Ridgeway Cottage anyhow

I often consider my bike to be a work of art, I've pimped my ride, added crochet and fabric but it is nothing compared to the Art Bike Trail which is part of the Marcel Duchamp Festival in Herne Bay this August. We only managed to see a selection of the bikes today but we will be heading back to Herne Bay in the morning for more art and culture. Kent really does have a riot of seaside experiences: other fascinating events on our to do list for the summer holidays include Broadstairs Folk Week ,  What a Vintage Carry On in Margate  , and Ramsgate Summer Squall . Why would you want to spend hours and hours travelling when everything really is on our door step and we can be home in time for tea or have chips on the beach. Anyhow here are the fab art bikes we saw today. Hats off and moustaches on to all the brilliant creators. And once you have had enough of bikes (or your children have) there is still ... an enormous urinal sculpt...

There is always such a big debate about what is down to nature and what is nurture. I believe it has to be a little bit of both. Perhaps it's as simple as loving doing the same things as the people you love like doing because you get to spend time together being happy. My Grandma and Grandpa both collected seeds at the end of one season to sow for the next season. I used help Grandpa take the seeds out of the runner beans to dry in his shed before we had a big bonfire with the dried plants. Now Charlie likes to collect the seeds with me. He's been carrying around some borlotti beans in his pocket all day after he found the pods that I collected from the allotment earlier this week. My Grandpa took the business of growing runner beans very seriously and his beans were dried on his work bench before being stored in paper bags. In our house, it wouldn't be summer without sunflowers or autumn without the house and garden being covered in sunflower seeds that we've collect...

My first giveaway I have learnt so much about blogging in such a short space of time, but what seems strikingly obvious is how important your readers are. One of the other things I noted is, the generosity of the bloggers with their giveaways. Everyone likes to get something for nothing, it is always quite exciting to be a winner and what better way to keep and increase your readership. What's even better is, that I get to make up the rules. So I am very pleased to announce my first giveaway. This is it. It is a glass paperweight that I made today using some scrap material from my quilt, a charity shop treasure and one of my favourite new discoveries - Mod Podge  How I made it Materials * A glass tile (I found this one in the 50p basket in a charity shop yesterday) *Some totally gorgeous fabric - this is Kaffe Fassett Fabric - Milliefiore - Red * Sparkle Mod Podge It was really quite simple after I had found all the materials. I measured and cut the fabric to the sam...