Colourful Days

It's one of those days here, the sort you have when the school holidays commence that involve lots of lounging, tv watching, cake eating, tea slurping and general pockets of laziness interspersed with the odd chore that needs quickly doing.

To tell you the truth, we're not in the best of health here at the moment.  We've all had, and still have the most tremendously vile head cold.  I'm writing to you from the fuzz of a cloud that is pretending to be a brain.  I am listless and feeling rather bleurgh so this gentle pace of not doing much at all suits me very well.

Anyway, before I explain about the little picture above, lets back track a bit - I've a few colourful events to fill you in on because due to the head cold, I've been ever so slightly absent in Blogland of late and have some much needed catching up to do.

On Saturday, March the 24th I was up Exceptionally Early and away on a train to London, to the Country Living Fair!!!  It was a gorgeously warm day, full of sunshine, blue sky and laden with the promise of adventure!

I've not been to London by myself since before my daughter was born, so to say it was an exciting event would be putting it mildly.  It was actually doubly exciting because when I finally got there I met the ever so lovely Kate Brazier from Kate Creates.   We hit it off straight away and spent a great day together.  I first got to know Kate through her Facebook page, and meeting her for real was a lovely thing to do. 

It was also my first visit to the Fair and I wasn't disappointed - it was chock full of beautiful things and very inspiring.  I came away with a few souveniers - a beautiful ceramic bowl and spoon, a wooden hare, some turquoise earrings and a green bead bracelet but it wasn't all shopping!!  We also went to the business seminar hosted by Emma Jones from Enterprise Nation - now there's a woman who can inspire you!  She had plenty of interesting things to say in just half an hour and I must recommend her book Turn Your Talent into a Business which I bought when I came home ~ if you have the slightest inclination that you'd like to turn your hobby into a business then this is the book for you :)  I love creative business books; I seem to have gathered quite a collection of them over time and this has some fabulous guidance in it for folks just starting out as well as those who are already running a business.

The day went surprisingly fast and it was soon time to say goodbye and head for the station.  Walking through Islington it felt very summery, the streets were full of people and the sun was lovely and warm. 

Waiting for my train I admired the lovely architecture of St Pancras - I also admired the shops - they had a Cath Kidston, White Company and Neals Yard to wander around and I had plenty of time to spend browsing before my train left.

It was absolutely one of the nicest days, and it ended in the loveliest way too - as the train was pulling into Sheffield I spied my other half and my little girl walking down the platform.  I don't think I've ever seen such a Big Smile, and had such a Big Hug as the one I got from her when I stepped down from that train!  It was a really wonderful day out, but it was oh so very lovely to be home again!

A few days later, I decided to investigate the art of Decopatch.  I had seen a Decopatch stand at the Fair and been quite curious about it, but didn't get around to buying anything there and then.  You see, I had a Plan.  It was one of those plans that had been bubbling for a while and it came from a photograph that I'd spied in this book - I wanted to create a feature wall in our dining room, full of photographs and Bits & Bobs to liven it up a bit, to add a bit of colour and interest...

 
So eventually, after a bit of reading up on the subject I decided to purchase a few Decopatch items which would help my Plan come to life.  I chose three wooden letters, which are the initials of each of the people who live in our house: One for me, one for him and one for Small.

I then chose some pretty papers, and picked out a little tub of glue and a brush.  This decopatch lark is really very easy and really quite addictive.  There is something very satisfying about glueing lots of little bits of pretty paper onto something, and making something eyecatchingly wonderful and different.

The exciting part came when they were dry, and I could dot them about amongst my pictures:

It's not quite finished, I'm also going to be adding a pretty plate or two, and some other trinkets.  But I like how it's looking so far :)

I'll let you know when it's all finished :)

I was going to tell you where we went yesterday, but I think I need a nice cuppa and a bit of a rest so i'll pop back later in the week to tell you all about that.  It's nice.  It's about the seaside.


See you soon lovelies, 
J xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx