A day out at Portabello Market

I've been doing a few little days out recently and as a friend of mine was over from India I caught the coach up to meet her.

We had decided that we would spend the day at Portabello Road Market so hopped on the tube to get there.  Nice and easy and not too many people until we hit Portabello and then it was packed!!

There are some lovely properties as you walk away from the underground station towards Portabello.

We met this fella along the roadside and he was so colourful that we got photos taken with him!!  This is me with the Mad Hatter!  Very nice happy chappy.

There are some lovely stalls at Portabello Market with some interesting old objects.  I don't think you will get much of a bargain price wise but you will be sure to pick up something unusual there!

These people were also on the pavement!!  It looked very strange as their heads are inside of their coat giving the impression that they are headless.  It looked very real!!

There were lots of lovely food stalls

Look at the different varieties of mushrooms on this stall!  Who knew there were so many!!

We were exhausted from walking so much on an extremely hot day!  My feet felt ready to fall off!  I made my way back to Victoria ready to catch the coach home after a very enjoyable day in London.

A day out at Paignton Zoo Environmental Park

Last week I had a lovely day out in Devon with my friend Lucy.  Lucy lives in Devon so I caught the train down to Paignton to meet her.

We spent the day at Paignton Zoo Environmental Park.  Wow what an awesome place!  It is huge and as well as lots of animals in good natural type enclosures there is alot of greenary - it's full of trees and bushes so wonderful to walk around.

If you are not able to walk, there are mobility scooters to hire very cheaply which is what my friend Lucy did.  The zoo and it's staff are very geared up to help anyone with mobility problems and make sure that their day is enjoyable.

The weather was good to us, it was very hot and sunny!  So armed with our packed lunches we set off!

There are large playparks built for the gorillas and orangutan with lots to keep them amused.  It was abit hot for them the day we went though so they didn't jump around too much.

The orangutans were hidden inside so didn't see too much of them.










Here are some more photos from my day out.

 

I'd really recommend spending a day at this zoo.  The place is well kept up, the animals are in very good condition and the staff are keen to make you feel welcome.  It's not a cheap day out - zoos never are but if you have a few people in your group there are various ticket options available as well as day and family tickets, you can also purchase annual tickets or there is another option to visit again using your day ticket if you pay alittle more.  Looking around the park I could see that the entrance fees were put to good use and that the place is kept up together very well and I think that it is worth paying the entrance fees to see the zoo.  You can certainly spend some pleasant hours here.

Facebook Page Giveaway.

Just popping in quickly to tell you about a small giveaway over on my Bumble Bee's Craft Den Facebook page.

The giveaway is for a string of my mini bunting which is made up of 10 small flags. Each flag is approx 6cm x 4cm and on a natural jute string. I normally sell these for £5 plus P & P. All you need to do is to 'Like' my Facebook page and share the giveaway post on Facebook with your friends - more details over on my Facebook page. 

Sorry this is only open to people in the UK due to stupid postage costs to post anywhere else. The closing date will be the last day of June which is 30th. I will do the draw using Random.org on 1 July and post on Facebook the winners name.

Upcycled Shabby Bunting Frame

I started doing this frame weeks back and today finally finished it!

I had already sanded it down and painted it with a gorgeous shade of chalk effect paint called Damsel Chic - it's a sort of vintage pinky purple but a very subtle shade.  I then got stuck on how I wanted to decorate it!  I have some words cut from mdf so had a look through those and chose one that said 'Home' and painted it in the chalky paint - this shade is called Shadow and is a grey/pale blue.  I lightly distressed the frame but not the 'Home' word and I waxed all of it.

The frame started off like this

I toyed with using a handcrafted flower but wasn't 100% happy with how it looked.  So I put it to one side and every so often got it back out to try to think of something that really appealed to me!  This morning I was cutting some of the mini bunting triangles and realised I had some flags that were just right for this frame so I made some bunting across the top of the frame.

This was a much better look than the flower that I was planning to use!  I am really pleased with how it has turned out!

I love bunting and think it looks great anywhere!

The frame is available to buy over on my Facebook page - Bumble Bee's Craft Den for £6 plus p & p or you can email me bumblebeescraftden@gmail.com

Thanks for popping in!

Shabby Framed Blackboard

A quick one from me today - the sun is shining and it is getting hotter.  Yay!!  I have a boat trip on Sunday for my Aunties 70th Birthday so hoping this weather is going to stay with us!  It should be lovely on the river in the sun!

Here is my latest project.  I have upcycled a lovely, heavy pine framed picture into a framed blackboard.  I used the same green paint that I used on the Poundland frame I did the other week as I love the colour!!  I spent alot of time on this one as it is a large frame.  It needed to be sanded down well to get rid of the varnish and then I used a wood filler to sort out all the digs and gaps.  I painted it several times on the front and back and then waxed it all over as well.  I distressed it lightly to give it a 'shabby' look.  The blackboard has several coats on it too.

This is what the frame looked like when I bought it

Rather tired looking and in need of some work!

This is how it looks now

This is up for sale on my Bumble Bee's Craft Den Facebook page for £10 plus postage.  It is in the 'Shabby Chic and Home Decor' album.  It would look lovely in a kitchen or in the hallway by your telephone to scribble notes on!

Easy Mini Shabby Bunting

Good Morning!

The weather is looking promising today, I'm hoping Summer is here!!  With it will no doubt come BBQ's and tea parties!  So, with that in mind I decided to make use of some of the huge amount of lovely cotton fabric I have been collecting and make up some mini bunting.

I used an X Cut Bunting die to mark the fabric - I say mark as it wouldn't cut right through it!  I mananged to crack my cutting pad as well but I think that was not the dies fault but maybe a fault in the pad as it hasn't lasted very long and was always rather bendy.  The marking was better for me than drawing around a template onto th fabric as you don't get pen marks!  Even when I use those disappearing fabric pens I have trouble getting the ink off of the fabric - very time consuming and annoying!  So I used the die and cut over the imprint with scissors where the die hadn't cut.

Cotton fabric frays and can look tatty quickly if you don't stop the fraying!  I did try to use my sewing machine to go around the edges but because the flags were so small they got caught in the machine and the stitching looked too much on such a small flag!  My advice is to use something like a fray stop on the edges or clear nail varnish - it is time consuming if you have a large pile of flags but quite a relaxing job to do whilst watching tv!

I then used a glue gun (I have a fab new glue gun!!) to stick 10 flags to some natural jute string.  Voila - a string of pretty bunting!

Look how effective it is when you use several strings of it together!!

If you can't be fussed to make some - you can buy some on my Facebook page for £5 plus P & P or if you are not on Facebook, just email me bumblebeescraftden@gmail.com to buy some.

Any questions - just ask!