Step back in time.

You didn't really think we'd let the school holidays pass without riding on a Steam Train did you ??

Last week, before Mr Twigs was poorly we had a lovely day out on the East Lancashire Railway - one we haven't been on before. 

We bought a family ticket which entitled us to sail up and down the line all day, having a few visits to the very reasonably priced buffet car, that was staffed by a bunch of lovely old lady and gentleman volunteers.

All the staff were volunteers and were absolutely lovely, very friendly and quite taken with Twiglet.

Twiglet dressed up in the museum - how cute?

 The stations are gorgeous.

 Lovely steam train

 Comfy carriages, lovely cuddles.

 Nice pub, we popped in for a shandy and a bag of Seabrooks.

 Look at the fab station in Bury, inside is all wood and they have a 1950s style kiosk.

 Hope you enjoyed the trip.

 Catch you later.

Twiggy x

Unexpected loveliness !!!

Thanks for the get well wishes for Mr Twigs - he's still sore and tired, but shouting at the TV so perhaps is on the mend :P

Anyhoo, after he had told me 100 times that yes he'd be fine if Twiglet and I went out for a bit, we had a little jaunt which turned out to be unexpectedly lovely.

We popped to the supermarket for some bits and bobs and on the way home called in at the park for an hour.

The best bit for me had to be sailing round the park on the miniature steam train, eating ice lollies while dappled sunshine shone through the trees on us - magic moment!!

So for the price of two cheapo ice lollies, a 99p football and a couple of 50p train rides, we had a tiptop time.

My other intention was to wear Twiglet out, so he's not doing his Daddy's head in (he is the little boy in the Specsavers advert!!)  - the jury is still out on whether or not it worked, but after all the football playing I could do with a nap:)

No relevant photos, I'm afraid as sometimes, fun is impromptu!!

Catch you later

Twiggy x

Poor Mr Twigs :(

Poor old Mr Twigs set off for work on Monday and came home after going to a NHS walk in centre who referred him to his doctor.

Who in turn sent him straight off to hospital with suspected appendicitis.  

He stayed in for two days and it wasn't his appendix but something equally painful which he has had operated on to rectify the probem.

He is now off work for a few weeks and currenty laying in the sofa watching Top Gear.

The last two nights were the first time we've slept apart apart from when I had Twiglet, and it felt very weird (and a tiny bit scarey, especially when the gazebo fell over and started banging on the door in the early hours of the morning !!)

It was very odd being the grown up for once. 

I won't be around for a bit cos I'm making lots of lovely food for him and keeping Twiglet entertained while playing nursey.

Send heaing vibes to the very brave Mr Twig please.

Twiggy x

Sketchbook Challenge : Post 2

So this is the potato printing one, or is it?  

( I just HAD to treat myself to some new watercolours, aren't they pretty?)

I started out with good intentions, however, we had a little jaunt out to a very sunny and lovely park today and collected various leaves and conkers.  

I tried to do a potato print based on an oak leaf  and it all went a bit Pete Tong.

Instead I decided to use some of our leaves as stencils, this was a very messy but enjoyable process!!

I painted the leaves in acrylics in varying shades of blue.

When they had mostly dried, I used blue and orange watercolours to fill in some of the background - I did read your post about complementary colours Gina :)

 Once I started I couldn't stop and ended up with 4 pages full !!

 This is just a plain blue one I tried.

So not what it was supposed to be but still good fun !!

Twiggy x

Filey lifeboat day and a tour around our lottie !!!

 Well we had a lovely couple of days in Filey, despite the showers.  

We stayed here, and would heartily recommend it.  

We ate here for the first time ever, and it was quite lovely.

 We even managed to fit in a bit of body boarding, firstly at 7.30pm on Saturday - dirty stop outs.

Then at 9.30am Sunday morning - barm pots !!!

 A good time was had by all !!

Right, now we paid a visit to the lottie this afternoon, and I remembered my camera - yay!!

Here goes, remember it's a work in progress!!

Twiggy's red cabbages.

Twiglet's parsnips.

 

 Twiglet's pumpkins.

 Twiglet's sweetcorn.

 Twiggy's beans and peas - with Mr Twigs hand build fantastic and HUGE composter in the background.

 Digging up the first of this years spuds, we had some for dinner, they were delish.

 Hooray - the shed is up !!!

 So there we are.

Catch you later.

Twiggy x

Sketchbook : Post 1.

My crafting mojo seems to have run away so when I saw the Sketchbook Challenge created by Gina over at Fan My Flame, I fancied giving it a whirl.  

I will warn you now this is a photo heavy post.

Thank goodness Twiggy, less chat, more pics !!

Firstly, I had to rummage in the garage for my paints and brushes, I haven't touched them since before Twiglet was born - 6 years ago !!!!

 I decided that my colour theme would be blue, I love all shades of blue, particularly, aqua, teal and turquoise.  

I think this is down to my BIG love for the sea and water.

So we started on Friday afternoon.

Anyhoo, here's my page all covered in cling film and left to dry.

 Twiglet decided he wanted to join in too, so here is Twiglet's page.

 I think this image is lovely, so had to take a pic !!

 This is the background on my first page.

It took me ages to decide what image I wanted to use. 

I had a look around my garden and I loved the idea of cow parsley, I love it's outline, like little fireworks, but it proved too fiddly to cut out.

I decided on Ox Eye Daises instead, we have a lot of these and they are so pretty. 

I don't have any oil pastels, so turned the house upside down looking for wax crayons, we have loads but not white unfortunately, so I used some of Twiglet's Thomas the Tank Engine ones in purple, pale blue and dark blue to outline my daisy.

I then painted it in a  mix of cerulean blue acrylic and ultramarine watercolour.

I also found an image of a teasel (another favourite) increased the size on my laptop and used this as a template too.

 However, after we returned from the Emley Show today I had another look and thought I want to use a more aqua shade of blue, so did another two pages, with the watercolour and cling film technique.

I used my daisy image again, once the background was dry I got to work.  

After painting the flower in a darker shade, I used one of my black ink pens and did a bit of colouring in and line drawing.

I was on a roll by now, so had another rummage and found my letter stamps and did a bit of stamping using a black ink pad.

 On the other page, I left my background quite light and again painted the daisy quite lightly and this time used my silver ink pad too !!

 I decided to leave my top daisy as it is and just show the outline as I think it looks quite pretty.

 Here's the full page.

I'm really enjoying this and can't wait to get back to it after the weekend.

If you want to join in and check on everyone's progress, pop on over to Gina's lovely blog.

Twiggy x

Getting Arty at Twiggy Towers.

Well, that's another week that's zoomed by.

(Photo above of various flowers from our garden).

We've been buzzing around, staying at my Mum's again, Twiglet going to birthday parties and we went to the lovely Emley Show today.  

I was planning on showing you lots of lovely country show goodness but Mr Twigs forgot his camera - doh!!

However, my SIL and Twiglet's little cuz came with us and sent us this photo of Twiglet the New Orleans jazz man :)

I had a good look around the craft tent and decided I really need to up my game if I want to enter, blimey the stuff was perfect!!

In between all the gadding about, Twiglet and I managed our first at home day on Thursday and even managed to use the I'm Bored jar!!

First task, draw your family.

Second task, make dinner - fish pie - yum !!

Third task - Make a Yoda puppet using the Star Wars Craft Book :)

 We have also started Gina's Sketchbook challenge, but I'm going to do a different post about that in a minute.

Don't tell Twiglet but he thinks we are going to Filey for the day tomorrow, I've actually booked us into a B & B , so two days of fun - hooray !!  

Mr Twigs is off next week so hoping to get some stuff done at the lottie and get out and about. 

Take care

Twiggy x

A Second Post From Twiglet - New Computer Game

On Monday I got a new computer game.  

It was Lego Star Wars - The Video Game. 

It is hard I completed a level on my own, it was quite easy that level.

Then I completed one with Daddy's help and it was quite hard that one.

Daddy helped me complete the pod racing one.

Twiglet.