6 Weeks, 6 Reads

So the summer holidays are well and truely underway, we're a good week in now and it has been hectic so far but good to have a break from working.

I decided to challenge myself this holiday but in a good way to keep those brain cells going (6 weeks of CBeebies was soon going to kill them off!). As many of you know, I'm a bit of a book worm - I ALWAYS have a book on the go. The trouble is I'm quite a slow reader; not sure why, maybe it's my complete inability to concentrate, but I have always been a bit on the laid back side when it comes to reading. So, this summer I've challenged myself to speed up a bit. A book takes me between 2 and 4 weeks to read so this summer I want to read an average of one a week - 6 in 6 weeks. I know this may not seem too speedy to others (yes I'm talking to you Mrs Readthewholetwilightsagainaweekend and you Mrs OhI'mjustpopping outsidetoreadawholebookwithmybrew (you both know who you are, seriously, how do you do it?!)), but to me it's quite the challenge.

So, a week into the holidays and I'm onto the 2nd book, go me! OK so the first one was only 200 pages long but I decided to ease myself in gently and actually did it in 48 hours. It's this book leant to me by Mrs OhI'mjustpoppingoutsidetoreadawholebookwithmybrew (think she'd read it in the ad break on Corrie or something!):

Now the whole wave of books about children getting hurt just isn't my cup of tea, but I trust Mrs I'mjustpoppingout...'s judgement so gave it a go, and I loved it! Quite harrowing but there was just something about it where you had to keep reading to check she was OK (true story about a girl kidnapped by a paeodophile (sp?) in Belgium).

Currently I'm reading this book that I got for Christmas (yup, I'm that slow a reader!):

Now, on the front of this it says it's full of romance...oh dear, I don't do romance. I do however LOVE Jojo Moyes so I feel like I have to give her a chance and so far I'm quite liking it (maybe because the romance hasn't surfaced yet?!). The target is to finish this by Wednesday when I will start on a BIG read to take away on holiday (Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest - 3,000,000 pages!) but we are driving to Cornwall so will have an hour or 20 to kill.

So there you go, I've blogged it so I now have to do it so you don't all think I'm a big fat liar and stop reading my blog forever! Will keep you posted...

Complaint

I'm afraid we've had a complaint here at the Garlics. Lady Tate of Tate Towers writes "why don't you try updating your blog once in a while?". Well obviously here at the Garlics we take complaints very seriously so I met with Lady Tate yesterday to address her complaints; she elaborated that she was '"sick of looking at that bloody bag!" (please see last post readers). Of course I owed Lady Tate an explanation and so she was told that "I've got 2 bloody jobs and 2 bloody kids you know!". Ever the professional editor!

So, what has been happening over here? Well, I've been a busy little bee that's what's been happening! Aside from the doubled up job situation and the doubled up kids going through end of school year stuff, I've been jet-setting around the country. First of all I had a date with this young man:

Courtesy of these 2 ladies:

 Yes after 60 years my mother fianlly decided to get some musical taste and booked some Bon Jovi tickets (really, it's been Barry Manilow and Cliff Richard up til now, I was starting to think I was adopted!). So weekend in London with no kids and wine and Jon Bon Jovi for company? I was there!

Then the weekend after I abandoned my children yet again (:o) for a weekend with these lovely ladies in Whitby:

 It was the annual Leeds Paper Dolls retreat and the weather was glorious and I got tonnes of scrapbooking done. Unfortunately it meant I missed the laying of Rob's Grandad's ashes that Sunday, but Rob and the kids went along and at the time of the service I took myself into Whitby and sat here to remember the lovely man:

Then since that I've been working at my new job, finishing my old one, making and buying presents for the multitude of teachers my kids seem to have, getting a little man ready for big school by meeting his teachers etc. Oh and I threw my back out in the middle of all that so seem to have lived at the doctors and the chemist!

However, it is now the school holidays (help me!) so I will hopefully be able to satisfy Lady Tate's internet time and update more often!

Bag Lady!

Love, love, loving the sewing machine at the moment (and yes I have promised my mum that once I start working full-time in September I will actually go out and buy my own!). Latest project to hit the machine...bags!

Never made bags before but I'm kinda liking it. So, my first ever bag was this little heart number for Em (we decided that, at 9, she was now too old for the Disney Princess bag thing and should get a bit more sophisticated!):

 Took me blooming ages but she loves it so it was worth it!

 Next up was this strippy stripey bag that I'd coveted for a while. Just loved doing this, lots of different fabrics, ribbons etc and I loved how it turned out:

 And this bag's function? Well I needed a bag to keep all those bits of materials in that I'm going to use to make bags with! You see, a self functioning bag, practical as well as lush!

So, I've just commandered some floral curtains from the loft, I feel a shopper coming on!

Creating

I came to a very sad realisation this morning.

Undoubtedly the Garlic's number 1 fan was Rob's Grandad. I'd often get emails from him thanking me for the blog. I think, as he lived 200 miles away, it was a good way for him to keep up-to-date with what was happening up here, especially with his much cherished great-grandchildren. Consequently there's been a few posts that I've posted with a 'Grandad would like that' tone about them. This morning I was out in the garden hanging out the washing and just thinking about how much I liked our house and where we lived. I had a quick thought 'oooh I keep meaning to blog about that, Grandad would love that'...and then the realisation hit. :( Grandad (and indeed Nana when she was alive) would say how much they loved the home we built. I thought a couple of weeks ago how nice it would be to blog about our house and how pleased Grandad would be that we agreed with his and Nana's thoughts.

End of an era.

However, in memory of our beloved Grandad/Great-Grandad we shall be carrying on with the posts today and one I think he might like as it features just how fab Emily is!

There seems to have been a lot of crafting round here lately. I was going to do this post about everything I'd been up to but I must start with how fabulous my darling daughter is getting at scrapbooking. She's scrapbooked for a good 2 or 3 years now but recently she has been producing some very grown up layouts. She's been coming up with these all on her own, matching her colours, balancing her LO etc etc and I think she's doing a great job!

Definately the makings of a professional scrapbooker in that girl!

I've done a couple of LOs lately too as my MIL bought me a scrapbooking book for my birthday so have taken inspiration from that. Firstly my Royal Wedding LO:

And a LO about the lily the kids planted for Grandad:

 Speaking of MIL, I've still got a big hankering for the sewing machine and spied a project I wanted to do. MIL is getting a much longed for new kitchen and as said project was for an oven glove (nope, no idea why I desperately had the need to make oven gloves either!) then I thought she'd be the perfect recipient. The original pattern was for a cupcake oven glove but it didn't seem MIL's type of thing but on another page of the same book I found some fab chickens, so a bit of pattern combining and voila!

 Er yes, did get carried away and had a 'need' to make a teapot cozy and apron aswell!

Oooh but I still needed to sew more and those chickens were calling to me. Hang on, chickens? Who do chickens remind me of? Maybe this woman who we just happened to be visiting last week. I feel a chook-related pressie coming on....

Chicken egg cozies! Love 'em!

And I did have every intention of putting the sewing machine away but it's still there with a new project sat on it, watch this space!

Hope the WiFi works up there Grandad! ;)

Creating Ways To Remember

One of the hard things when you lose someone close is how to break the news to your children. Their pain can be worse to witness than what you're feeling yourself. However, we're open and honest with our children and so we've sat them down and explained about Great Grandad.

Emily's old enough to be devastated and was very upset on Friday. We also made the decision to let her decide if she'd like to go to the funeral. We've explained exactly what a funeral involves and she's been so grown up in making her decision to go. In fact, I couldn't be more proud of how Emily's handled this whole situation, she's shown a level of maturity and compassion way beyond her years. What a girl she is!

Xander's been fairly good. We weren't going to tell him, an autistic 4-year-old doesn't necessarily have the right thought processes to understand death. However, we decided to be honest with him as not being could cause more confusion for him. Do you know, he's done great with it. His fish died a couple of weeks ago so we've told him Grandad's up in the sky taking care of Ferb, and that seems to be working for him!

Anyway, I decided that as well as us looking through pictures of Grandad, it'd be good to get the kids involved in something to remember him by. With it coming up to summer we'll (hopefully) be spending a lot of time in the garden, and Grandad always loved sitting looking out at his garden, so that was the route we took. We went out and bought a lily plant. When we came home I enlisted Xander to collect stones to provide drainage for our pot:

Which he did in his wheelbarrow then placed them carefully in the pot:

Then both kids got to filling the pot with compost:

 I put the lily in the pot and the kids patted soil around to make sure it was safely tucked up in there:

And voila, a beautiful lily plant for us to remember Grandad this summer while we're out in the garden:

Hope you like it Grandad! x

When Words Fail...

It's a very sad time here at the moment.

On Friday, we lost Rob's beloved Grandad. Although he was 91, it happened very suddenly and we were left in a deep state of shock.

I've spent 2 days thinking how to sum up Grandad in a blog post and have come to the conclusion that I just can't. For a man that led an amazing life and that loved me like I'd been born his grandaughter, not to mention how much he worshiped my children, I just don't think I can find adequate words. Maybe I will later and hopefully I can share some of his fascinating stories in future posts, but for now I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Goodnight Grandad, thank you for being in our lives, we are very honoured to have known you. x

Thrifty Crafting

Don't you just love a good financial crisis? Austerity measures? Good old cut-backs? Well no, neither do I, but never to be defeated, I've actually managed to find a positive. My little old crafty brain has been working overtime to find a way to make this big old financial pile of poo work for me, and bon jovi if I haven't done just that!

So, poor Chez Gillard is looking a tad weary. For too long now it has needed sprucing up but alas, the munchkins need feeding so no spare pennies to treat our much neglected pad.

Aha, but who needs pennies when you have (de-de-dah) Thrifty Crafter to the resue!

Back in January, my mum brought me over an offcut of rather nice curtain material. Said mother then found her sewing machine suddenly disappeared (austerity measures folks, no splurges on new sewing machines! ;)) and...***drum roll***...lurverly new bolster cushions for our bed!

 

Oooh, but there's some material left, what else needs loving and sprucing up? Hmmm, how about the cheap old plain brown bedroom curtains, they now look a tad dowdy next to lovely new bolsters...

And yet still more material left. Aha, one free quilting book from the library, borrowed to make this last month. But there's not much material left to make a full project. So, a quick rummage round in a remnants bin at the local curtain fabric shop (7 remnants, £5!) and a cheap fleece throw later (£2.99) and...ta-da...

Luscious new quilt for tired old bedroom too!

Even Cindy's impressed and nothing ever impresses her (apart from her food bowl!)

But did we stop there? Well where would the fun be in that? I'm sat here this afternoon, full of cold and it's bouncing down outside. A little rummage through the material scraps box and a little project springs to mind. I've seen a lot of these appliqued cushions about at the moment, but starting at about £15 a pop I ain't spending that on a cushion. But do we need to if we're a thrifty crafter? No! 1 hour later and here's a little present for my daughter: 

OK so I've stopped for now, rotten cold has stuffed up my head and I can't see to sew straight. But is there some left over pirate material with Xander's name on it sat on the sewing machine? You bet your bottom (carefully scrimped and saved) dollar there is! ;)