Author Archives: penny
FollowReasons to be Cheerful 2…
This is going to be a little brief, one of my Reasons is turning up At Any Moment! Two little grandsons and their Dad, driving up from the South Coast, apparently battling the traffic.
Anyway, I do hope you can join in, there’s been quite a bit of interest, and some lovely reasons shared since I started this last week, and the general concensus is that we do need to count our blessings, especially as the winter approaches. Have a look at last Thursday’s post here if you missed what is going on.
So, I’ve already told you the first reason I have for cheerfulness, a few precious days to spend with three of my favourite boys…
And secondly, It’s still cheerful in the garden, in places…
And Thirdly, we have tickets! Theatre tickets. And next week we are going to see this…
http://youtu.be/yW2gQfHcjVE
I do love a bit of tap dancing. My inner Ginger Rogers is buried pretty deep, but she’s in there!
So do please, add your 3 reasons to your latest post and then add your blog to the Linky below between now and midnight on Sunday so that lots of other people can discover you. And don’t feel you can’t join in if you live in the Southern Hemisphere and are looking forward to Spring, we need pictures of spring flowers and sunny things!
P.S. If you need any more cheering up, do call in at Silver Pebble’s blog and find out what she has in mind!
Needlefelting by the Fire
Here in North Norfolk we seem to be clinging on to our Indian Summer, although it’s been good to light the woodburner once the sun goes down. It’s very poignant, I’m very much a Spring person, and struggle a bit with approaching Winter and I’m finding capturing little moments with the camera a really good way of being more positive about the clocks going back next weekend.
It does mean that sometimes I have to be a bit adventurous to get the shot I want. The Silent Sunday picture this week involved clambering round quite a lot of mud and through dead stalks to get at that last surviving sunflower. Higgins thought I’d gone quite mad and dug all four little legs firmly in the ground when I tried to tow him behind me, so I had to do it with a dachshund tucked under one arm into the bargain!
I’ve been needlefelting this week. With the Pick’n’Mix Market just a short month away I’ve been working on more Christmas decorations making Sputnik Baubles and I’ve had lots of fun with the colours. I said in a previous post I’m working on all-year-round colours, rather than a traditional palette, and I’ve been surprised how jolly and clown like my creations are becoming…
…and you can sort of imagine them orbiting Planet Penny can’t you?
(Now I’m feeling ashamed because I realise just how long I’ve had those wooden hangers waiting for me to creatively cover them!)
After last week’s Handmade Monday I had interest expressed in a tutorial for the Crochet Fairy Lights which you will now find here. I’d love to see if you make them!
And talking of Handmade Monday please make a trip over to 1st Unique Gifts to say hello to Wendy and to find out what other exciting bits of making have been going on over the week.
Finally thanks to everyone who took part in the Reasons to be Cheerful Linky. I hope that now you know about it you’ll be looking for your own little sparks of happiness to share for for the next one which is scheduled for Thursday. When clocks go back next weekend, we’ll need all the cheering up we can get!
See you soon x
Silent Sunday
Reasons to be Cheerful…
Having announced a cunning plan, I’m really nervous about telling you! I really hope you like it…
As an insomniac, quite a lot of strange things run through my head in the wee small hours when I’d actually much rather be asleep! And I often doze off and wake up with tunes running through my head which won’t shut up. Last night it was this…Do you remember it?
Ok, so maybe not to everyone’s taste (though you’ve got to love that sax!) but the sentiment is just right.
We neeeeed reasons to be cheerful sometimes, especially now. In the Northern Hemisphere, winter is approaching. The nights are drawing in rapidly, it’s cold and very often grey. The TV news is full of doom and sadness, the boiler packs up, the toddler grinds his lunch into the curtains, you get the picture, I don’t need to go on.
So I thought it would be fun have some Reasons to be Cheerful, and share them around, so we can all have a little uplifting when we most need it.
So here’s the plan. Every week I’ll put a Linky, here on Planet Penny so you can link your blog post where you’ve included your 3 reasons to be cheerful…as the song says 1,2,3. It can be photos, or a saying, or even a little story about what has made you smile over the past few days, or a mix of all three. I don’t want to lay down too many rules, lets see what develops, but obviously nothing offensive, or that contravenes copyright laws, I’m sure I don’t really need to say it!
Don’t forget to put a link back to Planet Penny in your post to bring people back to the Linky so everyone can join in the fun!
So, what has made me happy this week?
Well, for One there is…
Late October Roses
Two…
My Happy Place!
And Three? Well, it’s just got to be ….!
My noisy little friend!
So please join in and take note of those little moments in your week which make you smile and share them with the world. If you don’t have a blog, don’t worry just pop them in the comments!
And now here’s the Linky…
Thanks so much for joining in!
One more day to add your link for this week, but don’t worry, I’ll be doing it again!
Tripping the Light Fantastic!
I can’t believe it’s Monday again, the days are galloping away and I’m scared to look at the Christmas Counter on the side bar! And we’re still having glorious weather here in Norfolk. (I apologise if this isn’t the case where you are, honestly, I’m not gloating!)
We went off to make the most of it the other day, if you’ve seen my Silent Sunday post, you’ll know we went to the coast. I always take my camera, I always take loads of photos – as you’ve probably noticed – but I never tire of the view, the colours, the light and freshly washed feeling in the air. I hope I’m not repeating myself with all these photos!
We went in the afternoon this time, so the tide was further out…
…and you can see there were lines of the most beautifully coloured seaweed washed up on the sand.
We had seen a parasail bobbing above the dunes as we drove up, and it turned out to belong to a dune buggy wizzing round and round on the flat sand left by the retreating tide…
This was our special beach when I was a child, and in all the time we spent there, we never saw a seal, but now we can expect to see one or two on every visit. I spend ages trying to get a photo, and usually end up with an expanse of water and what looks like a speck of dirt on the lens, but I think this time you can see it’s a seal..
…or perhaps not! (If you want to find out about when Higgins met a seal, he wrote about it here! He got much closer than me!)
The seagulls were slightly easier…
…although even they were determined to make a swift get away!
Talking of swift get aways, where’s Higgins going…?
I just love this photo, low flying dachshund!
This time we rather ambitiously decided to climb up and walk back along the dunes, which was slightly hair-raising. Higgins went first, running furiously and sliding back and so needing a hand under his bottom for a helpful boost, then me, in much the same condition (with less running and more boosting…) and then Tim, heroically preventing the three of us from slithering back down to the beach!
Meanwhile, it’s Handmade Monday again, and I’ve been experimenting. With Christmas coming up I’m obviously doing the obvious in the way of decorative items, but I’m also working round the whole idea of pretty decorative bits and bobs which, like puppies, are not just for Christmas. After all, I’ve had my heart and pompom bunting on the dresser for ages, and my origami ball is hanging up in the centre of the sitting room just because I like it. I love fairy lights, and have them round the mirror, but I decided it would be interesting to see if I could make them just a little bit more Planet Penny.
I have an interesting little basket of Blue Faced Leicester yarn which I dyed in order to make the Sophie Digard inspired scarf a while ago…
… and thought it might be fun to play around with the colours and make my fairy lights flowery…
Unfortunately, they are really hard to photograph!
I then moved on to another set of lights, this time with lemony yellow bulbs, so I made the flowers with little yellow centres, and they also look really pretty…
especially when I tried them on my wire tree.
It would be lovely to know what you think? Shall I write a pattern/tutorial? I could sell one or two sets in the Planet Penny shop perhaps, for non crocheters. They could go anywhere, being battery LED they’re very safe.
And finally, a further flight of fancy took me back to my pompom maker for a bit more fun…
(and you can also see I’ve been buying pretty things from Vanessa, don’t you love her ‘thank you’ card?)
Phew, I think that’s all I’ve got to say for the moment! Don’t forget to pop over to Ist Unique Gifts for the Handmade Monday Linky where you’ll find lots of other lovely things going on!
See you soon x
