Kitchen Make Over Continued................

What a lovely sunny day to be off work with my man.

We decided that it was just too nice to start painting the kitchen first thing so we popped out for more painting supplies. On the way I dragged him to the CS down the road, I found some lovely old opera glasses for £4 bargain, and some building blocks with words on them in a wooden tray - going to put them up in the kitchen so we can leave messages for each other!!

So off to TP for the painting supplies, paint in the car but it's still too nice to go home and paint so we went to the Pick Your Own farm. The raspberry's weren't quite ready last time we went so I was on a mission to get some, more Jam is needed! The Strawberry Jam I made a couple of weekends ago has been in high demand and we are now getting low on it. If anyone has any recipes for raspberry jam let me know as I'm not sure what to do about the seeds!!! Seeds or no seeds, that is the question!!!!!

Well we picked a large punnet load, they are Delicious and it was lucky we hadn't had breakfast as we were able to pick our own and eat it as we picked the fruit!! Naughty Naughty.


We also went looking for strawberry's but after the bad weather last week there weren't any decent ones left so we opted for Beetroot instead. I know it's not quite the same as strawberry's but I do have an obsession for it, all my life I have loved beetroot. My mum tells a story that while she was pregnant with me all she wanted to eat was M&S baby beetroots, I think she got

me addicted in the womb!!!

Ohh and we picked broad beans.
Well I have digressed, we then came home via the CS so I could show Gav a fire guard I had seen in there in the morning and we bought it. Is desperately needed for the new bigger fireplace so the kittens (one next month) don't get too near to the fire.
Homeward bound, we ate lunch and then set to work on the Kitchen Make over part 2.

I gave the dresser tops a coat of white satin wood and Gav finished the walls and ceilings.

I also gave the shelf a coat of White satin wood ready for it to go up tomorrow for the cook books.

Painting done, and I was on a mission!!! I decided to have a clear out of the kitchen cupboards, 2 boxes for CS later and I scrubbing the doors, changing the extractor filter and cleaning the cooker, OMG I think I was high on the paint and kitchen cleaner because I kept going until 9pm tonight. Well I'm showered and ready for bed. Doesn't time fly when your having fun!!
I hope you like the photos of my trip out today, hopefully finished Kitchen Pics tomorrow.

Night Night xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Kitchen Make Over

I love to cook and am always in our kitchen. My kitchen however is in desperate need of renovation but at the moment the best I can do is a make over!! The kitchen I out of the 70's with red tile brick flooring and red tiling on the walls, mottled beige melemine door fronts and cream spanish style artex on the walls!!

I have decided that I can cope with the red floor & wall tiles and that white and blue will make a good combination with the red, white walls and red and blue accessories. I am going to use the phrase "Keep Calm and Carry On" as my kitchen inspiration and I am going to buy the poster to put up when the make over is finished. I am also thinking that a union jack and some red & white gingham might look good in there.

So yeasterday late in the afternoon Gav and I set to work on the grand make over.

(Note not a 60 minute one!!)

I cleared the shelves & surfaces, all my cookbooks, vases and jars are now on the dining room table!! I the started to wash down the walls with cleaning spray to make sure the paint would take. We took down the shelves that could be taken down!! I have 2 pine dressere tops on the walls in the kitchen, which the previous owner had put up, We thought they would unscrew from the wall but they are artexed to the walls!! strange 70's obsession artex.

So they were left in situe and I washed them down. Gav painted untill at least 11pm when he finally fell into his chair. We were pleased with the progress we had made and planned to go out and get new ceiling light's today.

So off we went this morning, and we got some nice crome lights with great halogen spots in them, fab for highlighting my finds on the dresser tops. I also found an end of bath pannel which I am going to use to make a chalk bord as I saw Joan make on anything goes here. We came home and started painting again, Gav the walls and me the dresser tops. I have undercoated them today and will put a coat of White Satin Wood on them tomorrow. I also painted a long pine shelf that will hold my collection of cookbooks.

The kitchen is looking so much brighter, and bigger. We are off work tomorrow and Tuesday so we will hopefully have it finished before we go back to work on Wednesday.

I will post finished phots when my make over is compeat.

Have a lovely week, and remember Keep Calm And Carry On xxxx

Saturday Shopping

Charity Shopping, Clothing Sale shopping & Jumble Sale Shopping.

All on my list today.

We started (Gem and I) at 9am with a trip to one of our local parades of shops with 5 CS on it.

Only one find "The Green Beauty Bible", some light reading for me!!

Then we went to a Clothing sale called "Wardrobe Goldmine", it is a clothing sale run by mums in the local area. You buy a pack of 10 or 25 labels and then label up any unwanted clothes with the price you want to get for the items, the size etc. You take them along to the sale and they are sold. You then get 70% of what the clothes are sold for. It's a great way to recycle clothes that are too good to be thrown away, and somebody else gets to enjoy your clothes. I didn't buy anything this time but Gem got a fab pair of red penitent shoes. I bought in to the 25 label pack for the next sale in September, as I am due a clear out and this will be a great way of doing it. I have to say I have gone off selling on EBay of late.

The Mum's from the sale also run a group called Mum's Marketplace, that holds Crafts and Gift fairs in the local area, I'm defiantly going to try and go along to one.

We then set off to a Scout Jumble sale, I like to support the local community and if I can do that with thrifting it's a bonus. I got a vintage children's book only 20p.

It had been raining all morning, and I have to say we were pretty soggy by the time we had finished out shopping so home for a nice cuppa.

Sorry no photos today, such horrid weather will post some tomorrow if the weather brightens up xx

Friday Finds

My weekend started on Friday this week, lucky me!
I started with a visit to my fav CS, and picked up some lovelys.

A pretty Royal Worcester shell shaped dish, the name on the bottom is Strawberry Fair what with my recent strawberry addiction I had to have it.

I also found an old Oxo tin, I have been after one of these for ages some sort of childhood memory has made me want one of these.

I also got a lovely glass jug, just right for Pims O'clock!! and as I was paying for my finds I spotted something in the cabinet below. I asked to see it and it was an old ladys tape measure, with an embroidered top. £1.50 bargain of the day.

Next town beckoned with my in laws, we had a lovely lunch in my fav cafe Pestle and Mortar. Then we went shopping!!! I got a lovely new Ironing board for my CK Ironing board cover!! Now Ironing will be so much more fun.

Peas Please!!!!

OMG!!! I've just got back from watering the veggie patch and look what I found.

Pea's & French Beans and lots of them, they sure weren't this big yesterday or even there!!

This is my first attempt at growing peas & beans and they are really quite self sufficient vegetables, the hard work is all in the prep with the cane tripods. Luckily Gav made the cane frames for me while I planted the seeds.

I also had to show you one of my sun flowers. Last year we had loads of random plates pop up in the veg patch, we pulled some out as we knew they weren't potatoes (which is what I had planted) but we left 3 to see what they were and up and out came beautiful sun flowers. We pulled them up when they died and thought of them no more. Until they started coming up again this year in the middle of the onions, potatoes and peas!!! I didn't have the heart to pull them out as they do look so beautiful when they come out.

I also wanted to show you my water lily that Gav got me for the pond, unfortunately the flower only blooms for about 3 days and its in the day time so I kept missing it as I was at work, luckily Gav took a photo for me in his lunch hour and it is beautiful.

Have a great week let's hope the sun keeps shining xxxxx

Jamie at Home

Ohhhhhhhhhh what an exciting day!!
I picked up my Jamie at Home goodies today.

I went to a Jamie at home party a few weeks ago and it was fab. So fab I am having my own party in a couple of weeks.

It was great fun, you watch a DVD of Jamie Oliver cooking an exclusive recipe, you take part in a quiz where you can win Jamie Oliver prizes. Me being a geeky cook won the prize at the party I went to, a cool spaghetti portion measurer, fab as I always cook too much. The products are lovely and as you can see I did purchase a few things.

The kilner jars are fab, glass with a ceramic lid. They come in 3 colours blue, pea green and cream. I got one of each of the larger jars and two of each of the smaller jars in the blue. I also got some tea towels ( bit of a thing about nice tea towels at the moment got CK ones this week too!!)

And I got the 4 exclusive recipe cards for the month of June. When I have my party I will get July's automatically as I am a hostess & a nice binder to keep them in. I also got the hessian shopper bag which was on special offer, it's not normally sold as the consultants get their kit in them. Well I you fancy a party check out the Jamie at Home website. I will post again after I have had my party.

Very excited to see all the goodies in the flesh again and get them in my kitchen.

Have a lovely weekend and a fab 4th July xxxxxxxxx

A Parcel for me....

My Cath Kidston order arrived today, I placed it last week on the first day of the sale. I know CK gets a lot of PR from us bloggers but I wanted to show you my Sale Bargains. So my order consisted of

A new Ironing bord cover in floral gingham (thought it might make the ironing more fun!!)

A First Aid tin in red stencil

Two packs of Birthday Buttons

A red star book bag

A pair of Gardening Gloves in mini dot green (A gift for some one)

Some tea towels in stencil & shooting stars

Not bad I thought for £40, and it's lovely to get a big parcel in the post, especially one with pretty presents for me in!!! If you have a spare 5 minutes and some spending money, have a look on the Cath Kidston website and treat yourself. My top tip would be to phone and place your order as they sometimes have more products in the sale than online.

Happy Shopping xxxxxx