#monthof

December, my last ‘month of’ & I wanted to grab this last boost of gusto to push myself to try some new things.

Firstly - I turned this bucket of beautiful cuttings from my garden into a Christmas Wreath! Ive wanted to try this for YEARS & this year I did it! 

I didn’t really have any of the proper stuff to make a classic style wreath so I popped upstairs & grabbed myself a wire hanger & stretched it out to make a kind of circle. And then using wire & pliers I haphazardly fixed the green into place - literally hoping for the best.

I worked at my neighbours table whilst she had a crack at her own! 

I finished it off with a gorgeous striped ribbon.

I quite pleased with the finished results!

Another skill I wanted to learn after hours of scrolling through Pinterest was Needle Punching, which is a kind of rug making. My aim here, is to make a textured cushion for my spare room as the price of these in shops are astronomical. I have decided to spend the money on the tools to invest in myself. I normally make things from what I have lying around. I am a hoarder, so I do tend to have thing lying around after other projects. So to actually invest in myself is a big thing for me. Am I worth investing in? 

I purchased a budget needle punch set on eBay & a quality punch for thicker yarns from Etsy. I found some Aida fabric in a charity shop & some nice big yarn & got going... but Aida fabric wasn’t holding the stiches! RAH! I tried some other fabric & still I wasn’t getting along with it. And then had to invest further into some burlap which has a strong weave. I felt sick at having to invest a mere £!5 more on the fabric - but I had to keep going.

I have cut my fingers to shreds to learn this skill... and almost given up so many times. Watched so many youtube tutorials which give the impression that it is so easy when it isn’t! Having posted my progress on Instagram, the lovely Claire from Monty Knits  said she would post me some yarn. The generosity of this gift was so much more than the yarn it was that someone was rooting for me & thought I was worth investing in too, which really did spur me on! - Thanks Claire! 

November was pretty simple really... I’m a massive procrastinator. I can put things off for yonks. I can have ideas for years before realising them. I also get the fear about starting a new project. And then when I start something, it can lay on the kitchen table for months before it’s tidied away & then it will be tidied away before I finish it to never be finished. SO - this month I shall start & finish a project in its entirety! Woo!

I have been wanting to embroider something intricate on an item of clothing for a long time. I have an entire pinterest board full of potential things to embroider... animals, birds, words, objects etc... the hard part is choosing something & starting. The fear I face is ‘this is going to be shit, why am I dedicating so much time to making a mess when there are so many other things I need to be getting on with. This top is going to be completely ruined.’

I waited until I was babysitting for a friend. I took a big bag of supplies - no distractions of the house because starting was going to be the hardest. I eventually chose a beetle from a vintage illustration.

After starting it I flew! Each night in bed I did a bit which kept me awake rather than falling asleep immediately! hooray! 

Anyone else guilty of passing a particular thing in their home repeatedly & thinking ugh I need to sort that out? So do I - and these things can get me down! So I decided my month of in October was to sort this shit out!

In the snow last year our pipes froze & leaked into our living room ceiling leaving a nasty stain. Our living room is one of the few rooms we have decorated so this happening would really annoy me each time I saw it. CHEEEEE-ECK! All fixed! 

Also whilst moving one of my previous projects was ruined! argh!!! And each time I saw it I was so heartbroken that I had to look away - despite us hanging it up in the spare room... One evening during October I fiddled with the wire until it resaid the words... ‘Judy & her dream of horses’ after the Belle & Sebastian song! hooray! it made me extremely happy to have mended it back to its former glory! 

We have summer houses in our garden, one of which I have declared mine (by standing outside & declaring it out loud! haha). I have always envisioned it to be my studio where I can store & create all my designs & manifestations. However, since moving in almost 3 years ago, it has only served as a dumping ground & storage for boxes of things that havent seen the light of day since our previous home. It also houses a lot of my late sisters possessions which I hadn’t had the strength to look through. Well I went through ALL  of the boxes, sorted & took many things to charity.

I purchased a vintage yellow kitchen unit from eBay! It has an excellent work surface on it! And treated myself to a beautiful glass display unit from Ikea for all my vintage crockery - so now it has pride of place rather than stuffed in some cardboard boxes! It gives me joy to see these brightly coloured & patterned pieces!

I sorted and folded my fabrics & put them in our upcycled chest of drawers.

Got myself a peg board to position some easily grabbable items (is grabbable a word?).

Repainted these MDF storage drawers that I have had for years & labelled them with a Dymo! 

By the time the girls got back to school & started & settled at nursery there wasn’t many weeks left of September... This time also coincided with planning being granted on our extension... and whilst I have been slow to get this started - I am keen to get a move on so decisions have to be made! 

At the back of our house our kitchen leads onto a very old & leaky wooden conservatory - the neighbours roses & ivy like to grow through which is actually a nice touch - the rain, however isnt! haha. So the idea is to knock down the conservatory & build an extension on its footprint whilst opening out the kitchen a bit more. I’m hoping for a seating area & a dining table in this space which was previously a dumping ground. We have a change of floor height to be considered but other than that I think (I hope) its relatively straight forward.

It was time for me to visualise how I saw the space looking - the left hand side of the pins above are the ideas for the kitchen & then the right hand side the extension sofa area. I’m not sure how these wallpapers will sit with each other - I mean is it ok to go full on maximalist like this? (Floor tiles - Mandarin Stone, blue wallpaper - Sandberg, colourful floral wallpaper - Nathalie Lete - the sofas etc are from pinteret with no tags - sorry!)

I attempted my first interior visual in a very long time - excuse the bad perpective, it is to be used as a tool to see if it works... and so far so good I think! This was a fun process... 

My Summer of Surrealism took many forms, so many that I had better split this post in two... the surrealist things i fed myself & the surrealist things I took part in! 

Leonora Carrington’s paintings are wonderfully strange & with this visual language I was excited to enter her head in a more descriptive way. The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington were wonderful. Whenever you put surreal writers into google - top of the list is Haruki Murakami. I have previously read Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman  - a book of short stories & loved getting lost in its pages... I don’t even think I read them in order... This time I chanced on Kafka On The Shore - one of his more surrealist works. It did not disappoint! 

I had over the course of a few months listed the films I wanted to watch. The more bonkers the better. One that came up was Daisies (1966) written by  Vera Chytilová. It was sublime. And the fun colours & effects added to the film definitely had an affect on the kind of summer I wanted to have with the children. It did alter the way I saw things. The story - also fantastic. I urge everyone to watch it. ( I found it on YouTube).

Valarie & Her Week of Wonders (1971), also found on YouTube, I had seen before, but revisited. The visuals are so beautifully crafted.

Over the summer holidays Film4 had a season of Studio Ghibli films. They are a firm favourite in our house & it was brilliant to have the opportunity to see more amongst the ones in our DVD collection. The girls loved these - we still have them saved on our Sky Box to enjoy over & over again. I love how immersive these animations are - the girls too are transfixed by their stories. 

Another film that comes top of the surreal list in film is Aria (1987). The idea is that there are 10 short films written & directed by 10 people to accompany opera soundtracks. The result is visually glorious. It reminds me now that I should have squeezed in a few Ken Russell films over the summer! 

The Company of Wolves (1984) is my most favourite film ever. A scarier take on the Little Red Riding Hood written by Angela Carter. This film is so gorgeously dreamlike & strange. I loved the excuse to rewatch it again! 

I also read The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. I have read a few of her books previously, such as The Magic Toyshop & Nights at the Circus & am keen to lose myself in more of them. I love that when you put her book titles into google images the diverse book covers & illustrations are so beautifully crafted. So opulent & strange - just like the stories. 

Ok, so as you can see I have been finding it really hard to continue down this route... and thinking of things to do in my 30 days. This month of ‘courage’ wasn’t exactly a ‘month of’ but was more of a firm decision, & maybe it is because I have been on this journey since January that I had this realisation/outburst... But it was clear that in this specific month I would have to leave my safety zone & step out of it. I was going to have to make a noise. 

I find this exceptionally hard. People who know me may be confused by this - but big emotional events these past few years had me bite my tongue more & more until nothing was said.... dun dun dun... until now. 

And guess what, I learned that when I speak out the world doesnt collapse. The clock hand still turns & the world still goes on. So I’m making a concerted effort to step out of my comfort zone. 

May,  I decided to get closer to nature & to help save the planet (in whatever minute way I could). It was great fun & what better way to get closer to nature than the girls digging & preparing our strawberry patch? The girls now love to check after dinner if any strawberries are ready for their pudding. The girls have also planted some sunflowers & we eagerly wait for the magic of them growing!

We also discovered that the relatively local Aldenham Country Park does camping & glamping. With camping so locally it would be ok if the girls were to freak out & want to come home so it would be a good test for the summer months! So we made a last second decision to go with some of the girls school friends - with our tent that hadnt been open since the Vintage At Goodwood Festival I worked on in 2010! Yikes! 

It was glorious! The girls loved the freedom & collecting kindle for the fire we would be building in the evening.

We all loved our BBQ’d dinner & toasting marshmallows on the fire. And then as it grew dark we made some hot chocolate on our little gas fire. And as the sun descended we put the girls to bed - but they came out as we had forgotten to pack their teddies! (EEEK!!) Thankfully our school friend neighbours had a spare teddy to lend,

May was so great for all the flowers popping out - the girls & I love playing the rainbow game on the walk to school & it’s far easier to play once the flowers start to really bloom! My favourite is fast becoming Peonies - I cut some from our garden & brought them in!

As a family we watch the David Attenborough’s documentaries. The latest being Blue Planet II. We were dismayed about the levels of plastic in the ocean & used this month of green to make small changes to decrease our single use plastic usuage. 

Above, I have bubble bath (the gold one - you break bits off & sprinke it under running water - you only need a teent bit), face serum, shampoo & conditioner & body soap all from Lush. A pink chalk facial soap from Homesense (I really should have made a note of the make as it is brilliant - & going to last a long time). And I love the nostalgia, smell & the amber transparency of Pears Hand Soap. I have also changed my toothbrush to bamboo & purchased a mooncup.

After playgroup one Friday morning, Ada & I decided to go on an adventure & access the local fields from a different entrance to walk home. And what a sight to behold  with all the buttercups in bloom. We sat & made chains & crowns & bracelets, skipped through & lay in them It was magical!

I started looking around at what other disposable items I was using regularly & looked at pinterest for ideas on how to cut my waste. Cotton pads & disposable wipes!!! I scoured my fabric hoard & found some off cuts of thin towelling I used for another project & some teeny patches of liberty off cuts & sewed myself some reusuable cotton pads. I also cleaned out my drawers & sewed some old tshirt into squares (near enough) doubled up to soak in detergent to use instead of wipes. Hurrah!

I purchased the girls a Live Butterfly Garden from Insect Lore. The girls loved this. 

A few just instantly flew off when we opened the net, however we did have one with deformed wings, which needed a bit of help & remained our pet. It loved being taken outside, and happily climbed into our hands, especially if we had some fruit for it.

It lived the rest of its life in our conservatory eating cuts of fruit & flowers brought in from the garden.

tThese months are flying by so quickly! Back in March I continued my ‘month of’ projects with cooking. I love cooking but do tend to get stuck in a rut & cook the same things for convenience & speed. I have a shelf full of gorgeous cookbooks & so wanted to utilise these & get some new firm favourites in. 

We started as a family effort, our newest cookbook & a recipe I was most keen to try. From the Meringue Girls Cookbook we made their signature Meringue Kisses. The girls were super excited, we painted the insides of our piping bags pink & purple & piped around mini marshmallows! They were AMAZING! 

As our first cooking afternoon went so well I also tried Carluccio’s Classic Carbonara Recipe I don’t own a Carluccio cookbook so followed his recipe on youtube which you can view in my previous post. I was unsure about ‘uncooked eggs’ in the recipe or rather just letting the heat of the pasta cook the eggs through whilst still being moist... anyway we followed it to the exact detail & it was delicious & got a two thumbs up from the girls! hurrah! 

Our next cookbook meal was from Jamie Oliver’s 30 Minute Meals & my mum was over for dinner so I needed to impress! We chose the Fish Bake & oh my goodness the flavours were banging. Everyone enjoyed the salmon, the prawns, the anchovies & pancetta. MMMM mm I definitely need to make this again! 

I didn’t cook out of cookbooks every night as our routines would make this whole experience an anxiety attack... we did one or two a week & maybe more if we were feeling adventurous enough. Our next meal was a vegetarien curry FEAST! From Atul Kochhar’s 30 Minute Curries. We chose a mushroom & a lentil curry & made a raita so we could have wraps & rice. ‘BEST CURRY EVER’ the girls sang! Hooray! 

Introducing a new food altogether meant I had to get the girls on board to help cook. I have never cooked couscous before! (what the hell???) anyway, getting the girls to help means they are more likely to try it & eat it & love it. Hurrah! We made Moroccan Chicken Couscous from the Leon Recipe & Ingredients cookbook. We have another hit! Yay!

By this point the girls were fully invested in our month of cooking. So much that Ada wanted to make her own jam sandwich - no cookbooks used for this. haha.

So things were going really well, the confidence was growing, so we decided to embark on some gorgeous looking Peach & Raspberry Bundt Cakes from Ottolenghi’s The Cookbook. Only I don’t know what happened, whether I was too tired, or the girls were too excited but it was havoc. Flour everywhere, eggs being dropped Ada putting her fingers in the bowl - sometimes with the whisk, mum not being listened to. arghhhh. We got to the baking stage & then I waited for the anxiety levels to lesson before icing them myself the following day- eek! hahaha. The end result was exquisite! Mmmmmm

Another recipe from Leon Recipe & Ingredients was this Spicy Coconut Fish. Oh my god this was amazing. I want this right now actually. This was a winner.

A couple of weeks before Easter my extended family got together & had a pot luck dinner which is always fun! I made another Ottolenghi recipe which I found on his website here. It was HUGE!  But yummy & luckily I had leftovers for the following day Hooray! 

My brother was away for our easter celebrations so we decided to instead catch up & have a Mexican Feast from a cookbook I purchased during this month of cooking. Thomasina Miers’, brains of Wahaca’s book Mexican Cooking At Home. I made Crispy Prawn Taquitos with spicy avocado salsa, avocado salad & pork belly carnitas, oh & pink pickled onions. This took quite a bit of work as I made quite a few new things. The vibrant colours, the freshness & the spice of these recipes were spot on. Firm favourites of our month of cooking. Just wow.

I had one weekend left of this month of cooking & decided to finally try a recipe from Gizzi Erskine’s Kitchen Magic. Lamb, aubergine & artichoke bolognase. You see, the husband is a bit of a pro at the bolognase in our house so I thought I’d mix it up a bit with a lamb version. It was so smooth & warming & tasty. Another double thumbs up from us! Hooray! 

And that was my month of cooking! It was so much fun & we tried so many different recipes rather than just daydreaming over them in my cookbooks! Im defintely going to be doing this more often now & making it a family treat!