Sunday 29 March 2015

A Busy Week

Hello!

This week has been so manic I have not even touched the computer since my last post. Dene has been ill so I have been his nurse. I've had a horrid cold and have been literally getting up at 6am, going to work, getting home at 6pm, eating tea, washing up and then falling asleep straight after on the sofa every night this week. Terrible! But we had a lovely time last weekend at the twins birthday party and visiting family (Before Dene became ill!).

This weekend has been a relaxed one, Dene has recovered and I am feeling lots better. We spent yesterday reorganising our spare room into a more organised space for Dene's desk and also for my card making endeavours. Today so far Dene has been cooking up some of our meals for the week ready for freezing and I have done the laundry and baked us some cupcakes to take to work with our lunches for the week. We like to prepare things in advance as on weekdays we have hardly any time when we get home between 6pm and 7pm.

All in all it has been a productive weekend!



Shepherds Pie, Chilli and Bolognaise ready for the week!



My Raspberry Oaty Cupcakes for our lunches.



Our kitchen windowsill is full of seedlings getting ready for the garden.



             We went shopping in the Antiques shops near Dene's family's home and bought some beautiful new crockery. 


                Pretty pink roses bought for us as a thank you present for helping out with the twins' party.



One of our Antiques shop finds.



The first daffodil has finally bloomed in our garden!


Thursday 19 March 2015

Our Weekend Away Visiting Family

We're all packed up to go and visit our family this weekend. It has recently been my lovely Mum's birthday and also my little sister Lucy's 19th birthday so we're going to see them to bring them their gifts and celebrate!

It's also Dene's little sisters birthday party on Saturday. They are beautiful twin girls turning 6 and they are having a big party with lots of people in the local village hall - we're really looking forward to it. I've made my first ever bunting for the party also, it's really simple lace bunting (I made it up as I went along and used what we had in the house so it's not perfect but I enjoyed making it and I think it looks okay!).

After work today Dene and I got straight to work baking! We had prepped the pastry the night before in the fridge and tonight we rolled it and formed our creations. I made Jam tarts with home made gooseberry jam and Dene made little Mexican style savoury bites. We do love to bake together, it's nice to have lots of people to bake for also!

Here are our creations for the weekend so far! (we're baking more in the morning!)




                                         Pre-bake creations.




                                          The finished jam tarts.



                                 My lace bunting (before I decided to iron it!)


                                         Dene making his Mexican bites!



Visit Dene's lovely Mum's blog http://rememberingtheoldways.blogspot.co.uk/ to see more about his wonderful family and their idyllic lifestyle.

Wednesday 18 March 2015

Booked a Craft Stall


At the beginning of this month I decided to book myself on to my first ever craft stall. I decided that I would make cards. I knew that I loved to make cards for family and friends' birthdays every now and then but apart from that I had never really done it on any other scale. Since the beginning of the month I have made 45 cards (whilst also working full time, doing my childcare qualification AND looking after the usual housework, laundry etc). It has definitely been a busy month. 45 may not sound like a lot but they are all completely hand made and designed by me. I feel like a little one-woman-card-making-factory and sometimes the house definitely looks like one. Dene came home the other day to find cards drying on every surface... including on his computer desk (even on his computer keyboard). But he found the funny side!

I have no idea how the craft fair will go but I'm very very excited about it. I've even done a little practice of my table set up to see how it will all look. I want it to be perfect!



About Me


My name is Eleanor and I am 21 years old. I live in England and have a fabulous fiancée called Dene. We plan to get married next year in the summer. We're a young couple starting out, saving for our wedding and also to buy our first home so we love to be thrifty and creative!

I work in a nursery and I also love to make greetings cards and I have my first craft fair coming up soon. I basically love anything creative, whether it is painting, drawing, gardening, sewing, knitting, crochet, up-cycling furniture, home decorating or baking - I love it all and I am always looking for new ways to create!

Dene loves to cook and he is the brains behind our food-thrifty-ness! He creates the most beautiful, healthy meals out of the best value ingredients. (He especially loves to bake bread for us!)

We just love to 'home-make' as much as we can in our life, from food to knitwear to home décor or cards and gifts.

We also love to grow flowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately our small, shady garden with stony baron soil hasn't been easy to grow anything in. We tried last year but even after ploughing what money we had into it our plants still didn't do very well. So this year we're covering the bare soil with a wild flower mix and just growing our favourite things in pots on our patio.

Our dream one day is to have a family of our own and live Semi-self-sufficiently; growing more of our own produce, keeping chickens and livestock and hopefully getting my card making business up and running...


...But here is our life now, a story of how we are building it up and all of the things we are most passionate about!