This week's smiles.....week 415

 It's been a wonderful week filled with smiles.  Around a lovely weekend away in our caravan I was busy with sewing....wedding dresses, prom dresses and much much more.

We had our first adventure for 2025 in our caravan.  We had 3 nights on our favourite campsite near Llanidloes....it's like home from home, they make us feel so welcome.  It was Peggy's first time away in the caravan and she took to it like a duck to water.  We were allocated the best pitch on the site parked next to pond [the size of a tennis court] that is now filled with koi carp fish...and some of them are HUGE. 

On the bottom left is a photo of another pond on the site where I sat listening to the birds while Peggy was enjoying a run in the enclosed dog run.

I use an app on my phone that recognises birds and while I was sitting there it heard...

• White wagtail
• Willow warbler
• Mallard
• Swift
• Pheasant
• Reed Bunting
• Chaffinch
• Redstart
• Siskin
• Blackcap
• Swallow
• Dunnock
• Greater Whitethroat
• Blackbird
• Goldfinch
• Robin
• Chiffchaff
• Greenfinch and 
• Wren

It was bliss....I really love my birds

I thought you'd like to see a close up my son took of the baby robins in the bird house in our back garden.

They had flown the nest by the time we got home from our weekend away....not a bad thing because if they had landed on the floor I have a feeling Peggy would have killed them if she'd caught them.....aren't they cute?

This is our granddaughter Lexi's latest outfit she is to wear when she performs a Lady Gaga inspired piece at the O2 arena in London...she's such a beautiful girl inside and out and we are so very proud of her.

Of course it wouldn't be a Friday without a few funnies.  I hope you find something here to make you smile and will then leave me a comment before linking to your own smiles below.

Hugs,

Annie x

This week's smiles.....week 358

 Here we are at another weekly catch up of the things that has made us smile from the last week.  I've had a stinker of a head cold but I've still had lots to smile about and thankfully my cold is drying up now although I am still coughing.

Saturday night we celebrated Shell's 40th birthday.....how did my first born reach 40!! It only seems 5 mins since I was 40 and two mins since she was born.

It's been a lot colder here this week so Milly has been glad of her fleece jumper.

It looks like this flock of birds has seen my hubby filling up the bird feeders...it made me chuckle.

We had a fun day with the boys on Tuesday.  I taught Theo how to make paper aeroplanes and boats then I made them a couple of hankie mice....my dad used to make one for me as a child so it brought me back many happy memories watching the boys play with them.  They built a maze and a house out of the duplo for their mice to play in....happy memories.

Finally here's a few funnies to make you smile.  I hope you will leave me a little message before linking up to your own smiles at the bottom of the page.

Have a great week filled with lots of smiles.

Hugs,

Annie x

This week's smiles....week 516

 Another week has passed and I've managed to find lots of smiles even though I had several days with vertigo.  We enjoyed a long weekend on a lovely campsite near Buxton in Derbyshire....I wasn't going to let a giddy head stop me so I used my walking stick.  

We alway carry a small bird feeder with us in the caravan and, as there was the perfect tree next to us, we filled it and enjoyed many chaffinches, green finches, black birds and robins.....so much so that they emptied a full feeder over the weekend.

This was Stephen when he started school 6 years ago [he was such a cutie] and........

..... this is a set of photos Amy sent me this week of him in his new uniform for when he starts secondary school in September.....he's such a character and I really hope he loves his new school.

We had a long day with little Louie yesterday......he's such a gorgeous little man now, he's walking and loves to climb [so the skies the limit].

Now that just leaves me to share my funnies with you.....I hope you find several to make you smile and will share your smiles with us all by linking up at the bottom of the page.

Hugs,

Annie x

This week's smiles...week 121

Hello all.  What a wonderful week it's been.  

A lot of you will know what I mean by WOYWW and for those that don't you can find out all about it here at Julia's blog.  This week we all celebrated 6 years of blogging our creative spaces and linking up to folk from all over the world.  Thanks to Julia many Wednesdays of linking up our work desks with others has found many friendships being made....some meeting up in real life and others just enjoying the love and support our blogging friends give us in good times and bad from all corners of the world.  Each year we make ATCs [artist trading cards] to celebrate and swap them with our friends so each day this week my postman has brought me envelopes full of love.....every one of them making me smile.  I plan to snap pics of all I've been sent and will do a show and tell of them on Wednesday so please pop back then to see them.

Thanks to all who joined in our fun here last week again.  We all have so much to be thankful for and sharing our smiles makes the world a happier place doesn't it?  This week I'm featuring Elizabeth's post from last week.  The gorgeous flowers made me smile and her joke of the week really made me chuckle....thanks for sharing it Elizabeth.

This week has been half term holiday so I've not had Nanny school run duties [of course I have still seen them and enjoyed their company :-) ] so my smiles this week are a little different...

I've been playing with some of my favourite fabrics doing a bit more crazy patchwork....these only come out and get used for my special friends :-)

I really love the colours I've been working on here.

This is the next combination of colours I'm going to use for the next piece.  

I love sewing in my favourite colours.  How about you?  What are your favourites and do you tend to work with the colours you love or do you find it easy to work with other colours too?

This is another little project I've been working on.  Our garden bench and the two chairs linked with a table in the middle were in need of a lick of stain and thanks to Sam [Hettie] giving us the heads up on the colour she did hers with I have now done the bench.....still needs another coat and haven't started on the other yet.

Isn't it fab.....it makes me smile every time I look at it and will really make our new back garden look lovely when they are both finished.

The other pic I'm sharing with you this week is this one of a flock of starlings on our front lawn.  I'm not sure you will be able to see but the majority of the birds are babies and the adults had brought them down to feed on the ?ants in the lawn.

It was something like the film 'The Birds' at the time but to see so many weaning fledglings at once really made us smile.

There you go.  That's it from me for today.  I hope you have enjoyed my smiles and will link yours up below.

Hugs,

Annie

WOYWW....

Good morning blogging friends.

It's the last WOYWW before the big day and it's that day of the week when we all have a good snoop round lots of crafting spaces.  If you are here by chance and don't know what I mean then please pop over to Julia's blog and join in the fun.

I've been sitting in the warm knitting [no energy for much else  :-( ].  My cold is, alas, no better so I'm having forced rest at a time when I planned to be busy baking etc.  What the heck....I'm sure Christmas will still come without baking being done  :-)

I have played with the teddy knitting pattern and have made the smallest little knitted bear I've ever seen.  It's so cute and sits in the palm of a hand.

 As you will have seen in a previous post I have also been knitting pixie hats for an advent calendar.

 These are the five you saw earlier in the week....now finished.

 And these are the next five in the bunch.  I'm having such fun choosing wools and designing each little hat.  Each one is different and you all know that is just what I love doing.  :-)  Do you have a favourite?  I love them all  :-)

My birds have been sooooo hungry with all this snow around.

This is the crab apple tree I can see from my kitchen window and this morning I counted 28 birds waiting in it  They sit there and watch me fill a bowl with fruit, seeds and any scraps I can find every morning and are down to eat it all as soon as I put it out for them.

For those who have asked how Fred my pheasant is here he is this morning tucking into the food I have put out for him.  He is looking really fat and well fed  :-)

Finally I would like to say a huge thank you to you all for the support and wonderful comments you all leave me and  I would like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and hope 2011 brings you everything you wish for yourselves.  Stay well, warm and cosy and I will be back to check up on you all as and when I am able.

Ive just added a link to JoZart's blog in my side bar.  She is offering a Christmas gift draw so please pop over and join in with a chance to win.

WOYWW and beyond...

Hello again. Yes, it's come round to another Wednesday when a lot of friends get together on Julia's blog to show and tell their workdesks. Please feel free to pop along there and join in the fun.
There is still an awful lot of the white stuff going on outside here so I have had very few customers braving the weather and that allows me time for fun.

As you can see my crafting table is opened out to it's full size to spread out my inspirational materials.....









........ and under the table sits this box full of yet more materials. I'm happy just to sit and sort through the lovely threads, beads and fabrics. How can you not be inspired to put them together to produce something special?

Yesterday I sat dumfing [see previous blog for explanation if needed :-)] and this is my latest creation. In the middle of my table you can see a stacking pot of beads. This is one of my latest purchases and the reason it was needed was a few years back I very foolishly tipped most of my seeded beads together into one section in my bead box. This makes it really difficult when you are looking for something particular so I am now sorting these beads into my new pots....Yes, I'm very patient and some would say rather mad to even consider doing this but it is making using them an awful lot easier. If you look back at my table you will notice a white triangular paper construction at the front. This is my home made bead sorter. I have used something similar when sorting tablets while nursing and just folded this one together out of a piece of A4 paper. Being white this makes the bead colours show up and it is really helping my labour of love of sorting out my seeding beads.

Beyond my crafting room is a cold and very unwelcoming world outside but even this is coming with really special moments for me. [My cup is always half full :-)] I take great pleasure watching my birds and this really cold weather has brought many different birds to my bird tables to feed. I have feeding stations just a couple of feet from my sewing room window at the front of the house and my kitchen window at the back of the house so where ever I am in the house I am able to watch my feathered visitors. I have been taking note of what birds have been feeding and at the moment my count is up to 17 different ones....Black cap, Redwing, Bull finch, Nuthatch, Robins [I've seen 5 so far!] Mistle Thrush, Blackbirds, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Blue tit, Coal tit, Great tit, Collared dove, Pigeons, Dunnock, Jackdaws and Sparrows. How about you? Do you have any really unusual birds visiting you with all this snow around?

This is my Mistle Thrush...he is huge and really aggressive and chases all the black birds away but he is so entertaining.


This little bird feeding under the feeding tray is a little Blackcap...he's learned it's somewhere the Mistle Thrush can't reach him :-)




I hope you are all able to find something positive to come from the cold weather and are able to stay safe and warm. Thanks for dropping in.