New chairs for the kitchen...

I'll let you into a secret, I have a bit of a thing for chairs. I have been secretly collecting them for years. Wooden ones, plastic ones, leather ones. I'm so good at it, that I don't think Jim has actually noticed our expanding collection. 

But the thing about chairs is that they have to be practical as well as beautiful. We bought our old kitchen chairs four years ago, before we lived in this house and before parenthood. They looked great, but had a rotating base and a design which meant you could only sit on them with a cushion.

Whilst they were fine for the two of us, as Theo grew and the average age of the people we were seating got younger, we discovered children literally cannot sit still on them and the textured fabric cushions seemed to have a magnetic pull for any stray food. Grubby spinny chairs, not good.

But what to replace them with? We needed something child friendly, but modern. I've always been a fan of mid-century designs, particularly Eames (we already have the lounge chair) so it seemed logical to consider DSW Chairs.

DSWs have been on my wish list for a while, I even had a picture of one of the original 50s chairs on one of my boards on Pinterest (it's funny how when you pin stuff it seems to register subliminally in the brain!) but I was worried that after buying one set of trendy but ultimately impractical chairs, the DSWs might not be right for us.

Whilst I was still dithering about how and when to replace our chairs, MDM Furniture came to our rescue offering us two chairs for review. They specialise in producing replica designer chairs, among which is the DSW.

The chairs arrived with lightning speed and were easy to assemble. After a couple of weeks in our kitchen we are converts. I'm a taken by the sexy steel and wood legs and the plastic tops have given us the kind of practical wipe-clean finish we wanted. There's only one problem now, which is that we need four more. 

So the question is, do we buy them all white, or mix the colours up a bit?

Living Arrows : 44/52

ISO 400, 50mm, f/2/0, 1/6400

There are only 8 weeks left of the Living Arrows project this year and as we enter the darkest months of 2014 we are also entering the time of year when mine (and probably everybody's) photographic enthusiasm starts to dip slightly. There are less hours of daylight, poorer quality light and weather that often doesn't inspire us to spend time outside.

But of course this is exactly the time of year when photographic projects like this come into their own. I could all too easily let the weeks slip by in winter without picking up my camera, but they force us to seek opportunities to record our lives and challenge us to find creative solutions. 

As ever I shall be looking to the talented team of contributors over at iheartsnapping.com to give me ideas. If you are feeling like you are stuck in a winter rut with your photos, do pop over and look at the pictures on the blog today, there's always something to inspire. 

Video review of Plum Pyramid Climbing Frame / Play Centre

You may remember that in the summer we bought Theo a Plum wooden climbing frame for the garden. It wasn't a cheap purchase and was something which we spent a lot of time researching and considering before we finally committed to buying.

During the many hours I spent online looking for information the one thing I really hoped (and failed) to find was a video review. I really wanted someone to actually walk me through the product and tell me whether it was worth the money before I handed over the best part of £400.

So a few months down the line I thought we should fill that gap by making our own review. I've made a few short films before, but this is the first time I've done "face to camera" vlogging. The prospect was slightly terrifying to begin with, but it definitely gets easier the more you do it. Although of course I have the distinct advantage of 20 years experience talking rubbish for a living!

So, if you are at all curious, here is our in depth review of the Plum Pyramid Climbing Frame which we bought from Activity Toys Direct.

The joy of kids being messy

A few weeks ago I spotted that Mum In The Mad House was running a competition with Two Little Fleas asking bloggers to write about the fun their children have being messy. I think that one of the greatest joys of being a child is not caring if your clothes get covered in dirt or your face is smeared in food. Throwing yourself with gusto into all that you do.

Whilst we don't seem to do a lot of messy play at home (somehow we just never get round to it!) Theo has a family who love food and we seem to have an awful lot of pictures of him getting messy whilst helping cook or when eating the results, always with a big smile on his face!

So for my entry to the competition I thought I'd put together a little compilation of some of my favourite messy moments with him. I promise he doesn't spend ALL his time eating ice-cream, no matter if the evidence seems to say otherwise!

Inside my She-Shed

There can't be a woman anywhere who doesn't fancy the idea of a She-Shed. A little place to escape from the whir of the washing machine and the unrelenting calls of "Mummy!"

Well mine is finally starting to take shape! Over the last few weeks as I've caught up on sewing projects, I've also begun to sort out the cabin in the garden, transforming it from it's first life as a sleeping space during our building works, into it's new role as my studio. 

There's still a long way to go before it looks anything like the pictures of perfect sewing rooms that you see in magazines. (I probably need to iron all my fat quarters and stack them perfectly just to begin with) but already it's a place I love to retreat to if I can steal a couple of hours while Theo is at nursery.

Part of its beauty is that because it's detached from the house, none of the day to day house clutter invades my sewing space and likewise my sewing doesn't take over the living space.

At the moment it is being used solely for quilting, but longterm I also want to have a photography backdrop on one wall which can be rolled up and down when needed. The cabin faces south and the light in it is lovely, even at this time of the year.

Many of the things inside are bits I had acquired over the years which have traveled through a few countries to get here, but I also bought a few bits just for this space.

The pine table my sewing machine is on came from eBay. It was very cheap because it was far too low for practical use. We raised it up by several inches to make it useable again and when I have actually got round to painting the feet, I'll explain the whole process we did.  It was actually very easy and salvaged an otherwise lovely but unusable table.

This magnetic noticeboard came from Canada and is called an Everyday Display. It is supposed to be used for scrapbook pages (oh yes, I used to be a scrapbooker!) but has lots of photos and magnets on it at the moment. The smaller magnets are from Picstick who are currently doing a 25% off deal for readers of this blog if you use the code 'MAYB25' until November 5th.

My sister (the antiques hunter!) bought me the Dr Pepper tray last Christmas. The various quilts on the walls are either made by me or by other lovely quilters as part of swaps on Flickr. The one in the photo above was made by Liz.

This sweetheart display cabinet was given to me by the dotcomgiftshop and is brilliant for storing precious bits and pieces that Theo is not supposed to get his hands on.

Amongst the things on the shelves are a collection of champagne corks marking various significant points in our lives (from four countries) a very old toy truck marked up as British Forces Broadcasting (my former employers) the "&" sign from the table plan at our wedding (The C and J have vanished!) and a pin cushion made for me as part of a swap.

If you could have a She-Shed what would use it for? Many of these outside buildings have been turned into artist studios or libraries.One person even has an extra large one with a swimming pool in it!

Living Arrows : 43/52

ISO 400, 35mm, F/2.2, 1/125

It's Halloween week so how could I possibly resist a photograph with pumpkins in it (I'm trying hard not to say "and my little pumpkin") we bought these on an expedition last week to a quirky Sussex pumpkin event which you can read about in this post. They look too good to carve, so I'm procrastinating and leaving them on the kitchen table at the moment.

Last year Theo was invited out by the neighbour's children to go trick or treating, but was too young to really understand it or to stay up late enough. This year I think he'll get it, but I have no idea if the invitation will be forthcoming again! So do I buy a fancy dress outfit? I feel like I'll be jinxing things for him if I do, but then I might be caught short if I don't! 

In Canada everybody dressed up on Halloween including the grown-ups and those who just stayed at home to answer the door to trick or treaters. After several years away we returned to the UK to find that trick or treating was now a thing here, but we still hold back a little from being too enthusiastic! Though Jim did say this weekend that he'd love to fly back to Alberta and fill a trolly with Halloween stuff in the supermarket and bring it all back home. But is Sussex ready for mechanical gravestones and inflatable giant pumpkins? I think possibly not...

English eccentricity and pumpkins galore

Whenever I read American blogs at this time of year, I am always slightly envious of their beautiful photos of pumpkin farm visits. Rightly or wrongly this season is not something we embrace with such fervour in the UK. However I made a little discovery this week which satisfied my hunger for some Autumnal celebration.

I have been vaguely aware that the village of Slindon had something to do with pumpkins every year,  but I wasn't quite sure what it was. I had variously heard it called a 'fair' a 'festival' and simply a 'display.' Then earlier this week photos started appearing on my IG feed of pumpkins in Slindon and so I decided to investigate.

To be entirely accurate, the pumpkins in Slindon are a one man venture. A local farmer who sets up a display in the drive of his house. This week is half-term for some schools, but the place wasn't beseiged by families. There were about half a dozen cars parked in the road and a couple of families looking at the display. Partly this is because it is quite a quick visit. 15 minutes would be pushing it if I'm entirely honest, but that's not to say it's not worth the trip. The feature display of the spitfire made from pumpkins is unlike anything I have seen before and there are an amazing selection of pumpkins on sale in every size, shape and colour. Theo was fascinated by it.

Fellow local blogger Caroline takes her kids there every year to pick their pumpkin for Halloween which I think is a lovely idea and I rather enjoyed the fact that Slindon Pumpkins is typical of that crazy eccentric English thing that we do so well. One elderly gentleman rigging up a huge art display (on scaffolding!) in his front garden, whilst his neighbours probably curse him for turning a normally quiet village into a tourist attraction for two weeks a year.

In the end we came away with four different small pumpkins (one of which looks like a starfish from Octonauts.) It wasn't particularly cheap (I loathe to say it, but the supermarkets undercut him for large pumpkins) but it was great fun. I'm not sure quite what I'll do with our haul, they do look rather lovely just in a collection on the kitchen table together.