Celestine does Baking

On Monday evening my friend Nicola came round and we decided in premature preparation for Christmas, that we would bake some festive gingerbread men.  It was Henry's idea really (he loves gingerbread, in fact one of our first dates was a gingerbread making date but that's another story) so he did the main making of the mixture and then we all cut them out and decorated them together.  

Of course Celestine wanted to bake too so I set her up a little table with her own gingerbread cutters   but she spent most of her time covered in flour and trying to climb into the sugar bag instead. 

The miniature cutters by the way I discovered online here thanks to Polly.

Pumpkins and Dewdrops

So many things to post about!  Firstly what do you think of Celestine's new Halloween quilt? It's all purple and green, witchy colours.  Celestine likes it very much. I think it will stay around a bit longer than Halloween!  I kind of did it as a side project, sewing bits together whenever I had a spare bit of time.  It's nice to have something on the go that you can just pick up and don't have to think too hard about.  Here are all the pieces laid out below.  I find a great tip is to stick all the squares in the order you want them onto a sheet of paper with sticky back tape and then peel them off as you go... works well for me anyway!

And here's a little Halloween mobile I made too.  I found these great sequins for a pound in Wilkinsons.  I especially love the ghost and pumpkin shapes! They're so cute!

The mobile didn't take too long.  On Saturday we had friends round and had a crafting session just for fun. The idea was to make a full size Halloween mobile but mine ended up being miniature.... those sequins were just too perfect not to use!

On the subject of pumpkins, Henry and I have been growing our own ones this year in the garden.  They are finally picked and ready to use and last night we chopped the first one up and made it into soup!  They're surprisingly easy to chop- I always think they're going to be really tough. Here they are in all their glory:

We have lots of plans for these pumpkins.  Along with soup we also want to make pumpkin bread, pumpkin dip, pumpkin crisps, pumpkin ravioli and pumpkin praline cheesecake!  Not all for ourselves I might add! We are going to have a pumpkin themed dinner party for Halloween. Let's just hope the guests like pumpkin!

Here's Celestine sitting on her own little munchkin pumpkin. She sure does love that munchkin pumpkin! It's her new favourite place to sit and read.

All this talk of pumpkins reminds me that I saw some amazing pumpkin sprinkles (for cupcakes) in a shop last week. I didn't buy them but I did look at them for a long time! There were black bat shaped sprinkles too.  I've just never seen such a thing! Maybe I have been shopping in the wrong places all my life. 

Tonight I plan to make a pumpkin house and we are making the pumpkin ravioli to freeze for Saturday.  Yes, my life really is just one big pumpkin right now.

That's probably enough talk about pumpkins for the moment- oh wait just one more picture...

sorry!

Ok new subject.  Here are some photos I took this morning whilst out walking the dog. It was such a misty morning. I loved looking at the dew drops hanging off everything. 

That's Celestine in the second picture by the way just in case you can't tell what she looks like from behind.  She's wearing her black pointy hooded cloak, walking into the mist.  I'll take more photos of her in her cloak soon...

I love all the beautiful and intricate photos you can take in this kind of weather though I'm kind of hoping it gets a bit sunnier again soon. Sunshine makes me feel happy.

What have you been up to? Are you going to carve any pumpkins this year?

Celestine's Halloween Costumes

From right to left we have: Green and Purple witch outfit. (I love that colour combination) Pumpkin outfit (my personal favourite) and lastly Red and Black witch outfit. 

Which one do you like best?

click to enlarge

Celestine says her favourite is a mixture of the two witch outfits.  She likes the colour of the green and black one but the tutu style of the red and black one. She's picky. 

A quilt for Celestine

Celestine likes reading Peter Rabbit

Celestine was tired of sleeping in a sock so I made her this nice patchwork quilt to sleep under instead.  I thought it would be nice to make it sort of seasonal so there are lots of reds, oranges and yellows in it.  Celestine likes it so much that she is demanding we make another Christmassy themed one for December. I said: 'I expect you'll want another one for spring and then another one for summer too!?' and she said: 'Yes please. I like to have a selection.'  

Not demanding at all!

patches all laid out in order.

Celestine likes to help out.

the finished article!

goodnight Celestine. (really she's just posing here. As soon as this photo was taken she jumped right out!)

stars, stripes, leaves and flowers.

What do you think? Happy Monday everyone!

This Weekend

The older I get the more I seem to appreciate nature.  I wonder why that is.  When I was younger I didn't seem to be so fussed about it and I used to hate being dragged out on walks by my parents but now I choose to go out on walks (or at least the dog chooses) and I love them! I find the beauty of nature really inspiring.

This weekend Henry and I went to one of our favourite places to walk and I took some snaps. I am getting much better at remembering to take my camera with me everywhere I go now.  I find it's a really good way to train yourself to constantly have your creative 'eye' out.

Henry and Barney

 The clouds were really beautiful on this day. They were all puffy and fluffy like white candyfloss. 

Oh and Celestine came on the walk too of course. Only managed to take one decent photo of her though as she kept running away down rabbit holes to explore.  Like Alice in Wonderland.  Here's a picture of her poking a little pool with a stick.  It was such a small little pool made from the roots of a tree. It had acorn cups and dead leaves at the bottom of it.

How was your weekend?