Happy Birthday Blog, and Happy New Year!

Happy 1st Birthday blog!

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year, have a wonderful evening tonight whatever you are doing!

Tamsyn x

My Favourite Pictures From 2013 (Part 2)

July

August

September

October

November

December

Hello everyone!

As promised, here's Part 2 of my favourite posts from each month, Part 1 can be found here in case you missed it yesterday.

What are your plans for New Year's eve?  I'm going to a friends birthday party which will be fun, but will require hair rollers, high heels and large dose of glamour - no small task after a week of hibernating in baggy sweaters and eating chocolate like it's going out of fashion!

Tamsyn x

My Favourite Pictures from 2013 (Part 1)

January

February

March

April

May

June

Hello everyone!

Well here we are, standing on the edge of 2014.  On New Year's eve 2012, I made two resolutions.  One was to wear more red lipstick.  You will have to take my word for it that I stuck to that one!  The other was to start blogging.  So I sat down, came to Blogger, and made the beginnings of a pretty blog.  I was so excited, but so worried that I wouldn't find enough to blog about.  What if I ran out of ideas?  I even made a list of potential subjects/items to photograph, a list that I never even looked at after the first week.  (I've since learnt that the more you use your creative side, the more inspired you become.)  I thought I'd give it a go, see how it worked out.  I never imagined that one year later, I would have joined such an inspiring, creative community, become so passionate about my photography, learnt to fiddle with HTML code (well, sort of!), and that the blog would have been featured in two lovely magazines.  For lots of very dull, grown up reasons it's been a tough couple of years, but I feel so proud of how far I've come with this little project - I'm definitely having a punch the air 'YESSSS!' moment!

So, to celebrate the start of a new year and to look back at 2013, here are my favourite photographs from the first six months of the year, I'll post Part 2 tomorrow. 

 Have a lovely Sunday!

Tamsyn x

Craft Blog Club Secret Santa

Merry Christmas

Dear all

I just wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, I hope you have a wonderful day with your loved ones!

Tamsyn x

Christmas Tree

Hello everyone!

I love Christmas trees, and I'd have one in every room if I could. As you already know, I love a mini tree, and have a couple of those dotted round the house.  We have an enormous Downton Abbey style tree in the dining room, which the children decorated with great enthusiasm, with lots of colour and tinsel.  Then I have this medium sized tree in the living room, which I decorated.  I dug out as many of my vintage red and silver baubles as I could find, and used my Tilda vintage tinsel too.  The lovely bucket was a lucky TK Maxx find, and my sideboard was an auction find which I painted.  I intend to sit with a glass of sherry this evening and gaze dreamily at my tree, although I suspect I will be doing some manic wrapping, cleaning and whatever last minute things need doing!

Have a lovely day!

Tamsyn x

Baking Tins and Vintage Baubles

Hello everyone!

I hope you are having a lovely weekend.  This is a super quick post from me today as I have friends popping round in a bit to exchange gifts and for a glass of mulled wine!

I love these pictures I took of my vintage baubles displayed in old baking tins - they remind me of jewel coloured sweeties in a tray!  

Tamsyn x

Colourful Christmas

Happy Friday everyone!

I'm so looking forward to the Christmas break!!  It's been such a busy few months, I can't wait to do some lounging around, catching up with all the blogs I follow and watching movies with the children.

I decided to decorate this corner of my living room with a pop of colour.  I made the bauble chandelier from the frame of an old drum lampshade that was only fit for the bin, and the lowest tier is part of an embroidery hoop.  The rusty container was from a car boot fair, I bought some hyacinth bulbs from the market to put in it.  The spring green looks so beautiful next to the rustic texture of the bucket, and they will fill the room with a gorgeous scent as the flowers emerge.  

I'll share some snaps with you of some more of my festive decorating with you over the weekend, have a fabulous Friday!

Tamsyn x

Festive Baking

Hello everyone!

As promised, here are some snaps of the mini mince pies I made yesterday with my little boy.  It gave me the perfect opportunity to try out my beautiful vintage baking tins and wire cooling rack I bought in the summer from a car boot fair.  The pies seem to have gone down very well too!

Tamsyn x

Keeping it Simple

Hello everyone!

The children have broken up from school, and today we will be doing the following - 

Making mince pies and biscuits

Wrapping presents 

Going to visit Santa at Jarrolds in Norwich

We are keeping it simple and I'm so looking forward to it.  It's so easy to get swept up in our busy lifestyle that sometimes it's nice to just strip things back to basics and enjoy the preparations.  I can't wait to see their faces when we visit Santa - they are still so young but I'm very aware that I have to treasure these years when the magic of Christmas is at it's peak.  

I'll share some pictures of our festive baking tomorrow!

Tamsyn x

Vintage Christmas Cards & Bottlebrush Trees

Happy Friday everyone!

I wanted to share some pictures with you that I took of my pretty vintage Christmas cards.  I bought them from my lovely Twitter friend @brookeslay, who is a fellow vintage bauble lover, and seller of the most the most beautiful vintage ware.  You can find her Twitter page full of gorgeous items and ideas here.  I bought some other pretty vintage cards from her too, which I shall with you in the new year.

I was looking for a frame to display the cards on, when I had the idea of pegging them to the front of this little chicken wire cupboard.  When I bought this cupboard, it was orangey pine and had glass in the doors with wooden slats.  I think it even had funny little fabric curtains.  I removed the glass, took a saw to the slats, and replaced with old chicken wire.  Normally I display my tiny vintage teacups, but on this occasion I decided to put fairy lights inside.  It looks so pretty at night, it glows like a little house.

I bought the little bottle brush trees from a funny little model railway shop in the village my parents live.  When we visit, my Dad takes my little boy there to buy him a small car, train or plane.  I found a box of these old trees amongst the piles of stuff (always rummaging!) and came home with these for a couple of pounds.  Once upon a time, they decorated someone's miniature railway.  I think they add a very Christmassy touch to my little display!

Tamsyn x

Little Christmas Tree

Hello everyone!

I hope you are all enjoying the run up to Christmas!  As per every year, I am in a mild state of panic, and writing lots of lists.  Organising the children's flurry of school activities is in itself a military operation - school Christmas lunch, writing cards and forgetting to put the names on the sealed envelopes, carol service for each of them, wear a festive hat for £1, party clothes in a named bag today, festive jumper tomorrow, is kung fu still happening after school, wrap the teacher's presents etc etc....my head is spinning from information overload.  I'm looking forward to enjoying some of the simple pleasures in the next couple of weeks, because isn't that what it's all about really?    

One part of the many festive pleasures for me is of course the decorating.  As much as I adore a huge Christmas tree which takes up half the dining room, I do love to have some mini trees dotted around the house.  I love them even more when they are placed in steely grey galvanised vintage buckets, or rusty containers such as the one above, a lucky car boot find.  It's always fun to play around with textures, so in contrast to the rustic, solid feel of the bucket, I've decorated the tree with the shiniest, most delicate vintage silver bells.  The cupboard they stand upon was £5 from a car boot fair many years ago, I painted it and added rusty cup handles.  My little heart shaped baking tins added another shiny silver element to the whole display, simple yet beautiful.  A little oasis of calm amongst the chaos!

Just a reminder that I recently made my Instagram account public, and you can find me here, so please do pop over a take a look, lots of vintage prettiness and pastel colours.

Tamsyn x

Berries in Vintage Bottles

Red and Silver

Hobbycraft Treasure

Hi everyone!

So as I mentioned the other day, I went to Hobbycraft over the weekend, and came back with lots of lovely things I wanted to show you.  I'm on their mailing list, which is worth doing as you get notified of any special offers and I got sent a 25% off voucher, hence going to get supplies.

Not only did I get lots of basics that I needed (double sided tape, blank cards, clay for making tags, blank canvases etc), I also bought some pretty things for making gifts with.

I love the candy coloured resin roses, I'm going to make some earrings with these.  I also treated myself to a Tilda book of scrapbook papers.  If you haven't seen the Tilda range before, pop over and see what they do here, they do the most beautiful range of papers, fat quarters and sundries.  I bought this book of papers and it's just so ridiculously pretty, I can't wait to use it.  I also bought their silver vintage garland for some festive crafts and gift wrapping.

Have a fabulous day!

Tamsyn x

Sunshine Yellow Dress

Happy Saturday everyone!

I bought this dress as a Christmas present for my daughter in the Boden end of Summer sale.  I adore Boden children's clothes, but as a rule they are a treat, and bought when reduced and with free delivery.  My daughter rings the things she likes in the catalogue, I ring what I like, and what we agree on gets bought for birthday and Christmas.  

 I decided to start wrapping my gifts this morning, and had to share a picture with you of this bright yellow tea dress, it made me feel so happy when I took it out of it's packaging, especially when the skies are so grey and dreary at the moment.  As much as I love this time of year, I shall look forward to seeing her wearing this in the sunshine with blue sky behind her, looking for shells on the beach.

I made a trip to Hobbycraft this morning as I had 25% off voucher.  I nearly fainted when the lady at the till gave me my grand total, but I have some absolutely lovely things for that I will share with you soon.

Have a lovely weekend!

Tamsyn x