Things that Make me Happy Part Six

6. Home

Although I love living in Italy, I will always consider the Border Land of Scotland as my real home.

"There's a spell in this Land of the Marches
In this Border that gave us our birth,
In this spot where the heaven's wide arch is,
Spread blue o'er the best of the earth!
'Tis the shrine where our hearts keep returning,
Wherever our feet may be led;
All our love on that alter lie burning,
All our song-wreaths around it are spread!"

The Land we Love by W. H. Ogilvie

These photos were taken just after Matteo proposed to me last Easter on a hill top looking down on the farm where I was brought up and which will always be my true home.

A Crafty Family (comes in handy when planning a wedding!)

While I was back in Scotland during the Easter holidays I spent some lovely time crafting with my mum and my little sister. I enjoy nothing more than sitting with them by the fire, drinking cups of tea (or g&t!), each of us busy with some little project or other. My mum always has several projects on the go and recently quite a few of these have been wedding related. She's busy making yards and yards of bunting and she's also making my little flower girl's dress. She even managed to whip me up these pretty hand knitted dish cloths. I don't know where she finds the time! They're far too pretty to use for washing dishes so at the moment they're carefully stored away in my 'bottom drawer' ready for when we have a kitchen to use them in!

My little sister, Loulou is a design student studying constructed textiles at Heriot Watt Uni so she gets to spend her time crafting and calls it work! I love looking through all of her sketch books and seeing all the things that she makes. I've got her working on a couple of things for the wedding too.

The only thing missing from these crafty sessions is my big sister who lives with her family in Perth, Australia. However, she'll be back in Scotland for 6 weeks before the wedding so plenty of time for her to get involved in the wedding craftiness. She makes lovely hand-made gift cards so I have her lined up for making programmes, place cards, menus etc. It's handy having such a crafty family!

Have a happy weekend everyone xx

I'm back

I've had a 2 week break from blogging while I was back in Scotland for the Easter holidays. It was so nice to be home even if the weather was a bit Christmassy rather than Eastery! I spent a week at home sorting out wedding plans and spending time with family. I managed to tick quite a few boxes on my wedding to do list including ordering flowers and the men's kilts. I also had my first dress fitting which was so exciting. I can't wait to wear my beautiful dress. It was such a busy week I didn't get a chance to take many photos and the ones I did take were on my mum's camera and I didn't get round to putting them onto my computer.

When I got back to Italy this lovely package was waiting for me..........

It came here all the way from the South of France. Inside was the lovely little giveaway I won last month.

Thanks again to Sonia from Cozy Homemaking for such a pretty little parcel. It was such a nice feeling opening this gift that was so carefully packaged up and sent off, especially for me by a lady I've never met. I'm inspired to do a giveaway of my own now to pass on the kindness. For now I'm looking for recipes to make some tasty flower shaped treats. Not sure yet what I'll do with the lace - any ideas?

Home Sweet Home

I'm back home in Bonny Scotland on my parents farm for the Easter holidays. I've got a busy week ahead with a huge list of wedding plans to sort out and helping my dad on the farm. The lambing season is about to start so there is so much to do in preparation for the arrival of lots of little lambs. The weather forecast is for more snow this week so it doesn't feel very Spring like here at the moment. This picture of the farm house was taken last Spring. My favourite flowers, daffodils, have yet to make an appearance this year, their lateness due to the unusually cold winter we've had. Hopefully a few will be brave enough to push through in time for Easter.

I have two thank yous to mention before I disappear for the rest of the week. The first is to Amanda of Homely One for awarding me the Sunshine Award. Thank you so much Amanda for supporting my blog and leaving lovely comments.

My second thank you is to Sonia of Cozy Homemaking. I was lucky enough to be the winner of a prize in the generous giveaway she ran last week. I now have this lovely little package of goodies to look forward to recieving in the post.

I'll be back next week with pics of all I've been up to during the holidays.

Happy Easter everyone xx

Home.....

I'll finish off my holiday posts with these two pictures of my parent's house in the snow. No matter where I am this will always be the place I consider home. It is a magical place and this holiday has added to the many many special memories I have of home.

More snowy holiday pics

Happy New Year !

It's been such a hectic time during the festive period and I haven't had a chance to post anything for weeks. However, number one on my New Years Resolution list is to dedicate more time to my blog.

I've just got back from Scotland where I spent a magical 2 weeks on my parents farm. There was a lot of snow while we were there and it's still snowing now. We spent most of our time at home keeping cosy inside or having fun in the snow outside. We went sledging, built snowmen, had snowball fights. It was truly an idylic Christmas holiday. Here are some of the photos.