Tra la la...

Oh hi there!  Who me?  I've been here all along, didn't you notice?  I'm not one of those crap bloggers, who pops in every 6 months and promises to blog more often, oh no, not me! 

Ok that's enough...I'm giving up mentioning how long it's been since I was here last, apparently the more I talk about it the less I blog...it's been a whirlwind few months, so much has happened that I should have shared here but somehow I just wasn't in a blogging place.  Never mind, here's a quick catch up...

We got married (I drank a LOT of prosecco!)

 
I got a studio (here it is in the middle of a tidy-up!)

We went to Barcelona...it was brilliant!

I continued to be obsessed with vintage fabric (well that wasn't going to change was it?)

There, that's all the important stuff...to be honest although I haven't been here I feel like I keep in touch with a lot of you via Instagram and my Facebook page, but I do miss being here too.  At the risk of jinxing myself, I'm going to say I'll be back soon...I'm planning some big changes and an exciting announcement, so I really will see you again soon, I promise! 

Rachel xx

have I left it too long?...

Hello (waves tentatively)...I'm still here!  I really don't know why I have fallen out of love with blogging...it's not you, it's me...it's complicated.

I'm putting this picture in to avoid that dreaded beast, the text-only post. It has nothing to do with what I'm saying, but I made it, and it is pretty, so I thought you might like it.

I have been lurking, catching up with some of your blogs, but mainly just getting on with life, which has been the usual mix of delightful and dull, fun and frustrating, creative and crap...though always, on balance, far more of the good than the bad, thankfully.  There has been plenty going on that has been worth sharing, but I just haven't felt like sharing it...here are a few of the reasons why.

1. I am really not that interesting.  I know, I'm still the same person I was last year, when I was blogging  away like a very bloggy thing.  But I am somehow finding myself far less fascinating than I used to (this is probably a good thing).  I think it partially stems from coming across a few amazing and inspiring blogs, which are being written by people going through immensely challenging times.  Blogs like this one.  Somehow, wittering on about vintage fabric just doesn't seem that important after reading about stuff like that.  That's not to say I don't still enjoy reading your blogs about all those lovely vintagey, interiory, lifestyley, scandi-y things, I do.  This sense of mild pointlessness is directed squarely at myself, possibly because...

2.   I feel like a fraud.  I am starting to wish I had called my blog something different.  Like, um, my tiny messy home.  Or my teetering pile of crap.  Or my disorganised life.  Don't get me wrong, my house is full of lovely, colourful vintage things.  That bit is true. But it is even more full of the daily detritus of 4 messy people living in a tiny house.  I am not a tidy person; I do not like housework.  Although I love looking at gorgeously spare, airy interiors, I know that after a couple of weeks of me living in them, they would look a lot like my home does now.  MESSY.  I can aspire to minimalism, but I know I am incapable of achieving it.  This results in my life feeling quite un-blogworthy sometimes!

3.  I am a rubbish blogger.  Not just in terms of posting regularly, and writing interesting posts, but in terms of joining in all the lovely bloggy things that make blogland such a great place.  You know, linkys, awards, sharing the blog love, all of that.  It's not that I don't want to join in, it's that I am either too lazy, or too disorganised, or too shy to join in, so I don't.  And then I feel a bit crap about that.

Here's another picture to reward you for reading this far...it's not even a very good one...I told you I'm not much good at this!

4.  Most importantly, I was getting the balance wrong.  Too much time at the PC, not enough time living in the moment with my  gorgeous kids.  My youngest will be going to pre-school in September, and I did not want to waste my last few months at home with him sticking CBeebies on and farting about on Pinterest, or Blogger, or bloody Facebook.  I love all those sites dearly, and my Rainbow Vintage Home facebook page has been keeping me busy with fabric sales and likers and making lovely new online friends.  But I needed to take a step back. 

So we have been playing, and singing, and camping, and cooking, and making, and I've been buying fabric, and selling fabric, and making stuff with fabric (like the quilt at the top of this post).  But I have been very crap about keeping in touch with you lovely readers, and that has made me feel sad.  Because I genuinely like you, and have really enjoyed meeting you, and sharing with you, and I'd like to carry on doing that. I'm hoping that now I've got all this mildly discombobulating stuff off my chest, I will find it easier to just pop in here a bit more regularly, and share stuff with you without it feeling like a big deal, you know...'Oh now I need to write a blog post about that, what shall I say, oh it's too late now'...

If anyone has stuck with me all the way down to here, thank you, and here's another nice picture for you... 

As you can see, I'm as crap at ironing as I am at blogging!

I really hope you're having a lovely summer, and enjoying this amazing weather that we've been having.  I am going to go now.  But I'll be back soon.  

Rachel xx

January so far...

Hello, how are you doing?!  I've been living in the land of germs...both boys have been ill and our return to normality was delayed, as M wasn't well enough to go back to school.  There's so much I've been wanting to do, both here on the blog and in 'real life' - but all has had to be put on hold in favour of nose wiping, cuddling and dvd watching.  But today the sun was out, the coughing fits were less frequent and I'm emerging into 2013 feeling hopeful that things can only get better!

While browsing Pinterest - about all I've had the time and energy for - I came across this beautiful print by one of my favourite contemporary printmakers, Angie Lewin...

just beautiful.  I love the combination of grey and yellow...it feels like winter sunshine.

Also I'd just like to say hello to all my new followers - it's really lovely to have you here, and I'll do my best to get over to all your blogs to say a proper hello when everything's back to normal here.

Happy 2013 - fingers crossed for more sunshine and less germs! 

Rachel x

can it be Thursday already...?

well actually it's nearly Friday - where has the week gone?!  I have decided to invent a new Blogging Award...I have called it the Crap Blogger Award and I will only ever be awarding it to myself!  There are at least a million things I should have shared this week...well maybe that's a tiny exaggeration...but I do feel like there either aren't enough hours in each day, or I need an extra me to do all the boring jobs so I can do all the fun stuff like blogging! 

Thank you so much for all your lovely comments about the bits I made for the Craft Fair - it went very well, I sold quite a bit and had a fun day. 

The light was terrible and there was a very busy background behind my stall so I didn't bother taking too many pictures, but here is a little glimpse of my buttons and mirrors, displayed on my favourite vintage plates of course...

One of the nicest things about the fair was that it was at the local secondary school, where M will be going in a few years...it used to have a pretty bad reputation but now it seems like a really great school.  It was the first time they'd held a Christmas fair and lots of pupils and teachers got involved, and I met the Head and she was lovely.  It seems strange to be thinking about it now, but I'm learning that the years zip by so fast and before I know it he'll be off to big school all by himself...*gulp*!

In the meantime his lovely primary school is holding their very well established Christmas Craft Fair next weekend and I'll be there selling more lovely fabric goodies.  I sold a lot on my stall there last year, including big things like lampshades and cushion covers, so I need to get some serious making done over the next week! 

Hope you're having a lovely week, although I haven't been posting I have been trying to keep up with a lot of lovely blogs - apologies if I haven't popped by recently, I may have lurked and not found time to comment!  And sorry for the word-heavy/photo-light post, thanks for sticking with me if you've got this far.... :)

Rachel xx

100th post!

Happy Friday!! Usually today would be my one guaranteed, quick and easy post of the week - but this is my 100th post - and though not a big deal to anyone else, it feels significant to me, and like a 'this moment' picture wouldn't be quite the thing.  Here's the picture I would have posted today...well, I still am!

But what to write about?  Well, blogging about blogging sometimes makes me feel like my brain is eating itself, but over the last week or so something interesting has happened in the world of blogging, which you may already know about.  The lovely Pip Lincolne, of gorgeous uber-blog Meet me at Mikes, has started an online Blog School, and I have joined.  It is free, and is aimed at people who want to start blogs, or who have them already and want to learn how to make the most of them.  It is a nice way to come across and connect with new (or new to you) bloggers, and has a really active Facebook group where we are sharing questions, giving each other useful feedback and posting links to interesting and relevant articles.

In the past I have not generally been very disciplined when on courses.  Like a lot of things in life, I start with a quick burst of enthusiasm, then find myself falling behind when I get (all too easily) distracted by other things...well, the same is true now, but it feels ok to just read along with the lessons, comment on the FB group, and pop over to other people's blogs to have a mosey around.  It also helps that I've already started my blog, and made decisions like Blogger or Wordpress, what name to choose etc...not that I don't sometimes doubt these choices, and wonder if I'll make big changes in the future, but for now I'm pretty happy with this little space I've created. 

If you fancy joining us, please do...just follow the links above.  It'd be lovely to see you there!


Hope you have a great weekend,

Rachel x

discombobulated....

Hello, I'm back...I've had a funny peculiar couple of weeks, with a case of evil flu which forced me to cancel everything, including R's birthday party, and retreat to bed for a few days...I still feel a bit wiped out.  

Everything else is going well, but having such a big break from blogging has made me feel a bit weird...like there's too much to catch up on, so I don't know where to start!  I feel like if I don't jump back in soon I never will, so here's a little selection of what I've been up to...

gazing lovingly at vintage goodies at our local monthly Vintage and Flea market...

at which I met the lovely Bristol based maker Alice Rose Lewis, whose work I was not at all surprised to discover has been featured on one of my favourite blogs, Kickcan and Conkers.  She was selling a few of her lovely stitched creations, I think I should have bought one for Rufus's birthday, but I couldn't decide which one!  These were some of her early works, she's got some amazing more recent pieces in her Etsy shop.

I've enjoyed R being big enough to want to join in when M is dressing up for parties...

And as my flu thankfully subsided we managed a birthday treat for R, a magical evening in the woods with storytelling and aerial acrobatics...

 

There, I feel much better now!  Thank you for all your lovely comments while I've been quiet, they have all been read and appreciated, and I have still been reading your lovely blogs and leaving the odd comment.  Someone was asking me about blogging the other day, I was feeling a bit flat about not having posted for a while.  As I started to answer her questions I realised again how much I love having this space to share, and how supported I feel by all of you who take the time to pop in and read my ramblings.  It is a special place, this blogland, and I'm so very glad to occupy my little corner of it and have you all for my neighbours!

Rachel xx

wise words...

Hello lovelies, I hope you've all enjoyed your Saturdays, and are looking forward to the rest of your long weekend...the end of the school holidays is almost upon us, and I am feeling a mixture of wistfulness and relief when I think of M returning.

I want to say thanks again for all your lovely messages of support, encouragement, love....I feel very lucky.  I am generally a pretty positive and optimistic person, but sometimes when things are going pear-shaped and I'm tired or depleted, I can feel myself slipping into a dark place....that's where I was at yesterday, and I reached out, and you were there for me.  It made a real difference. Thank you.  

I found this the other day (on Pinterest of course!), and it sums up what I need to remember when it starts going a bit wrong....

Aah, so true.  So today I have banished all those dark thoughts, and focused on the moment, which is really all we have anyway.   Tomorrow I'll be back to show you some of my favourite pretty vintage things from the magical world of the internet, because that, among other things, is what this blog is supposed to be all about!  Sorry if I forgot that for a while, and thanks for sticking with me, you're great.

Happy Bank Holiday weekend!

Rachel xxx

thanks and a tune for you...

Thanks all of you for your lovely messages earlier.  I really appreciate you taking the time to send a hug or a kind word, it has made a real difference to my day.  I find it hard striking the right balance here, between honesty and misery, or positivity and inauthenticity (is that even a word?!) - I don't want to act like my life is always perfect, but I don't want to bum anyone out either, and of course I know everyone's got their own problems to deal with, a lot of which are probably far more challenging than mine.

I'm sure my worries are being amplified by the school holidays, the rain and being woken at a hellishly early hour by the boys - giving us all a lazy day with no expectations seems to have helped my mood to lighten, combined with the magical feeling of being supported by you lovely bloggy women, most of whom I've never even met - it's a lovely thing. 

Here's the tune that I listened to today that helped me to get a grip, it's beautiful and wistful, not too happy but not too sad, and from my one of my favourite films...RIP Tony Scott, what a sad thing, puts my minor wobbles into proper perspective.

I hope you didn't mind me sharing my blue mood, I think maybe I should have saved that post as a draft and waited to see how the day panned out, but at that moment I needed friends and you were there, thank you.

I hope you have a beautiful, joyous weekend.

Rachel x

99!! and 7!!

Wowzers, I have been so lazy about blogging recently but somehow lovely people have found me and I am up to 99 followers!! Am a bit blown away by this, especially as it's only about 6 months since I started sharing my life and vintage & fabric loves in this little corner of blogworld.  

I am in a bit of a tizzy tonight, wrapping presents for M's birthday (his party was last weekend but he's 7 tomorrow); I can't believe my baby is such a big boy now!

This is my favourite baby photo, it was taken when he was less than a day old...

this is his Dad's favourite photo of him when he was a baby, love the cheeky face!...

And here we are, 7 years later - and I cannot even begin to understand the wonderful, magical process by which the tiny baby has grown into this big, funny, sensitive, imaginative, energetic boy...

 

He's great. Tomorrow will be a blur of Lego, Hex Bugs, cake, and hopefully not too much rain!  

I hope you all have a great weekend, thanks for popping in and taking the time to read my ramblings, you're all gorgeous!

Rachel x

wise words...

 

I haven't really felt like blogging for a while, and this is one of the reasons why...I love the internet, but I find that if I spend too much time online I end up wanting things that I didn't even know existed 5 minutes ago.

So this week I have been taking time out from t'internet - to focus on what I have, and spend time with my partner and kids doing fun stuff in the real world.  It's been nice! Hope you're having a lovely weekend.

Rachel x

and the winner is.....drum roll please!

Oh wow, here we are...I had no idea that when I said I'd do a giveaway when I had 50 followers, I'd end up with 70 a week or so later! You people must really love vintage fabrics, which is good because I have got some seriously gorgeous goodies to share with the lucky winner! 

I'm not really tech savvy enough to install random number generator thingys on my blog, so earlier today I selected some suitably vintagey paper to write the names on...

can you believe this is wrapping paper?! Love it!

   and then chose a lovely tin to put the names in...

 

and then the names went in (might have looked more impressive if I'd written bigger, 

but I didn't want to use up all that lovely paper!

and...drum roll please....these are the NAMES(!) that came out...

well you didn't think I could stop at just one did you?!

That's Hazel of hazeyfantazey.blogspot.co.uk, Jules of curtainsforthewindow.blogspot.co.uk, and Caroline of carolinescrapsofus.blogspot.co.uk (that's just the order they came out of the tin) - all lovely gorgeous crafty women who I hope will be very happy to receive a rainbow selection of 60s and 70s cotton to play with! So congratulations you 3!

I'll be popping over to your blogs later to let you know, in case you haven't checked in here today - and if you all email me at rainbowvintagehome@googlemail.com with your address I'll send your prizes later this week. Tomorrow will be spent selecting and cutting up all that lovely fabric and wrapping your parcels - yippee what fun!  

And if you didn't win, sorry! I had trouble stopping myself from pulling more names out, but if I gave my whole stash away now then I wouldn't have anything to give away next time (and I'd be really sad to not be surrounded by all these piles of lovely fabric!).

Thanks to everyone who has joined me, liked my facebook page, and/or shared news of my blog and giveaway on their blog...it has been a busy week over here in my rainbow vintage home, but a very happy one.

Loads of love to you all, you're great!

Rachel x

what a week - peacocks and sunshine...

Wow what a week, a bit non-stop but pretty much all good thankfully.  Unbelievably I have won another treat, only a day after winning these!  

Bristol artist Rebekah Leigh Marshall had a giveaway on her Facebook page, and I was the third name out of 3 pulled out of her hat - I got to choose a print, and I have chosen this (with input from F, who has to live with a lot of things of mine that he wouldn't choose, so I thought it fair to involve him in the decision for once!) ...

Isn't it beautiful?! Go and check out her Etsy shop if you haven't seen her work before, it's got some gorgeous prints and cards in it.

And now the lovely Lou has given me a Sunshine Award, which involved answering the following questions and passing them on to another 5 fabulous sunshiney bloggers:

Colour: The point where blue and green meet, variously called teal, turquoise, or aqua depending on the tone -  
            although I'm currently very keen on yellow!

Animal: Cat or bird, depending on my mood - cat for lazing about, bird for freedom (& nest building!)

Non-Alcoholic drink:  Strong coffee in the morning, Earl Grey tea in the afternoon

Facebook or Twitter:   Facebook cause I have a lot of friends who live far away. I have never tweeted, don't think  
           I would know how (or why!).
Getting or giving presents:  Giving, I love choosing just the right thing for someone. When it comes to getting, I  
           prefer to choose for myself cause I'm such a control freak - isn't that awful?!
Flower: Apple blossom
Pattern: bold 60s floral, geometric, spots, stripes - very hard to choose this one!!
Passion: colour & kids, fabric & family, pattern & parenting - variations on a theme!
Number: 5 (same as Lou, another thing we've got in common along with mid-century mania!) 

As you can see I am no good at choosing one thing when 2 or 3 will do! and now I pass these questions onto....

Caroline, Siane, Jo, Karen and Jenny

I don't know any of you lovely ladies well, having met over t'internet through enjoying each others' blogs, so I'll be interested to see what you all answer, and who you link to next...

Hope it's sunny where you are, thanks for stopping by!

Rachel x

hurrah for everything!

Wow what a week, from the ridiculous to the sublime - more illness, a broken washing machine, the usual too much boring domestic stuff to do and not enough time or energy.  And then to balance and outweigh all that, the beautiful sunshine, and yesterday meeting up with Lou of littlegreenshed.blogspot.com, who lives just around the corner from me.  

Our older boys go to the same school so we have known each other to say hello to for a while, but since I started my blog she has been full of encouragement and it was lovely to get together.  She went home and blogged about her visit, and it was funny to see my home from her perspective - she noticed all my favourite things, and made me look at my messy toy strewn house with renewed affection.  She has a lovely Etsy shop with cards of her photos and illustrations, this is my favourite of her new postcards... 

 

She's getting some A3 and A4 prints in the shop soon, I'm looking forward to seeing them!


So many people read her post and came here to have a look at my little blog, and left such lovely comments, that I'm now feeling thoroughly chuffed and and definitely reassured that people like what I'm doing; just the encouragement I need to get on and open my Etsy shop.  Now I just need to get rid of the germs and the laundry mountain so that I can make the time! 

Thanks for visiting, have a lovely day! 

Rachel x