A Spring Walk in White

With the children back at school after Easter Holidays the dogs and I have returned to our walks across the fields at the back of the house each morning.  When the Little Foxes are around we tend to head down to the lakes where there are path's suitable for their bikes.

Today's walk was so beautiful I wanted to capture it on film and share it with you.  It was all about the fresh Spring whites and greens of new growth.  The smells and sounds of Spring and the promise of summer sunshine.  So, so beautiful. And with new and exciting changes hovering on the horizon of my and my family's life this year it seemed like a promise of good things to come.

The first elderflowers of the year...

the white flowers on the "dead nettles"...

my May-time favourites, the flowers of the hawthorn bushes...

the white flowers on the broad beans the farmer has planted in the fields...

blossom on the crab apple trees.

And finally in my garden the white lilac is flowering beautifully.  We had been threatening to cut it down as it has had so few flowers on it in previous years, but this year is the best ever:

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Easter Competition - Egg + Soldiers by Ketchup on Everything

Now, don't get me wrong, I love chocolate, but I know that my little foxes will get loads of it for easter from the rest of the family, so, this year I have decided to get them an easter gift, instead of a chocolate egg.  They just don't need any more chocolate.

To be honest, this was the perfect excuse to replace their rather worn table mats with the beautifully illustrated melamine ones from the wonderfully talented Kay Vincent of Ketchup On Everything.  Having come across her designs online we met the ever cheerful Kay at Pulse last year.  

Her animal alphabet designs were the first thing to really catch my eye there and I loved them.  Kay was really friendly and fun and her personality, along with her obvious love of 50's an 60's children's illustrations, comes through in her designs.  She describes the animal alphabet design process on her blog;

"It was a really exciting project as it encouraged me to develop creativity within the restriction imposed by the letters of the alphabet and the requirement that each animal had to be doing something beginning with its letter. I never would have thought of a ‘Valentine Vulture' or a 'Scooting Squirrel' with out this thought process!"

And from these initial designs she now produces; placemats & coasters, tea towels, mugs, greeting cards, screen prints (I bought my daughter a wonderful Unicycling Unicorn) and now personalised name prints too, great for celebrating a new baby or birthday.

We have a super-eggciting competition to win one of Ketchup on Everything's Egg and Soldiers melamine placemats tote and a T-towel.

Just pop a comment at the bottom of this post, tell us what you're up to for easter and in our usual 'old skool' way (no rafflecopter for us) one of the little foxes will pick a name at random next week to receive this wonderful gift in time for easter.

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSE!

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Folksy Photo Shoot

We've been quiet for a while on our blog I know.  There has been rather a lot going on in the lives of the Mrs Foxes.  So much, that it has been quite hard to focus on our Mrs Fox's Handmade shop on Folksy.

So, it was a just the right moment to be asked up to the Folksy HQ in Sheffield to work with the lovely Yeshen Venema to put together new product photos for the shop.

Despite the very early start it really was a fun day.  Great to meet the hard working folks at Folksy, Yeshen was a pleasure, and very patient, the wasabi popcorn a revelation and our fellow crafter Rachel from Bird House Press, who we shared the days shoot with, was sooooo lovely too.  

After a day in Sheffield I felt really rejuvenated once I got home - although my new yoga routine may also have something to do with that.

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