Here’s their wonderful suggestions:
Christmas with the Beach Boys (a favourite of Seeds & Stitches)
This Noel playlist by isabelleoc
An alternative Xmas mix by Last Year’s Girl
For Folk’s Sake, It’s Christmas 2011
A Charlie Brown Christmas,
Muppets Christmas Carol soundtrack,
This cool playlist by naurnie,
Sufjan Stevens, Low
and R2D2 We Wish You A Merry Christmas!!

And for the Christmas holidays…
Here’s what I have planned:
That’s yummy food, presents,
taking pics with my car boot Polaroid,
roasting chestnuts on our fire
(never done this before ever!),
watching Christmas movies
and getting my skates on…

Oh yes and some sitting on the couch
doing absolutely nothing too!

(Weird fact: the penguin with the bauble?
That’s how he came out of the Christmas box,
holding that bauble… it seemed mean to take it off him!)

So I’ll see you all in 2012.
Thanks so much for dropping by this year,
leaving comments, emailing me,
even saying hi sometimes.
You guys rock, you really do.

I hope you all have some lovely, relaxing, fun plans?
But whatever you do, remember the following:
You do indeed!

Merry Christmas.
Hope you all have an amazing time.
And get super, super spoiled!
xxxxx

Image 3: Lillian & Leonard (at our wedding)
Image 5: merriweathercouncil

It was my Wayne’s World print… often coveted,
considered, sometimes in the online shopping trolley
but never actually purchased…

So imagine my surprise and delight
when at a certain Secret Santa swap
my present from the lovely My Spare Thoughts
turned out to be a handmade cross-stitched
version of my so long longed for print.

Surprise and nearly tears!
(Yup, I may have been a little emotional!)

*****

Back home, I added a little washi tape
and then put it next to my Airstream.
Another one of my often coveted things.
Wonder if anyone will ever
handmake me one of those?!

I’m lucky indeed
but maybe not that lucky!

******

P.S. Anyone else ever got
a really good Secret Santa? 
I think this might be my first!

P.P.S. I can’t show you yet what
I made for the Secret Santa
as I might be making a version
for my family.

I brought my new tote bag to the second Blook Club.
Thankfully, everyone had read the book
and not been reading wine labels instead.

(Though I was feeling a little blurry round the edges
myself thanks to a birthday party the night before.)

Our book this time was When God Was A Rabbit.

Some of us loved the book, some liked it, others loathed it.
Which was good, because heck who wants to agree all the time!

The one thing we all agreed on? That the bit
with the Womble was a tad disturbing.*

For the Americans amongst us,
it was perhaps even more disturbing
as a bunch of us tried to excitedly describe
a Womble and then sing the theme tune.
(And maybe almost try to reenact the scene too.)

Yup, serious English Literature tutorial we ain’t!
But that’s what I’m loving so far about Blook Club.
Smart, funny, chatty, talented, passionate
witty, wonderful gals who are good for a giggle.
And some of them even baked too!

*****

So, the next Blook Club…

The next date I had free was in early December.
So I thought it would be good to do a Christmas themed
Blook Club. And you can’t really get any more festive than…
 To read: Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
To read by: 4th December
To be accompanied by: mulled wine
and minced pies (I may do a recipe too)

*****

 If you want to read along or just talk
books to other Blook Clubbers,
the twitter is @blookclub or #blookclub

If you’d like to come along,
click here for more details.

*****

P.S. Did you read When God Was A Rabbit?
Did you love, like or loathe?
What was your most memorable bit?
(Since I’ve shared mine!)

*This covers a teeny, tiny part of the book.
Don’t read any further if you don’t want to
know what happens… essentially someone
has sex with a person dressed as a Womble.
There. I warned you.

For the past 2 years, my list has included ‘join a book club’.

(I adore books. Not just for colour coding you see!)

And for 1 and half years, I’ve not really managed that.

*****

While working one night, I started moaning about
my lack of book reading to my husband.
He said, as I think he always says now,
why don’t you ask twitter if they know of one.

So, I did. More specifically, I asked Kirsty
if she knew of one. And then somehow our
conversation ended up with me organising
a book club, as opposed to joining one!

I called it ‘Blook Club’.
Bloggers plus books.
And then I made a little logo
(despite the fact I’m not a designer).
So it’s sort of all official now.

Ta-da.

We’re holding the first one in Edinburgh this weekend,
but if you fancy coming to future Blook Clubs
(or even to this weekend’s), just drop me a line.

I’m kind of excited (and a bit nervous)
to meet everyone, start reading more again
and then babble about it at length…

God help the poor souls
who have signed up already!

*****

P.S. Any suggestions of books gratefully received.
For the first one, we’re reading How to be a Woman.
I thought it would give us plenty to chat about!

As welovepictures, Travis and Maike, who like in Cape Town,
take some gorgeous, happy, sunshiney, pretty wedding pics.

But what made me really fall in love with them
is their apartment… For the first time in ages,
I have total and utter flat envy!

Um… that blue lamp, that chair… that boat-shaped mirror!

Oh… yeah… that globe, those signs, that chest of drawers…

Love… that prints and books mini shelves combo!

Home… this sign is what made my heart flip over.

Home is wherever I am with you
by Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros
was the song we signed our marriage certificate too.
(Like I said more on that later!)

I wonder if I can do a flat swap for a bit!

Check out the rest of their gorgeous place
and lovely blog here …

******

Have a lovely weekend everyone.
I’m off to two weddings.
So it’s a weekend of love!

After two and a bit years of intense diy,
our dusty old place is pretty much done.

I’ve been taking a few snaps recently so I’m
hoping to do a few before & after posts soon.

(For those of you new to this blog,
the before pictures were quite something!)
In the meantime, if you fancy seeing a mini home tour
pop on over to The Seventy Tree.

Kerry has such a lovely, lovely blog – I promise it’ll end up
being one of your favourites too if it’s not already.

****

P.S. If you missed it, I was also interviewed by Huma
of Her Little Place for The Independent the other week.

Just in case you fancy some more of me talking interior design!

Well, not really.

In our many years together,
we have done the 14th of Feb
a few days before or after,
a week early, a week late,
but hardly ever on the actual date.

We’ve skipped cards, presents,
dinner dates and flowers.

Not out of any sort of protest
(though I’m not a huge fan of Clinton Cards)
but just because we’ve always liked
doing things on our own terms.

I much prefer ‘I love you’s on every other day.

All that said, I have adored Aesthetic Outburst‘s
20 Valentines in 20 Days. Especially the heart medals.

Bit late to share it I know but I guess that’s in
keeping with the way I keep Happy Heart Day!

P.S. For a Valentine’s post that will make you cry,
visit Red Boots. (But remembered I warned you.)

Love to you all
365 days a year
and then some xx

******

All images via the ace Aesthetic Outburst.

So Christmas is nearly here… which might explain why there’s large paper
snowflakes hanging on our wall… and snow shapes on our windows!

I found these vintage snow stencils last year in a charity shop.

A total bargain as I think we’ll be using for years to come.

I’ve also framed this lovely old Days of Christmas tea towel.

(I found it in the old table that belonged to the other half’s aunt…
the same one that I found the vintage paper straws in.)

The lords a-leaping make me laugh so!

For the first year ever I made a pact with myself – no new Christmas decorations.

Partly a bid to save some money but also because we have enough already.

The only cheat was that I’d already bought this ‘Russian doll’ Christmas
set back in October when I was looking for Halloween decorations.

So I kind of / sort of stuck to my pact!

Here’s my little snowman I’ve had since 1999 and the new
Christmas decoration – wonder if they’ll be around for as long?

We also put back up the reindeer mirror… or the other half did.
(I’m not as handy with a drill!) I’m currently searching for some
mini vintage mirrors to fill in the spaces but Edinburgh charity
shops are proving fruitless so far… darn!

In the spirit of recycling, I dug out our old letterpress tray
and filled it with old baubles… (excuse the dust on the
floor – that’s from putting up the mirrors!)

And inbetween working (really, really) long hours, we’ve managed to squeeze in
a little crafting… some hand-stitched cards and some tiny gingerbread houses.

The other half has also been hard at work trying to finish finish our kitchen for
Christmas – and doing some crafty surprise presents for my little cousins.

But I’ve had to abandon my heart wreath plan – next year for that one!

Of course not every is a fan of the new decorations… one of our
residents has been redecorating the tree any chance they get.

Anyway, for this final post of 2010, I wanted to wish you all
a very Merry Christmas and a very very Happy New Year.

I hope you all get spoiled rotten, have maximum chill-out time
and a ridiculous amount of fun you lovely, lovely people!

Thanks so much for making blogging such a pleasure
in 2010. Here’s to having even more fun in 2011!