Setting Up Shop

These little poppets hatched in the night. I stayed up quite late to settle them in, but I needn't have worried as Hilda Hen stayed close by to keep an eye on them all. They are actually quite a rowdy bunch and are now ready and waiting on my stall for any little hands that want to give them a cuddle.

This morning I put all the finishing touches to my makes and labelled up the new to me vintage china and homeware. After lunch we packed the car and then off we went to Southwold to set up shop. Mr Bun had taken the day off so I had three extra pairs of hands for carrying. While I made my space look pretty, they ran off to eat icecreams and do a bit of rolling down hills on the green. I'm very pleased with the results.

There are about ten of us in this lovely old school gym. The walls still have the wooden climbing bars and then the space is divided up into sections as it's also used for art exhibitions. I only had a quick look round once I'd finished as I had a hungry hoard ready for chips and chocolate. So I took two quick pictures of other stalls.

This is Sarah's who makes gorgeous lampshades from vintage fabrics. She is organising a vintage and retro makers fair in Woodbridge in the summer. I'll post more details nearer the time as Woodbridge is certainly worth a visit.

This stall really tempted the buns and I. There are some fabulous kitsch poodles at the back and lots of other goodies.

Anyway I'll be back on Saturday to take my turn with the selling as it's all shared. I always feel guilty doing so little as they happen in the holidays and I have the buns with me who would last five minutes playing shop. Then I might do just a little bit of buying and also bring down everything I forgot today.

Silkie Sue's Swap & an Award

If you pop over to Silkie Sue's blog you'll be able to take part in her swap. Leave a comment before Monday 13th to enter. It sounds fun as all you need to do is make anything you think your swap partner would like.

Other bit of news is that the lovely and generous Beki over at Ramblings of an Everday Mummy gave me this award last week.

I would like to award it to all the blogs that I read, many are still listed on favourites as I keep meaning to add them to my bloglist. In fact this sums me up. I was in the middle of putting the finishing touches to my goodies that will go on my stall tommorow, but got distracted. Now I am here when I should be there. So off I go I think.

If you happen to be in Southwold this Easter, I will have a stall at the Buddha Market (opp. the Electric Cinema) from the 9th to the 19th. Lots of vintage goodies to tempt you. Luckily for the buns I don't have to be there or I wouldn't be a very popular mummy.

Celebrations and Holidays

It has been very busy here in the Bun household for the last few days. Our Easter tree is ready and waiting for the Easter Bunny. I cut some branches from our cherry tree, pussy willow and something else that I don't know the name of, then the buns set to work. I think they've made it look fantastic. Small creatures have been pulled out of boxes and drawers and assembled around the bottom of the tree. Even more have been added since this photo was taken.

On the last school morning there was an Easter Bonnet parade, so we had to quickly make bonnets. We've never had one of these before so it was a lovely start to the day. Apparently they had egg hunts and games for the rest of the day, so much better than my day with the bank.

Saturday was a dance around the kitchen in sheer joy and delight day. After months of watching pennies and trying to make them stretch further than was physically possible we discovered we had overpaid our tax last year by a rather large amount. The cheque finally arrived on Saturday morning to whoops of delight. The rest of the day was spent in party preparations for little bun. I tidied the garden and refused to let the hens out to undo all my hardwork. Then I baked and baked while the buns got busy making up small packets of sunflower seeds and cress.

Next up for the party preparations was to finish off the brooches and hair-ties.

I wrapped them with a packet of sweets in tissue paper and labelled them for each party guest. As it has been so chaotic I forgot to take a picture (which is the case with most of the things I wanted to show you on here).

On Sunday, the day of the birthday party, the weather was glorious, so little bun and her friends wanted to play outside most of the time. If you look closely you can just see a small black face poking out at bottom of the picture and very obviously a lot of washing I forgot to bring in.

The girls only dipped in for quick bursts of pass-the-parcel, musical statues and guess what's on the tray before running out to enjoy the weather again. Then it was time for food before more playing.




Eldest bun decorated the birthday cake in early easter style in honour of a little sister who was born on Easter weekend.

They all had a marvellous time and we've decided home parties are the best. Eldest bun has already chosen an Alice in Wonderland tea party for her ninth birthday, with croquet on the lawn. So I know what I will be looking for at the car boot and auctions now.

The next morning, rather than flop about and relax on the first day of the holidays, we were off to the beach to meet friends for a picnic. It didn't take them all long to take off their shoes and socks to have a paddle. It wasn't that warm though, do the coats give it awayat all?

By the time we were ready to leave their trousers were completely soaked. Surprisingly I didn't have a change of clothes, so they had to strip off and snuggle under my coat and cardigan for the journey home. When we got back it was straight into the bath for them and then time to open the bubbly as today was our wedding anniversary.

So much is planned for these next two weeks, mainly to enjoy our time together. Tommorow eldest bun is off to a museum with a friend from her new school while I try to finish everything off so I can set up my pitch on Wednesday. So it will be back to the coast again on Wednesday for vintage goodies without the soggy, sandy children.

Hope you all have a wonderful Easter whatever your plans are. X

Our April Fool

Exactly two years ago today Mr Bun and eldest bun went on a five hour round trip to collect our beautiful boy Alfie Blue. We had moved house six days before, some rooms were filled with boxes, little bun had just had her birthday so it seemed the perfect time to get a dog really. I just happened to be looking in the Free ads when I read about Alfie (he had another name then). We knew we wanted a Pug as they are the friendliest, funniest and most loving dogs we had come across. The fact that the ad said he sucked his tongue meant I knew he was the one for us. He was seven months old then and had a very ill owner who needed to rehome him quickly. We wanted a rescue dog, but also a breed we knew we could trust with the buns and the other animals. He is a little star, the cats sleep with him and he washes himself like they do. His eating habits make them look at him in disgust, but then you can't have everything.


He is desperate for the ladies to pay attention to him.

He looks to me to sort out the problem for him. I tell him they've seen the door is open and they want to come in. Be brave Alfie and stop them for me.





Oh - didn't I mention Pugs are notoriously stubborn. Or maybe he's having a think about it all.





First thing today, before I got home to play with our April Fool boy, I went to the car boot. Booty was good today, the sun shone and I bumped into a few friends. So here's some of my goodies, some for the stall next week and some for us. The pullalong men are just gorgeous, I don't think that will be allowed to leave somehow. I'm also keeping the jug and Carltonware sugar bowl. The lid is repaired anyway so it must stay.



Another one for us as we've just started having our milk delivered. Now I can communicate at the swish of a tail.




Two of the eight fantastic books I bought.




Inside - I think Cowboys have far more fun than mummies. Being heroes and then a sing song, not a bad way to spend your day.

Some gorgeous, but very musty rose coasters to sell.

I'm in two minds about these as they are so so so lovely. I won't take much persuading.

Two lovely jugs for sale once they've had a good old dash of Milton. The cough tin is for Mr Bun who is Golly mad.

There he is going to bed with Teddy and black cat. Next week I'll be dragging two buns with me so who knows what we'll bring back.

Hope you're enjoying the sunshine and only had some pleasant tricks played on you.

Later on - I forgot to say a big thank you to Beki who gave me an I Love Your Blog award. After the next mad few days are over I'll work out how to copy it over and award to some of my favourite blogs. No electricity tommorow as a neighbour is having a tree cut down. so apart from school Easter church service I should be busy making as this distraction will not be here.

Springy things

As usual my head has been bursting with ideas of things to make. Things I want to make for the buns, things to sell at the Easter market in Southwold, things just for the joy of making things and finally to have something to put on my as yet empty folksy shelves. Life always seems to have other plans and so I seem to live in a permanent limbo of WIP's. I think I will have to settle for what I have achieved and stop worrying about the list in my head of all I haven't yet done. The problem of being a perfectionist is that you drive yourself nuts and probably everyone else too?

I absolutely love applique work with felt. The choice of colours are so intense and as there are no fraying edges to worry about it satisfies my love of quick results. Did I also say I was very impatient. In my workbox there are a pile of these egg cosies to be finished off and little chicks in various stages of life. These chicks are so very cute, I found them in Nicki Trench's Super Cute Crochet. I actually want to make eveything in there as each page you turn emits another ooohhh - aaaahhhh and a bunlike can we have one of those. I always agree. Drat now my list is even longer. This lovely sugar mouse is from the same book. I made another in green, but he has weight issues and so he kept rolling over.

I also love making little Yo Yo brooches. They're a good way of using up scraps of fabric. I always add vintage buttons. The rose in the centre of the pink dotty is from a collection of 30 I won on ebay. They are from New York so I sat until the wee hours to make sure I won, I wanted them badly and they are really worth it.

At the car boot I'm always on the look out for vintage children's card games to put my brooches on to. I love these happy family ones I'm using at the moment as once you take off the brooch all the gorgeous faded colours are revealed.

I've been making these button hearts for a while now as they sell well and look so pretty. I've only recently started putting a scrap of fabric on the wire to add a bit more colour.

Finally some crochet flower brooches in grown-up colours. I've made some zingy bit too bright ones for the hair ties for little buns party. I'll try to remember to put them on another post. The pink brooch at the top has got to be wrapped in a moment and delivered to a lovely friend who is having an operation tommorow. I hope she likes it.

My Beautiful Little Bun

For weeks now, really it's been months, my beautiful littlest bun has been counting the days with excitement to her birthday. Yesterday Saturday 28 March she turned 7 and she was far too ill to really notice. On Thursday night she started being sick and this just went on through Friday and into the early part of Saturday. I feel so sad for her as she was looking forward to so many things. Handing out sweeties at her new school on Friday; going to our favourite farm and then family party tea on her birthday and today a tea party with proper games with eight little friends. Yesterday she was too ill to really notice and asked her big sister to choose each present to be opened and for me to pull the paper off for her. Bless her she tried so hard and said wow at each delight. Eldest bun was an absolute star and looked after her. By the evening we were so worried we called the doctor and now she is rallying a bit. She woke this morning feeling brighter and all excited that she would be able to have her party. As she planned balloons and games it seemed so cruel when we had to explain to her how she is contagious for three more days and so we would have to cancel it. Luckily nearly all of them can come next weekend and so she will still have that party girl moment. Most importantly she is getting better and has asked for waffles for breakfast and yorkshire pudding and peas for tea.

I chose this photo of her as for seven whole years now she has smiled and lit up the world with her sheer delight in the simplest of things, her swing being one of them.

I adore you little bun.

Flowers and Fashion

Before meeting my mum this morning I had a quick dash around the car boot. I was jumping for joy when it started up again last week. Then I only came away with a couple of plates and some leeks. This week I found this gorgeous green glass vase which looks perfect with roses in. I also couldn't believe my luck when I found these embroidery scissors. I've wanted them for a while now. I have a perfectly fine boring pair, but I really really wanted these beautiful birdy ones and now they're mine.

After we had finished getting all the final things sorted out for little buns birthday tea party, we went to choose some flowers from the market. I try not to spend as much as I used to on flowers, so I was torn between two of my favourites - anenomes, which were my wedding bouquet and arunculas. I settled on the arunculas in the end. They look so beautiful all wrapped up tightly ready to burst forth in yet more colour. The book they are laying on is CK's Vintage Prints which was waiting in the letter box for me when I got home.

Today I thought this vintage blue glass jug was perfect to set off their sunshine colours. I have far too many vases and often settle for jam jars so I can scatter them all over the house.

I realised as I was writing this post that I was also wearing some subtle flowers today. The floral lace panelling on this blouse was my reason for buying it. My favourite clothes are from Noa Noa and I love anything similar to their style. Our local Rainbow has a Dorothy Perkins tucked in the corner and that's where I found this top and fabulous ring.

Much later on, after tea we did our usual last minute mad dash to start and finish a project. Tommorow night is the Brownies recycled fashion show. The buns had to design and make clothes from recycled things. They had drawn the designs a few weeks ago, but the making never quite happened. Considering we had about an hour I think the results are pretty darned good.

Little Bun in Philip Treacey's latest with feathers, straws and recycled tissue paper.

Eldest Bun in Vivienne Westwood's newsprint t-shirt.

Catching Up

Mother's Day was wonderful. Two gorgeous little buns and a Mr Bun to snuggle with in bed and me being given gifts. Mr Bun and little bun also brought up coffee, biscuits and daffodils picked from our front garden. While I opened my cards and gifts, the buns tucked into the biscuits. Eldest bun had chosen this lovely little roses glass pot for me and little bun chose the sugar bowl. I have ideas for our bathroom to be painted in this shade of primrose yellow with lots of pink and floral curtains to give it that extra something. I can see this becoming a soap bowl once the paint brush has been and done its job. This may be some while though as there are yard of hideous teraccota tiles to paint white first as we can't stretch to re-tiling such a large room at the moment. Where was I? Back to Mother's Day.

My other presents were these gorgeous framed pictures they had drawn and coloured in. Little bun has done Posh Molly her cat and eldest bun is floating over a garden filled with her favourite things. I'll have to get the drill out as our walls are made of the hardest hard stuff and then I can put these up.

Little bun also made the flower pot at Brownies (eldest was too ill to go) and the daffodil card was made at school. In it she has written "thank you for looking after me, you chase all my bad dreams away, you are the best mummy in the world, you are perfect." Their love is so pure it melts me, when they are teenagers I think I will use this as evidence to remind them how nice I am really.

For my mum I spent all Saturday embroidering a tray cloth with the words Tea Time and cups and a gateau underneath. I was really really pleased with it. However, you'll have to take my word for it as I forgot to photograph it. In January 08 I set myself three goals - to teach myself to crochet, embroider and get hens. Well they all turned out very nicely and I really enjoy all three. I prefer crochet now to knitting as I like the quick results you can get. I'm a very impatient person. Freeform embroidery I love as it can be done on practically anything to jazz it up and make it interesting again. The range of coloured threads and the different stitches you can use give it the same quality as painting for me. I can draw out a picture and then give it colour and texture and feel excited as I watch it all grow in front of me.

I did do some knitting this week though. I have a two week sale coming up for the Easter holidays in Southwold, so I need to be restocking. I made these flower posy brooches, the other ones are yet to be finished. I've also been working on chicks, mice and knitted cakes amongst other things. Each time I make something new the buns desperately want it. I feel mean, so I let them have it and then I have to make yet more. It's good market research though, because if they don't like it I know it's not working as an idea. Eldest bun is brutually honest and at eight she already has very good taste.

I've also got to crochet twelve flowers for hairbands and slides as party gifts before the weekend. Little bun is seven on Saturday. On Sunday we are having eleven little girls here for a tea party. We have quite a few rooms here in our cottage, but they are all pretty small, so we thought eight girls, including our own, would be perfect. Now we have changed schools little bun has met a few more she wants to come, how can I say no. So with a squash and a squeeze I'm sure we'll all have fun.

In honour of the party we found this fantastic disco ball in a junk shop. Little bun has wanted one for ages and so she was thrilled when we saw it through the window. It now hangs from the beam in the dining room, gaily cracking me on the head everytime I walk under it. I smile and curse quietly.

Now to commerate the Union Jack craze I thought I would show you our wooden bunting. I bought it over a year ago to brighten up the bean I painted white. I bought two lengths and so it runs across the room cheering it all up no end.

Finally I wanted to say thank you for your kind comments about the buns changing school and their illnesses, it is really appreciated. I just wanted to add that when eldest bun went to the hospital clinic on Saturday it turned out she was dangerously close to developing pneumonia. I had taken her to the doctor a week before who told me her chest was clear and there was nothing wrong, despite it sounding rattly and dreadful to us. She has been awake at 4am every day as she coughs so much and can't sleep anymore. By Saturday she was burning up and feverish. The doctor at hospital said it was a chest infection and we had caught it just in time. Thankfully she is now on strong medicine which smells like bubblegum and tastes like battery acid. She refuses it and so I kindly say ok I'll book the hospital bed now then shall I. Down it goes, followed by a sweetie or two and now she is on the mend.

Barriers to Spring

Since my last post I've had a couple of others all witten in my head. The images are all ready and waiting on my camera, but the laptop won't play ball. I've erased tons of stuff, but can't load onto Picassa and so I feel in limbo between this world and the world of blog. It's out there and I can't quite touch it. I'm not too technical and Mr Bun really hasn't a clue (not overall, just about this) so will have to keep fiddling and see what happens.

The picture above is from one of my book buys last week. I really love the idea of making a patchwork curtain to hide things away. I don't know if any of you recognise the kitchen as I've already seen it in Country Living and then another article (can't remember where). There are so many of these lovely homes that get used and I see them in knitting books, craft books and interiors magazines.

I could only get hold of two pictures that make sense. This little scene was set up by little bun. She emptied out a couple of paper bags to see what I had bought from the wool and haberdashery shop in the week. Then she had a lovely half hour sorting everything into it's colour group, asking me if I thought it all worked. I felt it deserved a picture to record this rainbow of colour. It reminded me of the colour wheels we painstakingly mixed for and painted in those first weeks at art colllege. Once done I don't remember ever using them again, I've always felt constrained by referring to something, I much prefer having a quick look and then jmping straight in.

I also wanted to say Happy Spring everyone and lets hope all the nasty bugs and yucky stuff finally get shown the door around here. Eldest Bun has been ill for three weeks coughing all night and looking far too pale, little bun has just sneezed and I feel as if a steamroller played with me in the night. So I look out at the blue skies and I feel really uplifted, but I can't get the ooompph to get out there much. Lying prone on the sofa seems a better option once I've fed the animals.

New beginnings

It's only been a week and a half since I last posted, but in blogland that can feel an age. When I started this blog I only intended it to be a place of happy nostalgic creative news. About creating through being a mum, crafting, cooking and the general creative spirit of life. Sometimes this just can't be the case, because however much I put an upbeat spin on here, behind the scenes real life is going on. Real life meant that I didn't have any energy left for writing and then when I sat down to upload my photos my computer wouldn't play ball. Finally I have them on, but Picassa won't let me make them more attractive, so sorry for their slight fuzziness. Also everything is squashed today and won't let me move it.

In a nut shell after months of worrying about the buns at school we have finally moved them to another one. Today is their third day. It was a very hard decision to make as their old school is in our village and is right for them in so many ways, but not in others. They have some lovely friends who they have known since Nursery school. We struggled between what we wanted for them educationally and their happiness. In the end we made the decision, but this last week at school has been hard. watching them with friends, hearing them talk about future plans. On Friday night I felt awful as the reality of it hit the buns. Some of their friends had given such thoughtful gifts and handdrawn cards which brought a lump to my throat. However, on the first morning little bun was up at 6.30am full of joy and excitement for the day ahead. She has soaked up our message that she will be adding to her list of friends. Eldest bun is far more cautious, but she has a nutty and confident little sister to hold her hand and guide her through what lays ahead and forever more. As an only child this is where I know they are truly lucky because they have one another and they adore each other. I didn't need to worry though as they have already made new friends and are having a great time.

So back to blog news, last week I ordered some gorgeous books from Amazon that I've wanted for a while now. I've only managed to get two images sorted out so far. Sublime Stitching is fabulous and really inspiring with the range of ideas for embroidery. This and the others, which I will reveal next time, have all given me a much needed creative lift and so I'm now bubbling with ideas and plans.

These cats are destined for eldest bun. For a pillow, cushion or clothes - I don't know yet. I love them, so maybe I should have some for me too.

The other fantastic parcel to arrive was this tin of vintage buttons. I only just got it at the last minute on ebay. I remebered I had wanted it two minutes before bidding ended and couldn't believe I got there in time. The tin they came in is simply gorgeous and takes me back to the tins of toffee hidden in my christmas stocking. The horses on the front remind me of our tin horse Prince, so really I think I like the tin just as much as what's inside.

In true style though I also forgot a more fabulous collection that ended yesterday. So I've started leaving post it notes over my screen to help me.

Just read note which reminds me I must go and eat my lunch now.