It's reached the time of year when I am desperate for spring...every thing's muddy or dead...the thought of seeing a few flowers actually blooming makes me giddy. At this point I'd also make allusions to lambs gamboling if it weren't for the fact that I helped out on a friend's sheep farm during my childhood...lambs may conjure up images of spring but they also mean getting up in the middle of the night to assist a pregnant ewe...being chased across a field by a herd of sheep...and countless other things.

Flowers are unfettered by such memories and invoke a nicely sentimental view of spring...which is probably why I'm lusting over these decoupage rose brooches from Tatty Devine. In an ideal world I'd buy a dozen of them and group them on the lapels of my jackets...realistically, I'll probably have to settle for one.