The photos are by Rebecca Lozer, check out her website and blog.

We spent a fun evening in my garden, and now I see the place in a completely different light.

I adore what she did with my dresses, but even my garden shed looks amazing!

I’m taking the next 10 days off to disappear into a tent here. We stayed there in 2008, for one night, 2 weeks before moving into the house we live in now. By the time we had erected our tent and got the beds ready, it was getting late, so we went into the nearest village for pizza. While we were there a tremendous storm blew in; we watched a fantastic lightning show from the deck of the village store/pizza joint/movie store before returning to a very soggy tent. It had leaked all over the boys beds, so we did the best we could for the night (i.e. giving them mine and my husband’s MEC sleeping bags while we hunkered down under various blankets.)
The next morning I surveyed the site, which looked like it hadn’t seen sun for weeks, and was not going to get much this week, and said to my husband “I can’t do this”. We packed up and went home, with my husband’s only comment; “that was a very expensive pizza”.

I have made a start with my front door and sidelight, which really needed some kind of window covering, but I could not get around to installing sheers….I tried once and actually cut the fabric incorrectly, which is not a great advertisement for someone who makes clothing to sell…but I think it was more Freudian than that!

Inspired by this wonderful notebook, my good friend and fellow Milton Artisan Lena made and installed this for me:

This image lights up my day when I come downstairs every morning, because it is even more beautiful than I envisioned when we discussed installing it. Light shines through the window and casts shadows of gingkos all over the pillars in my dining room. Now I just have to get rid of everything else that is not beautiful or useful (which is a little tricky with 3 kids who have a love of all things plastic!)

The notebook was made by Maya, who has kindly given me permission to blog about the inspiration behind my window. Thanks so much Maya, and please let me know when you have more of those notebooks in your etsy store, they went too quickly last time.

Congratulations, I’ll be contacting you soon for your mailing addresses. Thank you everyone for visiting me here, hope to see you again soon.

I ordered some of this to make PJs for my friend, thinking it was flannel but it’s not (it is available in flannel, I just misread the etsy description). It’s called Wanna Be A Cowboy, designed by Samantha Walker for Riley Blake. I am giving away 2 fat quarters to 2 lucky winners as part of the Giveaway. There could be other goodies too!

Please make sure to add your contact information as part of your comments, and good luck.

Update: you can get this fabric in flannel, in case you don’t win this giveaway (or just need this in flannel!) My favourite supplier for flannel is Sara, aka the flannel queen. The flannel is really good quality, shipping is reasonable, and quick.

At least I’m giving something away in my next one!  I have signed up for the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway, which starts on Monday 16th May, so time to go rummage in my fabric closet for a couple of fat quarters, and perhaps something I have made too! Here’s more information if you’d like to join me in the giveaway…it’s never too late to do a little spring cleaning.

I scored some bug wings left over from halloween at our local dollar store, and made antennae from hairbands and styrofoam balls.  The girls wore flowery crowns and butterfly/fairy wings.

We spent the week leading up to her party making decorations and party favours.  For party favours, Ironman and I made fairy playdough, thanks to this recipe. In fact, a lot of the inspiration for our party came from this wonderful blog, including the toadstools.
We also made coffee filter flowers and butterflies, which I used to decorate the table and the light fixture, these are really easy to make, although I ended up doing most of the flower assembly, as Ironman lost interest early and went off to do some colouring!

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More to come later, we still need party food and games!

Words to live by, courtesy of late, great Theodor Geisel:

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”