Black and White

I spent some time a while ago experimenting with black and white on some of my photos. I love how moody it makes things look. One day I want to have a wall of our photos - friends, places, whatever - all in black and white in black frames.

Books of Oh Nine

I love books. That's not a secret. I love that they are new worlds, make us think, introduce us to wonderful characters. I love that when a book is finished pieces of it stay with me and flash into my mind in the days, weeks, (if it's really good) months and years afterwards.

These are the books I loved this year:

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer - about friendship, love, loyalty and joy in the little things even when life is a struggle. Reviewed here.

The Grace Outpouring by Roy Godwin and Dave Roberts - a non-fiction book, stuffed with stories of God moving and working in a retreat centre in Wales. Totally inspirational.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott - an old favourite but my sister gave me a beautiful copy for my birthday. It has gold edged pages. I'm a sucker for a pretty book - I am a firm believer of judging books by their covers.

What did you read this year that stayed with you? What made it so special?

Look Through the Window

I noticed a bit of a trend in my photography this year. For some reason I seem to have a habit of photographing windows. Anyway, I thought I'd show you some of my favourites from the collection...


A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked.
Anais Nin

While I'm Away...

I'm going to be away from blogging for a couple of weeks - seeing family, eating plenty and playing hundreds of games will be taking over my days for a while. In the meantime, I'm going to set up some posts on different topics to appear. No particular theme, just a bit of this and that...

Happy Christmas and see you next year, lovelies.

Winding Down

On Wednesday night we had our home group over for a Christmas party - food and games and much merriment ensued. We even made hot apple punch (inspired by some friends a couple of weekends ago) which went down very well.


Last night we went to T's work Christmas party - my first experience of the infamous do. And we enjoyed it. It was fun meeting some new people, talking about life, books and food. And when we walked out of the door it was into swirling whirling snow that was actually settling! It was so exciting. I should have taken some photos when we got home but by that stage we were so freezing we just wanted to get inside and curl up in bed, so here's a few from this morning as it melts.


Today: a squillion jobs to do before tomorrow. Packing, laundry, cooking, present wrapping, tidying, cleaning, organising, crafting. This morning so far has been mostly spent wrapping and ribboning to a background of the Little Women DVD. Which has resulted in a warm fuzzy feeling and blinking away tears at the really sad bits I'd forgotten. (I'm also rapidly running out of paper and ribbon, and have forgotten gift tags as usual so things are on track for a late night and busy Saturday morning!) Nevertheless - loving the prospect of Christmas holidays.

Have a good weekend lovelies.

Wedding Cards

Now that our trio of winter weddings are over, I thought I'd share the wedding cards we gave them. I think people put so much of their own personality and how they want their wedding to feel into the invitation so it's great to use that as inspiration for the card if you're making one.

This is the first (invitation above, the card I made below):


I took the colours and the relaxed swirls of the invitation for my design too. The font they'd chosen was quite simple and modern so I echoed that in their initials.

The second wedding invitation stated that the ceremony would be followed by "dinner and ball". It was formal and traditional in the colours and fonts but they'd made it unusual by having four triangular "petals" that opened on the front (invitation to the left, card to the right):


Again, I used very simple, traditional colours, keeping the creativity in the textures and patterns. I used ribbon roses to make it extra special.

The third wedding, just gone. The bride and groom had clearly chosen red and gold as their wedding colours (invitation to left, card to right):


Again, I took similar colours and included their initials in a swirly, handwriting, similar to that on the invitation.

I would love this to be my job!

The Last Wedding

This weekend saw us going to our fifth and final wedding of the year, and it was a wedding high. Although we only really know half the couple, it was such a special and fun day.


The food was amazing - after the church they served hot mulled wine (great for wrapping chilly fingers around) and mince pies fresh from the oven. For dinner, we'd decided to go for one of each option on the menu between us as it looked so good. Which meant that by sharing, we got to try starters of duck and salmon, mains of pork and guinea fowl (like chicken, but with a meatier, richer flavour), and for dessert white chocolate torte and the creamiest lemon cheesecake ever.

Aside from the food, seeing how happy and relaxed the bride and groom were, and how thankful to God - made it a totally wonderful day.

Warm and Twinkly

I've had a sore throat for a couple of days but I've been distracting myself by enjoying lovely winter things. Like decorations going up in our house...


Christmas cards going in the post...


T coming home from work for a lunch of hot crumpets and tea...


And enjoying wintery drinks, and an evening on the sofa with T...


What's making you excited about winter and Christmas these days?

A Christmas Weekend

Good friends. Mulled wine and mince pies. Walks. A pine tree hung with lights and shimmering decorations. Sitting on the floor to play games. Laughter and catching up. This all added up to a lovely weekend for us.


Aren't these word decorations (made by our lovely hostess) beautiful?


Christmas is on it's way...and I'm loving every day of the build up.

Documenting

One of my favourite things to do this year has been to collect together photos, leaflets, papers and ribbons and make mini books documenting our adventures. I've decided to follow the example of a very creative lady and make one for the whole of December:


Mine is very low effort so far - just papers punched and tied with a ribbon. I went for Christmassy greens and creams with gold highlights as the theme. I think December will manage to fill and festivise it as we go...