With autumn now well and truly upon us, a glance just a little bit further ahead in the wall calendar reveals an impending long, cold, British winter. Fortunately, something equally British can be your salvation, and by that of course, I mean turning to crafts to beat the cold snap. Bedrooms can be easily converted from large, airy, brightly-lit summer spaces, to a warm and cosy den for hibernation throughout the winter – and you'll be amazed at the difference items such as over-sized pillows and scatter-cushions, blankets, quilts and bedspreads can make to both the metaphorical and literal ... read more
Crafty Catch Up – Spice of Life, Halloween and the Start of Christmas
Can you tell that the crochet is completely taking over my life at the moment? If you follow me on Instagram it's probably pretty obvious. It seems that every spare minute is spent with a hook in my hand these days and I'm loving it! I'm onto the final stretch of the main body of the Spice of Life CAL now and I'm already starting to feel a bit sad about the fact that it will be all over soon. The pattern has you repeating the first half of the blanket in different colours for the second half, so there are no more new stitches to learn, but instead it's great practice of what you have ... read more
Crafty Catch Up – Spice of Life CAL and a spot of dress making
I'm still struggling a bit with this new rhythm that my week day life needs to fall into. It doesn't seem to be coming naturally at all, but I'm hopeful that a fit of being organised this Monday is starting to send things more in the right direction. I'm squeezing in crafty moments whenever I can, but again more organisation is needed to maximise these better. There have been a couple of busy weeks here with one things and another socially so hopefully now things are getting quieter more evenings with a crochet hook or a needle and thread can take place - after all what else were chilly ... read more
The rhythm of life
I can't hear those four words without bursting into song in my head. My old school choir did an amazing version of The Rhythm of Life that used to make the hairs on the back of my neck just stand on end every single time. Somewhere at my mum's I'm sure there's a cassette recording of it which has to be reason in itself to dig out an old walkman and wire it up somehow. The rhythm of life has changed somewhat here over the last couple of months and it's taking a bit of time to get used to. Master C finished at nursery at the end of July and I strangely found the whole thing a bit emotional. ... read more
Crafty Catch Up – Attic 24 Ripple Blanket and Spice of Life CAL
It's been a while since I managed to pull together a my week in crafts post mainly because the school holidays have meant very little time to craft. I'm hoping that things are about to change though as Little Miss C is now back at school and Master C started pre-school last week. It means a totally different shape to each day, but one that I'm hoping to fill with plenty of crafty activities, both with and without the kids. Holiday crochet #crochet #rippleblanket #attic24A photo posted by Penny Carr (@realbeingmrsc) on Aug 28, 2015 at 2:32pm PDTThe main thing that has progressed this summer has ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: Understanding Numbers
The thrill of the chase is one of the things I love about collecting Ladybird books. A trip to my local Oxfam bookshop last week to try to buy something else entirely resulted in me coming home with this Ladybird gem last week. It's a couple of years since I last featured a book from The Words for Numbers series (series 661) and it's not a series that I often find in charity shops, but this was sat on the shelf for just 99p, despite being in excellent condition, and there was no way I was leaving without it. Understanding Numbers is Book 1 of the Words for Numbers series and whilst I ... read more
Pom Pom the Champion – Sophy Henn
This was the first time that Master C and I had met Sophy Henn's adorable little panda creation Pom Pom, but I'm so glad we did. Pom Pom the Champion sees Pom Pom bored in the way that so many children always say they are when they don't know what to do. He has a house full of toys and games (which sounds very familiar) but he doesn't know what to do. After his mum suggests they play a game which Pom Pom wins he suddenly decides that winning is what he wants to do. He creates a load of challenges and races for himself which he managed to win and as you might expect he's rather buoyed up by ... read more
Criccieth Castle
When you think of north Wales castles have to be one of the first things that come to mind. There are apparently over 600 castles in Wales and as you drive around you certainly keep coming across them. The castles, along with the gorgeous scenery and coastline, were one of the big driving reasons for wanting to visit Wales in the first place with the kids. On the first full day of our stay at Haven Hafan Y Mor we decided to get out and visit the nearest castle to the site - Criccieth Castle. Just a few miles along the coast Criccieth Castle is high up between two beaches and has some of the ... read more
Review: Learning Outdoors with the Meek Family
Wow! What. A. Summer. I'm sat here surrounded by bits of Little Miss C's school uniform that I've been busy sewing name tapes on to all evening. She's back to school in the morning and incredibly excited about it. It seems hard to believe that I was worried about 6 weeks of summer holidays stretching ahead of me as I just had no idea how to fill all that time. As it happens though I've had no real problems at all (although I won't deny that there have been some afternoons that have felt like forever!) and we've had a really busy summer with lots of days out, a planned holiday to Wales and ... read more
Our SwimFin Summer #SwimFinSummer
I was absolutely delighted to receive an email at the start of the summer asking if Little Miss C and Master C wanted to work with SwimFin trying out their funky swimming aids. Imagine being a child and being able to swim along pretending to be a shark whilst singing the Jaws theme tune to yourself and that's exactly what SwimFin allows you to do. We saw a couple of these in action at our local leisure centre earlier in the year and all three of us just stood their open mouthed at how utterly cool they looked and I'd even gone home and done a bit of google work to find out all about them. ... read more