Cupcakes, Fruit Trees and Easter

Cupcakes (or buns as we used to call them) are everywhere these days and so I have jumped on the bandwagon with these pretty brooches.

I say brooches, but at the moment I am stuck as to how to attach the finding to the back.  They need some kind of backing on them to hide the bead stitching, but for the life of me, I can't seem to get the cupcake shape right (in spite of using the same template I used for the needle-felt)!  Any suggestions would be welcome, as there is a lovely batch of six colourful cakes waiting to go on sale.  I think I might experiment a little bit too and try and make some of these up into bunting or hanging decorations.

I have also spent some time making Easter eggs to give as gifts.  These are needle felted and finished with lovely glass beads and make very fetching hanging ornaments (if I say so myself).  I think some spherical ones for Christmas will be on the cards too.

I'm surprised how creative I was last week as it was a pretty exhausting one as I was flying solo whilst Mr Pink was on business in China.  Sadly this is a regular thing and results in me getting grumpier as the week goes on and him returning jet-lagged, shattered and bad-tempered!  Still, I mustn't forget that his work means that I don't have to and can stay at home with Little Pink and be part of Tickled Pink Crafts.  And he frequently comes back with some wonderful items for me to create with.  This is the latest assortment and I can already see brooches, bags, earrings...........all sourced direct from China exclusively for Tickled Pink Crafts!

We have a busy Easter weekend ahead. My Dad is coming to visit, we have an Easter Egg hunt at the Rectory on Sunday (not with the vicar mind you, our friends live there!) and we also have a gardening to do list that is getting longer by the day, including the planting of our new cherry and plum trees.

 

We have an orchard (doesn't that sound grand - it's not, honestly) full of apple trees, but not one cherry or pear tree in sight, so I think we need to put that right over the next few years starting with the cherry.  And I love plums, so an extra one of those won't hurt will it?

Stop press - excitingly Miss Tickled has just told me that she has provisionally booked a table at a market in London for three consecutive Saturdays.  One of the markets will have a Dog Show theme, so I need to get my thinking hat on and come up with some dog themed goodies.  I also need to start making some more bags as we are hoping that these will sell well - a dog themed bag perhaps?

Wishing you all a Happy and Peaceful Easter - enjoy the lovely weather!

New Year (sort of!), New Blog (definitely!)

OK, so the New Year is well and truly underway so it's not really new anymore, but in Tickled Pink land it is!  I have been very remiss in keeping the blog up to date, so I've had a revamp and am ready to go!

So, what has been happening in the world of Tickled Pink Crafts I hear you ask?  Lots and lots is the reply.  Both of us have moved house, Miss Tickled is now settled in London and enjoying life in the big smoke and I am very happy in my forever house in Herefordshire.  Spring has sprung (especially after the recent glorious weather), there are lambs in the field behind us and the fruit trees in the garden are in full blossom.

I can see lots of jam-making this year which is especially good news as I inherited the family jam pan when Mum died and I am excited to carry on the tradition of using it.  Lots of recipes please for plum, damson and greengage jams!

The garden is starting to yield crops and I picked nearly 4lbs of rhubarb this morning.  Some of it will have to be given away, but I am going to make the a rhubarb and custard cake this afternoon - absolutely delicious warm with more custard, but still yummy when it's cold.

And we have sown potatoes, peas, carrots, rocket, radish, cabbages and broad beans for later in the year.  Runner beans, tomatoes, cauliflower and various squash are in preparation too!

Now, before I move onto Tickled Pink itself, let me introduce you to the newest member of the Pink family - Wilbur, a 14 week old Schnoodle puppy.  He takes our dog tally to three, and to be honest, I think that's enough for now!

As for Tickled Pink Crafts...............it's all systems go!  We have both decided that this is the year we have to make a success of things.  Neither Miss Tickled nor I want to go back to work (in a conventional job) and we both love crafting, so we have set up the partnership on a more formal basis and are working hard to make it happen.

Miss Tickled manned our first craft fair this weekend, the Boogaloo Market in Highgate.  Sadly it wasn't a roaring success, but the organisers were lovely and very encouraging so we are not disheartened.  Probably the fantastic weather and the lure of the Grand National kept people away.  However, we proved to ourselves that we can put something together at very short notice (less than a week) and are looking at it as a positive thing.  Even if I say so myself, the stall looked great - well done Miss Tickled and thank you.

What you can't see on here are Miss Tickled's fabulous new range of shutter cards.  Here are just a few examples.....

 

What's even better about these, is that they are completely customisable (is that a real word?), and she will make them in whatever colour way and design you require.  The last one was made as a commission for a bridesmaid who wanted a card for the bride and groom to match in with the colour and theme of the wedding.  They really are cards to be kept and admired and stand out amongst all the shop bought ones.


I have found the most fantastic ribbon supplier and have spent many happy hours in front of the television making corsages.  They were great in winter for brightening up a dull day, and now that the sun has made an appearance they add to that happy feeling that summer is on the way.

 

What do you think about having these for a wedding - in colours to suit Mother-of-the-Bride and Mother-of the Groom outfits? Or for the Bridesmaids? Or how about on hairclips or hairbands?



I've also been discovering needle-felting, a great way for getting rid of your daily frustration and also for creating some wonderful, unique pieces.  I have customised some jute shopping bags - what do you think?

I'm now trying out some alpaca wool/fibre that I picked up at Wonderwool Wales and maybe plucking up the courage to try some 3D felting too!

Finally, let me show you the eggs that the Tickled Pink hens laid the other week - just in time for Easter!

Imaginary Worlds

I have been watching Little Pink this week and found myself mesmerised by her wonderful imagination.  She has carried me to the car, strapped me into my seat, given me a drink and driven me to Germany, complete with car noises and gear changes!  She has been shopping several times, driving to the supermarket in her car (her ride on toy), put her groceries in the boot and driven back home again, taking care to stop at all the red lights.  She has cooked, cleaned, done some gardening, bathed her dolls and teddies, put them to bed, read them a story, cuddled them when they hurt themselves and even put plasters on the ones with more serious injuries.  My favourite game was Mummy's bedtime, which meant I got put to bed on the sofa, covered with blankets and left to go to sleep for ten minutes!

Her bathtime games are just as imaginative.  Empty shampoo bottles become boats, submarines, kettles, waterfalls.  She swims in the "blue lake", just like the one she swam in on holiday, except this one has bubbles in it and is warmer!  In the garden, her trampoline has become an ice-cream parlour and she serves up delicious sundaes from there!  During one of our trips to town Tigger walked on the pavement with us and then had to hold our hands to cross the road so that he would be safe.

I am always sad when Little Pink wants to play but I can't because I have to cook tea, empty the dishwasher, hoover or do another of those chores that get in the way.  I wish I was more able to look at the world through her eyes, with innocence and wonder and delight.  I am left wondering just what is it that happens to our imagination as we grow older?  Why do so many of us lose the ability to see beyond the daily grind?  I know that it would be impossible to live in a make-believe world all of the time, and that we have to work and earn money to pay the bills, but why does our imagination seem to go to waste?  How can we reclaim the child within us whilst balancing it with the demands that our grown-up lives place upon us?

Preparation for the big move

So, after a week of tension in the Pink household, we finally exchanged contracts with our buyer and seller on Friday.  Thursday night was a particularly sleepless one as our buyer's solicitor had discovered a covenant on a piece of land at the back of our house restricting the use to agricultural only - it appeared that we may have breached the covenant by building part of our extension on it (not that we knew it existed).  My night consisted of worrying about how on earth we could get round this and I had visions of the sale falling through and us having to pull down the right hand corner of our kitchen, pay an enormous fine, be put in the village stocks and pelted with all kinds of rotten fruit and vegetables by the other residents, who know that their gardens should only be used for agricultural purposes.  Suffice it to say that a red line drawn on a map was enough to ensure the exchange happened.

After the fantastic news had sunk in, Mr Pink toddled off to Heathrow to catch his latest flight to China, casually dropping the bombshell that he wouldn't be back until Saturday not Friday as usual.  He swears he had mentioned this before, but I think it was probably in one of those regular conversations that he has with himself but fails to vocalise externally!  Fortunately, Grandpa Pink has come to stay for the duration of the trip (and a bit longer) to help me start to sort things out.

Today we decided we would tackle the loft.  Luckily this is a walk in loft not one that has to be approached via a tiny hole in the ceiling - we do have one of those, but it involves me climbing up Mr Pink's shoulder and head to get in as he is too portly to fit through the hatch!  Now, foolishly I thought that this wouldn't be too bad as Mr Pink and I had sorted some things out before we put the house on the market.  Oh, how wrong I was!  Here are some of the items we have either marked for the charity shop or tip:

• a bedside cabinet with no door and a broken leg
• two 'portable' televisions - I use the term 'portable' but they each weigh as much as a baby elephant
• odd pieces of plasterboard
• empty shoeboxes
• Mr Pink's 1980's style flying jacket (he is slightly bulkier now than I imagine he was then)
• 3 computer bags - computers not included
• an empty paint pot
• a box of random ceramic tiles

 We did find lots of lovely 'forgotten' things too:

• 3 beautiful handblown glass baubles from the Czech Republic
• my single and LP collections - there's a whole blog post in there!
• Great Grandma Pink's wooden chair - the leg has broken but we will get it repaired
• Mr Potato Head
• box crammed full of toy tractors and farm machinery

 And then, there are the things that you just don't know what to do with:

• all the notes I made when writing my M.Litt thesis - just what do you do with pages and pages of writing about The Position of Women in Late 19thC Austrian Literature?
• soft toys 
• books that I have read, will never read again, but can't bear to throw away
• wooden kitchen blind - will it fit the new house?

 And that's just half the loft, the other half is still to be done, the half that the rat decided would be a good place to live.  Then there's the shed and that kitchen drawer, you know, the one that everything gets shoved in - who knows what we might find in there?

Mum

I miss my Mum.  She died in March 2009.  She was diagnosed with breast cancer 15 years previously which she fought and we thought she had won.  Sadly it had spread to her bones, but again she fought and was beating it.  Finally it spread to her liver, nothing she could do about that, but she fought and fought until it finally beat her.

We never had that close mother/daughter relationship that you read about in the magazines and see on the adverts.  We never did girlie things together like shopping or lunch.  In fact, most of the time we argued and disagreed and sniped at each other.  But ultimately we loved each other.

I was very ill and in hospital in 2006 and the only thing I wanted was my Mum.  She came and everything was alright again.  A cuddle from her and everything was going to be OK.

I miss the fact that she isn't here just as I've become a mother.  Yes, she met her grand-daughter, but died when she was just 16 months old.  Little Pink can't really remember Grandma - yes, she can recognise her from a photo, but she can't remember her as a person.  And I miss not being able to talk to Mum about how willful and stubborn Little Pink is, and how she's driving me to distraction even though or because I love her to bits.  I can't tell Mum that I understand now - I understand why she shouted at me or stopped me from doing things.  Why she worried over the little things.  I know now, because I am a mother too.

I miss that she won't see our new house, even though she never did understand why I, born and brought up in a suburb of Leeds, wanted to live in the countryside.  I won't be able to hear her being critical that our nearest neighbour will be over a mile away and that we will have a septic tank.  And the fact that I want to keep chickens again, and perhaps a donkey or two, well............!

I just miss her.  Why tonight, I don't know?  It's another day tomorrow and the hurt will be in the background again, but it will always be there, I will always miss her, and I will always love her.

God bless you Mum.

Christmas is Coming!!

Christmas arrived in the Pink household today.  Little Pink decided to watch "Elf" on DVD and in spite of the sunshine and warmth outside we have been left feeling very Christmassy!

Having said that, I have been thinking about the festive season for a few days now, ever since Miss Tickled sent me the latest batch of enamel pieces to make up.  She has created some stunning hearts and flowers, red and silver with sparkles that catch the light and give them a whole new dimension.  Glittering stars and bold rectangles in shades of neopolitan ice-cream that will look incredible against a little black dress or jazz up a pair of jeans for a Christmas drink down the pub.

Here is a sneaky peak at one of our seasonal creations:

I am very excited about making up the rest over the next few days, and even more excited about showing them to you all.

But before I get back to my beads, I need to know - is it too early to put up the Christmas tree and start writing my letter to Santa?

Looks like we really are moving - and soon!!

So, we got a call from our estate agent tonight - our buyer is looking to exchange contracts either next Friday or sometime the following week!!  Now, this is fab news considering we were on the market for 13 months and had about 8 viewings during that time - but heck, that's only next week!!

We've only had the first quote for moving us today - do we get them to do the packing or do we do it?  I'm veering towards getting them to do it for the sake of £500 - sounds a lot, but think how stressful it would be?  What do I do about Little Pink's nursery?  She's so happy there - I hate that I'm taking her away from it, although I know there will be another good one where we are going - and they love her too.  What about all the junk that I was going to sort out before we moved?  What about saying goodbye to the friends that we have made here?

It's ridiculous.  I've been desperate to get away from here for a long long time.  I really dislike our neighbours on the one side, and the feeling is mutual (ever since we fell out over the plans for their extension and the five windows directly overlooking our garden).  I'm not over keen on the village and the people in it, with two or three exceptions, and I am especially glad to be leaving behind the woman who managed to get my big soppy dog who wouldn't hurt a fly issued with an asbo (that's a whole other story).  And the fact is we are moving to a beautiful house in a wonderful area, it's everything we wanted and more.  So why do I have so many misgivings and worries?