We broke the world record!*

The run up to Sunday's 'A Flutter of Fairies' event has been a fun and exhausting one. We asked the good people of Ipswich to come along dressed as fairies - wand, wings and tutu - to attempt to break the world record for the largest gathering on fairies in one place. And they did us proud!

The current record stands at 786 participants for an event organised by Anna's Hope (UK) at Burghley Park, in Stamford in 2012. We coralled over 800 fairies into an area outside our Town Hall. I have to admit to shedding a few tears of joy (and exhaustion) when I heard that we'd done it!*

A few G&Ts later, I made my way home, weary but wired. Back at the end of March, when planning commenced, none of us realised just how much it would take to put it all together - but it was worth it!

I reluctantly hung up my tutu at around 9pm, at the insistance of Mr Joy - as beautiful as it is it would be scratchy to sleep next too. Any excuse to wear it again and I'm there!

See some local news coverage here.

*pending official verification

I'm so easily distracted. This is how I come to have several projects on the go. I always have several on the go and this fact does not stop me starting a new project. It's pretty stupid. That said, I've been really focused on decorating my spare room - when work allows.

However, it's slow going. I think the previous owners painted the walls with the paintbrush between their toes and applied Polyfilla with a potato masher, aided only by their small boy adding bogies in to the mix. So to say I've been busy sanding, re filling and sanding some more is an understatement.  I'm sure my arms would hurt if I could feel them.

If I skipped over this bit, the boring bit, I know that it would bug me and this is a room that I will be spending a lot of time in so, I'm just gonna have to suck it up and get on with it. As soon as sensation returns to my upper limbs...

In the meantime, I can share with you some of the items on my office wishlist...


Sadly this leather armchair from Not on the High Street, is a teensy bit out of my price range at the moment but I love the idea of having an armchair in the corner, to cosy up into, with a cuppa and a notebook.


I want a mixture of colour, pattern and shape in my office, I think that this origami lamp shade would fit in perfectly. I also saw a rather lovely pendant light for my hallway (also currently in progress) but one thing at a time...



I love these patterned Plumo clip boards and can see them hanging from on my wall but I could buy some plain ones and cover them myself... although that has the potential to become another project that I never get round to!


I'm also hoping for this ikea rug for my birthday, I'd been eyeing it up for ages and then I saw it 'in use' on Elizabeth's blog and knew it would be perfect, my birthday is a little way off yet but with the amount of time this is taking it might just work out to be perfectly timed!

Wish me luck!

So far the great wardrobe sort out hasn't gone very well. I take everything out, and then put it back again, I've done this three times now. Progress is slow.

I had a good look through the mend pile and discarded most of it, I figured if I haven't felt the need to mend it since moving nearly two years ago, it wasn't ever going to happen.

The shoe realisation helped create some space but I still need more room, especially as I also have suitcase full of summer clothes under my bed. I suppose I can thank the British summer for saving me the task of finding a home for all that. Yet. (I live in hope).

I'm also finding that I wear fewer and fewer of my clothes these days. Working from home often finds me pulling on jeans and a top, knowing that I'm not going to be going out or seeing anyone (man, that sounds creepy). It's not that I don't care what I look like but more that I don't want to waste a great outfit on a nondescript day. Am I the only one...?

Anyway, I'm wondering if it's cheating to just buy a second wardrobe and keep all my dresses in my new office instead? Divide and conquer. Mr Joy has promised me wardrobe doors, and when they're fitted I'm going to need to be able to close them.

When we moved into our home nearly two years ago, every single room needed to be redecorated - the enormity of the task we had ahead was a touch overwhelming! Since then we've decorated most rooms and are now putting some finishing touches into place, but we still have a lot to do.

I thought that choosing curtains for our lounge and dining room was going to be a nightmare. Having discovered that Mr Joy didn't like curtains (or carpets, or kitchen bins for that matter), I was mentally ready for a battle of the soft furnishing kind.

I wanted to go to Dunelm, I shop there A LOT, but it took me months - MONTHS!! - to persuade Mr Joy to come with me to choose curtains. In the end it was the Christmas sale with an extra 20% off that finally got him there.

Not only did we select curtains that we both liked within a reasonable amount of time, we also got curtain poles. Again Mr Joy was 'not a fan' but when he saw that they were over half the price of some he purchased earlier in the year, he suddenly started to like the place.

So-much-so that a few days later we returned, at his suggestion *faints*, to buy curtains for our bedroom (we came home with matching bedding too). So, after 18 months of no window dressing what-so-ever we had curtains for seven windows within the space of a few sleeps!

I mentioned in a previous post that I wanted to turn my spare room into an office. Luckily, I've been given free reign so I can avoid the usual 'do you like this one, more than you like that one' type conversations and just get on with it!

This is the only room upstairs that we haven't touched, we've simply filled it with stuff and closed the door. I'm currently sorting through it and new finding homes for everything, it may take a while but I do have a plan(ish).



I have the enviable task of covering the blue paint - who paints a room THAT colour? I'm going for neutral walls and a black floor. But it's what comes after that I love - arranging the furniture and accessorising the room. I'll be re-using the shelves and will use a table, that used to be in the kitchen and a chair from my bedroom that is rarely used. If you're a long time reader of my blog you may remember it? And in stark contrast to every other room we've done, I already have a curtain pole and voile curtain panels for the windows.



I'm so excited to have finally made a start and can't wait to get it finished (and go shopping for all the little knick knacky bits) and all my notebooks will finally have a proper home. No more working on the dining room table, no more eating supper on our laps!

Any idea where I can get a big cork pinboard? (And I mean really big - huge).

The Great British Sewing Bee seems like ages ago now, but at the time I was hooked - I cried! I cried at a program about sewing!! Please tell me I'm not the only one?

In addition to giving me a hankering to get on my sewing machine it also inspired me to learn to crochet and dig out my knitting sticks too.

I fell in love with Ann's crochet scarf and did some serious iPlayer stalking to capture every possible image that I could. It looks a tad intricate for a complete crochet beginner but I think I can fashion something along these lines, given enough time and some pretty wool.


My first attempt at crochet was helped greatly by this introduction tutorial, swiftly followed by this one. I'm quite pleased with how they turned out.

In the first episode I thought that Lauren's scarf was rather lovely too and much easier to make. I failed to get any screenshots, a Google search gave me nothing - not a picture I wanted anyway, I did happen across Lauren's online shop and blog and Tilly's blog too, so it wasn't an entirely wasted exercise. Anyway, it was a long and thin scarf, light brown with orange tassels along the length... remember it? Maybe you will when I've made it.