Driftwood Dreaming

Earlsdon Festival 2012 was a great day out

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Driftwood Dreamer

On bank holiday Monday my daughter, husband and I braved the cold wet weather and went down the road to the 2012 Earsldon Festival being held around Earlsdon, an area of Coventry. There were lots of stalls set up down the high street, selling things from cakes, gifts to furniture and plants.

I found one stall that really caught my eye selling upcycled furniture renovated in the ‘vintage retro shabby chic’ style which I love so much. Called Glamtiques, they are a new local company just setting up their online shop (www.glamtiques.co.uk) which should be live soon (hopefully in a couple of weeks). Once it is up I’ll write a review. I’m looking forward to seeing what will be for sale to see if there is anything for my craft room.

Although the day was wet and cold everyone seemed to be having a good time. My daughter was really keen to see the playground of what hopefully will be her new school next year. She had a great time running around in Earlsdon Primary’s playground. She even won a pretty bracelet in the tombola!

If you like time lapse films – here is one for the whole festival day – what I love most about this short film is the clouds scurrying past and the range of colour umbrellas!!

PinExt Earlsdon Festival 2012 was a great day out

Posted in Chatter, Family | Tagged earlsdon festival | Leave a comment

The best banana loaf recipe ever!

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Driftwood Dreamer

I’ve been experimenting with a banana loaf recipe and now I think I’ve got it just right. It’s a great way of using up old bananas.

Pre heat oven to 170C. 3 OR 4 ripe bananas mashed up. Mix in 1/3 cup of melted butter. Add 1 cup of demerar sugar, 1 beaten egg, 1 tsp of vanilla essence, 1 tsp of baking power, 1 1/2 cup of self raising flower, 1 good measure of nutmeg to your own taste, 1 good measure of cinnamon to your own taste. Mix it all together with a wooden spoon. Pour into lined or buttered loaf tin then put in oven for around 45 minutes.

Here was today’s loaf. It was exceedingly yummy. I specially love eating it off vintage china plates and drinking my tea from a vintage china cup!!!

PinExt The best banana loaf recipe ever!

Posted in Baking, Chatter, Family | Tagged baking, banana cake, vintage china | 4 Comments

Friday’s Fab Find: ‘Made from the heart’ blog post

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Driftwood Dreamer

I love finding great blogs posts. I’m sure we all do. I found this one – it’s called ‘Made from the Heart’. The most recent post was about taking a trip of young people to New York City but it was what the blog writer (a high school science teacher) wrote about the 9/11 memorial that really touched me.

“How could a 5-year-old really understand what happened? I had some anxiety about the kids behavior because of their age. However, the kids were great and very respectful. I talked to them about my experience on 9/11 and they responded with what they remembered. The memorial was important to everyone, no matter their age.”

The post has some really great photos from the trip. Here is one of the photos of the new Freedom Tower being built. It is looking great so far. I can’t wait to see it for myself.

I love New York so much. My husband and I went there in 2007 for our honeymoon. We plan to go back in a couple of years for our daughter’s 6th birthday – I can’t wait!

Here is another fabulous photo from the post.

PinExt Fridays Fab Find: Made from the heart blog post

Posted in Chatter, Friday's Fab Find, Inspiration | Tagged freedom tower, New York | 3 Comments

Getting creative for our Queen’s Jubilee Street Party

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Driftwood Dreamer

Our street is holding a street party on Tuesday 5th June for the Queen’s 60th Jubilee. I’ve always wanted to go to a street party. I’ve joined the organising committee and also designed our poster to be put up in people’s front windows. I’m also making the bunting for the street – all +100 meters of it! Think I better get cracking!

Here is my poster.

PinExt Getting creative for our Queens Jubilee Street Party

Posted in Crafts, Sewing | Tagged bunting, craft, jubilee, street party | 2 Comments

CD bird scarer to protect my vegetables

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Driftwood Dreamer

What a wet and windy weekend!

On Saturday while it was dry I made this CD and beads bird scarer. Using some old scratched CDs and some nice colourful beads I made this string of CDs hoping to that the shiny reflections would keep the birds off my newly emerging seedlings and strawberry plants.

Unfortunately, since the CDs have been in place my regular Blackbird visitor has not been at all phased by the CDs and is pecking away happily at the soil looking for worms! So for anyone considering making a CD bird scarer – I would not advise it. Even our local pigeons are still making regular visits to my garden.

On Saturday I was also busy pricking out my little tomato and herb seedlings raised from seed into pots to be put into my mini greenhouses.

Sadly, the strong winds on Sunday blew the middle greenhouse over ending up in a big mushy mess of little plug plants and new seedlings – I was devastated as I’d spent a lot of time, effort and money on these little plants. I spent a few freezing cold wet hours this morning trying to save all I could. I did save a lot of my plug plants but I lost most of my seedlings that I’d grown from seed.

I did however manage to sow some flower seeds on Saturday – lots of really colour cottage garden flowers. Hopefully the bad weather will calm down enough tomorrow so I can repot my salvaged little plug plants.

PinExt CD bird scarer to protect my vegetables

Posted in Crafts, Garden craft, Gardening | Tagged bird scarer, cd bird scarer, garden craft, gardening, Gardens, seedling, sowing seeds, windy | Leave a comment

Fabric stash goes from heap to neat

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Driftwood Dreamer

I’ve finally made a start on tidying my fabric stash in my new craft room. The pile went from this:

to this:

I’m getting there!

PinExt Fabric stash goes from heap to neat

Posted in Crafts, Sewing | Tagged craft, fabric, fabric stash, sewing | 4 Comments

Weekend working in the garden

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Driftwood Dreamer

I’ve had a really busy weekend out in the garden. I decided that I needed to get my raised beds built and filled if I was going to be in time to grow any vegetables in them this year. There was already a large raised bed in the garden left by the previous owners. Unfortunately I needed to move it to the bottom of the garden where my vegeatble garden will be. This meant emptying it of all the soil – this was a long and very tiring job!

Once done, moved and refilled, I then went off to B&Q to buy the boards to build my three new raised beds. I enjoyed making these although filling them really tested my poorly back! Think I strained it ages ago and this work has made it worse!

So here are my three new raised beds (and the old moved one).

I was also busy this weekend getting my three year old daughter interested in gardening. We planted some seeds together. Sunflower, tomato and Mornings Glory, strawberries and radish. The next morning when she woke up she asked to see if her strawberries had grown. It is difficult explaining the concept of growth and patience to a three year old! Here she is…

As an addition to this post, here is the latest on my raised beds:

I’ve now planted: Spring onions, garlic, courgettes, shallots, strawberries, spicy salad, beans, and early new potatoes.

I now need to rig up a string of old CDs to scare away the birds. Does anyone know if this actually works?

I’m thinking of something like this below…

Posted in DIY, Family, Gardening | Tagged gardening with kids, Gardens, raised beds, sowing seeds, vegetables | 1 Comment

New encounters: Marble cake, friends and muffin tin meals

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Driftwood Dreamer

This weekend has been a really busy one. We’re still decorating, sorting, tidying, but we also found time to have a fab relaxing afternoon with some lovely new friends. We have daughters the same age and they spent a lovely afternoon playing together whilst the mummies and daddies drank wine and chatted. I took the opportunity to get baking again! Our daughter Beth loves to help me mixing and licking the spoon! I thought I’d try something new so I made a marble cake. It was really easy and I was really pleased with the final cake. I hope our friends did too. Beth and I had certainly had fun making it!

Today I decided to try another new thing. This time I was inspired by Pinterest where I’d seen Muffin tin meals for children. Basically you put some amounts of different foods in the muffin tins. Here is what I made for Beth.

She is not a great eater and has no interest in eating or food. I was hopeful that giving her a meal in this format would encourage her to eat more. Sadly today was not a success but I shall keep trying this method as it’s fun to make and on a good day Beth will love it.

PinExt New encounters: Marble cake, friends and muffin tin meals

Posted in Baking, Chatter, DIY, Family, Fun stuff | Tagged baking, children, Food, Kids food, marble cake, muffin tin meals | Leave a comment

Through the lens: The night sky – view from my craft room

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Driftwood Dreamer

Over the last few nights I’ve begun unpacking all my craft room boxes and setting up my craft room. Although this is very exciting as I’ve waiting for so long for this time, I couldn’t help but notice each evening how amazing the sky looks from my window. My craft room is at the top of our tall thin three story house facing south west. The sunsets this week have been to die for!

Last night I grabbed my camera to get a photo of the stunning sunset but by the time I’d set up the tripod and the exposure settings the sun set had disappeared. What I did photograph is the moon with the two very bright stars (actually planets Venus and Jupiter) in very close proximity!

And tonight, I managed to get more of the sunset…just!

PinExt Through the lens: The night sky view from my craft room

Posted in Crafts, Photography, Through the lens | Tagged bright stars, craft room, jupiter, night sky, photography, Venus | 4 Comments

The power of Pinterest

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Driftwood Dreamer

In my previous post, I showed a strange 360 degree photo mantage of my craft room in the early stages of its being painted. I thought I’d share with you my inspiration from Pinterest that has helped me design my craft room. I love the fact that you can browse millions of images on Pinterest and get a bit of inspiration from one, then a bit more from another. These images below are the main ones inspiring the design of my new craft room. I have a large dorma window with two slopey roof parts which will be great for shelving areas.