Tag: lifestyle blog

Raising Emperor moths

On By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography7 Comments

Hey friends! Welcome to my first Butterfly tale of 2025!!

Although to be honest its actually about moths, Emperor moths to be precise.

Lets rewind a few months…late last year I was able to watch a few Emperor moth caterpillars form their chrysalises in my garden, unfortunately the plant they were attached to became damaged in one of those really nasty storms we had and I didn’t want the little guys to end up drowning on the floor of my wildspace so I rescued them!

They’ve been living in a little netted pod in my butterfly house all winter and emerged at the beginning of April! It was so damn exciting I genuinely thought that they’d probably died in the storm, but I ended up with a gorgeous male and two gigantic females. I grow two of their favourite caterpillar food plants so it was super easy to give them both a pot of heather and meadowsweet.

The three of them all emerged within about half an hour of each other and by the evening the male was mating with one of the females and the next morning she was laying eggs! 

Continue reading “Raising Emperor moths” →

Embroidered denim jacket {New project Pt.1}

On By ArtyMissKIn Art4 Comments

Hey friends,

I don’t know about you but as a craft minded person I sort of have a craft bucket list of all the things I’d really like to make (or at least have a go at!) something I’ve always wanted to create is an amazingly embroidered one-of-a-kind denim jacket!

I found this particular jacket at my local thrift joint about eight months ago and totally fell in love with its ridiculously long sleeves, its a bit big but the sleeves are just too cool, plus its really soft.

Continue reading “Embroidered denim jacket {New project Pt.1}” →

View of the Woodland River {One frame}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography2 Comments

Hello my Friends!

Can you believe it, we’re already at the first Friday in April!? This week I thought I’d post a One Frame and it feels like an age since I posted a proper landscape shot.

This is the view as I cross over a rickety old wooden bridge into one of my favourite hiking spots called Pendrift Bottom, its basically a series of steep ups and downs with some wide-open fields, a little marsh and so many types of animals and insects. Last year I even heard my first cuckoo when I was there in the summer, and theres always slow worms and fleeting glimpses of deer in the distance.

Also the name is pretty humorous. 

It actually took this photograph last May and literally can’t wait to spend more sunny days wandering there this year.

Standing on this bridge I pretty much feel like I’m crossing the river into a magic nature filed world, like Middle Earth but with no orcs, I like to believe that if you follow this river long enough you might find Rivendell.

I hope you like this little slice of natury goodness as much as I do because it fills me a great amount of positivity and happiness. Is there anything you feel particularly blessed to be part of? 

Thank you so much for reading this post, and have a lovely, peace filled week!

A Collection of Crochet Flower Bookmarks

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, Crochet tutorials5 Comments

Hello my friends! 

If like me you’re in the UK then you’ll probably know that tomorrow is Mothering Sunday, so this week I wanted to post a super quick crochet flower bookmark idea/pattern tutorial.

They don’t even need to be limited to bookmarks either, they look super cute tied onto bags or even door handles!

I’ve only really just started learning to crochet (I’m teaching myself!) but these bookmarks are so simple to make. To start this mini project off I bought a pack of Hello 100% Cotton 12 Ball Yarn Pack – in a mix off bright and happy colours, but to be honest flowers come in so many shades I don’t think it really matters what ones you use.

Over the last week or so I’ve made almost thirty to gift to the important women in my life and thought I’d share a couple of patterns incase you wanted to whip up a couple yourself!

Continue reading “A Collection of Crochet Flower Bookmarks” →

Fleeting thought #10 {reading my way through Middle Earth!}

On By ArtyMissKIn Fleeting thoughts

Hello friends, I hope you had a good week!

I suppose late is better than never right?! I truly meant to post this yesterday, but I’ve been a day behind all week (which is super annoying!) I even missed putting my recycling out!

Anywho…

We are closing in on the 25th of March which happens to be one of my favourite days of the year Tolkien reading day. For those who don’t know March 25th was the date Tolkien chose as the date that Frodo completed his quest and the Ring was destroyed (as set out in The Lord Of The Rings). Every year the Tolkien society (who organise the whole thing) encourage us Tolkien nerds to get together and read our favourite parts of the books/write poetry/dress up as hobbits etc…

…this years theme is fellowship and community which is rather lovely and I always find there to be quite a lot of fellowship from the community itself, I’ve taken part in many a read-along, art swaps or whole days chatting with other Tolkien nerds at various conventions.

On a side note this is the tenth Fleeting Thought (how cool is that!), if you’re reading one of my blog posts for the first time (hi/friendly wave) and if your back and happy to read more of my ramblings (massive hug and a beaming smile!!). 

Continue reading “Fleeting thought #10 {reading my way through Middle Earth!}” →

Embroidered Butterfly #13 {Brimstone}

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs5 Comments

Hey friends! 

This week I’ve got a new needlework butterfly to share with you, I became quite attached to the little male brimstone that over-wintered in my butterfly house (my fun and fancy shed!) that wanted to create one to add to my ever growing collection of handmade butterflies. 

This is #13 on my Embroidered Butterfly challenge – only 63 more to go!!! If I can make at least one a month that means it should only take like another four or so years!

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Brimstone {One frame}

On By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography4 Comments

Hey friends! 

I’ve got a little one frame to share with you this week, over winter I’ve had a whole bunch of butterflies overwintering in my butterfly house (my fun and fancy shed!) which has been awesome, spookily they timed their wake up alarms to coincide with good weather and I’ve been able to release them all back into the big wide world post-hibernation (yay!!).

Including this little fella, he’s a male Brimstone butterfly who moved into my shed in December – I’ve literally no idea how he got in, but thats not the point…isn’t he pretty!

Brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni) have angular wings so that when they sit amongst the foliage they resemble leaves and hide from predators.

Folklore suggests we may have actually got the word ‘butterfly’ from these guys as the males wings are fluorescent butter yellow!

While we get loads of Brimstone’s in the garden I’ve never had the chance to raise them, so finding one in my butterfly house was amazing. I like to think that bug-kind knows my shed is a safe space for them (although hopefully not too many spiders have moved in over winter!)

For next week I think I’m gonna try and create a needlework Brimstone.

As always thanks for reading and have a wonderful week!

Fleeting thought #9 {Learning something new!}

On By ArtyMissKIn Fleeting thoughts2 Comments

Hello friends, I hope you had a good week!

Today I wanted to share my ninth Fleeting Thought with you. If you’re reading one of my blog posts for the first time (hi/friendly wave) and if your back and happy to read more of my ramblings (massive hug!!). 

If you haven’t caught one of these before Fleeting Thought is something I’ve come up with while trying to post more of my feelings and be a little bit more blog-ish, these wordy posts might sometimes include stories or poetry or be a bit random and rambling about various things I think about.

So lets go…

Basically over the last couple of weeks I’ve been releasing my inner housewife and doing some old school things…I‘ve been learning how to bake my own bread! 

Having never baked bread before I’m totally excited about the magic of basically turning a yeasty bowl of water and flour into fluffy white bread it really is alchemy. I also genuinely don’t understand the cliche that bakers are overweight middle aged men, kneading dough by hand for ten minutes is tough on your arms!

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Floral folklore

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography3 Comments

Hello my friends! 

I don’t know about you but I love discovering the quirky myths and folklore about the plants I’m growing in my garden (I’m a total plant-nerd) I’m fascinated by plant-lore and how they effect the way we interact with different plants. Surprisingly we’ve had a few days of dry and sunny weather and since the very first signs of spring are starting to appear outside I thought I’d write down the folklore relating to three plants currently flowering in my wildspace. (Its a complete coincidence that they’re all the same colour!!)

I grew these lovely white violets in a pot inside and they didn’t do anything for like a year and a half so I hastily shoved them in the ground last November and lo and behold they’ve flowered!

Violets are such a pretty little flower that is often overlooked, apparently wearing a wreath of them was thought to prevent dizziness and finding only a single flower was said to be a bad omen, while violets flowering in the autumn was the sign an epidemic was on the way.

Theres a wonderful greek myth about violets, which is associated with the story of Io, a nymph who was having an affair with the god Zeus in an attempt to hide her from his wife he turned Io into a cow (so kind of him). It was said that Io was unhappy at the taste of grass to the extent it made her cry and Zeus supposedly created violets from her tears so that she’d have something sweet to eat. 

In the language of flowers white violets symbolise innocence and purity.

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Embroidered Butterfly #12 {Monarch}

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs7 Comments

Hello my friends! 

This week I’ve got a new needlework butterfly to share with you and I’ve been really looking forward to making this one! The Monarch is a beautiful orange and black butterfly that spends its time between Canada, America and Mexico. 

As a side note I’ve decided to up the official tally of 61 to include an extra 15 or so butterflies considered to be extinct species of and rare migrants to the UK. As I want to include some of the other rare migrants we occasionally get like the Monarch as well as some of the ones considered extinct in the UK like the Bath white and Large copper – these butterflies still exist in Europe just not here. So my new total is 76! These 15 extra butterflies are all found in The Pocket Guide to the Butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland by Richard Lewington, with really lovely illustrations.

This is #12 on my Embroidered Butterfly challenge – only 64 more to go!!!

The Monarch is the largest and possibly the rarest butterfly seen in the UK – in 2023 just three were seen in here. Unfortunately the caterpillars feed on Milkweed plants which aren’t native to the UK, explaining why the butterfly hasn’t bred here, so sadly I’ve never actually seen one of these in the wild.

Continue reading “Embroidered Butterfly #12 {Monarch}” →