Mr P’s grandad grew copious amounts of vegetables and sold them from his grocer’s van in Yorkshire. Often when his customers approached the van they’d call ‘Shop!’ This happened in Kate Atkinson’s novel ‘Behind the Scenes at the Museum’ too. This time it was a pet shop in York. Do you live in another county or country and have come across this? Are the customers addressing the shop itself or calling for assistance? Whatever the answers I like the idea of calling shop. Mr P and I do so when we’re playing shop with little P. We buy odd socks and wooden fruit from her, mostly.

I found another little vintage heart locket recently and have been making more tiny silver flowers. This is the result.

It’s now in my shop which will be remodelled and restocked over the coming few weeks. LOCKET NOW SOLD.

To say thankyou for all your lovely lovely comments there’ll be a 15% discount off anything in my shop until 15th December (enter code blog3 at checkout). Silver fingerprint cufflink kits are now listed and more kits are coming soon (UK only though). I am currently working on the ‘build your own’ charm jewellery pages too. If you hop over for a browse do call out ’shop’ won’t you? Turn a blind eye to the scaffolding though.

Yesterday was a special one in our village.  One thing has been missing from our little patch - daffodils and other spring flowery loveliness. So we decided to put that right after someone suggested we needed a splash of colour.

We wellied up, woollied up, broke out the wheelbarrows and grabbed the trowels. I also grabbed an old icecream scoop just in case we were short of trowels.

One member of the village had done some very important sums indeed.

Then we got to work.

All of us.

We needed a break of course and ate cake and supped well-earned tea from our village hall’s utilityware.

I was in charge of planting up one of our favourite spots. With the aid of sticks, string, trowels and the icecream scoop, Mr conker tree now has 800 crocus bulbs planted underneath in a circular strip with four paths to the centre.

That’s me standing up on the right.

This is what we hope for in February and March.

We all felt that getting together to make our little spot prettier for next spring felt fantastic. We didn’t have to go far to have a great day.

Our Energy Denbyware plates and bowls are modern, cream-coloured, muted, plain and very hard-wearing.

They have done an excellent job for eight years, but I’ve been building another set of plates recently. It’s blue and green, it’s vintage and second hand and it doesn’t match AT ALL. That’s what I really like about it. I think it’s the hotch-potchy, patchworky magpie bit of my brain in action again.

I have a very, very well worn piece Asiatic pheasant, some pretty turqouise ivy, some rather chipped and  well-loved enamelware,

and this one. The pretty moulding and the Bristol blue sprigs both make me feel happy. I think an Empire line muslin dress in this kind of pattern would make an excellent outfit for a Miss Bennett.

The quirky stamps and marks on the reverse of them are just as pretty and I love the thought of where they have been and what meals they have seen.

Do you know one of the best things about my funny little set though? The total cost was £4.80. Imagine the smiley bargain afterglow!

My little old plates are definitely an antidote to the winter grumps (as was today’s sunshine which kindly allowed me to photograph them).

What a humbug-ish post my last one was! What a grumpy wintry sausage I am! Our open fire and snuggly quilts are convincing me that there ARE some up sides to the colder weather after all.

On to something lovely. I was just browsing through our camera archive and came across this little film. There is a tiny slope on our village green. Children like to roly poly down it. Miss P was doing just that in early August:

Happy, sunny and smiley.

I am rebelling against winter.

I know, I know there’s open fires (and we do have one), stews and pies, preserves, cosy woollens, the odd Whisky Mac and the ‘C’ word, but I’ve got the hump. I think it’s because last winter was a grim one for us, spent waiting for daily news from St Vincent’s Hospital about my sister’s brain injury. She is very well now - you can see a comment from her on this post. What a moment. Thanks Luce, see you in a few weeks.

Despite the lovely (and if her consultants were to be believed, completely unexpected) news about my sister, I still have a big urge to fast forward to Spring. Ah, Springy Spring.

Imagine how heartened I felt when I saw these:

Look! Next spring’s baby catkins are all ready and waiting. Take THAT Mr winter. Pah!

This spring I didn’t manage to make elderflower cordial. AGAIN. I believe this label reads ‘Sweet Nothing, 2009′.

Still I have managed to make an elderflower pendant, just as winter is beginning. Elderflowers are not wintry at all. So there!

Do you think if I shook my fist hard enough at the sky the season wouldn’t change? No? I think you might be right, plus my neighbours would think I was barking, so perhaps I will just grumble quietly instead. When the weather is cold, grey and rubbish I’m going to look back at these pictures and cheer myself up.

Right, I’m off to eat some roast potatoes - if I choose to hibernate this winter (which I might) I shall need some blubber to keep me warm.

Mrs Scrooge x

By the way, if you want to find out more or talk to someone about brain injury contact Headway - they are an absolutely outstanding organisation and helped us no end.

I have not been the blogger I’d like to be of late. When I started the Silverpebble blog I had one child, a bump and a tiny jewellery business. Having met them when I ran a couple of arts fairs, I started to visit Gina’s and Celia’s blogs out of curiosity, and thought ‘I could do that - I would like to do that’. There was space for it.

I now have two tots and the business is growing a little. This is wonderful news. When illness strikes and unexpected (but very welcome) flurries of business come in, this little place is neglected and visits to your blogs for little stories, thoughts, poems, beautiful pictures and gorgeous makes are put aside. Sometimes I do not have time to answer all your smile-giving comments, but believe me they’re very thankfully received and I relish the friendliness and encouragement - it’s wonderful, thankyou.

When I do not answer I’m probably at the dining room table beavering away with silver and pliers for a customer, or administering calpol.  I am a fitful, patchy blogger - but I think as the little ones grow there will be a little more time and space for the consistency I’d like. Meanwhile my weeks as an involved blogger are happy ones - it’s certainly more of an enriching and surprising experience than I ever thought it would be - what a lovely place.

Oof, I’ve wanted to write that for a while…

I’ve wanted to post these pictures for a while too. The beautiful quilts and crochet blankets many of you make are covetable - many an evening I snuggle under a quilt that a friend made for me, browse through your blogs and imagine the neatly folded, colourful and very precious tower of quilts and blankets that I would build with them. I also have an imaginary ‘Princess and the pea’ moment with me snuggled under a giant pile of cosiness. Lovely.

Our bathroom splashback is the closest I’ve come to a spot of patchwork. Each of the tiles were once in a Victorian fireplace. They found their way to this little shop, where, eight months pregnant with Miss P1, I sat on the floor in a quiet corner, spread the tiles out and did some gleeful choosing. This is the kind of loveliness I was choosing from.  I think the shopkeeper thought I was a bit dotty. There were so many tiles in this beautiful teal colour. The Victorians must have liked teal- I imagine it being all the rage back then. I thank them for that because I love it.

This tile has the most touchable texture - it is stroked lovingly on a regular basis,

…but this is my favourite design - hated by gardeners but loved by children …

…dandelions.

I’m rather excited as I’m posting my first tutorial for making beaded garland jewellery - you know, the delicate, jingly, pretty jewellery where beads hang from a chain. It’s like tiny, slightly tinkly, beady bunting. Oh!

There’ll be two of these tutorials - one to show you how to attach a bead to a chain and the other to show you how to attach a clasp to the chain. These two tutorials are ALL YOU NEED to make garland jewellery. How very exciting!

You’ll need:

Three tools:

Wire cutters -far right in the picture

Round-nosed pliers, (the ends have a circular cross-section) - middle in the picture,

Snipe-nosed pliers (pointy ends) - far left of the picture

These should cost no more than £5 each but there are often wire cutters and snipe-nosed pliers in toolboxes - it’s worth a rummage before you hit the shops.

Headpins* - pieces of wire, 2-5 cm long with a tiny disc or ball at the end to prevent beads falling off. These are at the bottom of the picture

Chain* (the links need to be at least 2mm wide to fit the headpins and wires through). You can buy chain by the metre or you can use ready-made chains with clasps - you may even have one or two knocking around in your jewellery box.

0.5mm or 0.6mm wire*

Clasps* Lobster or carabiner clasps, ring and bar (toggle) clasps - it’s up to you

Pretty pretty beads. You may already have a stash or some broken jewellery you can remodel - thrifty!

Right, are you ready? Stop knitting at the back of the class and put down Country Living (hmm, am I sounding a little bossy?).

Here we go:

Step 1 Thread your bead onto the headpin. I’m using a delicious little Venetian-style glass millefiori (thousand flowers) bead given to me by Gina. Grasp the headpin around 3mm above the top of the bead with your round-nosed pliers and push the bead to around ‘7 o’clock’ with your thumb.

Step 1

Step 2 Push the top of the headpin round the right-hand ‘nose’ of the pliers with your index finger, catch it with your thumb and push it round, in front of the bead, to ‘8 o’clock’. This makes a neat loop at the top of your bead.

Step 2

Step 3 Release the bead+headpin from the pliers and thread into a link in your chain. Keep the chain draped behind the bead, over your hand. Grasp the loop tightly with the tips of the snipe-nosed (pointy-ended) pliers and push the headpin around the short vertical length of headpin that remains above the bead.

Using your index finger and thumb push it around the vertical once or twice to form a neat little spiral that sits on top of the bead.

Step 3

The spiralling takes a little practice but the more beads you attach, the more you’ll get used to the tension in the headpin and the pressure needed from finger and thumb in order to make the spiral. This teeny spiral locks the bead safely onto the chain but still allows it to move in a pleasing, jingly way when it sits on your neck or wrist.

Step 4 Use your wire cutters to snip off any excess at the end of the headpin with your wire cutters.

Step 4

Step 5 Squeeze the cut end with the snipe-nosed (pointy-ended) pliers to ensure there are no spiky, scratchy bits.

Step 5

Ta dah!

You have the first little ‘flag’ on your beady bunting.  Keep repeating the process on the same chain with beads of your choice to make something really very lovely indeed.

Oooh!

All you need is ONE of these on an ear wire and you have a jingly jangly spingly spangly earring! I do not believe that spingly is a real word but who cares.

The next thing to look out for is my second tutorial - a figure of eight wire attachment for clasps and to make your own clasp loops. Next thing you know you’ll have a stash of pirate treasure (and a bunch of pretty Christmas presents).

Splice the mainbrace and spachcock me seagull! Arrrrggghh!

Now if you make some lovely things I would very much like to have a look at them with my one good eye!**

Gina’s already made some lovelies with a kit I sent her! Go and have a peep.

Also, if you’d like to make some of these silvery garland-y beady jewels and need some of these materials then email me direct and I’ll send you my suppliers list.

I just thought, if you like I might post a tutorial for making a jewelled ring like Gina’s. Now there’s an idea.

Have fun…

* Wire, chain and headpins can be either sterling or silver-plated. The latter is a little more of a bargain.

** I’m only pretending in a pirate stylee - my eye is fine really.

EDITED TO ADD: If you’re looking for materials Spoilt Rotten Beads is an excellent place to start.

The last few weeks have been very hectic. With relief I noticed that in recent days there was more space for thought and with that came new designs. There were several influences at work:

William Morris and William de Morgan tubelined tiles,

Silver and enamel tubelined waterlily necklace

a spot of Gertrude Gekyll,

Silver fuchsia necklace

Tiny silver garden necklace

…and the swagger of John Wayne.

In the last week the littlest P has learnt to walk.

Get off your trike and drink your milk.