I haven’t really written on here much about life in lockdown. Up until a couple of weeks ago I would have said I’ve loved it. It’s of course, had its ups and down, job insecurity and worrying about ill-health being some awful downsides, however, its also been an opportunity to spend time together in lockdown. I wanted to take this opportunity to ask you how you are all coping? Plus give you a little insight into what we’ve been up to.
Well work for me has been very slow, so I’ve had to keep myself busy in lots of different ways. I’ve read, watched TV, decluttered and cleaned the house…I think we’ve all done that though, haven’t we? There isn’t a cupboard unturned in our house, or a surface that hasn’t been painted or room tweaked. However, because the refuge tips haven’t been open, the decluttering is definitely something that needs to happen in the coming weeks.
We’ve made changes to the garden adding three raised beds so that we can grow our own vegetables. They’ve been such a success with an abundance of salad, courgette, tomatoes and chard just to name a few of the things we’ve grown. I’ve even had a go at some really unusual lemon cucumbers, which are small ball-shaped fruit and I can wait to taste them. I’ve loved researching things like companion planting. Who knew something so simple could really work. I planted my tomatoes and cucumbers alongside basil and marigolds and its those that are the sacrificial lamb, as it were, to the pests. I’ve also been sowing flower seed to fill up the borders and creating more of a cottage garden feel. With delphiniums, wallflowers, calendula and sweet-smelling roses filling the garden with colour. I’m so pleased with how the garden has developed over these past few months, it feels like its how it should have always been full of colour and tasty things to eat.
Whilst I am still talking about the garden we’ve also painted all of the garden furniture and the summer house, so everything looks so fresh and new. We’ve been so lucky with the weather so it has allowed us to spend more time out there. I’ve never been outside so much in all honesty.
I do love a craft, and try to spend a little spare time doing them when I can. One project has been that each week a member of my family (my inlaws) choose a new theme for the week and then everyone had to share a painting or some other kind of creation on that theme. We’ve had ideas for weekly themes that have been an insect, sunrise, circus, floral and in keeping with lockdown even rainbows. I can’t really paint, or draw that well, but have loved getting involved. Using resources such as Design Bundles who essentially sell templates and downloadable files to help people get creative. When the theme was rainbow, I struggled thinking of something I could do but they have some fantastic embroidery designs for me to take inspiration from.
Rainbow
Here is my rainbow. A little off-piste in terms of colours, but it was a real pleasure to make in the evening and super easy to follow the pattern. There is something so relaxing about embroidery and I’ve enjoyed it immensely, though I have just had new glasses and I hadn’t realised quite how much my eyesight had changed, and it’s much easier now for me to both thread the needle and read the embroidery design!
Tree and Ocean
Other themes (in fact this was one that I chose) were floral or flowers. I think you can probably tell by now I am a lover of flowers. You may have seen that I have a Cricut, and this is something I use a lot for my craft projects. They recently released a new craft material to be used, and I’d been wanting to try out the Cricut infusible ink for so long so took the opportunity to this lockdown creative project to do so. I made myself a reusable bag with a floral theme. I’ve been using it lots on the school run (my youngest is year 6) and because of the special measure they have in place currently she cant bring a school bag, so hence I’m the one carrying it all home.
I’ve also made a set of coasters, made using an infusible ink pen which I used to draw a design. This was so easy to do, and I think quite effective too.
So how about you, how have you been spending your lockdown?
Leave a Reply