It's been a while...

Hello! So I guess having two littlies has kept me busier than I thought judging by the date of my last post! 

Here's a few snippets of what I've been up to…

Delilah turned 2 on Halloween so cue lots of pumpkin painting, 

blowing out/spitting out of candles, 

monster play dough party favouring making,

monster costume stitching,

 and general fun!

I created a design for Sew & Stitch magazine which was featured on a free sewing tin and box for subscribers - I also worked on a few of the projects.

And you may have noticed I became addicted to instagram! I love it, as I don't really has so much time for lengthy blogposts anymore instagram really is perfect - you can follow me here. I can't guarantee it to be all that interesting, lots of cake, babies and odd bits of my home, but it is fun! 

While all this has been happening my littlest baby girl CeCe's has been perfecting her oh so gorgeous chubby smile! 

Introducing Baby CeCe

So the reason for my long absence on the blogging front...........

Our little Celeste Berry Coote (we're calling her CeCe for short) was born on 10th August 2013 at around 4 in the morning. She entered the world in quite a dramatic fashion and has been a very calm little thing ever since! The name 'Celeste' means divine or heavenly and isn't she just?! She's perfect in every way and I can't tell you how amazing she is.

Here she is meeting her big sister Delilah for the very first time.

And then we were four! I feel so very lucky to have two lovely daughters, and I feel so happy for both of my girls that they get to have a sister, I really hope they are as close as my sister and I are. 

I loved making my labour playlist for both girls and I have loads of songs which will forever be linked with them. Jamie Cullum's version of 'Pure Imagination' was a song that seemed to stand out to me whilst in labour with CeCe, here it is.

Thank you to everyone who sent messages and cards, it means so much xxx

Changes

So, I'm now on maternity leave and due to have our second baby tomorrow (hopefully!) so things will probably go a bit quiet on here for a while. Here's a little peek at Delilah and I testing out the birthing pool! Anyway, thought I take the opportunity to tell you about the 2 other blogs I do with other people, so they'll still be going if you wanted to have a gander.....

Flowers in the Window is a blog I run with my sister Alie to document all our floral finds - we've always loved all things flowery so this is just a place where we can share the these things which make us smile. Flowersinthewindow.co.uk

The 4am Club, I'm sure the title of this blog will become all too relevent to me in the next few weeks! This is a blog I do with my friend Kelly (who's an amazing writer) to celebrate and share tips/advice for all things baby/toddlers/mama related. Kelly also has an amazing eye for styling also to look out for her fashion/party/hosting posts. The4amclub.com

I also wanted to share this lovely picture a customer sent me of the tile stickers she bought from me, she's an art teacher and they're stuck her classroom which I was beyond happy about!

Also, apparently very soon google reader will be gone, so if you like following my blog please use another form of contact (I've signed up to bloglovin' but will be trying a few different things out until I find what's best). Please let me know your links also, as I'm pretty scared that soon I'll loose my reading list.

I hope to come back with a fresh new design and layout for this blog which I've been meaning to do for at least a year, perhaps throwing another baby into the mix may make it a little optimistic that that'll happen anytime soon, but hopefully it will, as I love this little part of cyberspace :)

Anyway, take care and hope to be back soon!xx

Our Home: The Lounge

We bought our first house almost a year ago now, which still is a dream come true - I really think the housing market is so unfair these days how anyone can buy a house is beyond me and we were really lucky to be able to. Anyway, so lets just say it's a bit of a project, the house was built in the 50's and is an ex - council house, and needed loads doing to it. We optimistically thought we'd get loads done very quickly, but budgets and time weren't really on our side....but anyway one room we definitely wanted to get done was the lounge. Here are the before photos (excuse the quality, I took these on my phone when we first looked round with the estate agent!)

Just slightly dated huh?!! One thing I knew we definitely wanted was to have an awe inspiring wallpaper, and I absolutely love this yellow dandelion mobile design we chose from Miss Print. I can't stop looking at it, and it really brightens my day every morning when I come down. 

I also love our grey Ikea sofa mixed with our other hand me down and vintage pieces, we have a Parker Knoll chair in the corner and record cabinet left by the previous owner. Our beloved Anglepoise lamp, BT phone and retro milk bottle and jug.

We kept all the walls a light grey to counter the yellow wallpaper, and the 2 alcoves a slighter darker shade, however after living with it for a few days I really felt like we needed another colour kick and so painted this side wall bright yellow and I absolutely love it! I really think you have to live with a room for quite a while before you can get it right - I love the way that things evolve like that. I'm sure that in a couple of months it'll be different again.

I love this little nook, I know they're completely out of fashion but I have always wanted a serving hatch! We saved this one as it was boarded up by the previous owner - I love being able to ask Ian to get me a cuppa from the sofa! The lights are by Cable & Cotton, the clock was a gift and Mum bought us the vintage BabyCham tea towel.

We've only just put up these clipboards and I'm not sure they're right yet, but I love the fact we'll be able to swap pictures and scraps of paper whenever we fancy it.

Mum made the curtains from Ikea fabric and I made the lampshade from a vintage tablecloth. The type drawer we picked up from a carboot sale and I can't wait to fill it with lots more tiny treasures!

Ideally I'd love to have more things out,  but living with a toddler has really made us have to change the way we set out our home, but I really don't mind that. I want it to be a fun room for all of us (although I did hide the huge bucket full of toys from the photograph!). It's by no means finished, but it's a start and I can't wait to see how it changes as we grow as a family.

Adventures with Queenie Dot Part 1

I'm so excited to share with you a little project I'm doing with paper cutting extraordinaire QueenieDot! QueenieDot also known as Jo is a lovely friend and local artist and tutor who I met at a knit & Natter at Make Do & Mend. She's a fellow veggie, Bluetones lover, stationary fiend, bookworm and lover of cake! (Needless to say we get on very well!) Here's some of her gorgeous work, I absolutely love this personalised wedding paper cut.

The lady herself.

We didn't really plan much of our collaboration, just that it would be lovely to do something together - I love the bright colours behind Jo's work and thought it might be nice to have a very small scale pattern behind them also. So it being so gorgeous and summery at the moment we thought we'd choose a floral theme and just see what happened. Which is what I love about this the most - we met up a few weeks ago to show each other what we'd done and didn't have a clue of what to expect, was kind of exciting! Anyway, what I love about Jo's work is the crisp, delicate and yet structured lines, and so with my pattern I wanted to do something a bit different to that. So I first got out my watercolours and did some swishy swashy florals....although I just couldn't get these to work on their own, so I then layered tracing paper on top and drew more detail. It was really lovely to work in a slightly different way.

I'm going to save showing you all my final patterns until my next post, but here's a sneak peek of Jo's wonderful paper cut. I'll post a picture of the final pieces together very soon.

Also take a look at Jo's fantastic blog and shop here: queeniedot.blogspot.co.uk, you'll be glad you did! xxx

Delicious Delights!

You know how sometimes when you retweet competitions on twitter it kind of feels a bit pointless what with so may people etc etc, well it really isn't as I won the most wonderful prize this weekend through Lurpak and Delicious magazine! It was a meal for 2 cooked by amazing Chef James Ramsden. The meal was held in a gorgeous little Cafe on Holloway Road called Vagabond 7, it had the most beautiful rustic tables and such a lovely homely feel.

There were only about 18 people invited to the supper club, I had assumed that everyone would have won the competition in the way that I had, but actually there were food bloggers, cooks, people who run their own supper clubs and lots of other lovely people all who loved food! I was intimidated at first, and kind of somehow felt like I'd cheated in being there, but that didn't last long, as everyone was so warm and friendly, it was such a pleasure to be there.

Here was the beautiful chilled watercress soup with edible flowers - so pretty and tasty. My first taste of a chilled soup, was so delicious and refreshing, especially as the weather gorgeously warm on Saturday.

 The main course, unfortunately I can't remember what it was called, but it was Aubergine with a tomatoey type sauce with goats curd and salad, was so so nice - and not something I'd usually order so especially nice to have.

.....and the dessert, Ian and I have been talking about this ever since the moment we stopped eating it! I wish I could describe it in a way that would do it justice, but I'm a rubbish writer. Basically the base was made with Amaretti biscuits, then there was a lemony cheese cakey type cream with lots of Basil and then topped with strawberries, it was the most delicious thing I've ever eaten, scrummy!

Followed by wonderfully decadent homemade truffles (not sure they stayed around long enough for me to photograph!) and deliciously strong coffee.

Ian and I with chef James Ramsden (I look like I've swallowed a watermelon!)- who was a fantastic host and very lovely (even though I must be one of the most annoying diners being both Veggie and pregnant!) Also Laura (I think that was her name, really sorry if I got it wrong) who was helping and serving was also extremely great in making us feel welcome and comfortable, we had such a nice evening.

We each got a copy of James' new book Small Adventures in Cooking and a Lurpak tea towel (I like to think I'm building up a good collection of their products, I have a lovely toast rack and butter dish I got from a vintage fair a while ago) - it's a gorgeous book and I was so pleased to see the pattern design on the front designed by one of my favourite illustrators Debbie Powell.

Thanks so much to James, Lurpak and Delicious Magazine for a wonderful evening, after talking to all the people there I now have a renewed enthusiasm for food. Now, who was it that told me about rose flavoured salt and how do I get hold of some?!xx