shortbread buttons

And while we're on the subject of recipes... such a beautiful blog this. And amazing shortbread buttons, with a full tutorial and this beautiful illustration, courtesy of the super-talented Eva Juliet. Yours free to download!

sweet stars

Ooo... how nice! I've just started making Leo cinnamon french toast in the mornings, which he devours. But what could be nicer than star-shaped french toast as seen in Sweet Paul's latest magazine! Cookie cutters at the ready!!

sunday morning

Grmphh... haven't slept for two nights! Nothing to do with the little one... he's been sleeping, well, like a baby. But it's getting wintry here and very windy and the sweet lady upstairs (and she is sweet really) torments us constantly by leaving something out on the balcony that makes a noise when the weather's bad... a really irritating 'chinese water torture' type noise. For two years it was her chairs - metal legs without any rubber feet - that made a rhythmic tapping noise that just could not be blocked out with earplugs and pillow over your head. It took us a year to establish just what the noise was and then when we discovered it she didn't believe us, so just kept leaving the chairs out. In the end we had to go and buy rubber feet and put them on all her chairs. Bliss... the noise stopped. And then suddenly a new noise - a metallic clanking noise. I swear she does it on purpose! Anyway, that's my little moan over... here's a nice cheery quilt mosaic from one of my lovely contacts on Flickr. Thank you Melissa!

what happened when...

It seems so long ago that I can hardly believe it's only 5 months since our (second) wedding. The first three months of the year were taken up with preparations and completing paperwork. We had to do a low-budget affair, so it was down to me to design our wedding invite (in Greek and English of course), make all the wedding favours and arrange the flowers. Not that I didn't love every minute of it, and with a little help from my friends, here's a taster of what I did...

Our church was right in the middle of a big park. Infact it was one of two churches in the park, so there was no choice but to add a map to the back of the invite.

I printed and folded 200 paper boats for Leonidas... it was his christening too... and we filled them with cashew nuts!

George has a small olive grove in Crete, so we filled 200 little bottles with his olive oil round which we tied a label to match the invite with green ribbons.

I also made little matchbook seed packs filled with sunflower seeds!

Here's me arranging flowers... I was a florist way back in the 90s and it was lovely to work with flowers again!

The bouquet...

... and even a few blooms left to go next to the bed.

2nd time around!

It's hard being away from the blog for so long and expect people to stay interested, but now I hope life can start getting back to normal. Not that I haven't enjoyed every minute preparing for my wedding and the day itself was wonderful! I will be uploading more pictures very soon...

nearly there...

My blog is being sadly neglected lately while we prepare for the big day! Even a low-key wedding is pretty hard work especially with a very lively 10-month old in tow :) Anyway, invites done... now let's find something to wear!

feeling better

A big thank you to all of you who commented on my last post and to lovely Emma Lamb! The offending Etsy shop is now virtually empty of all it's stock bar one old camera, so they've received their rap on the knuckles from Etsy. I felt much better today and just got down to cleaning the house and playing lots with my lovely boy...


Despite my shop being closed, I still have to say a big thank you to everyone who treasured me in February... an astounding 56 of you!


I have posted all the treasuries on my new Facebook Page with links to everything.
So, with a new positive swing in my step and a long weekend away to look forward to I hope to be seeing you all again in March!

Donna Wilson

Well, I'm happy to report that my documents have arrived safe and sound from Australia. Now it just remains to get through the final hurdle here in Greece! Fingers crossed! In the meantime, I'm just loving these beautiful textiles and household items from Donna Wilson.