green fingers?

I am a very amateur gardener - fumbling my way through my garden experiences with no real idea if I do the right things. I prune stuff with gusto, pull off dead leaves, and dead head flowers, but I'm not really green fingered. I'm hoping this will magically change though when I erect my latest purchase this coming weekend:I'm not ready for a grown up's greenhouse yet, so I thought this was a good starting point. I'm scarily excited about growing some veg and herbs in here. I got it from here if you are interested.
I'm mostly wanting to grow tomatoes - a few different varieties, as they are just my favourite thing to eat. Is this normal behaviour for a 33 year old person I wonder?

a little bird told me

I was looking through my paper stash, and couldn't find what I was looking for. The only answer was to dig into my fabric stash and head to the photocopier. Photocopied fabric is in many respects better for my project work as it is thinner than scrapbook papers (and therefore easier to draw on), cheaper, and allows a much wider variety of choice - from my rather plentiful fabric stash!

These cards were fun, and quite quick to make too. I'm off to experiment and make some more for my shops.

weekend shenannigans

Friday Night: Whirlwind supermarket sweep for weekly food shop, followed by Mojito's on the sofa and My Girl on TV.Saturday: super speedy housework effort, slap on, into London to see Grease at the Theatre. accidentally purchased new bag and a pair of shoes.
Sunday: reading emails, catching up, eating ice cream in the sunny back garden, making cards, salmon and soup noodles with edamame, apple and rhubarb crumble, cutting up some wool jumpersPhew. A good weekend.

The bird is the word

Do you watch family guy? If you don't then you are missing a real treat. Once you get over the odd concept of a talking dog who everyone in the family can understand, a talking baby who only the dog can understand, and a father who is massively inappropriate at every given opportunity then it is actually very funny. This week there was an episode which made me and Mr Monda laugh so much that we just haven't been able to get the song or the dance out of our heads - and here, just for you (and also me, because I love it) a small snap shot of the episode courtesy of YouTube:


I think you'll agree, that the bird is indeed the word. Also on a bird related theme - this rather nice fabric was purchased on a recent trip to Ikea. This (cotton) was just £1.99 per metre - a bargain!

2002 miles away (apparently)

By way of a small explanation of my absence these last few weeks, I have been approximately 2002 miles away, in Cyprus to be little more exact. Cyprus was not my first choice as a holiday destination, but our primary reason for going was a wedding out there, so we combined it with a holiday. I took surprisingly few pictures whilst I was away, which is not very like me. I did lots of things which were not like me actually - lots of sleeping, walking, sitting and reading, chilling out and drinking cocktails (ok, this last one is very like me).
I'm quite a home bird really, and as nice as it was to do all these things, I am also very happy to be home - I missed my baby cats, my own bed, and the familiar surroundings of my little home. Although it was nice to have a complete break from everything, I missed technology (my computer and my blog, my sewing machine, my camera) and I'll be glad to get back to it all. I'm going to dive back into google reader in a moment and read the remaining 537 posts on my list.
A small flavour of my holiday:
This was called 'between the sheets'a little run down villa - I really like the wooden shutters metal patterned grille on a glass doorpart of a print from the wall of an ancient Greek bath house

Cath Kidston Discount

I just received this by email as I subscribe to the Cath Kidston newsletter. This is a one day (Wednesday 8th April) 15% discount. Now go forth and shop! (click on pic for full size image and discount code)

so busy

I'm so busy at the moment - this blog post is effectively a displacement activity from other things I need to do.
I've been working on a design brief this weekend and have actually got quite a lot done, but need to carry on for a few hours yet today as I have a deadline this week. I also need to eat at some point (although can't think where I might get time for this).
A couple of things have come from the Monda camp this week - a card for a friends daughter, which I decided to make with a stitched paper patchwork - I really enjoy stitching with paper. It's something that you can't overwork though - it has a tendency to fall apart if you doAlso, I've been working up those green and pink fabrics from my last postI'm using this in my latest design work, which I must get back to now...

finding inspiration in pink and green

Off the top of my head, I wouldn't have picked green and pink together - its only when you start looking around for inspiration that you realise they work very well together indeed. I must walk around with my eyes closed sometimes.
When seeking inspiration for my projects, I usually find an object, picture, photo, snippit of fabric, piece of clothing etc, and go from there. Then I raid my fabric stash and grab all the colours I am looking for, selecting and rejecting as I go along. This usually means I have lots of little piles of fabric on my desk ready for the project to begin. This is my latest fabric stash, inspired by the heart in the top pic