The 5th Anniversary is Wood!

A few days ago my wonderful husband and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary, although we have been together much longer. If you follow us you will know that we made the decision when we first married to hand make each other a present based on the traditional gift guide each year.

This year it's wood....yes wood!... definitely a challenge for me. As my husband works with wood he had a slight advantage but I was determined to at least make something slightly presentable.

This is what I came up with, it may be very simple in construction but remember this is the first time I've worked with wood. The board is an old weather worn piece I chose for the beautiful grey colours that came through after sanding.

I fixed natural branches to the board to act as little hooks for his keys or tools and tried my hand at pyrography to get the words 'love hanging with you' along the top.

I am quite pleased with the results and quite enjoyed working with wood, I'm even thinking of some more projects.

My husband made a box frame for me to hold a very romantic piece of branch he found, which contained a heart naturally formed within the wood and added a few words of his own.

Would like to wish my husband a happy anniversary and I look forward to spending many more years together.

Suitcases are like buses.

For a while I have wanted to buy some of the gorgeous, old leather suitcases complete with the faded art deco style travel stickers of places visited on the grand tour in times past. I was just hoping to use them as storage but the price of these in my area was a little too high.

I decided to look for something not quite so old but still vintage to stack on top of the wardrobe or under the bed. I found the large brown suitcase for just £5, it is in very good condition, the lining on the inside is immaculate and comes with a key.

Then a couple of days later some body put the two blue ones on free cycle, they are in lovely condition too and the larger of the blue ones is lined with red silk. Three at once... couldn't believe my luck, the children were just as excited as I was and they have already made plans for what to store in them.

Although not quite as old as I was originally looking for they are just as useful as a storage solution and at a much more reasonable cost.