Things I Loved this Month, April 2014.

This month I've loved,

* An adventure to Birmingham to see the Grayson Perry exhibit at the MBAG and to the Library of Birmingham * picnics in the park * blossom * watching Doctor Who (up to series 6 now!), Masters of Sex, Neighbours, Made in Chelsea * croissants * nice work chums * pringles * Ironbridge trip with mum * sunshine * gardening * randomly spotting the actors who played the Demon Headmaster and Wycliffe wandering round Shrewsbury together! * new pink flowery coat * my lovely little niece, who is nearly 9 months old now, and crawling, pulling herself up and walking round holding on to stuff, says dada and mama (not Aunty Susie yet though!), has 2 teeth and likes knocking down towers of bricks, chicken impressions and blowing rasberries! * crocheting a huge blanket * naps on the sofa * nice phone calls and texts and skypings * bed and book * Rainbow Rowell books * new toothbrush * new glasses and prescription sunglasses * new house plants * fry up breakfast * watching Adventures in Babysitting, Anastasia and Sabrina the Teenage Witch * Booja Booja egg for easter and chocolate bunnies * TARDIS bracelet * payday! * 

Hope you've had a lovely month too!

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Pins of the Month.

Here are my favourite pins from this month.

Susie's pin on Pinterest.

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Charity Shopping, a Jug, a Bunny Plant Pot and a Tiny Plate.

These were all presents off my mum.  Aren't I lucky!

I saw this jug and bowl in a charity shop and nearly bought them, went back to get them and they'd gone.  My mum had bought them, planning to give them to her friend.  I told her all about it, and a couple of days later she bought something different for her friend and gave them to me.  Isn't that lovely!

The Easter Bunny brought me this, it had one of those yummy Aldi vegan Easter bunnies in it, but I think a plant will suit better!

This tiny printed plate come from the charity shop where my mum volunteers.  Isn't it cute.  It's only 3 or 4 inches across.  I like to imagine there's a matching one, with a farmers wife on it, which one day I will find and be able to reunite them.

Have you bought or been given anything lovely recently?

Linking up with Magpie Monday at Me and My Shadow and Sir Thrift a Lot.

Sowing Seeds, Spring Vegetable Gardening.

I grow bits and bobs of salad and herbs on my balcony outside my flat, but do my proper growing in a little bit of my mums garden which is a ten minute walk away.

I planted my seeds in the sunshine the other day.

'Minipop' sweet corn, broad beans, sunflowers.

'Mikinos' and 'Black Beauty' courgette, sweet peppers, livingstone daisies, sweetpeas and more sunflowers.

Mum put some mini polytunnels on my bit of garden to warm the soil.  Underneath I planted spinach, rainbow chard, kale and Japanese bunching onions.

I have my first sprouters already, sunflowers!

I can't wait for summer strawberries!

And here are a couple of photos of mum's garden looking pretty and springlike.

What are you growing this year?

Easter Crochet, Easter Chick.

My sister in law requested a crochet chick for my niece this Easter.  I was more than happy to oblige.  

My sis' in law found this Easter chick pattern online, which is free, and in Dutch, although you can use Google translate to change it to English.  I made it last night, in front of the telly, so it's a nice, quick easy make.  You could probably still knock one out before Easter if you wanted to!

There were some funny translations to deal with, google didn't do a brilliant job (kept telling me to do a 'half solid' or a 'fasting'), especially on the wings, legs, beak and cockscomb.  But these are easy enough to work out if you know a bit of crochet already.

I used double knitting yarn and a 3.5mm crochet hook to make this cute Easter chick.  I sewed on black felt for the eyes and used some old pink blusher for the cheeks.  I'm still working on using up all my wool, and this was another project where I didn't need to buy anything new.  Hurrah!

Have you been making anything crafty this Easter?

Linking up with Chic on a Shoestring.

Simple Pleasures #7.

New Lego Movie Lego.  I love Unikitty! 

Library Love. Fangirl, Attachments, Look Great Naturally, Hip Crochet.

Lately, I've been reading,

Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell.
1. I want to be called Rainbow  2. I Loved this book.  I read it in 3 days flat, I was so into the story and the characters.  Wren and Cather are twins who write fan fiction, but then they go to college and everything changes.  This is so so good, you should read it!

Attachments - Rainbow Rowell.
I loved this Rainbow Rowell novel too, this is an adult book, whereas Fangirl is YA fiction, but there's not too much difference in her writing, just in the ages of her characters.  I found this book harder to get into, the main character is in the process of taking 10 years to get over his highschool girlfriend, and at times I wanted to smack him and tell him to get a grip.  Once I got over that urge I really enjoyed it though, and stayed up late to finish the last 100 or so pages.

Look Great Naturally - Janey Lee Grace.
I grabbed this for something to read on my lunch break at work.  It's not the kind of book I'd normally go for, as I don't wear make up and it makes my feminist-y senses bristle to be told I can look great without ditching my lipstick (so I can't just look great without wearing lipstick, etc, etc, feminist rant ensues).  But, actually, it has lots of nice methods for eco friendly and health friendly beauty and I'm enjoying flicking through it.

Hip Crochet - Natalie Clegg.
I really love the gingerbread house crochet pattern in this book, it's so cute.  There are lots of other cute patterns in there too!

Have you read anything good this month?

Vegan Junk Food, Aldi Choceur Dark Chocolate Easter Bunny.

I was so happy to see these dark chocolate Easter bunnies back on the shelves in Aldi this spring.  They are suitable for vegans and only cost £1 each.  I may have eaten one or two (or four) this year already!  The chocolate is sweeter than the Aldi eggs (I posted about them last week), it's yummy and really thick and the rabbits are a fair size.  

Here are the ingredients,

What will you be eating this Easter?

(This product is vegan as far as I can tell - items have suitable for vegetarians labelling, no dairy/eggs in the allergy section and the ingredients list contains no animal ingredients that I can see.)

Simple Pleasures #6.

Pussy willow.  Sooo fluuuuuffy!

Birmingham Flowers and Views.

I went to Birmingham this week to see the Grayson Perry tapestry exhibition at BMAG (it's free, it's amazing, you should go!), and we popped to see a couple of other exhibitions as well (New Art West Midlands at BMAG, For the Record in the Waterhall and Library of Cultures at the Library of Birmingham.  All of them were free and all of them were good, specially the library one).  

I didn't take many photos in the exhibitions (it wasn't allowed in some and I was too busy looking at stuff anyway) but Birmingham was looking lovely, so I photographed the city instead.

The polyanthus displays near the new Library and the War Memorial are so pretty and colourful.

We sat in a cute little park, round the back of the new library, to eat our picnic and watched a cute little rat scurrying about in the bushes.

I couldn't resist going all the way up to the top of the Library of Birmingham to see the lovely views of the city, in daylight this time!

Have you been anywhere pretty recently? 

Vegan Junk Food, Aldi Moser Roth Dark Chocolate Mini Easter Eggs.

I was pleased to find these 70% dark chocolate mini easter eggs in Aldi the other day.  It's so nice to have some foil wrapped little eggs that are vegan, and they only cost about £1.60.  The eggs are solid and the chocolate is quite nice but a little bitter (it says bitter on the foil wrappers so I don't know what I was expecting!).  You get more in the packet than are in my photo, I may have done some *ahem* testing *ahem* before taking the photos! 

Here are the ingredients,

Have you found any egg-cenllent vegan Easter products this year?

(This product is vegan as far as I can tell - items have suitable for vegetarians labelling, no dairy/eggs in the allergy section and the ingredients list contains no animal ingredients that I can see.)

Easy Green Actions, April 2014.

Here's this month's list of easy, green actions.

Sign Friends of the Earth's online petition to ask David Cameron to say no to Fracking.

Sign Greenpeace's petition to ask David Cameron to say no to Fracking.

Oxfam have a couple of online actions on their website this month, ask David Cameron to fight climate change and ask your MP to fight against climate change and inequality.

If you have any causes or actions to add then let me know in the comments and if I like it I'll add it in.  And feel free to share any of this info (or the whole post) wherever and with whoever you like - if you sign any of the petitions and use social media then please consider using the share on facebook or twitter options that pop up, it increases the reach of these actions and awareness of these issues even further.