Martha Stewart Giveaway

(Please note: I’m not actually giving away Martha Stewart. If I had her, I’d be keeping her here to tidy up the house, then we’d be out on the town drinking margaritas.)

My love of all things Martha is well documented (see Martha Stewart and me for confessions of domestic disaster).

The day that the Martha Stewart Home Office range arrived in the UK I was ridiculously giddy with excitement and I’m even giddier to be able to share some goodies with you.

For those of you outside the UK, there’s a little parcel of lovely labels: chalkboard, pretty brown kraft labels, kitchen labels for jam and spices, and dry-erase labels for putting on things that need dry-erase labels (shhh, I have no idea what I’m talking about – I just love sticking labels on things and I can’t be the only one, am I?).

If you’re in the UK, I’m giving away this gorgeous pile of Martha-things.

Folder, journals, notebooks, sticky notes, labels, name tags – basically a huge heap of gorgeousness and all you have to do to enter is leave a comment telling me your darkest secret. (Or why you need a giant pile of Martha Stewart stationery loveliness.)

Before you do that, though, take a look at these Martha Stewart bloopers because they’ll make you laugh.

Ooh and please click here if you’d like to vote for Tales from the Village (you don’t have to register, just click and vote – and you can vote every day!)

Don’t forget you can find Tales from the Village on Facebook where there are daily conversations about nonsense and photographs of silly things. And you can add me on Instagram or come and chat to me on Twitter. Not that I spend too much time online. Ahem.

the simple things

I think most of you have worked out by now that I’m easily pleased. Iced tea in the sunshine, keeping chickens in the garden, walking in cornfields, pumpkin pie and planning autumn gardens, ladybirds, hoar frost on a dogwalk, apples, cake, crochet, cats. Writing my book (I forgot there was a snippet of the novel on here if you want a sneaky look, and there’s another bit here.

Anyway, you know what I mean. Finding lovely things in the everyday. Little snippets of happiness. So the arrival of this new magazine has filled me with glee (and a slight attack of the ooh-I-want-all-the-pretties-featured-within). Have you seen it yet?

things I love

Crochet hearts and granny squares and windfall apples and the tiny hint of winter in the air. And misty mornings and ooooh I love autumn.

I’m still searching for sloes to make sloe and apple jelly. I’m wandering around hunting out new places to forage for berries. That makes me sound either a) a bit like Ray Mears or b) a bear. But I resent paying for jam when I can make it in an afternoon and have enough to keep me going all year. Plus I have a huge crate of Kilner jars bought in France a couple of years ago and they need to be used before they disappear into the cellar, never to be seen again.

We’ve had a gorgeous weekend in the sunshine with friends who’ve moved from the States to Liverpool for a couple of years (you can see Victoria’s blog here) and I spent Sunday finishing off this granny square blanket:

And yes I did take a photograph of it in an apple tree.

Because I’m a stylish lifestyle blogger and that’s what we do, you know. We take photos of our blankets in apple trees. And apples on our blankets.

And when I make crochet hearts I like to hang them in the garden and go OOH at their gorgeousness. Look, I’m easily amused and I don’t get out much. Humour me. Also that blue and that green and those crochet hearts is just beautiful, and I think all apple trees should be festooned with crochet.

I’ve drawn the winner for the autumn seedball giveaway so go and see if you’ve won!

I’ve been having a pretty amazing week with finding jobs and writing stuff. I’ll write more about that later this week.

our new dresser

Southport is the best place ever for thrift shops. I’ve only just started discovering what’s out there – but a Victorian seaside town with an ageing population means there are gorgeous old things everywhere (furniture, not old men, I should add).

So when I saw this dresser

I fell in love and had to have it (we can live on beans on toast, right?)

But I want to paint it. And we’re debating what colour. I’ve been drooling over the Annie Sloan chalk paints

which would bring out the detailing and look really pretty. But ever since I bought my Kitchenaid I’ve been kicking myself for taking the sensible option and buying cream and not red.

So, what d’you think?

Pink? Duck egg blue? Grey? Lilac? Suggestions? We have to work with this wallpaper which we are really not at all fond of (at least until we can charm our landlords into letting us change it for something less, well, GREEN AND SHOUTY FLOWERY).

Opinions from the floor please! To leave a comment, scroll right down to the bottom of the page where it says (helpfully) Leave a Comment. I’d really appreciate some ideas because I’m a bit stuck.

Thanks, R x

crochet hearts

What I should be doing: packing boxes for our imminent move. Our we’re NOT moving again move. The one where we move to the seaside and ooh it’s really exciting because I’ve always dreamt of living in a big rambling Victorian house by the sea.

What I am doing: making crochet hearts because I can imagine them hanging across the big black iron fireplace in the grown-up sitting room. Because there IS a grown up sitting room. And a playroom with a huge oak fireplace. And an attic that looks over the roofs to the sea.

(the pattern for making the hearts is here, incidentally, for those of you on the Facebook page who asked – if you’re not on there, come and say hello).

So I think there should be a bit more packing boxes (look, the joy of instagram is you can even make packing look pretty)

and a bit less faffing about making crochet hearts. But anyway. We’ll get there in the end.

PS – the finished garland. Now I MUST pack.