bello baby

Who did this? Was it you?

I've changed it back now.

the finished nursery

Oops. Ignore that broken light switch on the right. That's fixed now.

The melted crayon canvas won't be staying in the nursery long-term (if I even keep it), as the wax isn't very child-friendly - too easy to pick off and eat. Not that I've been picking off the crayon wax and eating it. Pregnancy can do strange things to a woman, but I haven't completely lost it.

A cot skirt to conceal the junk under the cot, inventively put together by my mum who used three pillow cases and some velcro.

There are many more details I'll share, but that will be another post.

nursery details

I've been instructed to rest and put my feet up, so I'm taking the opportunity to go through the photos which have been building up over the last few months and do some blogging! How nice.

Didn't realise I'd missed it over here in blogland (things have been very hectic, y'know). Hello. So, what have I missed?

The nursery is finished (more photos to follow later today). The mobile is still hanging from the light in the living room though. It'd be nice to have that in the nursery before the wee one arrives, but it doesn't look that out of place in the living room, so it's no biggie. I've almost finished making a quilt for the little one (again, photos will follow) using these fabrics. I'm sure there are many other things but I can't think of them right now. Due date is fast approaching, so you could see a birth announcement on here any day now. Although, I could do with one more week to get some things in order. Very very exciting.

More nursery photos to follow...

how to attach a mobile

Hello you.

I've got lots of things to show you but I've had very little time to actually upload photos and form some sort of blog post. It's for a fun reason though: I've been working on the nursery! Well, when I say working on, it's been more like me being project manager between naps and Mr Pippa doing the real hard work.

Very soon, I shall have photos to share with you. Exciting!

One question: how on earth can I attach an enormous mobile* to the ceiling? The walls in this place crumble at the tiniest nail, so I dread to think what the ceilings are like (why would someone wallpaper a ceiling unless there was something to hide? That's my thinking).

Any ideas?

*I, of course, do not mean a mobile phone. Why would I want an enormous mobile phone on my ceiling? 

something on the wall and some daffodils

I love daffodils. They're such a happy, humble, friendly flower.

After seeing this on Pinterest (a dangerously addictive place), I was inspired to create my own canvas. I like how the lyrics roll into the wooden letters beneath. That was completely intentional, you know. I didn't need it to be pointed out by someone else. Nope. Not me.

butterflies make music on my walls

+ Edited 19th March

Thought it was about time I posted something. This was part of a window display at Monsoon Children and, after a donation to their chosen children's charity, it now hangs on the wall of my living room. That brings the number of instruments in the house up to nine. Does a stylophone count?

trading the Christmas decs for hearts

What do you think of the makeover? Well, I only changed the blog banner. Couldn't really be seen having a Christmas banner in mid-January now, could I?

To mark the taking-down of my Christmas decorations (finally happened yesterday. Now just need the boxes to move a little closer to the loft.), I've finished uploading my Christmassy photos to Flickr. And as for my Christmas album, that's due to be finished in July. How do these people making December Daily albums keep on top of it? Do they all own photo printers or something?! I, like the rest of the country, do not have a photo printing section in my home, so I have to actually go out to get said photos printed.

You didn't need to know any of that.

Why did I start this post? Oh yes, photos. So, they're on Flickr.

Did I tell you about the train sets that were part of our Christmas decorations? Mr Pip and I have a lot of wooden train sets. We originally bought them as table decorations at our wedding (which caused the caterer to ask, "Oh, so do you both really like trains?" to which we responded with a you-really-don't-get-our-style-do-you "No. We just like fun.") and they've been sitting in a box since then. So, when putting the decs up we had the genius idea of putting a train set around the Christmas tree. I gave Mr Pippa that job.

It felt as though my back had been turned for one moment to find that there wasn't just a train set around the tree, but one above the fire...

And one on the hearth...

And one around the ukelele stand.

This is what happens when you leave a man in charge of train sets.

blankie for my laptop

It's not that I've been getting bored of my babatte blanket, I just wanted to complete something smaller, quickly. Also, I really don't like resting my laptop on an exposed desk surface. I know it's pretty robust (I mean the laptop, but the desk can put up with a lot too), but I don't like the sound of it. I feel as though the laptop will get scratched or something (you know that if it'd had a protective film covering the outside, I would have kept it on - like the watch and anything else with a film on) so I'd rather put it on top of something.

Well that was a boring paragraph. I might blog about my washing cycle next week.

So, for the last year (you're probably not interested in any of this) I've been resting the laptop on a very unattractive laptop case. Over the summer, Mr Pippa got me an amazing new laptop bag, but that will need a whole other blog post. So, I decided to make something pretty for it to rest on (or, something pretty on which to rest it if we're going to write proper).

I use the word so far too often.

So  A little while ago, I was inspired by Biscuit Monster (that blog is always a pleasure for the eyes), who was inspired by some other people. But, with crochet, I only seem to be able to keep one stitch in my head at a time: I paused working on the babette blanket to make a scarf only to find that, when I returned to it, I had to teach myself again because my crochet hook just wanted to continue doing whatever it was doing last (it has nothing to do with me forgetting how to do things). So, rather than teaching myself how to do granny squares or something, I made lots of little babette squares and joined them together (isn't the joining part the most boring?) and I am very pleased with the result.

The really dark one on the left is navy. It's clearly camera shy, as is the burgundy, next to the denim blue, which has turned itself black in all of the photos.

That's a happy laptop :)

 Isn't it cheerful?

yummy colour-order bookshelves

I've gone and done it (thanks for doing all the lifting, Mr Pippa).

You know how I love seeing things in colour order? (Yes, you already know this.) Remember ages and ages ago I said I'd love to put my books into colour order? I'm not the first to do it:

(source)

 (source)

 (source)

 A face! Made from books! (source)

And while we're on books and bookshelves, this one made me smile. Is it just me, or does it look as though the shelves are looking down thinking, "Why do those books keep falling out whenever I look down?" (source)



 (source)  
Again, not colour order but I like it. You just know that the day after you do this, you'll need to use the book 3rd from the bottom. No, I shan't be arranging my books like that (fear not, Mr Pippa). Interestingly, we do happen to have something similar going on on our living room floor. It's not an artistic statement, it's just a pile of books to take to the charity shop. Could I have been subconsciously influenced by this picture?


Anyway, enough of that. Here are my shelves:

Hooray! Grouping colours is fun!

Yes, that's right, I created this blog post for the sole purpose of showing you my bookshelves. 


That is all.

Britishness

Is it just me or does this scene cry out 'Britishness'?

There we were, Mr Pippa and me (you do know that his name isn't actually Mr Pippa, right? My first name is Pippa, which is why I refer to him on here as Mr Pippa. Just needed to get that straightened out.) eating our bacon sarnies and drinking tea (a bacon sandwich just isn't complete without a cup of tea, y'know) when...

"WAIT! Put your mug back down... Move your arm out of the way a sec... Hold it..."

I didn't keep him waiting long, don't worry. I really loved the look of it all - the polka dots, the mugs, the bread, the colours. It was a pleasing scene and I'm glad I halted the bacon-eating for a photo.

I have yet to dip my toe into the terrifying unknown that is Photoshop. I have it. I just need someone to show me how to use it.

In other news, I have no tonsils! I had surgery a week ago and today I'm feeling alright, really. 5 and a half days of no speaking (Sign Language to the rescue again!) and a lot of pain (hence no crafting lately), but now, I'm feeling more normal (for someone who has M.E, that is). Throat still hurts a bit, but I'm slowly getting back to the to-do lists. I had planned to make and send Easter cards this year, but I woke up on Wednesday realising that it's Easter this weekend. Yeah, so that never happened. Nor did any Easter crafts whatsoever. But my favourite decorated eggs are still these ones:

(original source unknown)

Have a great weekend, folks.

help clothes hangers do their job

One of the things I hate about M.E. is the unpredictability of it. You get over a bad month and think, "Phew, glad that's over. This month will be so much better." But then it's not. So that explains the lack of blogging. But, if you'd rather not keep checking back here to see whether I've bothered to blog or not, sign up to my RSS feed. That way, I can come to you! I have my RSS feeds sent to Mail so that I don't even have to open a web browser. It's nice. Although, every so often I end up subscribing to a blog whose feed is only a couple of lines long, which means that if I want to see the whole post, I have to go on over to their blog. Do you know what I do with those feeds? I delete them. Why? Because I just cannot be bothered. 


On the subject of not being bothered, I was reading something recently on time-saving ways to keep your house tidy. Although, for me it would be energy-saving ways. My energy has to be rationed out throughout the week, y'know.


One piece of advice was something like this:
"Replace all of your clothes hangers for the wooden ones with rubber ends. They may be more expensive, but it will mean that you never have to waste time picking up all of the items of clothing which have fallen to the floor as a result of slipping off the hanger..."


Replace all of your hangers with wooden ones?! If I had that much money, I'd pay for a house-keeper! No no no. I have a much better (and much cheaper) way of getting your clothes to stay on the hanger. Ready to hear it?


Problem
That wide-necked jumper which just won't stay put (I had to basically tie it to the hanger because it fell to the floor for each photo attempt):

Solution

Rubber bands. Put them on the ends of the clothes hanger:

Wrap them around so that they cross over, covering more of the hanger:

Problem solved!

That jumper will now cling to the rubber of the elastic bands. 

Hurrah!

Was this a revelation for you? It's going to change your life. Just like this video has changed my life. Please don't tell me that you've all been doing this for years and I'm the last one to catch on...

oh look it's another pretty cushion cover

I made this cushion cover before covering the office chair but I forgot to show you. Well, I didn't completely forget - the dead computer had a big part to play in the lack of photos to share with you. But I have all of my photos back now. Hurrah!

Anyway, back to the cushion cover. Here's the front:

And here's the back:

It even has a zip! Aren't I clever! My mum was very impressed with me when she saw it. Who needs sewing lessons?! 

How many of you had already made the change to using the new blogger editing thingy? I only just discovered it. And lookey here - you can click on 'reactions'. It's an exciting new feature here at Pippa's Long Stockings! (Yes I know, I know, other people have probably been doing it for ages but I've only just cottoned on. It takes me a while sometimes.)


+Edit. OK so the reactions aren't actually working. I'm on it though. Call back in a bit...


++Edited later. What's going on? The reactions are hiding. Anyone know how to fix it?


+++Back again. Is it just the new Blogger editing or have I messed up some html while trying to sort the 'reactions' problem? The space between paragraphs seems HUGE. I knew I should have stayed away from html.

WELCOME!

Come on in! How are you? I hope your journey was a pleasant one. Welcome to my new blog. What better way to begin than with a tour of the studio?

+Edited on 30th March. Apologies if you are hugely confused! For those of you who don't know, my blog used to be elsewhere and this was my first post here. But thanks to great blogging buddies, I managed to import the posts from my old blog. Hooray!

what does this say about me?

I have kept my clothes in colour order for as long as I can remember. And, since getting married, I have Hubby's clothes to organise too! Although, I keep his clothes to the right - intermixing of his clothes with mine is not allowed under any circumstances. Those are the rules.

My jewellery! I really do think that this is the best way to store jewellery: otherwise, everything gets tangled. I used two ordinary cork boards and painted them white. Then, just pinned it all on. I put these up yesterday as we are on a major tidy-up project. We still have boxes to unpack since moving in three months ago. Come to think of it, we still have boxes of stuff at my in-laws' house. Those things will have to wait until we've got room for them. Also, my parents are coming to visit this week, so we need to clear a space for them to actually sleep!

Above: my favourite necklace. This was made by a friend of mine in Wales who doesn't have an up-and-running website OR blog yet. We'll soon sort that out. And below: my favourite pair of earrings. These are also from Wales: I got them from a stall in Cardiff. I prefer fun costume jewellery to posh diamonds any day!