only five days to go!

Where has the time gone???? How can it be over a week since i did a post? Since then I have been to Brussels for the day on Eurostar with work (managed to not take any photos) had Hollys christmas assembly where she was dressed up as a star, had a nightmare of a christmas shopping day, felt poorly (still do a bit) and have been to a couple of parties. So not much crafting has been done around here! I have also sold a couple of last minute things which involved standing in post office queues for ages but for a nice reason. But excitingly, my work is now also available at this brilliant uk-based website selling handmade items, tuggle.co.uk. Come and take a look if you have a minute, at the moment I have a direct link to my section from the front page, as I am one of the listed 'new' people.

more christmas

A christmassy picture of my leg, reflected in our snowflake covered window. : )

finished!

So here he is, all finished. I had a hard job finding the perfect eyes, I didn't really want the standard soft toy eyes and eventually found these gorgeous buttons in John Lewis. You can't really see here but they are a lovely purpley colour. Holly was with me but luckily didn't ask what they were for! I tell you what though, it took me as long to put the eyes on as to make the whole bear, deciding where they should go was very important as their position changed his whole character. And I thought I would include a christmassy picture, we put our tree up last night, sorry it is a dreadful picture, it was dark by the time I could take it. : )

At last!

So tonight at last I sat down and started to make something. I have had in my head a while now a list of things I want to make for Holly for christmas, but haven't had a chance to do anything about them. Then I found this fantastic free pattern at crafty carnival and couldn't wait any longer! I started with this jumper that I felted a while ago: cut up one of the sleeves: And just look at this cute little bear, he isn't finished yet, I have now made him a scarf, I just need to do his face! this will be the front: and this will be the back: I can't wait to finish him! So thank you crafty carnival for your free pattern, (pattern is for personal use only) it was very easy to follow and I'm very pleased with the results so far. : )

what a coincidence!

I discovered today through reading the forums that I was in a treasury on etsy, which is great, (thank you wildcatdesigns) but not only that, quite by chance my sister is in the same one! What a coincidence! Out of the many thousands of shops on etsy. In case you didn't know already, my sister is paper-and-string , and her treasury item is the 'happy tree' (bottom right) which I love!

!!!

Where has the week gone? I can't believe it is a week already since my last post. I think it must be that time of year! We have been starting to feel christmassy here this weekend, watching a christmas film, looking round the shops and then today we made christmas biscuits with our new cutters. (Had a bit of a problem with the father christmas one, his legs kept falling off) Then to top off an afternoon in the kitchen we made this pie for our dinner, which was very yummy even if i do say so myself!!

I made the front page!!!... and I missed it.

How typical, over the weekend one of the treasuries I had been featured in made to the front page of etsy and I managed to miss it. Instead I was having fun planting 100 crocus bulbs in the garden, and clearing up plaster dust from the whole house. We did also start our christmas shopping, but we weren't that successful! : 0

ouch!

Yesterday I managed to really cut my finger, and of course it would be one that does a lot of sewing! I was cutting an orange into segments for Holly and the knife veered off the round top bit into my finger. Nice. Sums up the day really! : )

thanks foxgloves!

I want to say a big thank you to Stacy at foxgloves for including a feature about picciolo! Click here to read it. : ) (as you can see I am getting the hang of links now!!)

busy busy

Firstly, thanks Cathy for help with the link for indigo blue below, all is working now! I had a busy evening last night packaging up two parcels ready to post today, both containing packs of my christmas decorations. Here is a picture of them all ready to go into their padded envelopes, they will be on their way later today. : )

every cloud...

well as you know I went to a craft fair on Worthing Pier with my sister on sunday, and it was a complete wash out! The stall opposite ours was selling pine cones covered in glitter, which should give you an idea of what we were up against, and 99% of the few customers that braved the weather were way over 65. Never mind, I had a great day with my sister despite burning my tongue twice on very very hot cups of tea (i got no sympathy either!). I included a couple of pictures of my part of the stall, and also one of the weather outside! But then today in the post arrived this! My parcel from Indigo Blue! It was beautifully packaged and I love them! The pin cushion will be having pins stuck in it later, and my scissors will be fighting over who gets to live in the scissors case. When Holly saw the pin cushion she only heard me say 'cushion' and she thought it was a cushion for her dolls! hehe. What a lovely parcel to come home from work to. Thanks indigo blue

look what I've won!

These wonderful prizes will be on the way to me soon from Indigo Blue, after I won her recent give-away. They will certainly come in useful, and will find a good home in my sewing box. Thanks very much indigo blue! Take a look at her blog, which is listed in my 'look at these' section. : )

christmas crazy!

I have officially gone christmas decoration crazy! The above image is in preparation for the craft fair, as a kind of back board for my box of decorations. And they have made it into an etsy treasury today too! This is going to be short as I am off to body combat in a little while and I still have someone to put in the bath, more soon! : )

birthday weekend

Phew, this weekend was a busy one, the three of us went to London Zoo on Saturday for Holl's fifth birthday, and we had a great time. We walked a really long way but Hollys little legs did really well, and we even stopped off on the way home and watched the lord mayors show fireworks. They were amazing! Then sunday was Holly's party, my sister came up to help us get everything ready, and it was a bit of a panic at the end but we got there (just). Everything went well I think, Holly had a great time, and I'm pretty sure her six friends did too. Most of the parents stayed which was nice, we had a full house! We still had loads of food left at the end, oh well, better too much than not enough! It was back to work today for a rest. : )

slight panic

I seem to have gone into overdrive at the moment, trying to get things sorted for the craft fair I am doing with my sister next sunday and trying to clean the whole house and organise a little party for Holly's birthday which is this sunday afternoon. I have lists coming out of my ears which seem to be getting longer and longer! I would really like to have a day off work but I think I would just end up rushing around even more in an attempt not to waste any minutes. This picture shows the little business cards (but really just printed onto paper) that I have put together for the craft fair, they are also going to double up as packaging labels on my christmas decorations. One set of my snowflake decorations is now listed on etsy, one of my next jobs is to take photos of all the others so they can go on too. I think it might be tricky though as it is getting dark now when I get home from work- the pics of this first set were taken at 7.30 in the morning! : )

progress

It's been a busy couple of days, Holly was five yesterday which meant we were up at 6.30 trying to get toys out of boxes, she was so excited! A lot of her conversations have now been starting with 'now I'm five...' which is quite cute. We are having our main celebrations at the weekend, but she had a little birthday cake and candles last night, and a mountain of cards to open. On the craft front I have been sewing away, and here are the results so far. So I now have six sets of decorations (two more on the way) and here's a shot too of them hanging in a tree, not a christmas tree but hey ho.

It's Christmas (well, soon anyway)

In a couple of weeks I am going to have a corner of my sisters table at a craft fair (in Worthing if you are nearby!) so I have spent the last few days feverishly designing some new products and trying to make them. These pictures show the results, I am making these decorations to be sold in sets of three, where the colours are complementary to each other. I stocked up on ribbon and stuffing yesterday on a shopping trip with my daughter, so now I need to see how many sets I can make in 13 days. I also want to put some onto my etsy site, so I can see I might have sore fingers soon!

scary!

Here's a picture of my little witch off to a Halloween party, we had great fun once we got there, but spent a long time in the car getting lost, which meant at one point that she gave up and started snoring next to me! I don't know where this week has gone, I have done hardly any sewing at all, tonight I made some yummy soup and tomorrow evening we are hopefully off to see fireworks. And then it will be the weekend!! : )

finished! (the new item, not the sorting out!)

As you can see I managed to find time to finish my new purse last night! I ended up painting each side and then while it dried dashed around sorting out toys etc. I got quite a lot done but had to stop once the owner of the toys (my daughter Holly) was in bed. What a shame. But I am pleased with how this one has turned out, it is a new shape with two inside pockets. It isn't in my etsy shp yet but will be in the next few days. : )

the paintbrush beckons

Here is a picture of my current project, which hopefully will be finished tonight. This picture doesn't give too much away, I'll post an 'after' picture when it is completed. I also need to finish sorting out my daughters room this evening, it started yesterday with the construction of a new wardrobe, and ended last night with piles of things everywhere and the thought 'why did I start his' running through my head. So thats my plan for later, I hope I get to the fun part with the paintbrush! : )

promotions

As you can see from the new link added on the right, today I have signed up to Talent Database, which looks like an exciting new way to promote your work. Click the link to take a look, I will be adding more items when I get a minute! : )

featured!!

Thank you very much to Janice at World Wide Crafters for making me their featured artisan today! If you have time to take a look here is the link: http://www.wwcrafters.com/serendipity/ : )

new supplies

When I went to see my sister (otherwise known as paper-and-string) at the weekend I couldn't help but buy some supplies from her! I managed to restrain myself slightly, this is what I got. Some gorgeous tapes and yes, you've guessed it, some more felt. But when it is in such beautiful colours that I haven't got, what's a girl to do??

: (

My family had some very sad news last Thursday, which is why my blog has been a bit neglected since. I haven't done much sewing or been in the mood to create anything, but I thought I would show you what the second work in progress below turned into. I am still working on my new project, pictures soon I hope.

wednesday already?

ok, first up today is a picture of my little sweetheart being a bridesmaid at the weekend for my sister-in-law Jennie. I had a tear in my eye when she came down the aisle holding hands with her (also four year old) cousin. It was a really lovely day, it's hard to believe it is over after we have been looking forward to it for so long. And this morning I found that I am in a treasury, which is still live so take a look if you get a minute. This is a very nice one to be included in, especially as the piece included hasn't been in a treasury before. Thanks Jenvecc! I am working on a new item at the moment, pics will follow when I can, it is taking shape slowly!

newest item completed!

morning, here is a picture of what one of the pieces of work in progress below has turned into, the other is almost done, it is just waiting to be painted. I have also made a small start on the next creation, which is going to be different again!

wow, I'm on cuteable!!

A good day today, I have been featured on the website cuteable.com! Thank you very much cuteable! : )

new finds and sparkles

I had to show you a photo of some new fabric I've got, it is only in small pieces as I bought two skirts very cheaply and cut them up! I just seemed to home in on the pattern from across the shop, then found that they were so cheap I had to have two! Look out for the pattern in one of my items soon. And look at these sparkles, my daughter had her face painted on saturday and it was so beautiful I had to take a picture. We went to meet Winnie the witch, and she decided that winnie was real, but her cat was a puppet : )

in progress

ok, here at last are a couple of pictures of my two 'in progress' items, (see the pins!) which are destined to be pouches. I finally managed to spend some time on them last night, hopefully it won't be long before I can show you the finished articles! Although I have a feeling time will be in short supply this week as it is my sister-in-laws wedding on saturday, which I am really looking forward to but will take friday night and most of the weekend out of any sewing equation. I've got my fingers crossed for good weather for them, my little girl is going to be a bridesmaid and she is very excited!

sunday already?!?

Where has the weekend gone? I seem to have spent it taxiing my daughter around and doing the boring essentials like food shopping and washing. What happened to all the time for sewing? I think I managed about half an hour yesterday! I have taken some photos of the latest work in progress but I am going to add them tomorrow as I am off again to take my daughter to play with friends, and then there's the big pile of ironing that always follows lots of washing... fingers crossed for some sewing time later!

the good and the bad

I'm very pleased (and lucky) that my work has appeared in a few etsy treasuries since I opened my shop three weeks ago. Thanks to everyone who has included me, here is a picture of one of the latest that I was featured in. At the moment I have started two more pouches, one blues/greens and the other plums/purples. I'll try and take some pictures later to add in. They have been coming along slower than I would have liked, partly due to getting some very bad news yesterday and partly due to my daughter coming home from school with play-doh all over her skirt and jumper that I spent a whole hour scraping off!