Well walk tea room

I visited the Well walk tea room in Cheltenham yesterday. It is fantastic, proper tea sets, real tablecloths and lots of lovely things to look at whilst you are eating!

I had cheese scone and soup and homemade lemonade. Next visit I will be having a slice of cake!

I was inspired to do some baking and made a cheese and tomato quiche (I looked a few different recipes and then put them all together with a few of my own touches) 

I also made some mushroom and stilton pies!

After reading Sue's blog over at The Quince Tree I had to make her crumbleberry cake - I used rhubarb instead f berries and added crushed nuts and oats to my crumble mix for the topping. It was delicious - I can't wait to make it again and might head out to pick some blackberries soon!

A mixed bag!

I have been so busy recently it has been hard to keep track of everything we have been doing! Here is a few of the things!

We had a really nice meal at the storyteller in Cheltenham - nachos ands the best refried beans ever to start! (I want to go back just for the starter again!)

Then I had vegetable fritters with bread, carrots and pickles! I forgot to take a picture of the pudding but I had a mixture of sorbets - they were delicious!

On Saturday we went to Bristol to have a wander around some of the cool independent shops and came across a bit of yarn bombing - the first I have seen in person!

This is one of my new camera purchases (I am actually falling behind with showing you them all I have acquired a few recently!

Then finally a present plant - with a fez and a moustache for our friends birthday. We enjoyed a BBQ saturday evening to celebrate! Hope you are all ok - I will do another catch up post soon!

Quick bag

I made this quick bag last week, I haven't sewn a project for a while and finally decided to do something! I made a simple pattern my self and made this bag - it is not perfect but I am pleased with it and I will try another one soon!

I used some of the beautiful fabric lexie gave me for the pocket.

And because it is me and I love silly things, I addd elephant fabric to the inside of the pocket - I love peeking in and seeing it there!

Hotel bowl and dish

Whilst out on my charity shop and car boot shopping trips I have found a few pieces of hotel ware - I really love this bowl and the stag (although I like to think of it as a reindeer) on it.

I would love to know which hotel it came from!

Then there was this little silver spoon from the royal hotel in Falmouth!

And a tiny glass jar!

Oh and in case any of yoy wanted to know the nail varnish I have been fashioning in the photos is avon nailwear pro in sea breeze!

Another walk

I have been trying to up my activity, so I have been going for walks in the evenings, well I decided to mix it up a bit and introduced the 'balancing a bottle of water on your head' trick to my walk! I got quite good at it ( a few people stared but oh well!)

I even managed it whilst on the rope climbing!! 

Whilst on the rope climbing frame, take a seat and watch the trains go by!

Walks and lovely friends

I recieved this lovely card and flat pack vase from Debi at puddleduck grange - she sent it to me so I could put some flowers from my next walk in it. We finally have had some dry evenings so I went on a little walk and just look at what I came back with!

I found lots of fairies (well that is what we always called them growing up)

But I also managed to find some lovely flowers in the hedgerow to fill my new vase, how lovely do they look sat on my craft table - certainly brightens it up. Also such a clever design - when it is not in use I can store it easily! Perfect - thank you so much Debi.

Camera collection

My camera collection has increased quite a bit recently! I have been lucky in a camera shop and at a car boot!

I added 2 more brownie cameras to my collection!

I really love the below one - one to just look good though - it is really difficult to find any film that isn't 35mm so I am now on the look out for cameras that take 35mm (and I can't resist a brownie!)

Jar of love swap

Katie over at booty-full things organised a swap and I was partnered with Lexie over at pieces of wonderful. Above is the beautiful, hand decorated, jar that I received full to the brim of goodies. Would you like to see what I got?

Lexie really knew me well, there were some ice cream buttons and som reindeer ones too - 2 of my favourite things! There was also some hand picked lavender from Lexies garden and some shells from her recent trip to the beach (they are already in my jar of special shells!) Some beautiful material and some beads. Then strangely, we both sent very similar things, a handmade heart, a handmade keyring, lip balm and a cookie cutter!

Here are the buttons all lined up - don't they look great!

The jar was decorated with flowers and everything smelt of lavender!

The heart is already hanging up in my craft corner.

The jar is also sat over in the craft corner - it will come in really useful and looks wonderful. Thank you so much Lexie, everything is amazing!

Here is what I sent.

It took me a few attempts to get everything to fit in the jar!

I sent a few chocolate items, a little note book, some ribbion and a little china cup (Lexie has a growing collection of vintage china, this was from a hotel range!)

A cookie cutter, lip balm, washi tape and a handmade bird.

Handmade button earrings, heart, keyring and crochet.

A handmade hair clip, brooch, magnets, craft punch, tape measure and a playmobil figure (everyone needs one!)

Lexie used to live in Cheltenham (where I live) and worked at the library. I thought it would be nice to include something from there for her. I went in at had a look through there for sale section, but you couldn't tell any of the books came from cheltenham library as the paper stamp area had been taken out of the front. So I asked one of the librarians if they had any ready for sale that they hadn't taken that bit out of it - she went away and came back with a book (a really random one) so I also sent this - it turns out the dates it was stamped were from the times Lexie worked at the library!