We saw Rudolph, the real real Rudolph!

Well, thats what my darling granddaughter Paige is utterly convinced of.

We went to the place where we always get our fresh Christmas tree, a farm just outside our town. We were so hoping that the reindeer they have had there for the last few years would be there again this year, because Paige was so fascinated by them last year. And we were not disappointed, Rudolph and a lot of his reindeer friends were there, munching away on hay, mostly ignoring all the kids ( and adults!) staring at them. Rudolph himself was in a pen all on his own. Well, thats understandable, I mean the biggest star always gets a room all to himself, right? It might also have had something to do with his huuuuuuuuuuge antlers, they did look quite scary. But thats why we couldn't get a decent picture of him. Still, you can see his big antlers, they were what convinced Paige that he was the real thing, the REAL RUDOLPH -


And just look at his friends, they are such beautiful animals -

Paige was really smitten by them and was so excited. She told me that they would only be on the farm until Christmas Eve though, because then Santa needed them to pull the sleigh, bless her.


Last year they allowed the children into the pen to stand near the reindeer, and we were hoping that they would do the same again this year. We thought we had better go and pick a Christmas tree while we were waiting for the people in charge to turn up -

When we went back to the barn after spending a good half hour finding our perfect tree, they were just setting up the camera and lights etc., to take photos of the kids with the reindeer. We waited patiently for the first lot of kids to have their picture taken and then Paige was allowed in with the reindeer. She was a little cautious at first -


but soon got over the initial nerviousness and loved being so close to the reindeer who would soon be pulling Santa's sleigh -


We had a wonderful couple of hours, an emotional reminder of what our Christmasses were like when our boys were little.

Not much to tell or show,

like everybody else, I am so busy making prezzies. And a lot of the projects I have made or am working on at the mo can't be shown, because they may or may not be for people who read my blog. I suppose I could show the little gift tags I made though -



hmm, no idea why I took this pic on my desk, under my desk lamp and without flash, silly me -

I did go to a couple of charity shops, but only because I was hunting for something specific. Didn't find what I was looking for, but I found this -


I felt soooooooooo greedy, snapping up all seven bags of buttons, but I could see that sets of buttons had been split between bags, so I HAD to buy them all, you do understand, don't you? There were MOP buttons, old Victorian buttons, Art Deco buttons, pressed glass buttons in gorgeous shapes, oh, did I mention MOP buttons? BIG mother of pearl buttons, teene weeny ones, all sorts.

Has it ever happened to you that you start doing something (ahem, like sorting newly acquired buttons ) and the resident poltergeists play tricks with your clocks? I could have sworn I only sorted for half hour or so, but according to the clock I was at it for 3 1/2 hours, lol. Bliss, sheer bliss.

Gotta get back to another Xmas prezzie project now, so this is a short post ( well short for me, lol ). Enjoy your day and whatever you are doing,

xx

YUM!!!!

A few days ago, Sally from the Kitchencrafter blog shared a great looking recipe for a rich, thick, yummy scrummy winter soup. I loved the ingredients she used and I knew my DH would love this soup as well, as it has some of his favourite ingredients.

Of course me being me, not ever able to just follow a recipe, I changed it a little to suit what I had at home. So I used a butternut squash ( darn, those things are tough to cut ), 3 carrots, tin of chick peas, 1/3 of a leek ( white stem ), large onion, two cloves of garlic and beefstock. I also had some extra hot chorizo, which all the men in the house love. And it seems the dogs love it just as much, sigh, guess what happened to it? Lets just say it didn't go into the soup, it went into the dogs, grrr. I had it all nicely cubed sitting on the kitchen table, went out, shutting the kitchen door behind me ( or so I thought ) to check up on our granddaughter. The dogs had been happily wolfing down their dinner in the hall, but it seems as soon as I passed them they managed to get into the kitchen and within seconds had eaten the whole lot. A WHOLE EXTRA HOT CHORIZO! I was only gone about 30 secs and they scoffed the lot off the table. Needless to say, some very naughty words were muttered.

Fortunately I had another chorizo, this one was only hot though, not extra hot. The dogs were banned to the family room so that I could carry on with the cooking without doggie interference. I wanted to keep the chorizo separate until the very end, so that I could mash up the veggies in the soup without destroying the chorizo cubes. So I just fried them nice and crisp, ladled the soup into the soup plates and sprinkled the fried chorizo cubes on top. That was one heck of a delicious soup, huuuuuuuuuge success with DH and DSs as well. Alright, I am drooling again, not over buttons this time, lol, just drooling at the thought of that gorgeous soup. Without further ado, THE slightly altered KITCHENCRAFTER SOUP!

In the pot -

Chorizo cubes-

Droooooooool -

Thank you, Sally, for sharing this delicous recipe! I'll be making this soup again next week, I love it.

Here comes the tease

One or two of my blogger friends like buttons. Thats a bit of an understatement, somewhat like saying the Ocean is a little bit wet. They love them, adore them, covet them. Just like I do, lol. Buttons are tactile, all the different shapes and sizes and designs, they need to be fondled. They can also be very colourful, and if not colourful, then they are shiny. SHINY, SHIMMERY MOTHER-OF-PEARL BUTTONS, for example. A little while ago I bought some tiny ones on cards from Floss at Troc, Broc & Recup', from her new Troc n Broc Vintage shop. They were gorgeous, and perfect for the projects I have in mind ( and will get round to sometime this century ). I am sure you saw them in her shop, but were too late to get them, because I had snapped some of them up!

Now, a button-loving girl can never have too many buttons, right? So I am always looking for buttons whenever I have a little womble around a bootfair, or in a charity shop. There are no vide greniers in our area in Bourgogne now until the spring, sigh, and there are only a couple of charity shops within reasonable distance. But I do visit those occasionally when we are at the cottage. They have become hugely expensive during the last few years, so I don't buy very much anymore, but on my last visit, I did bag a couple of things - a pair of the most gorgeous romantic, softly coloured rose curtains, absolutely fabulous 1950s curtains, and......... BUTTONS. Yep, about a million buttons. First, I found this huge glass jar full of buttons -


I didn't even look too closely, it had my name on it, I bought it. Then I found loose buttons in the bottom of boxes etc, and spent a good 20 mins or so picking out MOP buttons. Oh boy, it was like being a kid in a candystore. There is something so magical about MOP buttons, don't you think? The way they shimmer, the beautiful soft colours, changing all the time when you play with them. Then I found a little flat tin with more MOP buttons in it. I am sure by that time I was drooling. Luckily nobody noticed.

And this is it. The treasure. All the Mother of Pearl buttons I managed to dig out of the boxes, found in the huge jar of buttons, and the teeny tin -


I wish you could see the colours shimmering away, the photos are so crap, because of the artificial light ( flash just killed the shimmer completely ).

These are some of the more interesting shapes and designs -

And these are some of the dark shell buttons, which produce incredible "oil slick" colours -

Definitely fondleworthy, that little lot.

When I posted about the kitchen yesterday, I mentioned that in a lot of the "fermettes" in our area, the kitchen is part of the living area. I thought I'd show you the rest of the downstairs living area, that would illustrate it a bit better

As you come in through the front door, the kitchen area is straight ahead in the back


You can just see the dining area in the back there
And this is what we often wake up to -

The sun rising over the valley below us always leaves me feeling awestruck, and so thankful that we have this little piece of heaven on earth. See how the valley is completely filled with mist? Thats such an awesome sight.

The first couple of days at the cottage, we had really lovely weather and I got to enjoy the last roses of the season, before they were all ripped off a few days later in pretty horrendous storms


And thats where I have to stop. Gotta go and pick our darling granddaughter up and spend the day with her, probably crafting.

xxx

French kitchen

I did mention before we went to France that I had plans for the kitchen. First I need to explain a little about French Country cottages in our area - The walls are prob. 50cm thick, the windows are small, so it keeps the heat out in the summer and the heat in in the winter. However, that means that the downstairs rooms can be quite dark ( not gloomy dark, more cosy dark ), but still, I really wanted it a little bit brighter. A typical small fermette like ours will most likely have a corner kitchen, which means it is part of the main living room, but sort of partitioned of. It is a really sociable setup actually.

Anyway, the kitchen area was quite dark, the ceiling had horrid modern wood stuff on it, the cabinets were a mixture of different styles of doors but all in cheap dark wood, and it was just so dark in there. Remember the oven gloves and bag I bought at a bootfair not long ago, which had the exact same background colour I had planned for the kitchen? And I think I mentioned at the time that I had found the perfect colour for the kitchen in B&Q?


Yep, I took the paint with me to France. My darling husband sanded down the ceiling, sanded down the cabinet doors ( in the cold barn, bless him ), and I got painting. Errmm, well, I was a little too short and too unsteady on the little footstool thingy, so DH did the ceiling, but I got to paint all the kitchen cabinet doors, woohoo! Inside and out, of course. Which involved spreading the whole painting spree over a few days.

I couldn't get the colour to show up properly on the photos I took of the kitchen, dang. Either they were too orangy because of the artificial light, or they were too washed out and the cupboards looked almost white with the flash. Grrr. But believe me when I say that it matches the colour of the stuff above really well, and its quite astonishing how much lighter the kitchen area is now. What a difference. Definitely worth the effort.


No styling, no special settings, lol, just our cluttered, lived in, and now much brighter kitchen area.

Oh, and I promised Annie from Birdcages and Butterflies to post pics of the gorgeous blocks I bought from her. They approved of the cottage in France and settled in very nicely after trying out a few different places. They finally decided that the little table was their perfect spot.

The tried the mantelpiece first -

Then demanded to be moved to the little table-

They felt a little isolated though, and wanted some company, so the butterflies cosied up to them-

The butterflies, however, fluttered off after a short visit, but this cute little tin was feeling neighbourly and agreed to keep the blocks company. And there they live happily ever after -

Tomorrow I'll tease you with some button finds..........

(Slight) progress report

I know I said I wasn't going to take the flower lankie to France with me, but as there was room in the car, and I was in the mood ( for pastelly crocheting ), I took it along anyway. Of course I didn't get anywhere near as much done as I had intended to, Poppy saw to that, but at least I did a little work on it.

This is my favourite winter crochet spot, by the fireplace, in my favourite Lloyd Loom chair -


Ahhh, so cosy, I miss it already and we have only been back in England for a few days.

I crocheted a multicoloured border round the lankie, I thought that would go well with the multicoloured flowers which would eventually been sewn to the squares -


And this is the reason why I didn't get as much done as I had planned -


Yep, thats my darling Poppy, aka Popplemonster, making herself very comfortable on my lankie! I had spread the lankie out over the settee so that I could place the flowers properly, turned round to get a couple more to sew on, and quick as a flash she was on it. And stayed there. Wouldn't be moved. Couldn't be moved. You try and move a stubborn 80lb Ridgeback when she doesn't want to be moved, lol.

And as Poppy snuggled down on my blanket, Hector wanted to be cosy and snuggly as well. DS obliged, got a blanket, made himself comfy on the other settee himself, and Hector was blissfully happy -



Its a hard life, being a dog!

xx