RELATIONSHIP WITH WATER

EXPO Water city from martin de thurah on Vimeo.

I realize what intrigues me about slow-motion filmmaking is the way it adds a question mark to every frame.

Super Stylish Swish!

In amongst all the activity at Halfpenny Home, I've also been involved in working with friends to organise our third, and most up-market Swish! Remember the Twiggy programme on TV where ladies got together to swap their unwanted quality clothes? Well, this is our version. This time around we're doing it in aid of EACH, the East Anglian Children's Hospice for their Treehouse Appeal and it's going to be on 11th November 2010.

It's a brilliant and fun way to recycle and get yourself a new wardrobe to boot! (yes, maybe some new boots too!!). We're organising a fashion show with some of the swap items to be compered by Rachel Sloane, from our local BBC Radio Station, Radio Suffolk. And, of course, given the thrifty nature of the event, Halfpenny Home was happy to be involved and will be having a stall, along with some other local businesses. We're hoping the lovely buttons and notions, ribbons and trims will give ladies lots of ideas of how to maybe customise their new attire!

Above is a picture of the venue for our Swish! Creeting House! You may recall it being featured on Ruth Watson's Hotel Rescue in the summer of 2009. It's a gorgeous place with lovely owners, Di and Steve, who've so generously agreed to let us use it for the Swish. Take a look at their website http://www.creetinghouse.com/. Highly recommended if you ever want to treat yourself to a weekend in Suffolk and a visit to Halfpenny Home, which is just a stones throw away.

There are still a few tickets left for the Swish so if any of you would like a ticket or more details, do get in touch. You can email enquiries@halfpennyhome.co.uk and I'll send you further details. For those further afield I promise to take lots of pics of the event and post about it afterwards!

Jacquix

~♥ It's Pumpkin Carving Time ♥~

 Hello blogging friends...long time no write!  Hope all is well in your homes. 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

My dear Daughter and her boyfriend carved pumpkins over the weekend and I wanted to share them with you...I think they turned out adorable.  

Emily's Pumpkin on the Left; Anthony's on the Right

Aren't they such a cute couple?

Thanks for stopping by!

♥ Kim

Yay! It's the new Oh Comely!

We always get excited about parcels at Halfpenny Home, though the contents are usually yarns, buttons or vintage notions from all over the place. This week though it was a parcel containing the latest issue of Oh Comely magazine. Time to put the kettle on and get comfy in the armchair...
Oh Comely is a lovely mix of art and craft, food and creativity - fits in very well at HH where you will find it by the tea trolley laden with bias binding...you can always come and have a look through our shop copy, the photography is beautiful.

This issue features a friend of ours, Jess from Cuppa Tea and Cake and some of her polka dot bunting! Jess is also one half of the I Make Fun Stuff duo who organize the fantastic craft fairs in Ipswich - we've been to a few...
We stayed very close to Halfpenny Home this weekend when we attended the annual craft fair that is held in Needham Market - it has 50 stalls and we were one of them!

We took along the new Alpaca Select yarns that we have just got in - 4 ply for socks! It's so soft and comes in lovely colours. It's one of the many new yarns that we were introduced to by Stewart from Maid of Fibre - he visited us the other week and braved the Wednesday morning knitting group who ooohed, aaarghed and sighed their way through all his lovely samples...

More Alpaca Select....!

We were lucky enough to be opposite Kimbeau. who make these gorgeous marinades and sauces along with spectacular fudge and sorrel jam that is out of this world!
We did a lot of tasting before choosing...yum!

If you've ever paid a visit to us at Halfpenny Home you will recognise this table but it is usually completely covered with strawberry tea cosy covered tea pots, hand thrown and painted mugs, projects on the go and cakestands piled high with wool - it's never this clear, ever! I'm just about to cut some fat quarters of our new fabrics and there is an awful lot of them to do...

It will be back to it's usual chaotic messines when normal service resumes tomorrow, Nic x

A Romantic Tablescape for 2

I hope that you all had a great weekend!

I wanted to show you how the hubs and I have a date night in.  It is hard for us to get out sometimes but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a date in.

We were supposed to go out and plans changed so I went to my favorite store…the good old Trader Joes and picked up our date food. 

 

I was really in the mood for a wine and cheese kinda thing.

 

So I bought nuts, crackers, several different kinds of cheeses including honey goat cheese  (yum…that stuff in the BEST) strawberries, blueberries, smoked oysters and champagne grapes  (if you haven’t tried these grapes yet, you are missing out….yummy).

 

The kids helped my fill our platter before the they went to bed.  (I even made a small tray for them.)

 

I was so excited for this.  I think I loved shopping and setting everything up just as much as eating it, lol!

 

Doesn’t it look delicious…and romantic?

 

Oh yeah,  I can’t forget the wine.  Can you guess which one is for me?

 

What wine is your favorite?

 

So there it is!  My romantic date night in. 

Of course we also had to cuddle up and watch a romantic movie…my choice!

I love these kind of dates!!!

Do you ever have date nights at home?

What is your favorite date?

How often do you and your husband/boyfriend go on date?  I am just wondering.

Bonnie :)

Linking to these parties!

Do you Know Amaretto Vineyard?

Do you Know Amaretto Vineyard?

Jessica is a wife and mother to a beautiful girl.  She is a crafter, cook, bargain-hunter and loves anything thrifty!

Recently she purchased some Get Clean products from me and she wanted to share her experience with us and she included her before and after pictures!

I hate to clean. I do it every now and then because if I did not, well, my house would soon look like this:

DISCLAIMER: This is SO not my house!  Source

But cleaning is still probably my least favorite thing to do.  Well, second-least, falling shortly behind exercise.  Especially now, considering that we moved (whilst Mr. Amaretto was in the hospital nonetheless!) and my entire house looks like this:

Disclaimer: This IS my house; or my garage at least... sigh...

But I've seen the various bloggers out there touting the wonders of Shaklee Get Clean products lately, and it piqued my interest.  The first few posts I saw, I chalked up to the whole infomercial concept.  I actually started ignoring anything I saw related to Shaklee, figuring it was just another late-night gimmick trying to reel me in.
But one morning, I guess my 'scam resistor' was weak, and I stopped to read this post at House of Grace, showing photo-proof of the amazing Shaklee clean-up from Veronica of Life in the Thrifty Lane.
I couldn't resist.  I immediately ordered a bottle of Basic H2 and a tub of Scour Off paste.  While I waited for my purchase to arrive, I headed to the Dollar Tree to grab three spray bottles and some microfiber cloths, hoping that the magic unpacking fairies would have my new home in tip-top shape before the shipment arrived. 
Those blasted fairies must be on strike, because they haven't shown up yet.
So, I will post a full-on before and after cleaning story at some point in the future.  But for now I found two spots (that I could see behind all the unpacking clutter!) that could use a quick clean-up.
Spot 1:
Little Miss Amaretto's seat at our (glass-topped) kitchen table.  This spot is normally a pretty sticky one; does it make me a horrible mommy that I usually only deep-clean it when we have company coming???  Any-who, this before picture shows the aftermath of a few days' worth of Mac & Cheese dinners (which are surprisingly difficult to prepare when all 3 of your colanders are still lost in cardboard boxes somewhere.  Three!  Who has three colanders, and who can't find a single one of them!?!  I refuse to purchase another...)

A few spritzes of Glass Cleaning mix (which, by the way, only took 2 DROPS of the ultra-concentrated solution to make 16 oz of spray cleaner - VERY economical!) and here are the amazing results:

I KNOW!!!  Can you believe that's the same table?  I am not talking heavy elbow grease or special tools or techniques.  This was a few spritzes of spray and a few wipes with a paper towel.  I did go back a second time (with the added benefit of my fingernail behind the towel) to get a few of the stickier spots of Mac & Cheese up, but that's it!  In seconds my table (or the quarter of it that it currently unblemished by the never-ending unpacking process!) was transformed from dull and blah to sparkle and wow!  I want to make that "DING" sound that the Mr. Clean commercials always use every time I look at these results!
Spot 2:
My stainless-steel sink is uber-grimy looking, mainly because it has a never-ending drip that leaves splatters all over.  We intend to fix the drip this weekend, and in the meantime I wanted to see if I could shine it up a bit with my bottle of All-Purpose Cleaning mix (just 1/4 tsp of the ultra-concentrated solution for an entire spray bottle - still super-thrifty... I made up both spritz bottles and you can't even tell there's anything missing from my original bottle of concentrate).
Here is the before; note the grimy ring on the counter top next to the sink and the uglies left behind by my bottle of dish soap.  Dull and quite grimy:

Here I spritzed on the all-purpose cleaner and went to town with my paper towels.  It looked much better but there was still a bit of residue from the dish soap rings that I couldn't quite scrub off.  A quick swipe with my Magic Eraser and VOILA!
(DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for temporary or permanent blindness caused by viewing the next photograph without sunglasses; you have been warned)

HOLY RUSTED METAL, BATMAN!!!  Have you ever seen something so shiny in your life?  I am in awe.  Two days later, the shine is still there (I haven't returned the dish soap bottle to its spot yet, I am too excited by my spot of shiny wonder).  Again, I just want to make that "DING" sound of sparkle whenever I walk by this beautiful spot on my sink (and by spot, I mean just that... this little section you see pictured is all that I could get to at the time I was cleaning; the rest of the sink is still messy and covered in drip-splats!).

Doesn’t her house look clean?

Thank you Jessica for writing this!

I am glad that you LOVE Get Clean products as much as I do.

Please visit her blog and tell her how great her table and sink looks!  She is new to blogging so please stop by and say, “Hi”.

If you love Shaklee and want to be featured please let me know.

(I did not ask Jessica to write this or compensate her in anyway.  She is a satisfied customer!)

If you also want to get clean with safe, natural products that actually work and save you money,

then please visit my online Shaklee site today.

Email me for more ways to save at DonahueWellness@hotmail.com.

Have a great Sunday!

Bonnie :)

Smashing Pumpkins!

The best thing about this chilly autumn weather is the fact that you can really get on with your knitting in public without onlookers thinking that you are a little bit odd!
Since the Knit Collage arrived at Halfpenny Home earlier this year I've been thinking really hard about what to do with it - it's so special that it has to be exactly the right project to really do it justice....I do need a hat but we also have Skye Aran Yarn from Colinette and there's a hat pattern on every skein of that! Kay made this one in Vatican Pie.

I've already made a really long scarf and some mittens which are perfect for wearing when I'm out riding my bike. I found this yarn in QD (YES) QD in Stowmarket! Tipped off by Jane I rushed over there and was knitting it up as soon as I got home...

I'm really pleased with the scarf - I doubled up the yarn and knitted it in moss stitch - it was a really fast knit and it's soooo long with lovely fringing!

With Halloween fast approaching I took part in a Halloween blog swap I sent these spooky treats to Gill, it was great fun!

Any excuse to get on with a bit of bunting making...

Here it is all pressed and packed ready to be posted!

It was a Halloween swap and I had to get in a bit of knitting! I have been planning to make one of these for a while now - neon orange yarn supplied by Miss Pat! Luckily the Sue Ryder shop next door had a teapot the exact size needed - I gave it a good clean before filling it with sweets and wrapping it well!

I think Gill liked it almost as much as I enjoyed making it!
Knitting pattern is on it's way Helen!

We love living in Suffolk and love to support local businesses, we often drop by Alder Carr farm to pick up something nice for lunch - which is exactly what we did yesterday and was greeted by this magnificent sight, isn't it amazing?!

Nic x