Devon - sunburn and showers

Last week the boyfriend and I escaped to Devon for our first holiday in ages. Despite the 'unsettled' weather we had a great time, wandering round quaint fishing villages, eating fresh fish (well I was, he hates fish) looking rounds castles and walking through Dartmoor National Park. It reminded me that although we are busy saving for a house, holidays are definitely worth the small expense - it was so relaxing not worrying about work and only having to please ourselves! Here's a few of my favourite pictures...

The beach at Torquay

Torquay harbour, there were some NICE boats

Ruin of a summer house in the grounds of Powderham Castle

View over the Exe Estuary from the top of a very steep hill

Small harbour at Dawlish, the building with the red awning was the most amazing restuarant

Inside Exeter Catherdral

Walking through Dartmoor National Park

Waterfall on our walk through Dartmoor, we did an exhuasting four miles in the end.

Devon is such a beautiful place and the people were really friendly, I want to go back already!

Our Vintage 2012 at Denmans Garden

I'm back from an amazing few days in Devon, but more about that later in the week! Before I left I promised to share some pictures from my trip to Our Vintage 2012 at Denmans Gardens. This fortnightly Sunday event sees stalls full of vintage and handmade clothing, home wares, furniture and accessories pop up next to the gorgeous gardens at Demnans (they also have an amazing cafe!). The fair is still reasonably small but I'd image as word spreads the number of stall holders will grow and as it doesn't take long to go around there's plenty of time to see the gardens and have tea and cake in the cafe. Entry to the fair and cafe is free and if you'd like to go round the gardens it's about £5 per adult - well worth it if the sun is shining as it's a great place for photos...

The gardens with lots of places to sit and relax

Becki Short singing wartime sings really added to the atmosphere

Inside the cafe, full of antiques

Foxgloves -  probably one of my favourite flowers

One of the vintage stalls, this lady had some lovely vintage china

Budgies in a conservatory in the gardens - most unexpexted!

Turns out that those silver ball garden ornament things make a pretty good fisheye lens

Rose in the walled garden

I'll definitely be going back in a few weeks to see if they've got some different stalls and to have another slice of cake in their cafe.

See you at the weekend

I'm off to Devon for the week and despite my best intentions I only managed one blog last week - must try harder! So it'll be another quiet week on floral and feather, but I'm back at the weekend and will share my latest craft project (five years in the making), yesterday's trip to a lovely garden and vintage fair (pictured) and some holiday snaps! Hope you have a great week.

Bring me sunshine

Well, what hideous weather we’re having. It took me over an hour and a half to get home from work because of the various road closures and puddles lakes that had appeared on the roads. So to bring some sunshine to a very grey day I thought I’d post some pictures of flowers in our garden, taken during that lovely sunny week we had a while ago – now a distant memory!

And I just couldn’t resist including this one. He looks fairly unimpressed, but I think he secretly loved his daisy hat.

Proof that beauty blogging works?

Apologies for starting another blog with a question mark, I must be in a very reflective mood this week! I’ve discovered my new can’t live without lip balm all thanks to beauty bloggers. I read quite a few blogs and back at the start of this year everyone seemed to be talking about Figs and Rouge lip balms.

Now, I’m not really one for being taken in by the latest releases and new ‘must haves’- after a few years of trying products that didn’t seem to do anything, I gave up. But the glowing reviews for Figs and Rouge happened at the same time as my lips became really dry (thanks to a central heated office and freezing January weather) and my trusted Vaseline pot did nothing to help. Neither did the various other balms I’ve used over the years, so I brought Figs and Rouge lip balm in coco vanilla.

It’s amazing. My poor dry lips were better in days and have been beautifully moisturised ever since. I’ve just purchased my second pot so I’ve defiantly given it a good testing and am singing its praises to anyone who’ll listen! Also it smells DIVINE. It costs more than your average Vaseline pot but its worth it.

So mini review over, is this proof that beauty blogging works? As I said before I’d stopped trusting advertising and magazines – too much airbrushing and product placement, and would probably not have paid out the extra few pounds for Figs and Rouge if I hadn’t heard good things from others. The only beauty reviews I trust are the ‘readers reviews’ offered in various magazines, which beauty blogs are an extension of. Has anyone else found this? Unfortunately my bank balance won’t allow me to try every product I read rave views about and I don’t wear lots of make-up, but I’ll be going back to beauty blogs next time I need something new.

Time to start thinking about Christmas...?

Yes I really did just write that. I’m sure it’s the furthest thing from everyone’s minds right now, but for those of us who found last Christmas a manic rush it’s a good idea to start thinking about it now. Every year I have the best intentions to give out some handmade items but never actually manage to; so this time I’m starting REALLY early and have already begun knitting some fingerless gloves for female friends and relatives. I’m also planning on making jam soon (whenever the jam making season begins) but will blog about that nearer the time as I’m sure it will be an interesting experience.

For now though, what do you think of my gloves? They’re really easy, mainly because they’re fingerless; just knit a rectangle then sew into a tube leaving a gap for your thumb. And for the bow knit another tiny rectangle, wrap wool round its centre, secure and then sew onto glove - so easy! One pair down, lots more to go before December...