POLKADoT Farm

*AND THE WINNER IS....*

With the help from my assistant we have chosen a winner....

 

Congratulations Lana! You have won my first blog give away!! Please email me your address so I can send you the cupcake plate!

Thankyou to everyone that left a comment!

A little something from me to you

I am doing my first blog give away this week!! As I am launching my new cake plates in the Green Gallery in Stirlingshire this week, I felt it was a good time to give away one of my new cupcake plates. I also thought it would be good timing for the week before Mothers Day. If you would like a chance of winning one ,please leave a comment before Thursday mid day, and I will draw a name out of a hat Thursday Evening, to send off on Friday! Good Luck!

 

This week I received a lovely little package from Snapdragon! It is a beautiful Westie Dog mirror. She was doing a give away on her blog a few weeks ago. The extra special thing about the mirror is that she has embroidered a name on the pouch of the mirror for me. I got 'Grannie Annie' embroidered on it, so my husband can give it to his Mum for mothers day! As she has recently just become a granny!

 
 

The frozen Lake of Menteith

At last I've got round to blogging about a once in a life time walk that we experienced last month... walking over the frozen Lake of Menteith across to Inchmahome priory! The lake froze over at the beginning of January when the weather was at its coldest. It is over 30 years since the lake has frozen over so thick, and over 30years since a bonspielhas been held on the lake. Unfortunately the official bonspiel never went ahead because of health and safety, but many curlers still gathered and held unofficial matches!

 
We could see how thick the ice was in places, and even see the water underneath which was a bit scary!!! In the pic above, it looks like a crack, but it's not, these superficial cracks were dotted about the ice, and apparently caused by springs underneath! It was rumoured that an artic could drive over it as it was so thick? Whether that is true, who knows, but literally hundreds of people gathered on the ice over the week to view the spectacular sight.

We bravely walked over to the priory with Jock our Jack Russell, who was having a ball!! The Priory is usually only reachable by a rowing boat in the summer months!!Even so Lake of Menteith is only 6miles from the farm, I had never visited the priory! So it was wonderful to experience the priory in it's magical icy conditions!

Cupcake shop now open!

Its been a busy week of painting cupcakes, but lots of fun, as I really enjoy painting the different shapes and patterns as well as giving them their own quirky, imperfect personality! I am hoping to upload them onto my Etsy site this week, and start selling them, as well as do a wee give away on my blog in the next few days!I have been sorting out my website at long last, so I have all my new plate designs on it. Go and have a look at www.tartanheartglass.co.uk

Commemorative Plates

One of my new little ventures business/product wise this year, is going to be painting special commemorative plates for engagements, weddings & births. Our friends had a little girl in November, so I painted this one for her as a tester to see how it looks, and also to use the picture on my website. For the wedding plate, I have used the same format of name and date around the outside, but for the middle I painted a decorative heart. Most of the commemorative plates on the market are very simple, and don't use the bright colours or bold images I use, so I feel they're a wee bit different. Hopefully they'll be a winner!

 

A month of baby walking

My blog has been rather neglected over the last feew weeks. Baby D seems to be having a growth spurt, so every second hour between hoovering, washing & cleaning, he seems to be latched onto me feeding! We are getting out and about on lots of walks too, along with Jock, our wee Jack Russell..our other baby which is lovely!! It's great to get outside with him, as the fresh air makes him a little sleepy,which means when we get back home he's usually still dreaming, and I have been able to put aside a bit of time to paint a little!

My plates were very popular at Christmas time, so I'm going to concentrate on them over the next few months. The Green Gallery have asked for a selection for their Spring Exhibit which I'm pretty excited about!! So I've got a few more to paint for it before the end of the month. I think I will mainly do pretty cupcakes, as well as a few Easter themed ones of hens & chickens ('polkadotty chooks') !

 

...nothing better than a breath of fresh air!

The simplest things in life can sometimes give you so much pleasure. Yesterday was a breath of fresh air, as the wind blew strong, and there wasn't a spit of rain in the air...so i was overjoyed to get washing out on the line, after having months of clothes and sheets hanging on airers in the cottage, cluttering up space, and taking days to dry! I can't believe we are in the last week of January, and that Spring is only around the corner! Its lovely to see the days start to lengthen, and the bulbs breaking through the ground! A true sign of Spring for us on the farm is lambing!!! Tomorrow we are scanning just under 400 sheep to see how many lambs they are each having come April!! Fingers crossed they are all mostly in lamb...and we don't have too many triplets!

Thank you

Thank you for all your congratulations for Baby Duncan. He is doing really well, and now the weather is starting to improve we are getting out and about for walks.

I am busy making Thank you cards at the mo, and have been racking my brain for days  on what kind of design to go for. I visited a craft warehouse that is tucked away in an industrial estate in Stirling for some inspiration this week, and came away with a few buys, and a few ideas.

I found this lovely paper with stars, and an alphabet zoo paper too, which are both fun, and baby boyish without being to 'twee'.

 

I also bought some stamps, including the alphabet, which is in the first pic, and a wee baby pea pod, which is very cute,and I just had to have, even though I have no use for it in my card design..but have stamped the back of each card with it just for some added cute-ness! 

  

So after much cutting and sticking, I have created my card design...just got lots to make now..but its very therapeutic. It is so lovely to get back making stuff again between feeds sleeps and nappies!! So hopefully I'll get into Glasgow to my plate suppliers, and get painting my plates again soon!

 

 

An early Christmas present

Just a quick post....We had an unexpected surprise on Christmas Eve... the arrival of our new gorgeous Baby. I was down in Galloway visiting my Mum for Christmas. At 2am my waters broke, so being miles away from Stirling Royal, we hopped in the car to the local hospital, Dumfries....which isn't that local at 60 miles away!!! It must have been one of the coldest, icy-est nights, but we made it there for 4am, and 10 hours later Baby Duncan was born, 3 weeks early! I got out the following day for Christmas with our wee poppet. We can't quite believe it has all happened! Everyone is well, and we're looking forward to this cold snap disappearing, and the snow thawing so we can get out and about!

Sunrise on the Trossachs

This Morning Duncan insisted that I hopped in the land rover, and drove up to the top of the farm to take some photos of the snowy landscape, and wait for the sun to rise over the mountains. He was right, as at 8am this morning, the orange glow was just starting to peek over the top of Ben Lomond and others.

It was the most spectacular sight, that I feel can never be properly captured in a regular 10 mega pixel digital camera...if only I had a film in m SLR....not to worry though. I still managed to capture the gorgeous sunrise, as well as many doggy pics of Bill the sheepdog and Jock playing around in the snow!