Our first Charity Ball

Last Monday we held the event we have all been waiting for...our first charity ball.

It was all to raise money for the Purple Teardrop Campaign which raises awareness of the fight against human trafficking.

Our book group has accidentally spent the year reading books which all seemed to carry this theme somewhere within them...so we decided to act on it. We gathered together all our mates and this is what happened.

Our wedding caterers did a fantastic job of creating a three-course canape supper

which included hand printed 'happy christmas' biscuits!



They worked really hard in our kitchen behind the scenes.

The ballroom looked amazing and all because of our Holly and 'You Tube' instructions on creating a balloon arch! What did one do before 'You Tube'?!

This is the girls setting it up. Each balloon cost £10 and there were 67 (out of 100) incredible prizes attached to each balloon to ensure almost everyone was happy! We also had a silent auction in a different room for the bigger prizes.

At the last minute the ferret man cancelled :( He said it was too cold for the ferrets to be outside..it was 11 degrees!!!! Instead we changed the plan to Bug Racing and provided 5 wind-up bugs!

Our friend Angela, who is not a florist, did an amazing job of creating flower arrangements all over the place.

We want to say a big thank you to all those who gave so generously and others who worked so hard to make this event happen. We sold all 150 tickets and raised a total of £4,000!

For very lovely and professional pictures by Pete Cox, please see our Facebook page.

Thank you x

Its Christmas!

We love Christmas here at Pickwell!

It is a really creative area here, so at various times through the year the village hall has a craft fair.

One of our recommended suppliers for weddings Juicy Lucy cup cakes  has extended her repertoire and started making 'cake pops'. What a wonderful wedding cake idea!

A good idea is to bulk buy Christmas cards, put them together in small packs, seal them in clear bags and sell them!

Our friend has recently taken up painting. Despite having 4 kids and being chair of the parent committee at school, she keeps producing these wonderful and colourful canvas creations.

The Sweatpea vintage co are two dynamic grandmothers with an amazing eye for all things vintage. Their blend of creativity and fun and eye for detail makes everything they make feel like a must-buy.

Another good idea is to rescue little chairs from the skip, paint them, make cushions for them and sell them!

Two of our Pickwellians, Zac and Liza made their own driftwood trees and put them up for sale. They sold four! The deal was that they could keep half the money and spend the other half on someone else.

Great idea no.4 buy tiles and some clothes pegs and decorate them beautifully to make unique coasters and pegs for hanging cards/shopping list on fridge/children's artwork..thanks to Pickwell Holly and Shelly for all the fab creative ideas.

We were so inspired by all this creativity that Tracey and I signed up for a soap and candle-making course! Here is the result of our special Pickwell lavender and oats hand-made creation..we are hoping to give each 2012 guest a little soap as a gift. Watch this space!

Our local garden centre (Trelawny) has gone to town on their decorations. Every nook and cranny held a new scene or theme to its wares.

We really enjoyed going round it and our eyes couldn't really take it all in. At various points there were 'photo opportunities' that they had set up.

The Wizard of Oz scene....

can you spot the legs hanging out the bottom of the house?!

I found an old book my Mum gave me about Victorian Christmas decorations, complete with a push-out kit to make your own. The Pickwell girls and I embarked upon it after school. It was great fun.

No Christmas is complete without a nativity.

This year our Millie-Grace was a beautiful angel

and Liza was Mary!

The Christingle service at our local church had us fully feeling the Christmas vibe.

Merry Christmas to you all, with love from Pickwell x

A Shed with a View

There are a lot of shed happenings here at Pickwell at the moment. We are going to be knocking down the 1960's conservatory-type-room at the end of the house. It is a bit of an eye-sore and I must admit that while it exists,

I will never get to have a costume drama filmed here and therefore I will never have a hope of meeting Hugh Grant.

We have, until now used this room as our games room. No longer. (well after January hopefully).

So this left us with the idea to put our games room in a bigger space which is a lovely big shed at the bottom of the Italian Garden, opposite the garages.

This shed has a gorgeous view. It also has roof lights so it is bright and by the time we've finished with it, it will be homely and chic too.

At the same time, we had the idea to add on a bit of a surfboard and wetsuit shack so holiday guests will have somewhere safe and dry to put their boards.

Our laundry room is also going down there, in front of the surf-board shack and will have the advantage of the brilliant view too. Up until now, this shed was the home to our beloved little tractor (and boxes of 'stuff' we hadn't sorted since the move over 3 years ago).

So, now we are faced with needing a new tractor shed..

tra laa! Even our tractor gets a lovely view of the woodland now! Why oh why do we keep developing our storage space?!

This is Martin, part of the Pickwell family, you may have met him before. He rents one of the garages to do his wood crafting and joinery. Martin built an extra rabbit hutch (we have since found out how we managed to get so many babies and can definately confirm we have put a stop to it) and an extra chicken sleeping pad (our 'Gingy' is being picked on so thought we'd give her a break).

Martin made these little areas from old bits of wood that he found lying around. He is embarrassed by what he built, but I love it! Plus the new hutch and Gingy's house get a great perspective all across the back garden.

This is Martin being silly.

So there we have it. The chickens, the tractor, the children playing - everyone at Pickwell gets a shed with a view x

Herman The German

As a belated birthday present our lovely Pickwell Holly gave me a baby 'Herman the German' friendship cake.

Along with this little creamy looking liquid were some strict instructions in how to care for Herman.

It involved ten days of focused stirring, a lot of love while doing so, and a good feed every now and then in order that Herman can be split into babies to give away to loved ones.

We all lived in fear of Holly's last words that as long as the bubbles were there, Herman was still alive.

Given my track record with plants, i was terrified of being responsible for the sudden absence of bubbles and thus the death of poor Herman.

The kids got the concept immediately and it was love and first sight for Zac.

Each day Herman grew and grew in the bowl

Until at last Day 9 arrived and we were able to separate Herman four ways.

Zac chose to give his to his teacher, Liza chose to give hers to her friend Daisy and I gave mine to Tracey.

The baby that was left was ours. We fed Herman a good hearty meal that day, added in some banana and chocolate chunks and cooked him.

It did actually taste great (i don't mean to sound so surprised)and I am sure i felt all that love that Holly had put in as I swallowed and it nestled somewhere around my soul x