm not going to put too much pressure on myself, expecially as Easter is early.

It's been a gorgeous sunny week here in London. Today the sky is a gorgeous blue, the sun is shining brightly and it's even quite mild. It really lifts the spirits when it's like this. I've had a smile on my face all week. The little pot of cute daffodils Catherine and Hamish bought me last weekend have even brought a little bit of Spring into my Living Room too.

So it's the weekend again. I'm planning a fairly relaxed one, although I'm out tomorrow evening over in High Wycombe. Tomorrow will be spent finishing the orders and doing a bit of pampering before my evening out. There's nothing nicer than spending Saturday afternoon relaxing in the bath and getting ready for a nice evening out. It's just what I need.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend. See you again next week. xx

Snow?

No, not snow, but a beautiful carpet of snowdrops in the churchyard in my Mum and Dads village. Aren't they just spectacular? Hamish kept calling them raindrops which was so sweet!

This is just a quick post today but back again tomorrow with more Spring-like photos and tales of Burns night. Hope everyone had a lovely weekend.
x

Winter walks and Christmassy scenes

My day at my Sisters ended up as three days at my Sisters! Well it was just too tempting when there was the offer of dinner and a glass or two of wine on Friday night. I just had to stop over. And then Saturday there was the temptation of a walk accross the common and into the woods to find pretty branches to decorate. It was bitterly cold but very beautiful.

Of course we had to go past the field to see the horses. Hamish loves the horses. They were obviously having a lovely day as when we got to the gate they were running round and round as if they were in a race.

So then I had to help with the decorating and my Brother-in-law said 'well you may as well have dinner again tonight Nonnie'. So what could I do but accept. Actually I think they were pleased for the extra pair of hands because poor little Hamish was sick so there was a lot of clearing up to be done as well as trying to keep him happy and decorate for Christmas.

It was lovely to have such an unplanned weekend though. Of course I didn't get quite as much done in my own home as planned but there was nothing of too much urgency. I asked my Sis if she would mind me sharing pictures of some of her decorations with you as they looked so pretty. As she is a regular lurker on many blogs she said she wouldn't mind at all. These are the branches collected from the common decorated with lots of lovely silver and white and pretty little lights.

And sitting next to the branches the cutest little house lit from within by tea lights.

This week I'm on a mission. Suddenly I realise that I have quite a few jobs left to finish before the weekend. I've written a list and I know that every lunch time this week I'll be dashing along the Kings Road grabbing last minute bits and bobs and every evening will be spent in a flurry of wrapping paper and baking of Nigella sweetie treats. I'm sure I'll get it all done! x

The Tree!

Finally pictures of the tree. It's been kind of a hectic week so finding time to show the pictures has been difficult. Thanks for all the lovely comments on my Sitting Room. It is my favourite room in the house at the moment.

You might spot the glass of sloe gin on the table under the twigs! I've been enjoying a glass most nights this week!

Tomorrow I have a day off work to spend Christmas shopping with my Sister. We're heading into Marlow which is a lovely place to shop, especially just before Christmas. My Brother-in-Law is looking after dear little Hamish so we'll be able to really take our time. But I'll look forward to spending some time with my lovely Nephew when we get back home. I had a chat on the phone with him today. Can hardly believe he is only just two! He was telling me that he was going to the Mum's and Toddlers play group to play with playdough and that Nana and Gramps(my Mum and Dad) were taking him to John Lewis this afternoon. Unbelievably for a two year old he loves going there! I think it's the lure of the great toy department and the lemon drizzle cake and juice that he always gets with Mum. Plus at the moment he is very impressed with the Christmas lights and tree that adorn the shop. He finished the conversation saying "Have a lovely day Aunty Nonnie". Oh he's a little lamb!!

This final picture below is of a gorgeous little berry heart that I received from Joanna of Higgletypigglety. I ordered one of her lovely prints recently as a Christmas present and she popped this and a lovely card in the parcel too. What makes it particularly special is that she made it from berries collected close to Chichester Harbour which is a place that I am very fond of and which she and I often talk about. I really love it and it looks so sweet hanging on the sitting room door.

Now I'm off for dinner at my Managers house who had left our company today. He lives close to the office but has given us all strict instructions not to arrive before 7.15 as he needs time to prepare! All I need now is a bit of a makeup touch-up and I'll be ready to go!

xxx

Starting to decorate.

This weekend I had a lovely calm and relaxing time at home. It felt like the first in weeks. The flat was a bit of a tip so I concentrated on getting it sorted and starting to get the Christmassy feel going. I had planned on getting my tree on Saturday but woke to heavy rain so not idea for carrying a Christmas tree down the street! So instead I braved the weather to go to the garden shop in the middle of Kew to at least reserve and pay for the tree. I was determined I was going to get the size I wanted this year after ending up with one which was far too big last year due to being determined to be traditional and leave it to the last minute. So I ordered the tree and went home to get some other Christmassy things out.

I still had the lovely twigs left that I took to the fair last week and a few of my felt decorations so I decided to set these up with some of my red boxes and a cute little wooden tree I've had for a few years.

The little table I've put it on is normally my sewing table but as I'm not planning on doing a whole lot of sewing for the next few weeks I thought I turn it into a display table. If I get the urge to sew I can always use the kitchen table.

I added a couple of tealight holders for a bit of candle light under the twigs.

What with all the tidying it's starting to look rather festive. Yesterday I picked up the tree. It's looking really cute. Pictures of that and my now very cosy looking sitting room later in the week. x

Todays Inspirations

Some Christmassy images that are inspiring me today. All from Creating Your Perfect Christmas by Antonia Swinson.

The Fair

Well I'm back and hopefully will be into my old routine again now everything has calmed down a little. I have had a really crazy week or two as work has been ridiculously busy and on top of that I was trying to prepare for the Bath fair.

The above picture is not of the fair, but is the branches and decorations I took to the fair which are now installed in my sitting room for a little splash of Christmas in the build up to putting my tree up. I don't have any pictures of how the branches looked on the stall, nor of the stall itself. I forgot to take pictures at the start of the fair and quite frankly I was too depressed by the end.

I've been wondering all weekend how I was going to write about the fair and in the end I decided to do as Jane did and be totally honest with you all. In a word, it was a disaster. Far from it being the success I hoped it would be I came out at the end of the day with a fairly significant loss. If I tell you I didn't even take enough to cover the cost of my petrol from London to Bath and back you'll hopefully get the picture. I have no idea what went wrong really. The fair was extremely busy, but despite the fact that my stand was the only one that looked really designed and attractive, rather than a jumble, I sold just a handful of Christmas decorations and cards and nothing else. I had comments that things looked pretty and lovely. My items were picked up and admired but just not bought. I'm not going to sit here and rubbish my fellow crafters but I will say that I was really surprised at what did sell. I had two particularly depressing moments. One was the two ladies who were admiring my decorations, picking them up, ooing and aarrring over them and in general making me think I was about to make a good sale. Then they turned to me and explained that one of them worked with children and they thought my decorations were and excellent idea for something to make with the children. As they were felt the children would find it easy to do something similar! The second moment came when I very smart, expensively dressed woman also spent ages looking at the decorations, picking them up and examining them in detail. She asked me the cost(£1.50 each) and I thought great she's definitely going to buy a few, only for her to say I'll have one please! I'm sorry, I know I should be grateful and perhaps her appearence actually didn't match her budget but really it was just the final straw.

Sorry dear bloggers, I hate to be so moany and depressing. I'm just so disappointed that this fair was such a disaster. I'd kind of told myself that if I couldn't sell well in the centre of Bath, the first weekend of December then I may as well give up on Nonnie Home. I'm not sure I am going to give up but I definitely need to do some serious re-evaluation in the new year. For now, I'll giving some of my cushions as Christmas presents and I'll be back with a post a little later to offer all of you my cards and decorations at a seriously bargain price. Do check back later on.

From now on I promise positive blogging. After the card and decoration offer, all future posts until at least the new year will not be about Nonnie Home. They will be about my life again, and my Christmas preparations, including pictures of trees, decorations and Christmassy food. And in general all things jolly and Christmassy.

Thank you for reading to the bottom of this very moany post. Moan over. Bring on Christmas! xxxx

An Award!

After over a year writing this blog I have finally got an award! Sorry, that sounds like I'm complaining that I've never had one doesn't it? Anyway, my new friend Michele his given me The Spirit of Christmas Award for encouraging her to start her blog. Michele and I met a few weeks ago at the Chipping Norton Fair where we had stalls next to each other. Michele makes the most gorgeous collages (can I call them that Michele?) and cards and at the time of doing the fair she was wondering about starting a blog. Of course I totally encouraged her and within the next week she was up and running. Do go and vistit her. Her blog is really lovely. Thanks so much for the award Michele.

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I think I'm supposed to pass this award on to five more people but I just can't do it. I've spent half the morning trying to decide who I should pass it on to and I just can't narrow it down to five. I can't even narrow it down to ten! Over the past few months I have received so much kindness from so many people that it seems unfair to pick just five. The amount of emails and even little gifts that arrived to cheer me up I don't think I could say thank you properly. You've all got me through it and I really feel I'm coming through to the other side, feeling so much stronger and more positive. You all deserve an award!

Well it's Friday again! I always love the sense of anticipation on a Friday. Just knowing that the whole weekend lies ahead. I'm off to the Cotswolds for bonfire celebrations in Mum and Dads village. They have a really big event and Mum and Dad get really involved in the organisation. I've volunteered myself this year too so I understand I'm helping Mum on the hot dog stall! My Sis, Brother-in-Law and little Hamish are coming along too. It will be Hamish's first bonfire night as he was too young to appreciate it this year but they're hoping he'll enjoy it this year. I'm really looking forward to a weekend in the Cotswolds, especially if the sun keeps shining as it is now.

I've just popped another cushion in the shop and there will be Christmas decorations going in on Monday. Have a lovely weekend and I'll see you all next week. xxx

A walk around the Gardens

Sorry it's taken me over a week to take you on a walk around Kew as promised last week. I've spent the last week off work and away from any computer due to the fact that I developed a really nasty inner ear infection which made me extremely sick and dizzy. I even had to cancel doing my second fair in Stow on Saturday. I felt very sorry for myself but luckily my lovely Mum and Dad came to the rescue on Thursday with home made soup, chicken casserole, cake and flowers. I'm still a little wobbly on and off, but back to work and hopefully normal again. I think what I need is a holiday! No chance of that unfortunately so instead I will remember my lovely walk around Kew Gardens over a week ago. Come along with me.

I hope you enjoyed the walk. I don't know about you but I'm rather tired now and in need of a good cup of tea. See you later in the week. x