We have completed kitchen

It's finally finished, a good month after they started, so it's been marred a bit by its trials and tribulations (nothing is ever easy eh!) but we now have a fully functioning, completed kitchen. 

If you have alook at how it looked before you can see how much different the place looks now:

The biggest things I was adamant about we're getting some patio doors, though I never expected ones as big as we finally got, and more work surface. As you can see the old kitchen had a mid hight oven right in the centre. I am not sure what the thoughts were of the owners who arranged this one but there is just no long bit of worktop to do your prep work on. Something we have rectified now. We also have a lot more cupboard space as well. 

W arre really happy with how the whole thing turned out. Even with all the black the kitchen is just so much lighter, and the garden almost feels a part of the house now. 

Time to get on with the next job which is decorating the baby room. We have next week off work but have made so many plans it's going to be difficult to get as much done as we wanted! Some of plans include Europes strongest man, the zoo, microlight flying, afternoon tea... It's going to be fun if nothing else. 

Have a lovely weekend and I will see you on the other side. 

DIY Clay Kitty Plant Pot

Come on.. admit you don't instantly want to make one of these yourself now? I knew you would! 

I wanted to get a couple of plants for the new kitchen, and one for my new office desk, but just wasn't too inspired by the plant pots they come in, or ones you can buy. I mean why doesn't your local DIY store carry Kitty plant pots? Silly people. 

I have had an inkling to play with some air dry clay for a little while now, especially as I knew I would be without the sewing machine for a while. I got quiet a lot of the inspiration to have a go at this from our recent trip to Rhodes. All the white houses and churches amongst the green landscapes were really pretty. I then thought about the types of shapes which would lend themselves well to a plantpot, and added my own little quirky style and this is what we got. I will admit that (close up) this first attempt does look like someone gave a 5 year old a lump of clay... give it a go, see if your 5 year olds can do better then me! but I am pleased with the overall shape of it. It also looks a lot better after a layer of paint, but there are definitely some things I would do better next time. But its still really cute and so I don't really care about any of this!

How to make a clay kitty plant pot: 

1. Get some air dry clay. This will be available in your local craft stores. You can buy white clay so you don't need to give it a layer of paint, but any colour will be fine.
2. Take a lump of clay and start hollowing it out into a sort of bowl shape. You can use an old plant pot or bowl (or even a plastic pop bottle) to help get the shape you want if needed. Make sure to try and keep all sides quiet even in thickness, and no area to thin. Also make sure there are no holes... add more clay to these areas if you need. 
3. On one side pull the clay up at the top to form two pointed kitty ears. You can add an extra bit of clay to form these bits, but remember you will need to make sure they are smoothed into the base if you do it this way so they don't fall off.
4. Using a soft paintbrush and some water smooth out the lines and finger prints from the outside of your pot (the step I skipped!)
5. Leave your pot to dry - this can take anything from 24-48 hours depending on the size, but I would leave it a few days to be sure.
6. Paint your pot with some white (or any other colour) acrylic paint and leave this to dry.
7. Using a pencil first draw on your kitty face then go over this with black acrylic paint and leave to dry
8. Pot up your plant and admire your handy work.

 My advice would be to plant up some sort of cactus or other non thirsty plant as the clay will likely soak up a bit of the water. You want something which doesn't require too much watering. 

Please do send me a link to your pots, I would really really like to see these. Two of my favourite things in one... DIY and gardening <3

Leopard Prom Dress

Pregnant lady on a swing in a leopard print prom dress... Very dignified of course! 

So of course I changed my mind didn't I! After making the jade prom dress I decided it was too dark for a wedding and thought about going out and panic buying a new frock from the fabulous Frock. Though I know what I am like and the one dress I would have wanted was the leopard print poplin bombshell dress! So having already got 2 meters of the fabric and a pattern that still fits for now I decided I might as well just have a go at rush jobbing the thing myself last week and I successfully managed to make this dress in time for the wedding.

We had a fabulous time in Scotland seeing two of our friends getting married. What better way to spend a weekend than sharing two peoples really special day with them in the company of more really good friends! We all had a really great time (dispite my complete sober ness) and I am so thankful that we were invited along :) 

We visited Scotland twice in one day (due to our hotel actually being just the other side of the border), ate far too much food, played on the park, danced, sang and were generally very merry. All in all a great time was had by all. And despite this being the hardest occasion for not drinking I was at least glad to not have a hangover the next morning. So here's to many more weekends like this one.

On a less exciting note for now... They are ripping the kitchen out this morning... I am already fed up of. Noting gift being where it should be and tonight there will be even more chaos. I am sure it will be worth it in the end. Here is a picture of what it looked like this morning ( I hate that oven in the middle of the room!).