Fun, doubled

Wednesday, in spite of the absence of her granddaddy (Mr U-t-B who is toiling away in sunnier climes at the moment) Sophia came and spent the morning and lunchtime with me and Miss U-t-B.  She was her usual happy, funny self.  

This basket was emptied of a stash of fabrics to become a home for the few books and toys we have for her here, and this is her tidying her things away.  The fact that the basket is as big as she is doesn't worry her one jot - it means that once she has gathered a few things into it and thrown them out again ('cos that's how you tidy, huh?), she herself can clamber in!

Funniest moment came towards lunchtime.  A few weeks back, we bought an Ikea 'Antilop' high chair...

...which is great as it comes apart quickly and stores easily in a space under the stairs.  The legs can just be seen as you walk through the hall, but not much.  Sophia spotted them and seemed to decide it was time for lunch!  First she pulled out each leg in turn and presented it with a flourish to Miss U-t-B in the next room.  Seeing this as a clear signal of readiness for lunch, I pulled out the seat part, putting it on the floor whilst I tidied away the other things I'd had to move to get it.  Sophia  promptly clambered into the seat and sat there expectantly!  Sweet!

Once we'd stopped chuckling, we got the chair together and heated up some lunch.  But the waiting was  clearly too long ...

'When will you fools feed me?'

Anyway, yesterday the fun was doubled as little Hannah came visiting (with her Mummy, Grandma and Granddad), to see her new cousin, baby Dylan.  Sophia and her Daddy came over too.  I tried hard to take some decent photos, but failed miserably.  At all the best moments I either couldn't find my camera or snapped a split second too early, or late, or was in the wrong place...

Missed Hannah kissing her new cousin...too early

Missed both toddlers admiring the baby...too late

Missed the happy sharing of Duplo toys...camera hiding on mantelpiece

Missed the post-strawberry smile...wrong place

The only decent shot!

ANYWAY, earlier this week I had a lovely parcel arrive from the fab 'M is for Make'.  As has always been the case for me with this supplier, it arrived almost before I had pressed the 'Confirm Order' button on my computer!  Here is what it contained...

Flower garden in blue - in sale, so all gone now

Stella dot teal

Vintage stamps

Folklore

Griffith mum - also in sale, so none left now

Well, a girl has to find something to keep her amused when her husband is away, doesn't she?

{M is for Make has a new look website and to celebrate there's 15% off till July 18th.   Not trying to tempt you or anything...)

So on Tuesday afternoon, I decided I needed to make something for the pair of girls due to visit.  After playing around with combinations, I settled on these two...

...and being a little short of time, what with toddler-sitting and CS stint on Wednesday, I hit upon the idea of tiered skirts.  They were super-quick to make, and Monsoon just happened to have t-shirts in the right colour and sizes to complete the outfits, in the sale...

 Making them was a darn sight easier than getting a decent photo of them both in them...

FAIL!

What ho!

Sssssshhhhhhh! Don't want to scare it away....

The search continues...

I am still having fun planning the decoration of our bedroom!

This room scheme in the Dulux book looked just the ticket, a good shade to go with one of the wallpapers I like...

Source Dulux

...so the appropriate match pot  was purchased.  (More of that later.)

I found the perfect bed, having convinced Mr U-t-B before he went away, that this was really in order, as we haven't ever bought a bed together (We've been married 17 years!  And the bed was already a few years old at that point.  I don't think it owes us anything - and it does have one piece of wood on it that is splitting, so at some point my dear husband's side is going to collapse!)

Source

Bedding will be something pretty plain, but elegant...

Source

New curtains were dreamt of...

Source

Vanessa Arbuthnott's new Swedish collection is just gorgeous, but our windows are large, so my dreams got their wings clipped.  Instead, Clarke and Clarke have some lovely, more affordable, possibilities...

Antoinette

Coniston

Pozzano

Need to get to a shop and see what these are like in reality now.

More samples arrived.  Just more 'Marney' from Sandersons, which Mr U-t-B, from afar, has declared off limits due to its name!  This has only made me keener.

One wall of this, the rest of Dusted Fondant.  Or so I thought.

Then I did this...

Painted patches of (lighter colour) Dusted Fondant... 

...and its darker friend Dusted Damson on stripped bits of wall...

...and samples of paintable paper round the room.

Amazing how different they look in different places!

All this convinced me that Dusted Damson was definitely too dark and Dusted Fondant was not the subtle shade that was neither pink, nor grey, nor lilac, but in fact, in our room, with its north facing window, just plain old lilac.  With the emphasis on the old.  No offence to anyone out there with lilac colour schemes, but for me lilac is cutesy girly bedrooms at one end of the scale, or ones cluttered with glasses for dentures, space for zimmer frames and a vaguely medicated smell.  Sorry.

So it's back to the drawing board!

Money Saving Monday

In an attempt to make my fortune through money saving tips, aka Martin 'MoneySavingExpert.com' Lewis, I thought I'd get started here with something I came up with today!

(Actually, I have very little interest in the pros and cons of varied bank accounts, the best insurance rates, the benefits of changing utilities suppliers etc, so maybe I am not destined to make my fortune in this way. Let's face it, if having to choose one of these things, I'd probably base it on the cuteness or amusingness (is there such a word?) of an ad...

So I'd do my banking in Norway with DNB...

Insure with Nationwide of the USA

And have my energy supplied by EDF...

Anyway, back to that tip.

Do you collect lots of these when out shopping, and have even more arrive helpfully in the post?

And do you then clutch your head every time you are on the point of paying for your purchases and remember the coupons you left on the *kitchen worktop/desk in the study/ car dashboard/beside the loo *(delete as appropriate)?

Here's what to do.  Find an unused purse and pop them all inside, then place in your handbag ready for your next shopping trip. 

Now isn't that a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel?

I'd like to say,

'It worked for me, and now I'm saving pounds every week,'

but I only just came up with the idea, so who knows?

But it's worth a try, isn't it?

I've started SO I'll finish...

Waking early, with wallpaper swatches still spinning round inside my head, I thought there was no time like the present, and still clad in pyjamas...

...I began to peel the top layer off the wallpaper...

Peelable wallpapers are such fun to remove, especially when you can get a sizeable chunk on a roll...

Within a quarter of an hour this peachy wall...

...had become this...

The base paper still needs to be removed, but that's the wet and messy bit, so I'll wait till the room has been cleared of most of its contents. In the meantime, it just looks like a shabbier version of what was already there, so not too depressing to wake up to. Anyway, it's started now, so there's no turning back (though we may very well shilly-shally along with this over the next several months!)

Once it hit eight o'clock, a local decorating supplies shop was open, so I headed there to peruse more wallpaper samples.  The grey I had been thinking of was seeming like not such a great idea - thanks Elaine for your mention of small windows, which got me thinking!  Our window may be a large bay...

You're getting a good idea why I want to re-decorate!

...but I got to thinking about the fact that it is north facing.  
Apparently, you should always consider the direction in which the room you are decorating faces when considering colour schemes 
(I read this on the internet, so it MUST be true!)  
So I have now requested further wallpaper  samples. I picked up lots of paint colour charts too and have placed some in the room to look at in the light at different times of the day - gosh, I am taking this seriously, aren't I?

I'm now tending towards a colour that Sanderson call putty, but which I think of as a pale heather-y colour.  Not lilac (definitely not lilac) but a grey with a hint of purple, to warm it up.  I'm hoping that might be a compromise between my grey dream and the reality of facing north!

Unable to make any further progress on that project, I then set about a much smaller makeover. Our ironing board was in need of a new cover (yet again) as the one I made not long ago had been assaulted by an angry iron spitting brown water.  I praise Lidl for the super size of the ironing board I bought from them, but this means it's near impossible to buy a cover for it, and let's face it, the original autumnal toned one is enough to make you feel depressed at the very thought of taming the creases!

Luckily it now looks much cheerier!

I also downloaded photos from my camera, revealing things I'd forgotten about.

Cake pops made by Elodie and me to give to the new parents across the road...

Sophia's smiles and cuteness on Wednesdays (when we look after her)...

...and seeing her little personality developing...

(This makes sense - her Mum and Dad are both very mathematical.)

(Anything on the wall is now a clock!)

The first visit of little Dylan chez nous...

And a new knitting project.