Beautiful Weekend Away

Last weekend I went on holiday with my husband and my parents and it was amazing. I don't think I could have asked for a more idilic place to be or weekend to be there. We went to a small place called Beck Hole in Yorkshire. I don't think there's much more to say but here are a load of photos:

 It was snowy when we walked to the Mallyan Spout waterfall

Frozen moss on the rocks by the spout

 But we made it and it was well worth the walk!

We were in need of a Beer when we got back to the pub though! (Ok so I don't drink beer but they had lovely cider and everyone else enjoyed the Beck Watter beer)

 And so it snowed more

 and more

 until we woke up to this amazing view in the morning

 One of the farmers came down the road with a snow plough attached to the front of his tractor - it really just wouldn't happen here

 We didn't manage to eat breakfast outside...

a robin did though!

 ...I nearly lost my feet in the snow (the silly socks over the jeans thing was my husbands idea)...

 ...but me and my mum did make a snow tortoise (or snortoise as he became known!!!)

 

I made a snow angel!!! Forgot to put my head down in the snow though - oops!

 What would it be like to live here?!? Amazing or what?

 We walked all the way up to Goathland where Heartbeat was filmed

 And then it was certainly time for sledging!!!! The train with me and my parents didn't quite work maybe as well as we'd hoped though and we did crash about half way down - all you can see is legs!

 I love this poem that was hung on the wall of the pub. It was written by the previous owner and rings very true.

 Not quite so snowy the following day and the river was running well

 Sandsend was beautiful again and the tide was out so we could walk along all of the slate beds. Almost looks like we found a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow - I wish!

 Perfect fossils beneath our feet

 And finally to Whitby - an arty farty photo taken by my husband of the whale jaw on the way in

 We didn't quite make it up to the Abbey on the other side but had a good view of it.

All in all a brill weekend.

Front of sweater done and sleeve started

Woohoo! I love this cold weather - it's brilliant - exactly what winter should be like.

This weekend we went around to some friends house and helped them build a snowcat - I use the word helped very loosely - I didn't have at all sensible shoes on and my feet were frozen so I think I ended up doing a fair bit of supervising from dry ground. It turned out fab though!

Henlow isn't the biggest fan of the cold weather though. This was his response to me going in to see him the other morning:

 "Urgh! Why are you up so early? It's far too cold to be awake."

Back to bed. Charming!

He does still seem to be loving the cuttlefish though - he even slept with it the other night!

I've just remembered I never actually posted a picture of the finished item that I sent to Becki for her birthday. This is partly because I never actually took a good one of the finished thing. I forgot before I wrapped it all up to post but here it is anyway. I made a scarf that joined together in a loop to form a neck warmer/cowl. Not a good photo but here's the join of it and you can kind of see the way that it knitted up.

And for the main bit of news for this post - I finished the front of my sweater!!!! I'm really pleased with it. I hope it looks as good (and fits!) when it's all sewn together.

And I have started a sleeve - I love the orange colour on the cuff and can't wait to get it all finished now.

Finally I think we have finally come to a decision about paint for the decoration of our office / my crafty room. I think we're going to go for the Chalk Burst colour on the left of this picture - I think the other one is a bit too light and hopefully this will look really good when it's done. Having said that, it's not too tricky - anything has to be better than the bright-ish yellow that is in here now!

Oooh oooh oooh! I almost forgot - I received a reply from Royal Mail today to say that they are trying to track down the parcel that I sent for my craft swap so hopefully I will hear back from them shortly. I really hope I receive my parcel soon too - I hope this hasn't got lost in the same way.

Craty Creatives box on a Woodland theme

Wow! I get so excited each time I know that the box is due to arrive - I have even been into my local post office for the last two days to check if it has arrived before I've even got home from work. I knew that this box was on it's way and also I'm hoping to receive the goodies from the swap soon too.

I cannot fault Crafty Creatives as I got a weird message yesterday to say that I had been billed £1 - I thought this was strange and wondered why this had happened but you know how things are, work, getting far too over excited about snow, blah, blah, blah and I completely forgot about it until I got a lovely message in the evening. Claire explained that there had been a problem with the way that my billing had been set up and explained how she could correct it. The £1 had been refunded before I knew any more about it and everything all set up again. I have to say - and I'm sure you might have guessed from a few of my other posts that I have become rather disgruntled with a lot of companies customer service recently (the saga of still no internet since the middle of last year and not 1 of the 6 or so companies that we have rang to ask to use their services has bothered sending out a router or setting the internet up for instance - wooo breathe Kate, anyway....!) however, Crafty Creatives does not appear on that list.

This month's box was just as good as the last one (which I still haven't used yet but am determined to soon! It does look so pretty sat on my shelf though it almost seems a shame.) This box contains the art card as the last one did with a beautiful picture on it and also a list of the contents of the box. PS. As we go through this I apologise for the enormous amount of photos - I may have set my husband the task of photographing everything - don't worry I won't post all 80 photos that he took!!!

Let's begin with the opening process - still one of my favourite parts I think! I'm such a big kid!

I even love the paper that the box comes wrapped in - this will be brilliant to use to wrap little gifts or again for a card

The kit this month was for needle felting - I cannot wait to try this! - it's not something that I have ever really thought about doing but I love trying new things like this.

Toadstool beads - beautiful, what else is there to say?! I'm desert to make something with these but have no idea what I might make - any suggestions please let me know - I'm thinking maybe a bracelet...?

Wooden leaf buttons - well if the sweater that I have chosen for sweater club actually was a cardigan and not a sweater then these would be an extremely strong contender to go on there. Otherwise we'll have to make and see - maybe a bag of some description... would have to learn how to make one of those first but hey it's worth a thought at least!

Fox beads - again good to hang from a purse or bag or to make some kind of jewellery out of:

Skeleton leaves - 100% natural and oh so beautiful! - I find it hard to believe that things so delicate can come from the world around us.

This leads me nicely onto the birch hearts - again not sure - maybe for a card...?

Leaf pendants - I'm not sure if these would go too well with the toadstools on whatever kind of jewellery I decide to make with those but again we'll see - ideas are always more than welcome and I will be hunting to see what everyone else does with all of these lovely goodies.

Flower soft - I have never used this before so wasn't too sure what it was but apparently it can be used just like glitter and it even comes with a full sized flower soft glue. I think this again will be something to experiment with when I next make a card.

Owly fabric - I may need some lessons on what to do with this but I know a lovely lady who would absolutely adore this - my swap buddy! I know that she will be loving this from her box as I hear she is slightly obsessed with owls!

Finally - last but my no means least - the final item in the box is a pine cone. I love the explanation for this on the card as well - "We just had to include this - an excellent addition to many home crafts". Couldn't have put it better myself - it's one of those things that you will probably never need but should always have "just in case". This may be spray pained gold/silver and tied with cotton to hang on the Christmas tree next year for instance.

Ta dah! A box full of goodies (the paper at the back is one that I already had but it fitted in quite well to provide a backdrop - apparently!)