Two day week

My husband and I decided that a little time at home was in order so we have taken the rest of the week off work and are going to spend the time working on our home. It's back to sanding floorboards tomorrow morning for me but for the time being I am feeling the same excitement I felt before half terms at school. The knowledge that I have five whole days sans work is delicious and I intend to make the most of it.

Along with the the hall floor I am hoping I might be able to start one of the many projects I have waiting:

We won this hall seat/table from eBay at the weekend and I have big plans for it! I love it's eccentricity and with some sanding, painting and re-upholstering it should look fab in the hall once it is finished. Without planning it I seem to be developing an English Eccentrics theme for the hall what with the antler coat hooks and the union jack doormat (see previous posts).

I can't wait to get cracking!

A new train of thought for the kitchen

Once the hallway is done the next job on the list is to give our rather tired looking kitchen a bit of a facelift. We are planning to attempt this on the tightest of tight budgets. The one thing I do want to invest in, however, is a decent worktop. After looking online and in all the usual suspect DIY stores nothing has really caught my imagination until I found some beautiful reclaimed worktops at Trainspotters seen here in a particularly fabulous kitchen:



I do hope we can find some wide enough for our island unit. If so I am completely sold!

And so to bed

After all that we had no room for our cheese or chocolates so they were deffered to another day. The whole day reminded me of the poem that Mr Crafty's sister read at our wedding:

You Made Crusty Bread Rolls
by Gary Jonson

You made crusty bread rolls filled with chunks of brie
And minced garlic and drizzled with olive oil
And baked them until the brie was bubbly
And we ate them thoughtfully, our legs coiled
Together under the table And then salmon with dill
And lemon and whole-wheat cous cous
Baked with garlic and fresh ginger, and a hill
Of green beans and carrots roasted with honey and tofu.
it was beautiful, the candles and linens and silver,
The winter sun setting on our snowy street,
Me with my hand on your leg, you, my lover,
In your jeans and green T-shirt and beautiful feet.
How simple life is. We buy a fish. We are fed.
We sit close to each other, we talk and then we go to bed.

And so we wended our way to bed, full of food and romance, to lay our happy heads on our Lush Designs Love pillows:

A Veritable Valentines Feast

We arrived home with our Borough booty and prepared the feast to end all feasts.

We started with six native oysters. My brother's partner is French and her parents bought us an oyster set for our wedding that we have been meaning to Christen ever since. I have to confess to being slightly nervous of doing the shucking so Mr Crafty stepped nobly into the breach:



Served with lemon wedges, shallot vingegar and Tabasco they were truly delicious:



We then went on to Fois Gras (I know - it's not PC and I did feel a pang of guilt whilst buying - I have no excuse but all I can say is that it is a very rare treat for us) with Sourdough Bread from De Gustibus and a fanstastic Monbazillac sourced from Edward Parker Wines via a wine buff friend at work:



The main course was leg of lamb from Northfield Farm with dauphinoise potatoes and green beans:



We just about made room for the oh so pretty strawberry tarts from Konditor and Cook:



But by this point we were seriously running out of steam...

I Heart Borough

To say that my husband and I are fond of food is an understatement much to the detriment of our waistlines. This year was definitely a foodie Valentines day. The romance began on Friday night when I arrived home to a beautiful bunch of red roses. On Saturday morning we headed for the fabulous Borough Market along with half of London! It was packed but we braved the crowds in order to seek out some tasty morsels for our evening meal.

Turnips turns vegatables into a work of art:









The heart stopping array of chocolates at Dark Sugars:



Rows of cheeses at Neals Yard Dairy:



A happy Mr & Mrs:



To be continued...

Sunday Sanding

This was a significant Sunday as I said goodbye to my beautiful Jenny Packham wedding dress:



My natural instincts are to hoard everything but it just seemed a crime to squirrel such a beautiful dress under my bed. So I sold it to a very like minded bride to be who looked absolutely stunning in it. I hope it will make her as happy as it made me and I am delighted that it is going to have a life after my wedding

After that it was back to tackling our hall:




I have made inroads with the sanding but am going to wait for a day when our downstairs neighbours are out and about to tackle it properly because it aint quiet! Nonetheless I am pleased that the boards look like they are going to come up a treat and with a coat of white floor paint our hall should finally be the welcoming space we want it to be.

In praise of my Grandfather

My grandfather, Jack Price, was an amazing pottery designer, working in Staffordshire and Bristol in the 1930s. He designed for Pountney's and created their fantastic Dorland shape. He was a very active socialist and believed strongly in good design being accessible to all. This belief prompted him to design his now very collectible range of kitchenware:



I am lucky enough to have a few of his pieces but I really want a row of his storage jars in my kitchen once we get round to finishing it! I am so proud that his work is still desirable to all those kitchenalia addicts.

In love with Cole & Son

In other news I have have a serious wallpaper fetish and, although I certainly won't be the first to show my appreciation for them, I am hoping that these two gorgeous Cole & Son designs will be gracing our walls soon:

More cakes!

Ok - so I realise this is my umpteenth blog post in one day but, hey, I'm lagging behind so many others I reckon I have some catching up to do!

I thought I would just stick a few more of my cake creations up...

I discovered a real love of making sugar flowers whilst making this one for a very pretty wedding in Windsor:



This one was mine and Mr Crafty's lovebird engagement cake:







Layers of sponge on a sunny May morning:

Desperately Seeking Gocco

I only discovered that such a thing as Riso's Print Gocco existed a couple of days ago and now I can think of almost nothing else. Why, oh, why did I not know about this holy grail of craft items before it was discontinued?!

I am now desperate to get my hands on one and am full of ideas for the lovely cards and prints I could create with one in my posession. I am watching one on eBay but it is slipping through my fingers as we speak thanks to my limited budget.

I may just have to pin my hopes on someone selling their Gocco round about my birthday. Sigh!

Icing on the Cake

I have a number of passions - interior design being just one. Another is cake decorating which I discovered five years ago when it occurred to me that it could be a perfect blending of two great loves; food and design.

Once course at Hackney Community College and a lot of trial and error later I now produce wedding and birthday cakes for friends, friends of friends and family.

Here are a few of my faves:







And this one I made for my wedding last July which was a bunting-tastic affair:

Our little hall - time for a facelift

Where to begin? My husband and I moved into our two bedroom flat in South East London coming up to three years ago and are still in the process of trying to turn our dreams of a stylish and welcoming London pad into a reality. We have already invested a great deal of time in getting it to where it is now - which is basically white instead of the original jade green and yellow - but still have a long way to go.

I have a long list of projects but number one is our teeny downstairs entrance hall. As it is the first place our friends see when they come round and the first place we see after a long day at work I want it to be welcoming and hint at the wonders that lie upstairs (I am thinking forward to the day when there are wonders upstairs instead of rather a lot of mess you understand).

So we have taken up the mucky carpet to reveal decent-ish floorboards which are soon to be sanded with out new Black and Decker orbital sander (love power tools!) and painted polar white.

From there on in it is going to be fun, fun, fun and my plans involve one of these sets of coat hooks from Graham and Green given to me after much hinting by my lovely hubby for xmas:



And one of these given to me by lovely hubby's lovely sister for xmas from The Contemporary Home (also after much hinting):



I also want to attempt something like this as seen on Ikea Hacker but I plan to spray the Ikea legs with white gloss paint:



I will keep you posted as to my progress!!

New Beginnings

We open on a young married couple watching QI from the comfort of their sofa whilst the snow thaws outside.

Her: "I should start a blog"
Him: "You should"
Her: "Ok I will"

And so Meg Gets Crafty is born!

I hope this will be a space for me to record my quest to re-discover my arty side, my love of cooking and cake decorating, the ongoing facelift of our flat in South East London and a place for all things pretty, crafty and designy that I find on my cybertravels!