Alternative Easter Gifts For Children

This afternoon was the Easter Fair at my Son's school. After spending the morning making cornflake nests complete with the ubiquitous mini eggs and fluffy chicks for the bun stall I helped out on the Easter themed tombola.

About 90% of the prizes that had been donated were chocolate eggs and some of the children were winning 2-3 each. Now when you add that to Easter Eggs received from friends and family that's a LOT of chocolate for one child.

So I've been thinking that these ' Grow Your Own Garden ' Children's Gift Sets with the little bunny soaps would make great alternative Easter gift for my nieces and nephews. Along with an Easter Egg of course!

A Load Of Old Cobblers!

At last (see what I've done there!) the vintage shoe lasts have arrived and I am so pleased with them that I just had to show them off.




I love the patina of old wood and have had a pair of vintage lasts displayed in my home for many years so I was really happy to source some for the shop.

They were made at a shoe machinery manufactures in Kettering and rescued from disused shoe factories some have been reworked to make doorstops.




The up stand of the doorstops is a vintage distaff. Distaffs were used in textile mills as a tool used in spinning. It is designed to hold the unspun fibers, keeping them untangled and thus easing the spinning process. It is most commonly used to hold flax, and sometimes wool, but can be used for any type of fiber. Fiber is wrapped around the distaff, and tied in place with a piece of ribbon or string.


Another vintage find has been these string and scissor holders.





These string holders are hand made from bobbins which were used in the textile mills of the Calder Valley near Manchester to hold thread prior to weaving. They are around 100 years old and have been reworked to make these individual string holders and come complete with string and scissors.

I have to confess that one of these has made its way into my kitchen as I can never find my string and scissors.


All of these are now available at http://www.homesanddreams.co.uk/

Love Is In The Air

We've been busy here working for the past couple of weeks as we've been ordering, processing and photographing the new Spring ranges for the Homes & Dreams shop. There has been a definite theme to the new ranges as hearts and love feature quite a lot - must be something to do with Valentines Day.

I have to admit that a few of the new things like this wooden 'Love' Sign and the 'Love' Letters have found their way into my house. One of the signs now graces the shelf in my kitchen and a set of the 'Love' letters stand on the window sill in my bedroom.

As the house is nearing completion my thoughts are now on the garden. We have approximately 1/2 acre here and for over 15 years before we moved in no one had set foot in it.

It is a very long thin plot - over 500ft long. All of the houses along our road originally had gardens like this however one by one they have all been built on and ours is the only one left with its original size garden. We are lucky to be the last house in the village as to one side of us is open countryside.

When we moved in we were faced with 8ft of brambles, great for jam making but not for my hands - ouch! Most of these have now been kept in check however at the top end of the garden we have done very little else than keep these thugs at bay


As the weather was fine on Sunday we decided to make a start on clearing the ground. Eventually this will be where we grow our veggies however I think it may be some time before that happens!

First Post Of 2010

I can't believe that we are nearly half way through January already! I must apologise as it has been a while since I posted on here as things have been so busy and so much has been happening.

Christmas seems such a distant memory now. This was the wintry scene that we woke up to on Christmas morning.



Just before the New Year we spent a few days in Norfolk. I really love this part of the country and we have spent some very happy family holidays here.


While we were there we decided to travel down the coast and over the border into Suffolk. I had never been to Suffolk before so it was lovely to visit somewhere new for the first time.


We decided to go to Southwold and although it was bitterly cold we had a lovely afternoon there.



Not surprisingly there weren't many people on the beach!


The snow is still abundant here in Yorkshire. Last week my son's school was closed all week and so we made the most of it and went sledging!

Although he is nearly 10 years old he has never experienced this amount of snow and has never been sledging. needless to say me and Hubbie were ready to go home long before he was!


The end of season sale is now well under way at the Homes & Dreams shop and I've been busy planning the new ranges for Spring. They'll be introduced to the site over the next few weeks.


Hope the bad weather isn't causing you too many problems!

Christmas Fair Preparations

This week has been a flurry of activity with preparations for the Cliff School Christmas Fair where we will be hosting a stall selling all sorts of goodies. We have been choosing a selection of our ranges including lots of Christmas decorations and gifts including our current best seller - this Shabby Chic Christmas Bunting.

I've already earmarked a place in my own home for this bunting (if there is any left!) and think it will look great strung across the chimney in my kitchen.

Hope your preparations are going well.

Christmas Has Arrived At Homes & Dreams

I know its only October but we like to be prepared at Homes & Dreams and so we are happy to announce the arrival of our 2009 Christmas range.

This year we based our range on delicate shades and ivory tones with just a hint of festive red to decorate your home for Christmas.

Already we have sold some of the Reusable Advent Calendars so it just goes to show that some of our customers are as organized as we are!

Have fun planning for Christmas!

New Shopping List Message Holders.

This week we have introduced these shopping list message holders. They are great for holding all those bits of paper together as they have a wooden peg on the back and a magnet so they can be stuck to your fridge or one of our Magnetic Memo Boards. They are priced at only £2.25.