Happy Christmas from my home to yours...

Happy Happy Christmas from my home to yours, because this year home and family is what we are about here at Dotty Red. The tree is up and the lights sparkle, the snow is on the ground and the fire warms our toes and in the late evenings warms my soul until I fall cosy and happy into a dream filled sleep with a glass (or two) of mulled wine and my knitting on my knee...
After over six months of my home resembling a building site it is finally starting to come together and feel like home. Home is indeed not about the place you live but how you live, with your family and friends, love, laughter and indeed some tears. Its safe and feels secure, the love within your family radiates out from every photograph on the wall, child's drawing thumb tacked to the wall, even the spilt juice on the sofa all means a place full of love, living and indeed history.
So as the year comes to an end and the next days are filled with chilling out time, celebrating Christmas and all it means and just being part of something, I look back on the last year and all that it brought me and indeed taught me. So many changes, so many tears and lots and lots of laughter as one thing after another went wrong to the degree you could but laugh...
I started on a new career path and have learnt so much and returning back to being a student was a challenge in itself. Pleased to be back to my blog world although not able to write as freely as before, and of course the blessing of Dotty Red, releasing my creative work (somewhat nervously) on to the world. Scary but what an experience. Even now I have my pad of sketches as I play about with designs for new product lines to introduce. How happy I am that through my work I have met so many beautiful people and whilst I cant actually say I am in business I excited about the future.
So I wish you and yours a fabulous Christmas and a New Year filled with joy, health, happiness and some excitement. I thank you from my heart for reading my blog and sharing in my adventures and sharing in yours... HAPPY CHRISTMAS

Pictures from around my home

Baby its cold outside...

Its just so cold here at the home of Dotty Red, chilly chilly chilly... Snow on the ground and ice all around. Every morning its a routine of filling the kettle, pulling on our wellies, scarf and hat then walking to the main road to my car. I live on a hill and in this weather there is no hope of parking near my home. It then takes a good fifteen minutes to warm the car and de-ice the windows (hence the kettle), then our day can begin...
But you know sometimes its just too cold to go out and with my kitchen being nearly finished after the flood in the summer (seriously nearly five months, still waiting on some work to be done through the insurance) it has now been worth the wait and I have a kitchen that's warm, cosy and ever so inviting. already I have had friends around to sit back around my kitchen table, how I have missed my kitchen being the heart of the home.
There have been some changes in my kitchen, my sofa that I had such happy memories of curling up and nursing my babies on is now no more, it received the most damage in the flood and was sadly tipped, so now in its place is my lovely white comfy wicker chair brought back from my place by the seaside (when I closed it down in November) this helps to remind me of summer mornings sitting on my deck listening to the sea rolling in and seagulls overhead whilst I sipped my morning coffee... also my beautiful new (well shabby chic new) dresser.
For many many years I have always wanted a dresser, but it was one of those things that never happened. Well with no one else to consider now plus a little bit of insurance money to replace the lost items, I treated myself. I can not tell you how happy this makes me. I have filled it with all the china that I have collected over many years. It just makes me smile, on a cold winters morning when I stagger down to my kitchen, this alone warms my heart.
Why is it that when you are about to sell your home you get it just how you like it... So with the old pine kitchen table now taking up the main living area of my family roomed kitchen with six chairs of different design I can once again fill my home with the friends and family I love this Christmas...

Edited to add... heart cushions and felt mice now sold, thank you.