Camping on my mind

Today is a beautiful day here on the south coast and there are, once again, hints of spring are in the air which inspired me to dust off the camping books and delve into some serious camping planning.

 We bought our campervan, Nev, around this time in 2010 and have never looked back. We have had some spectacular (and spectacularly bad) camping trips and having a van rather than a tent does seem to make the process all a bit more spontaneous and erm comfortable. I am, it is true, a fair weather camper. In my book, no prizes are won for endurance when it comes to camping and I embrace it and everything that comes with it, until it rains. Mr Kitch is a camper, fair weather and very unfair weather. So, for two Easter holidays on the trot we had amazing camping weather and I have to say, I fell in love with Britain. As a child I spent most holidays in the south of France, which I loved, but discovering the unrivalled beauty of the British Isles has been such a pleasure for me. Our Easter camping trip of 2010 was my first ever trip to Cornwall - simply stunning.

Nev in all his glory (campsite - treveague farm - sublime..and only letting on as I have about 3 readers!)

Then in 2011 we spent our Easter holiday in St Davids in South Wales (campsite - caerfai farm - loved it)

Seriously, what's not to love?

Every year, without fail, we spend at least a week in Croyde, North Devon with some good friends. It is tonic for the soul and I just love it.

This year we're hoping to introduce Baby Kitch to Nev and allow them to spend some serious, quality time together. Hopefully we'll be in Croyde in the sun at some point and then we're planning on the south of France. As you can probably see from the photos, we're into quite simple camp sites (with amenities, ALWAYS with amenities) but if there's a pool or a bar or any kind of club house, we tend to keep our distance.Cannot wait to dust Nev off and hit the road, eeek, excited!!

LKx

Soundtrack: Beady Eye - Millionaire

Cheap and easy wall art

I'm not sure if, strictly speaking, this can be called art but, in my humble opinion, it is as pretty as some of the (ahem) art I see anyway. So, I am a bit of a pinterest addict and I saw this and thought it was lovely. It is perhaps a bit over the top for Mr Kitch so I thought I'd do my own, much simpler version. We have just had some major work done in our house and  I decided we agreed that a bit of a retro theme would be a nice complementing contrast to our ultra modern gloss kitchen. Please do remember that I am a 'have a go' type of person and happy for things to go wrong. I want to reflect that in this blog. So this is how it went..

What you need for this project...

• fabric of your choice. I thought these two fabrics from my existing stash were quite retro ish
• embroidery rings. You can get them in a load of different sizes, I had these two from my days of a cross stitcher (when I was about 7 - I don't have the time or patience anymore)
• pinking shears
• scissors
• cork (you will see later that a much easier version ditches this and uses glue instead)
• needle and thread (again, can be ditched)

Draw around the inside ring of the embroidery ring onto the cork and cut it out

 Cut out a piece of your fabric which is larger than the ring (this is too large and you can cut it much smaller than this). I used pinking shears to avoid fraying.

I then stuck the cork to the inner embroidery ring to make the finished article a bit more solid.

I  then put the fabric over the corked ring and put the outer ring on as you would usually with an embroidery ring.

I turned it over, trimmed the edges and using a needle and thread, gathered the fabric together in the back like so..

I think the finished article looks really lovely

I then thought I'd try a much easier version for my second one and so I missed out the cork, cut a piece of fabric larger than the ring, put the fabric in (as per photo 6), trimmed off the fabric until there is only a small amount outside of the ring, and used glue to stick it to the ring so that it cannot be seen when hung on the wall, like this...

I would say that the first version is more solid but the second version is much easier and quicker.

And here they are on my wall. I may not add quite as many as the picture I originally got the idea from but I do love the effect and is a great way of displaying some of my left over fabrics so may try to sneak a couple more in. I reckon it took me about 30 mins to complete - quick easy and, again, totally individual. Love it.


LKx