According to Matt...

Wednesday, 19 March 2014

Loved Ones

Good morning lovelies!
I hope you are all doing well? Sorry I haven't popped by for a chat in over a week, time has been flying by.
I've had a busy week or so; Working, rehearsing, crafting and enjoying time with my parents who were visiting for the weekend from England.
It was an amazing weekend spent in the most glorious sunshine I've seen in months!
What made my weekend extra special was the fact that Dennis was also able to spend it with us. He had to leave the cruise ship he works on for a short while due to a nasty bout of kidney stones. He was in a lot of pain and the ship was unable to look after him so he's back on land for a few weeks until he's all better. It's obviously bad that he's been ill, but so nice that he's home :-)

So time spent with Dennis and my parents made for a rather splendid week!
It had been 6 months since I last saw Mum and Dad and no matter how much I told Mum that I didn't need her to bring any gifts, I knew that she would arrive with a suitcase full of goodies. She didn't disappoint!
I now have a rather large stash of Cadbury's chocolate lurking in the kitchen cupboard. Yummy!

Along with a much appreciated collection of English treats, Mum and Dad were also delivering a lovely gift from my Nan. A gift for Dennis' and my apartment, some lovely tea towels in gorgeous vibrant colours.

I love how jolly they are! Great colour combinations, swirly patterns making these vivid owls and butterflies swoop across the fabric with style. These owls are pretty cute huh? Thank you Nan!!!!

Whilst Mum and Dad were here, I showed them all of the local places Dennis and I like to visit. We ate delicious food together and had a jolly good time catching up. Of course we also did some shopping. Mum could be described as a Shopaholic and as it turns out, I take after her!!!

I picked up these fun wind mill on my shopping trip:

I added them to my pot plants! I know I'm overdoing the whole balcony thing, but I just can't get enough of how jolly it's looking. I look forward to when It's warm enough to wake up every morning and eat breakfast outside amongst the wind mills and pot plants.

It's my favourite part of the apartment. Mum and Dad loved it also!

I also picked up some lovely new yarn in the city! Oooooh la la!!
I'll be sharing more about this very soon, but until then I'll leave you with this little preview of the gloriously bright splashes of colour, that I hope to turn into something fabulously fun! Nothing more exciting than new yarn!!!!

I'll be back in a day or two and tell you all about my new yarn, I've already started working on a little something and am rather enjoying it!
I hope you've had as lovely a week as I have spent with my loved ones!!! Thanks Mum and Dad for such a special time!

Speak soon.

P.S Dennis says a BIG hello to you all :-)

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Thursday, 6 March 2014

Pots of Happiness

Happy Thursday my lovelies!!! How have you all been doing?

I'm doing just fine! I have my parents coming to visit at the weekend and I am very much looking forward to that! I can't wait to see them!!

With the anticipation of Mum and Dad coming over for a visit I've been sorting out the apartment, so that it's nice and tidy for their arrival.
I couldn't let the week turn into one of only household chores, so I gave myself a fun little project to work on, alongside my cleaning duties.

I've been using my stash of acrylic paints and have been having a rather splendid and colourful time!

I don't know if you remember last month I spoke about adding flowers to the planting boxes and plants to the pots on my balcony? (Here's the post if you fancy a recap)

Well I've been having a crafty time of it, and have been getting all vibrant on those pots that stand out on the balcony.

Would you like to see what I've been doing? it's an extremely easy project that is surely going to bring me a lot of visual joy for months/years to come!

A pot makeover!!!

It was soooooo simple:

I painted the rim to each of my pots, in a very rough way. I didn't worry about what the inside of the pot looked like, as this will not be seen once they are filled.

I went through my collection of paints and chose a second colour for the main part of the pot. A colour that would contrast the rim of the pot that I had just painted.

I chose a nice bold pink to contrast the baby blue rim of the pot.
I got to work painting the main body of the pot. I really left the point where the two colours meet very messy. I did this out of convenience when painting, as I don't always have the steadiest hand with a paint brush.

Once I had finished painting the pot I raided my stash of "crafty bits'n bobs" and remembered that I had a rather rustic canvas tape lurking amongst the chaos.
This tape is the sort that you can buy in a craft shop for scrapbooking. It has a sticky side to it and is perfect for this kind of project!

I wrapped the tape along the rim of the pot covering that messy join where the contrasting colours met.

I then added some rather lovely felted fabric shapes to my pots.

I love this time of year as the shops start to sell or sorts of wonderful crafty things. Bright, jolly products that are geared towards Spring time, but have a wonderful sense of "homemade".

Alternatively you could also make your own little fabric accent for this kind of project. It would be simple enough :-)
I added a blob or two of glue so that the fabric shapes would stick to the pots.

Finally I coated the whole pot in some varnish that I picked up at the craft store. It was important to add a lick of varnish; not only make sure the paint doesn't come of with bad weather, but to extra secure the tape and the fabric shapes to the pots.