How much fun can you have with a box of wax ??

 One of the craft based thing we have tried this week is an idea I have seen all over pinterest lately, the 'crayon & sandpaper' t-shirt, which involves drawing a design on fine sandpaper heavily in crayon, then turning over and laying it face down onto the chosen t-shirt.

It was half way through doing my 'rainbow bright' inspired design that I remembered the advice I had told the boys, about the design printing in reverse, and that my star would be at the wrong end of the rainbow, hmmm.

After laying your design on to your chosen t-shirt, you use a hot iron to press and transfer it to the fabric :)

 When you peel off the sandpaper you will be left with your design :) Only two points to note first make sure you lay a news paper inside the t-shirt so the design doesn't go through.

 Second, make sure to wash the item separately from other clothes the first time you wash it.

Beach Babes

Well we made it back safely from a whirl wind four day round trip to fetch the boys up from their dad's house in Southampton, very exhausting and still recovering form lack of sleep but glad to be back on the island.

And now we are here and enjoying good weather when we can, with trips to the beach and barbecues in the garden, and poor weather doing crafts and going to the cinema to see the new movie Brave, which BTW was fab :)

Beach trips seem to revolve around the boys throwing rocks about, John sleeping, and me wishing I wasn't the only one who prefers sandy beaches to rocky ones, followed by me twisting my angle on the way off the beach (sandy beaches are better when you are clumsy) :)

I'm not really here

That's right by now I should be the other end of the UK entirely, infact if I went any further south I would have to catch another ferry :)

I haven't been watching the Olympics, but I have heard the updates on the morning radio news, and although I am not a sports fan, I just want to say well done to all the athletes taking part. The above photo was taken last summer when the torch was doing the tour, we just happened to be in Kirkwall on the day :)

Just sharing a few piccy I dug up from last summer of us out for the day visiting the standing stones of Stenness, which is around half a mile from the Ring of Brodgar. You cant move for archaeology up here !

We had picked a gorgeous day for it, although they seemed to think the wind was chilly, hmm seems me and John have acclimatised to the cold up here :)

We also went to Gerrie's ice cream parlour which I forgot to take pics of and hope to remedy soon :)

Also a few pics visiting St Magnus cathedral in Kirkwall.

It rained but we still had ice creams :)

Connor posing beside the tomb of the Arctic explorer Dr John Rae.

And Brandon beside the wall where the bones of St Magnus are encased.

A terrible photo of a beautiful building, very similar in design to Durham cathedral where I visited a lot whilst at college in Durham. More about St Magnus cathedral here.

The Invisible Raspberry

This photo is part of our fruit harvest from last year, and this my friends is exactly one more raspberry than we have harvested this summer. Yep our total this year of raspberries is zero, not a single one :( now if we could put this down to over eager birds I could understand, perhaps even a couple of slug infested bushes maybe, but two years ago I was harvesting half a colander full every other day !! I think last years late summer gales trashed all the new growth and so we are feeling it now. Oh well good job I have plenty of this stashed away to brighten up a scone or cake :)

Tonight I am heading off on a four day round trip to fetch my two teenage boys up for the rest of the summer. Think four days of overnight ferries, long haul coaches, and travel sickness heehee, needless to say top of my packing list is travel sickness pills and several books :)

I have several craft idea lined up for when the boys are here too so will show you what we have been up to and places we go to visit too :) OK off to pack now, see you all when I get back :)

Autumn Wreaths

Well that was a busy week, kicking off with the Mad Tea Party last weekend, which was great fun as always, although maybe I should have taken some behind the scenes photos so you could all see the dashing in and out between rain storms, putting up umbrellas in the fairy tent lol

Also welcome to my new blog followers too (waves) hello there :)

The last few days I've been limiting my internet time, after all the blog partying I was having technology overload so turned to a spot of autumn crafting. I know it is weeks away, but next week the boys arrive and I want to use my time with them well doing boy crafts and trips to the beach (weather permitting of course).

There have been several items in my autumn pinterest board that I have been itching to do, often things I couldn't afford/justify buying so decided to make my own. Autumn wreaths is one of these and most of the bits I needed I already had left over from other projects.

The top wreath I made using a willow ring I wove the first year we moved up with willow twigs from the garden, the autumn foliage I bought last year from the garden centre for an autumn mantelpiece display. All the fir cones, seed pods were from around the house, the only thing I bought was the wired hessian / burlap ribbon from ebay.

The second wreath I bought a base for and then spent a good couple of hours wrapping with some yarn from the stash, all the felt/fleece was left over scraps, buttons yarn and fir cones from around the house. I will hang both wreaths with the left over hessian ribbon later in the year.

I am looking forward to autumn this year as always, we may not get the coloured leaves due to the wind whipping them all off come September, but I love the cosiness of it all. Blankets, warm fires, apple pies, plum crumble, winter cushions, just so snuggly :)