Hello!
How are you?
I feel like I’ve not been at this computer for an age and it’s a bit strange. Strange but nice. I’m not great at sitting still at a desk which you may have gathered by the amount of typos that regularly feature on my site. I literally type, publish what I’ve written to the website and then run away from my desk as quickly as possible. Then I read the post back a few hours later, turn a nice shade of raspberry and bite my knuckles because I’ve just spotted all the errors.
So today I’m typing slowly and hopefully I’ll make it through without a boo boo.
Not gonna happen!
I’m scared of crafting occasionally are you? I’m scared of the language used, the abbreviations, the terminology. I buy craft books but I don’t actually follow the instructions. I look at the pictures, de-construct the project and make it my own way. Or, if I’m feeling particularly weak and feeble, I focus on something very very simple but with a nice effect. And you don’t get much simpler than tracing round a cookie cutter on to some fabric and stuffing the shapes.
The cookie cutters above are all Easter themed. I thought they’d make some great small stuffed animals and used the shapes as my templates.
Making them in the same way as I made my heart shaped bouquet I set about sewing and stuffing.
They are very small and again it gives me the chance to use up my fabric stash and therefore avoids too much waste.
I’ve got Floppy Bunnies
Small Sheep
Wee Ducks
And a chunkier Bun-Bun
You can see where I’m going with my Easter table centerpiece by the way I’ve squished this fabric egg in to the squirly branches of Hazel. These types of branches are fantastic for decoration because they have nooks and crannies that are crying out to be filled with all manner of stuffed eggs, bunnies and lambs. Oh, and ducks, not forgetting the ducks.
I also made some stuffed flowers using, surprise surprise, a flower shaped cookie cutter. Clearly, not groundbreaking crafting, but occasionally I just want to add accents and not whole swathes of fabric.
It’s coming together.
Bit by bit. Stuffed fabric flower by stuffed fabric flower. Not a hint of lofty crafting language in sight and an Easter centerpiece that I’m not only enjoying looking at but also very much enjoying creating.
Which is the point, surely?
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We did this yesterday for about twenty minutes. We did as all English people do when they see the tiniest dribble of sunshine. We went outside on a rug and sat in it. Lapping it up and feeling the sun, in all of its slightly warm glory, penetrating the backs of our eyelids.
Anaïs ate her first daisy and Ned hung out with me.
He’d only just woken up and still smelt so warm and ‘beddy’. He takes a while to wake up does Ned. He does it in his own time and won’t be rushed. And then, when he’s good and ready, he arrives back in the land of Ned. All smiles and jelly wobbles.
I still find it very funny watching them interact. I take a whole bunch of photos of them together and its not until I’m looking through them all that I find ones like this one. Ned is once again looking at Anaïs as if she has a large pot plant growing out of her head and all she’s doing is looking at grandma being silly. I can’t wait to hear the conversations they have when they can talk. I just KNOW that I’ll be one of those mummies who listens at the door and has to bite her t-shirt to stop from laughing out loud at what her kids are talking about and being discovered eavesdropping.
I can almost guarantee that I’ll be in more trouble, more often, than they will. But hey ho, at least it’ll be a giggle!
I love you and wish you all a brilliant weekend. To be honest I have no idea what we’re doing over the next two days but that’s quite nice sometimes. Leaves much more room for an adventure of sorts.
Cherry x
Click here for my Easter Table Part One
Click here for my Easter Table Part Three
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Hey Cherry and everybody, I just wanted to say that every Saturday morning I listen to Cherry’s favorite morning radio show, the one she mentioned a while back. Chris Evans Breakfast Show on BBC 2. You can get it online in the US, just google BBC 2, Chris Evans. It’s lots of fun to start the weekend with this show.
Thanks, Cherry for telling us about this program!
Cherry, you know we all love your blog so much! Now…since you brought the subject up, may I ask you to fix a word? I know is was just a slip of the finger. When I get an email notice from your blog it says, “Cherry Menlove has posted a new “artcile.” The c and the i simply have been transposed. Wait…maybe I shouldn’t have asked you to do that. I get a small giggle every time I see that tiny error. It’s actually endearing! Also, I can’t really recall seeing any other typing errors at all!! OK? Am I forgiven?
I just have to tell you what I just experienced here at 9 am in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. There are about 50 wild turkeys strutting and sparring (the males) in my back yard outside the fence, there is about an inch of new snow on the ground, the sun is shining brilliantly, the sky is a deep “Colorado blue,” and I just heard a group of coyotes howling up on the mountain behind my house. How’s that for a “moment in the life?” (nothing as much fun as two darling babies though)
I’m sure you will have another exciting and fun weekend in West Sussex! Tell us what you cooked.
I love the idea of using cookie cutters as patterns! Personally, I like to use materials that are already on hand for projects (as I am trying to cut down on some of the clutter around the house) and I have all the materials needed to make those cute Easter shapes!
It’s always so wonderful and uplifting to watch babies as they reach out and discover their world. Thank you for taking us along on their sweet journey!
Marilyn (in Dallas)
I love your blog!
You are a one wonderful woman. I’ll be praying for your family :*
Thank you so much. Cx
Very sweet Easter project and even sweeter babes! Enjoy your snuggles!
Dear Cherry, love, LOVE the pictures! Those two are amazingly funny, the expressions coming from Ned as he watches his sis are so cute, the girls are going to be a puzzle to that one. And Anais will probably confound all the boys with her joie de vivre!or is it viver, no that’s not right, oh well, her love of life and tasting exotic foods! Don’t fret over the spelling stuff, it’s so minor to your wonderful content. And it’s sunny here in Washington state, might wash some windows, or not.
Love your Easter decorations. I totally know what you mean about crafting! My daughter recently asked me to make her an Esmerelda costume and said she would buy a pattern. A pattern!! Nope, can’t do that. Much easier to make it up as I go along. Lovely pictures, enjoy your weekend.
love your quilt. babies are lovely
This is the most brilliant thing ever! Except now, when I pass buy the gorgeous copper cookie cutters at Whole Foods because I do not want the temptation of making that many sugar cookies, I have something new to do! I just love cookie cutters. Back as an au pair many moons ago in the UK, the sun came out full force while I was in a park. I could not believe the amount of people that stripped down to bathing suits to soak up the sun. Being from California, we have the opposite problem so I was stopped in my tracks. I felt so alien and marveled at the appreciation of the sun, something I obviously had taken for granted. Your two little cherubs are bound to be endless sources of giggles for you. Won’t be long and they’ll be racing off the blankets.
Lovely post Cherry. I’ve been admiring some giant chocolate bunnies today. Easter is such a cute time for kiddies. Love the tree and the simplicity of your animals.I was also in my garden today with the grandchildren on a rug. We Brits must take advantage of every bit of sunshine.
Hi Cherry,
Congratulations for the Sunshine in good ole England. I love your country regardless of which season it is when I visit. I hope to be over very soon and will be popping into the store Liberty. I did enjoy reading your Post on the launch this week and am very much looking forward to rummaging around their new department.
Wishing you a good weekend Cherry.
Much love,
Martha from the Big Apple. x
Hee hee, did you see my spelling mistake? Can’t even spell my own name – I’ve gone Snow Crazy!!
Do you hear the large sigh escaping from the very depths of me when I saw that lovely picture of you and the wee kidlettes enjoying the sun? On Wednesday we received an early April Fool’s from Mother Nature – 25 CM OF SNOW!!! The roads were wickedly icy. I had gone to Toronto (an hour from Cambridge, Ontario) – left Toronto at approximately 2 pm, arrived home exhausted at 8 pm!!!!!!!!!!!! The Municipalities had scaled back their snow-removal crews thinking that the worse was over for this year but never, never tempt Mother Nature! So my little sprigs of green that I had started to see springing up in my garden are once again buried under the snow. It did look pretty, but (again, big sigh…..)…
forgot to say how lovely your little babies are. Love Ned’s quizzical looks, he’s a real little character
x
love your Easter decorations.
you are so right, one hint of the sunshine and we’re all out. Gorgeous Girl and I have been out a lot today, starting off some seeds, and getting a whole line of washing out. Of course it immediately started clouding over, but thus far not a raindrop in sight, and the sun is still shining!
enjoy your weekend.
I’m cooking lamb at the weekend, as per Little One’s request. Got to encourage that!
x
what a great idea using the cookie cutters as pattern.
i like the result. and your photos!
i set a link. thanks for inspirating us.
best wishes, doro K.
Your website and posts make me smile every single time you write something new (which is just about every day!). I sit here in the morning sipping my coffee Stateside and just gobble up every sweet bit of life you put out there – - it makes me cherish my own sweet bits of life I’ve got…
Lovely post. Happy friday and enjoy the weekend xx
Looked like a perfect day out there on that rug. I love the red shafts of light on the lens and I love that spring really is here now. I’ve raspberries and redcurrants and peas to plant this weekend, not to mention onions and courgettes and catching up with the group herb planting to do. Happy Friday everyone. B.x
cute stuffed animals + the flower
I love seeing pictures of your twins, as they are so adorable and growing so fast