Cheerful post!

I love getting surprises in the post, and so I was delighted to receive these buttons from my crafty friend Josie last week. She had been to the V&A exhibition on quilting (lucky girl!) and was kind enough to think of me and send me a little souvenir from her trip.

The photos really don't do these beautiful buttons justice, but I wanted to show off the bright colours of the card, too.

I'm wondering if I have time to squeeze in a trip to London town before the start of July...

500 things update

My goodness, this little challenge has been keeping me busy! One of the jobs I keep putting off is organising my collection of newspaper clippings. One of the traits I’ve definitely inherited from my dad is cutting and keeping, or clipping and sending articles from newspapers and magazines to friends and family. And they all do it for me, too. You’d think that tweeting links, as well as blogging, would satisfy this need to share good information in a more up to date way, but I like to keep it old-school, too. As long as my dad takes the time to send me interesting things to read, I’ll continue to think ‘how thoughtful’ and place them in my clippings box file (yes, I have such a thing).

So I’ve found a new way to combine technology with this hobby, and vowed to keep on top of it. I now scan all my must-save clippings, and I’m trying to be more discerning in what I feel that I need to keep.

For example, I was a huge fan of quilling as a teenager, as well as very interested in music. I love these feature covers from the Guardian and the Observer last year which combine these two loves to a tee.



So now I’ve been able to add my box of clippings to the recycling pile, and I can update my list from numbers 18 to 23.

I’ve decided to be a little more strict with myself and count the weekly newspaper clearout as one (22) and on the more lenient side, I’ve included at (20) the prevention of more things coming in…

For six years we’ve been receiving organic fruit and veg deliveries from the good people at Stair, and with great sadness we’ve cancelled our regular order in anticipation of our move. As I start to shop from our freezer and cupboards, I’ll spare you the details and count this as a single tick off my list instead. Sound like a deal?

On the to-do list

There are three types of souvenirs I look for when I'm on holiday. My collection of choice is a pencil from a tourist attraction, and I have a little box with about 80 in it.

When there aren't any pencils, I keep my eyes peeled for a squashed penny machine.

And if both options fail me, I go for the sew-on embroidered patch. There's a bit more effort involved in collecting these as they need to be sewn on to my sleeping bag using thread which matches the outer border of each patch just so. Then there's the maintenance, I've been doing this since I was about 7 and some of the older ones are falling off. I'm still catching up from my 30th birthday roadtrip across the southern states of the US. Here are a few from the sewing pile, from my most recent trip...