Last Day of School

School's out for Summer! And I can't wait! Hold on to your hats and socks and shoes and anything else, because Summer Break HERE WE COME.....

Christmas in July

I know, I have written about this before on my blog, but in the States, it is a big thing to have "Christmas in July" sales and events. This is not the case in England, where people look at you, as if you are half mad to even mention such a thing. As school is shortly coming to a close for us (tomorrow is our last day, Yipee!), I thought this would be a good time to use a bit of the Summer break to begin working on a few Christmas/winter-y projects.

One, being my crocheted granny blanket, which I have yet to have the chance to begin, with all the craziness of school going on around us. But, also to possibly start a few Christmas projects early. Here were a few things I came across and I might just try to make some of these, or at the very least be inspired by them, especially the sock monkey coffee cup wrap, he has personality!

Do you begin your Christmas making projects early, or are you a last minute kinda gal (or guy)? Enjoy!

Now is a good time to start collecting vintage cookie cutters at thrift stores and yard sales. These "frames" would be gorgeous to have up all year round!

These mice would make perfect teacher's presents or classroom gifts. If you changed the colors they would even be cute for an Alice in Wonderland Themed Birthday Tea Party.

Want to make your own granny square blanket to stay cozy with when the weather turns frosty, go to Meet me at Mike's for a granny square tutorial.

This sock monkey coffee cup wrap is too cute. Perfect for your coffee lovers, any time of year.

(All images copyright their respective blogs)

Tents

We have ONE week left to go of school and I am so ready for it to be over! This last term has felt as if it has gone on forever. It feels too long to still be in school, I am ready to enjoy a little bit of a Summer break.

Summer meant a lot of things and happy memories in my house growing up. One such memory in particular was the summertime rituals my sister and I always did. We played outside, creating bike "roads" out of chalk on our drive way. We went swimming, we went to the library and signed-up for the summertime reading list.

We ate ice-cream and fresh peaches from the farm. We played an endless game of monopoly that we made span the entire length of our Summer break and we built tents. We built huge tents with old blankets and sheets, sometimes encompassing a table and chair and part of a couch in our giant fortress.

We played underneath it, hung out, read, watched movies through our special "spy" hole aimed at the tv, we just had FUN. When I saw this tent tutorial, I just loved it. It brought back all of those little memories. This is a lot fancier than what we built, but I think just as magical.

What a fun summertime project for you and your little ones. I can just see it strung with fairy lights, filled with cozy blankets and pillows and the perfect place to lay down and read a book on a rainy day, falling asleep to the gentle pitter-patter of the rain, with the magical glow of the twinkling lights overhead.

For the how-to click here.

All images are courtesy of Grosgrain Fabulous. Original Post from Cakies.

Is there any S'More?

I love S'Mores. They hold within those cookie walls the best of Sumertime nights. The freedom of being little, running through the grass barefoot, eating grilled hot dogs, chasing lighting bugs and roasting s'mores over the open grill.

For those of you who are not familiar with a s'more, it is a toasted marshmallow that is laid upon a piece of chocolate and they are both sandwiched between two graham cracker cookies.  We didn't always use graham crackers in my house though, my Mom would buy the Keebler chocolate covered cookies and we would mush our roasty toasty marshmallows in between those! HEAVEN!

Unfortunately, our little cottage does not have a space that allows us to grill, but that doesn't stop Mr. Michie and myself. We simply spread our ingredients out on the coffee table and light a candle, which acts as our "grill". So, you too can even make delicious s'mores indoors as well as out!

Here are a few S'more recipes or variations on the theme that I came across as I was blog reading this week, so they must be a hot topic! Click on the name to be taken to the recipe:

Uncle Scott's S'mores:

 

S'mores Cake:

S'mores Ice-Cream Sandwiches:

S'mores Milk Shake:

Big Girl's S'mores Pie:

(all images copyright their respective blogs)

On the Front Porch

All I want to do
When the day is through
Is linger here on the front porch
With you
From the wicker swing
While the night birds sing
We'll watch the fireflies sparkin'
Do some sparkin' too
How the hours fly
As the moon drifts by --
How sweet the air
As we stare
At the sight
Oh! How I love to linger here like this
Hold your hand, and steal a kiss
Or two
On the front porch with you 

-"On The Front Porch" from Summer Magic, one of my very favourite movies!

Gingham

What is it about gingham that just says Summertime? In its all its many rainbow colours, it is just pure happiness. It is a cozy pattern, it screams of Christmas, of Spring bouquets tied up with it and the sweetness of a Summer picnic as a gingham tablecloth sits beneath your bounty.

Gingham, its a good thing!

(Found In the Art Cupboard)

The Unseen Jobs

The "Unseen Jobs", that is what my grandmother called all the little jobs we do as women, that no one else sees, such as cleaning out the kitchen drawers, washing all the utensils, wiping out the drawers and re-organizing everything when you are done.

No one will ever know you did this but you! But, that is what I am doing today, all the little unseen jobs to get our little cottage in order and ready for Summer. I wish I could wiggle my nose like Samantha from "Bewitched" and it would be done in a jiffy, but that isn't going to happen. I am cleaning, scrubbing, sorting through my closets, the washing machine is whirring away and the air is heady with the scent of lemons.

So back to work for me, soaking up the therapy that cleaning seems to give me along with the sunshine pouring in through the windows and looking forward to finishing, so I can enjoy a slice of the chocolate cake with chocolate fudge icing that I made yesterday and start on my little crochet project, because I haven't managed to do that yet!

Hope you are having a wonderful first day of June wherever you are.

I Love Beach Music

When Spring seems to be in the air and sunlight dapples the path of my walks in the woods, it always makes me a little homesick. For Spring at home means dogwoods in full blossom, the tingle of the sun on your skin, the smell of pluff mud and the sparkling view of the ocean as you hit the bridge for the first beach trip of the season.

I am from the South and the promise of warm weather holds so much weight. Warm weather not only brings beach trips, a great hot dog from Jack's, sweet tea watered down from the heat of the day, but a certain vibe all of its own. It brings with it, its own music; beach music.

Heading down to the beach during Spring/Summer in the South, meant hitting a certain part of the journey where you would lose a good radio signal. But about 20-30 minutes after that, you would pick up the sounds of the beach. Nothing but good old Shagging kinda music. We would roll the windows down to catch that first smell of the pines, the sun beating down on our skin as the car was filled with the sounds of the coast. The music filled our beach house too or echoed from someone else's as we sat on the screen porch, watching my parent's dance around.

I can't get in my car and head to the beach in England, but I can bring the memories of the beach to me. All, I have to do is hit "play" on my Ipod and the upbeat, soulful, happy tunes from the "Beach Music Anthology" fill my house and if I close my eyes real tight, I can almost taste that hot dog and smell those pines, feel my toes digging into the sand, the breeze dancing across my skin, the waves hitting the shore and the sound of beach music floating across the air from someone's radio. I love beach music!

Here are just a few of my favorite beach music melodies:



(Image: film still from "Shag:The Movie")

Peaches

Ice-Cream Treats

I love these waxed paper cups from Paper Treat's Etsy Store. Although, no longer available they look too cute not to share!

What is it about ice-cream in a waxed paper cup that screams: Summertime, happiness and childhood? It makes me dream for a waxed paper Dennis the Menace cup from Diary Queen, a dipped one of course!

I adore their cones, but if you get your frosty treat in a cup, there is always more of your dipped flavour of choice pooled around and frozen in the bottom of the cup, little mountains of chocolate chunks, waiting for you!

I loved going there when we were little. On hot Summer nights, my parents would load us up in the car and we would head out for an evening ride, usually ending up at Dairy Queen for a dip cone. It was such a hard choice to decide between the chocolate dip or the cherry one.

Did you dip vanilla ice-cream or chocolate? Oh, the tough choices you had to make when you were little! The choice of dessert was usually the most important decision you possibly made all day, except of course a peanut butter & jelly or a ham & cheese sandwich for lunch!

But, Dairy Queen does not exist in England, so in this hot day today, it will have to exist simply in my dreams....

**UPDATE: Thanks to SuzieButton for letting me know, these are back in-stock in Paper Treat's Etsy store!

I Love to Snog!

Armed with my new camera, a trip into central London this week, meant an excuse to go into Snog and grab a tasty frozen treat! I'll be honest, at first, I was not sure about their frozen yogurt, but now I think I have been won over. I really enjoyed their chocolate flavour with white chocolate stars, and they were far from skimpy on my toppings!

The walls had wonderful colorful art, like a page out of a storybook. My first Snog treat was on my Birthday day out and I was not expecting the Greek slightly soured tartness to it, I expected it to be more like frozen yogurt from the States, which is sweeter, but little by little, it is growing on me, even if only for the chocolate stars!

* A note, for my non British readers, "snog" is slang for kissing in jolly ol' England & I like the fact that they have played on that word, because who doesn't "fancy a snog"?

A Tuesday Date

Now, that Mr. Michie and I are both off together, we headed out Tuesday afternoon to run some errands. While running them, we decided to go to the movies, it was bargain Tuesday after all and all movies are £4 all day long! Woo-Hoo!

A quick trip into the candy store armed us with chocolate and strawberry liquorice.  He grabbed the tickets to "The A-Team" and I grabbed the Coke and popcorn. It was a great movie, just a good ol' Summertime movie!

We held hands, and stuffed ourselves with popcorn and just enjoyed being with each other. After the movie we headed to Nando's for an early dinner and then back to reality with a little grocery shopping, but not without stealing a kiss or two on the aisles.

There are no pictures to show for our date, but should there be? We were lost in each other and perfectly content!

(Image: Norman Rockwell)

Lawnlite

Ha Ha Ha, I want furniture that "laughs in the face of weather". My Grandparents had some lawn chairs like this and every year they were taken out of the garage, with the smell of salt & sea on them from the previous year and packed up in the back of the car as we headed to the beach.

We usually headed down in two cars to the beach house, a trip that seemed to take forever before you could smell the pluff mud in your nostrils, and start to see the water through the pine trees.

Our fishing gear was always tucked away in my Grandpa's car underneath the chairs that he would use to sit on and direct us with some fishing advice from the back porch.

There was a creek that was fed from the ocean behind the house and if we weren't swimming in it, we were fishing in it. My Grandpa would hold fishing competitions between us and inevitably, someone would catch a puffer-fish and he would come down and help up us take it off our line and toss it back.

Summers at the beach with my grandparents, held a magic to them, a place where time stopped, where even after a year in between visits to the house, we fell into the same routines of swimming, playing good old-fashioned board games, reading musty smelling books left on an old bookshelf, listening to beach music and just enjoying each other's company.

To be little again and enjoy the company of the ones you love away from all the hustle and bustle of the real world, to just get lost in the magic of the beach...

(Image: Found in Mom's Basement)

The First Day of August

I Spy Christmas in July

We loved the "I Spy" series of books in our house when we were growing up.  One of my absolute favourites is the "I Spy Christmas" book.  This was a book that was pulled off the shelf, time and time again, to find the items listed in the rhyme, or to make up our own and search endlessly for them.

Walter Wick, created the series and here is a page from this beloved book:

On his website he states:

I Spy Christmas is the second book in the I Spy series and still one of my favorites. For this photograph, I found an old window that was just the right size to fit the page. Some of the dolls are my wife's childhood toys. Others were borrowed from neighbors. I dressed the set like an old toy shop window. The snow and frost is of the type sold in Christmas shops.

His images are magical, a glimpse into childhood memories. He has created the perfect scenes, this shop window for example, is the Christmas window that you want to press your frosty nose and mittened hands to, staring at everything inside, with so many choices that you are not sure what you are going to put down on your list to ask Santa Claus for.

Here are the before and after images for the window scene that was described above:

At home there are always Christmas in July sales, parties, little get-to-gethers. I love Christmas, in fact I have been listening to Christmas music a lot lately on a fabulous online radio station I found and as crazy as it seems, listening to that music, made me sew up the rest of my bear and bunny order, even faster.  The more I seemed to sing and hum to those jolly jingles, the more time just seemed to fly by along with my fingers....

(All images are copyright Walter Wick)

Ice-Cream Sandwiches

Yesterday, it was particularly sunny and hot here in our little London Burb and homemade ice-cream sandwiches were definitely in order!

To begin with, you will need ice-cream (flavour of your choice), cookies (something softer is a bit better than a crunchy cookie, but it is up to you), sprinkles or nuts (if desired, to roll the edges in, we decided to be purist yesterday), a spatula or knife, waxed or parchment paper and the most important ingredient: someone to share them with.

Gather your ingredients around you and let your ice-cream be slightly softened, it will be easier to spread. I normally keep homemade cookie dough in the freezer, but I had run out, so cheated and bought cookies from my local bakery.

Lay your cookies down in front on you, bottoms up and spread ice-cream over one cookie, use as much or as little ice-cream as you want, alternatively you can use an ice cream scoop and place one scoop in the middle and then mash down with the top of your other cookie. Place the other cookie on top and press them together.

Fold them up in wax paper or parchment paper, creating a little parcel of happiness and place them in your freezer, they need to sit in here for at least 30 minutes for the ice-cream to harden. You can leave them in longer. These were made in the morning and not enjoyed until the evening after we had eaten dinner.

When you are ready to eat them, pull them out of the freezer, folding your wax/parchment paper back so that you have a little opening in which to munch away at your ice-cream sandwich, but the bottom is still covered to keep your hands clean.

Make sure you have a nice sunny day (or a cloudy one if you need something to cheer you up), a front porch to sit on or a nice walk to go on and most importantly someone you love to share it with, because that will make it taste that much sweeter!

ENJOY!

School's Out!

School is out for Summer! Wooo-Hooo!

I am so excited, that means the occasional morning sleeping in with Mr. Michie, eating lunch together, running errands together before I head to work, dinner at a more normal hour. I love when he is off from school and we can spend time with each other.

Next school year, I will be going to school too,  so we will have the same holidays off, to just sit and stare at each other over the tops of our computers, like a couple of nerds.

Mr. Michie is a very cute nerd though!

(Image found on polkadotandplaid's Flickr account)

Summertime

My Fox

I saw my fox. 

Those 4 little words say more than I can. I saw my fox again last night. It was late, after 1 am and we were getting ready to go bed and something told me to go to the window and raise the blinds, looking into the dark alleyway across the street, I saw a glisten of fur as sparkles of light from the street lamp behind the trees danced around the pavement as the wind blew the leaves.

It was him, I knew he was there. We are connected you see, he and I. I called my adorable red-head over to have a look and patiently we waited. Our patience paid off, a few mintues later he came out of the alley and started to walk up the street. He knew, we were there, peeking out at him from the window screen and he just looked at us. His eyes intense and all-knowing. He started to continue on his stroll, but stopped, ears perked and then gracefully turned around and went the other way.

A person was coming down the main street, he heard it before we saw it. It was magical. Again, there are no pictures. But, that is how it is meant to be between us I suppose. It is just our time together when the rest of the world is tucked away in their beds.

(Image found on Flickr. I know that it is a Christmas Image, but 1) I love Christmas 2) At home there is always Christmas in July Sales & 3) I like to think that, in fact I know, that my fox would look very dapper with a bandanna around his neck)

The 4th Of July

Hope your Fourth of July is smooth sailing!

(Bunny & Chimpmunk image by: Richard Scarry. Polka Dot Border, a Pugly Pixel Freebie, embellished by J. Michie)