I'm late I'm late for a very important date!

I can't believe it I've missed my blogs 1st birthday by nearly 3 weeks what a plonker I kind of knew it was coming up but hadn't checked the date my first post was on the 6th of March last year and had my mothers day cards on it so I was thinking it was near Mothers Day this year oh dear how wrong was I. Anyway enough of that embarrassing talk of how unorganised I truly am.

I was hoping you would join me in my own mini celebration of my blogerversary with me I put together the above mosaic especially for the occasion, some Miss Sew n Sew pics of the last year and I will be hosting a blogerversary give away when I get my act together at a very fashionable month late on the 6ths April!! I am organised with that and have started putting some lovely goodies for this just a few more makes to add so please don't miss out come back for my giveaway I do so love to read your comments and your blogs and this will be my way of saying thank you to each and every one of you who have stopped by and visited my blog. Lots more about my blogging love on the 6th!

I have a new thing in my house for spring bulbs look aren't they wonderful I have 3 hyacinths on the go at the moment there so reasonably priced and they last a lot longer than cut flowers and just smell so gorgeous. My local garden centre were selling these off at just a pound each because they were very dry but after a soaking in a bucket of water they have been fine and are giving me so much enjoyment I just love catching glimpses of fresh flowers around the house. Oh dear I must clean my kitchen window!

I've had my man at home this week and look what we've been up too! A new path is being laid down to my little house and shed. The old bricks were left from an outbuilding taken down by the previous owner so we've made use of them to edge the path.

The weathers been great this week and given us the chance to get on with it yes I've been digging and getting my hands dirty too! All day in the garden has been back braking work but I know it will be worth it and I'm really liking the results of the different materials bricks,gravel and wood.

This is our first proper garden our first house didn't really have much garden so were excited

about changing ours and making it our own. As you can see we have lot's more to do, the path will continue to our shed and then if all goes to plan we want to put a seat around tree and the messy soil area will will be filled with different shades of gravels may be a water feature and grasses and ferns planted amongst the gravel I have it all planned out in my head!

In front of my little house were going to have decking for a seating area and then also we want to make a vegetable garden out of some timber we have left over from the path so not much to do then hey!

The house is looking a tip with mummy and daddy both working our asses off in the garden Emily and Elliott have been entertaining them selves which has meant all though my attempts to tell them to take their wellies off when they go inside lot's of messy little footprints on Mummy carpet arrrgh!!

Today's game has been who can collect the most worms in their bowls, then counting their worms then running to their chalk board to draw number of worms on it!

Will be back next week with our progress thank you for all your comments about my little house I'd love top have you all round, one at a time of course for some crafting, coffee and cake! I really enjoyed reading them your all so lovely!

Hope all you mums out there have a great Mothers Day this weekend!

My little house!

Yesterday I had a good tidy up of my little house down the garden and took some pics so finally I can share my finished studio with you all I'm sorry it's taken me forever to put these on here I hadn't forgotten but it has taken a lot more time than I expected transferring all my stuff from the house and finding homes for it all in here as it is quite small but perfectly formed and it is rarely this tidy being away from the house only I see the mess! If you follow my blog you will know that we purchased my summerhouse in bits at the end of August last year, you can read about it here and here to see the before pics. An enormous thank you goes out to my husband Steven, my dad and my mum for the team effort in getting it finished and making my dream of my own space a reality.So this is my desk the table was £20 off good old ebay and was a nasty orangey pine colour so we sanded it down and painted the legs there was a window on this wall which I decided to block up as I wanted the shelves above my desk which works really well for storage and some favorite bit's and pieces on there - my faithful Roberts radio and favorite Greengate tins.

Steven spent hours cladding the whole of the inside in tongue and groove which I love, he insulated the walls behind the tongue and groove which works a treat I have a electric heater and it gets lovely and cosy it was really important to me that I could use it all year round with it being small it heats up really well. The bunting I made myself a few years back.
I wanted a comfy chair in there I picked this tub chair up from a junk shop for £10 and I made the slip cover for it out of Greengate fabric.

The floor lamp base was from freecycle which I've painted blue and the wonky shade was 50p from a car boot! I have my home magazines on the rack on the door.
Steven has fitted me spotlights in the ceiling and I have a handy shelf which runs across the roof space up there I have my baskets of fabric scraps.

You might of noticed that not a lot of sewing has been going on around here that's down to two reasons 1. lack of time 2. I have been without a working sewing machine for 6 months or so which has been very frustrating. The one you see on the table has just been repaired but my gorgeous vintage blue singer one ( brought for looks alone!) is beyond repair so instead of looking pretty on my desk it is going to the tip boo hoo!
I have just started sewing again and have two projects on the go at the moment some cushions for my mum and something I can't say what for the heart swap over at Mollycupcakes and lots more planned after that.

I love gift wrapping and like to keep a good selection of gift wrap in my bucket!

So that's it hope you enjoyed my tour of my little studio and that it was worth waiting for.

You might of noticed I have a new look to my blog I haven't posted on here for quite some time as I have a new hobby playing around with photo shop! I'm really pleased with how it looks I've used my favourite combination of Greengate inspired colours red, green, white and blue hope you like it!

Lovely Pretty Things

A pink parcel landed on my doormat last week. What's this I thought it can only be something from one of you wonderful ladies in blog land. As it happened it was addressed to Emily, straight away I realised what it must be. I impatiently wait for 2 hrs and stop myself from having a peek inside and save it for Emily to open after pre school. She is just as excited as me to open her parcel and she ripped open the pink bag and tissue paper to find this............

a gorgeous mini quilt that I won in Sara's giveaway! I love Sara's work she makes all sorts of lovely things which you can find here at her blog All About Eden just look at the beautiful detail on her name and the pretty fabrics! Thank you Sara Emily love's it and so do I it has been all over the place in Emily's bedroom looking for the right spot to display it and we've settled for the wall above her bed.

These are my beautiful roses that Steven surprised my with on Valentines day I really wasn't expecting anything so they meant even more.


On Monday our back garden was awash with sunshine it felt wonderful it was warm enough for the kid's to play outside in the garden with no coat's and me and Steven sat and had our lunch outside, it felt good, really good, it gave us a taste of what's to come roll on Spring can't wait Just look at our first snowdrops so dainty and pretty. Keep catching a glimpse of them just outside the window don't you just love snowdrops?!


I've finally got my copy of this months Country Living I always see it first on blogs at those of who subscribe and think 'ooh that front cover does look good' and then I have to impatiently wait for my copy to appear on the shop shelf I really should get it on subscription as I have it every month anyway. I'm lovin this months copy mostly because of the article about having a home studio if you follow my blog you'll know that I've just completed mine down the garden and love the glimpse into Caroline Zoobs work space article.

Sorry the above photo is blurred the pink mug warmer is from another very talented lady at Pink- Petal-Designs I think she still sells them in her shop if you fancy one. I love mine it's only takes about 20 seconds to get from the house back door down to my garden studio but when it's freezing outside having my hands wrapped around my mug warmer with a mug of hot chocolate makes it much less of a bind!

The chocolate chip cookies I made this are from a recipe at the ever fabulous blog Attic 24 thanks you Lucy you said my family would thank you wholeheartedly for them and we do they are delicious and were very popular in our household made mine with some white chocolate chunks I had in. Tempted? Their seriously good! You can find the recipe here.

It is coming up to my blog being 1 yrs old in March so do pop back as I will be putting some goodies together and having a giveaway.

Emily's Birthday

I'm glad to say that the 4th birthday party that we had on Friday for Emily went really well. Emily went to pre school in the morning whilst me and my mum got everything ready I have to say we were running around to get it all done in time as everything was a bit last minute as I had to fill and decorate the cake in the morning due to a baking disaster with the cake the night before!! The cake you see in the picture was the 3rd attempt! The first wasn't big enough, the 2nd was burnt and the 3rd turned out just right! Oh dear I'd not baked a cake for a long time and thought it would be easy, I now have a good recipe that I will stick to never mind I get there in the end!

The table looked really pretty. Let me point out the details!! Each child had a party popper and bottle of bubbles. The girls had a little rings attached to their name tags and the boys had a badge. See those butterfly mobiles, and straws that me and my niece sat cutting out from Laura Ashley wallpaper do you?!! Do you?!!

We had a bit of an Angelina Ballerina theme going, as Emily LOVES Angelina Ballerina since our special day together here she has been hooked.

This lovely picture of Angelina was put together by my two helpers drawn by my niece Jade and painted by my mum I think it's so nice that I'm going to put it on the wall in Emily's bedroom. We used it for pin the bow on Angelina.


My rushed cake! Which I was pleasantly surprised with that it actually tasted very nice! the pink cake stand was a bargain at just £2 marked down because the little cake stand that should be on top was missing.

All the girls had a butterfly slide for their hair.

Were having fun!

The birthday girl enjoyed herself!

After all the party games each child decorated a cup cake which I boxed up in a marshmallow bottomed box for them to take home as a favour inside their goodie bags. I forgot to take photos of this but we had a tray full of about 8 different cake decorations glitter,smarties,pink and white hearts that sort of thing and a piping bag of icing. This is one I had left and had for supper. surprisingly I have no problems baking cupcakes!


The children really seemed to enjoy themselves and having just five children was just right there was lot's of dancing and excitement but most importantly Emily's face was beaming throughout and loved it.

I can't put it into words how much mummy and daddy love you we can't believe you four where has all that time gone? You are beautiful in every way and you haven't stopped saying thank you for everything which is so sweet. Yesterday we had a mummy and daughter day one to one which was wonderful to enjoy each others company we had lunch at Little Frankie's and tried on all the dresses in the Disney Store then you picked one to buy with you money from Auntie Xana.

Happy birthday Emilyxxxx

A winter wonderland - what fun!!!!!

Well what a week it's been. Monday morning we awoke to this view out our bedroom window outside our lane looked like Narnia! We had about six inches of snow the most snow that I can remember since being very little. It all melted away by Tuesday and we were a bit miffed and sad that it had come and gone so quickly but yesterday (Thursday) we were rewarded with another heavy covering of snow. Yippee!!!!!!!! What fun our walk to pre school was wrapped up all cosy and warm, crunching snow under our feet kicking it along as we go and a good work out for me it can be quite difficult trying to push a pushchair along in thick snow whilst trying to control a overly excited three yr old along the side and trying not to fall over all at the same time!! :)

Also I couldn't stop taking photo's so here's what I took.
our lane

Mr snowman that Grandad helped build as Mummies

attempt wasn't very good!!!!!!! Our House



The walk to school
This is the park we pass on our walk to school.



Our back garden


View from our landing window


View from our bedroom window

Little words just photo's today as I'm shattered, it was Emily's 4th birthday party today and I'm all partied out. Thank you for all your best wishes for the party I'm pleased to say it went down a treat and all my hard work payed off, the birthday girl had a whale of a time!

I'll be posting lot's of pics soon, it's her actual birthday tomorrow so I'm looking forward to having a girly day together. Hope you've all enjoyed the snow I think most places have had some? I've been so busy this week there's been little time to blog but had to sneak these photo's in. I never want to forget the week it snowed! Sarahx

Party preparations

It was the last day of January today and it was a beautiful sunny day here in Derbyshire we woke up to a gorgeous sunset casting a pink glow into Emily and Elliot's room. Well January has been a month of organising in the Miss sew n sew household and I am relieved to say that everywhere is now tip top tidy including my studio which was done today so now I can concentrate on other things.

First thing on my to do list will be organising a birthday party for Emily who turns four next Saturday. She is having a little tea party the day before on the Friday I am making the most of being able to do a traditional style party at home with pass the parcel and musical chairs etc.................... I have to admit that unlike some mum's who dread organising children's parties I do actually quite enjoy organising it all although last year I did actually feel quite stressed during the event as I invited 13 children way to many for our little cottage! Having learnt from last years mistake this year she's having just having just 3 of her closest friends yes I know it sounds a bit mean just 3 but if you count Emily and Elliot that's 5 kids then there's the mums and friends and family so that's plenty. I was hoping that this will be much more manageable and less work for me! After planning to keep it small and simple I've ended up getting quite carried and have now got ton's to do!





My mum thought of me and picked this book up for me on her visit to the library kid's parties by Lisa Atwood I can really recommend this book if you need some inspiration for a children's party it has gorgeous pictures and lots of different themed party idea's for girls and boys. I was really taken by this idea a cupcake decorating tea party how cute?





Each child gets to decorate their own cupcake which you box up in a pretty box for them to take home with them we'll be doing ours after the food and games once their filled up with jelly and ice cream and party food hopefully that will avoid any protests of I want to eat mine now!!!



My niece Jade comes round most Fridays for a tea and a chat so I've had a little helper cutting out these butterflies, I knew that extra roll of Laura Ashley wallpaper would come in handy for something. Thursday we'll be decorating the room ready for Emily's big day I hope it all goes to plan I've tried not to mention the 'party' word as she gets so excited but it hasn't worked at all you just can' hide anything from her she soon cottons on that mummy's up to something and she's been counting the sleeps down now for the past week!

Oh well wish me luck I now have a long list of bit's and pieces to make to pretty up the room, a Angelina Ballerina birthday cake to bake and decorate, cupcakes to bake I really haven't perfected the art or the perfect cupcake's mine come out domed shaped like little Mount Everest's any hint's and tips on baking nice flat cupcakes gratefully accepted!! Goodie bags to make decorate and fill! I no! I no!! I'm probably making lots and lots of unnecessary work for myself and I annoy myself sometimes once I get an idea in my head I have to go full out and finish every last detail I tell myself to keep things simple and I can never stick to it. I'll keep you posted on how it all goes next week. Finally a big thank you to Lou at Ludabelle for choosing me for this award. It's so nice to think that somebody actually reads and enjoys this little blog of mine thank you sooo much you brightened up my day!

I'm going to be lazy and take the easy route and not pass on this award, there's so many fabulous blogs out there that I love to read that I just can't choose! Hope you all have had a good week I have some catching up to do in between the preparations for princess tea party central!
Sarahx