Monday 11 June 2012

How to kill off the sunshine ...

I seem to have killed off the short window of nice weather we'd been having. Let me explain.

I've muttered about getting myself a traditional deck chair on and off for quite a good while, but I was finding the high price of "nice" ones off putting. The ones I could afford looked cheap and nasty with flimsy looking plastic bits doing the job on the holdy uppy part, now as someone still carrying a tad too much baby weight (ahem I mean toddler weight these days) that concerned me.

So, when him indoors returned from his usual jaunt to the Saturday morning car booty on the York racecourse clutching this beauty I was tickled pink. And this one came in at the bargain price of £10 ker-ching!

Deck chair - before

So I set to work scrubbing/brushing/hosing down it to clean it up - I think I got a tad over enthusiastic on some bits. Once I was done and it started to dry the canvas started looking a tad thin, the muck was obviosuly holding it together. So twenty minutes and a good a pootle round Google later I came up with this corker of a web site - Deck Chair Stripes - and ordered me some stripey fun. A short wait for mr postie to deliver the goods and ta dah!

Deck chair - done!

Courtesy of an antique wax rub down for the frame, the stripey fun and a batch of upholsotery nails I now have a stylish new perch for flopping out in the garden. The rain aint stopped since, typical!

Toode pip
J
x

Thursday 7 June 2012

N-ice cubes

One of my good friends has just announced the safe arrival of her second bubba, a not so little baby boy weighing in at a whopping 10lb 6oz. Yowzer.

On hearing the happy news I immediately whipped out the sewing machine and whizzed up a batch of baby cubes. I made a set of these while I was pregnant with Reuben and my boys have thoroughly loved them - they still get played with today, all be it in a more rough and tumble toddler fashion usually involving hurling them at each other. This game got delightfully named as "bonking balls" by Reu - only toddlers eh? Ah-hem! (Note to self: I wonder if Blogger will allow this post or whether bonking is on some kind of banned words list?)

Baby cubes

I don't get to meet up with my friend very often these days as she lives over in Dubin and we now both have two small people to add into the logistical mix. We're lucky if we manage to pin down our schedules to the same country every couple of years, but when we do meet up we always chatter away like we last saw each other a matter of days ago. As someone who doesn't make friends very quickly or easily our ability to do this always surprises and greatly pleases me.

I'll be posting off my congratulations package this weekend.
Toodle pip
J
x