Merry Christmas!

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, see you back here soon x

getting ready

This weekend has been spent getting ready, seeing friends, getting the last couple of presents but above all cleaning. We have been doing lots of messy diy jobs lately so I have spent a lot of the last two days sorting out and cleaning up. But I am nearly there now, phew. And we have just waved goodbye to Holly, who is off with her nan to meet father christmas at a santa sleepover at alton towers. She is so excited! And a big thank you to Emma , this is the wonderful prize I won in her latest giveaway, how lucky am I. This is a very bad but quite atmospheric photo I took when we went Ice skating at Hampton Court Palace last week (I managed to not fall over but I'm not sure how) And these were the last biscuits which Holly wanted to give to her dancing teachers yesterday. The biscuit factory is now closed! : )

cookie factory

ok, so this week isn't any quieter so far, but then what did I expect in the run up to Christmas! This evening so far has been spent making over a hundred biscuits - literally - for a combination of teachers gifts and school cake sale contribution. I lost count of how many trays went in the oven, but they have come out tasting nice, according to my chief taster, Holly. Have you been reading the wonderful red otter's blog? I hope so, she makes the most amazing journals and books. And have you seen her series of self portraits? Well my contribution is now up, click here if you would like to see. : )

front page!!

woo hoo! Today I made the front page of etsy, and this time I actually saw it, what a lovely surprise. Can you see them, my little soft snowflakes! Things have been hectic here with getting ready for christmas, lots of diy (I think my burn is getting better slowly), christmas events etc, I would really like a day where I didn't have to get up and do anything at all. I haven't even done much sewing! I am hoping for a quieter week this week! : )

Lille

We had a really great day yesterday, but oh I am tired today! Got up at 5.45 yesterday morning, and got home at 23.45, a very weary person! The Eurostar was great, and we had lots of time to wander round and explore Lille once we arrived, had a delicious lunch, a walk around the christmas market and a very scary ride on this big wheel. I am not good with heights, I have been on a couple of wheels like this but only ones where you are enclosed, this one was open and swayed, a lot! But it had to be done, and look at the view from the top (one of my workmates took this for me as I was holding on). Apologies for still not catching up with you all, I'm getting there slowly. : )

frosty mornings

We are having lots of these at the moment, you know, the sort of day when it is still pitch black outside when you have to get up, and it is so warm and cosy under the duvet that you don't want to leave it. Well that's me anyway! I am off to Lille, France tomorrow on Eurostar for our company christmas party/trip. I have to get up very early but it will be worth leaving my cosy bed to spend the day in another country, Lille also has a christmas market which I am looking forward to seeing, and, it is forecast to snow there tomorrow! I have already packed my camera so hopefully I'll get some good pictures, I promise to catch up with all your blogs as soon as I can : )

stripping (paint)

Yes I am still here! We have had a busy weekend, combining christmas shopping with lots of diy. We are trying to get some messy jobs done so that we can start to clean and tidy for christmas, so I spent lots of hours stripping paint from woodwork while Stuart ripped down part of a wall and did lots of plastering. Here is part of one of the door frames I was working on, and the second picture shows the huge blister I managed to get by burning myself. A really hot bit of paint decided to weld itself to me and I couldn't get it off. Ouch. But we have managed to get a lot done, and I even fitted in a trip to the post office on saturday too. : )

It's advent calendar time!

But first, here is my newest shiny sparkly zip pouch, just listed. This would make a great present at this time of year, but can also be used all year round. Also, I've been selling some of my soft star sets, I am not making any more so if you want some don't delay! All are listed in my etsy shop, and some also in my folksy shop (where yesterday I had my first two sales which was very exciting). : ) Here are our advent calendars for this year, mine is a little A5 size one that is really cute and I couldn't resist, and Holly's is a wonderfulpop up one that is based on a book called 365 penguins. Although it must be said that I haven't opened any of the doors on mine yet, I seem to be getting lots of help! : )

!

Today, a big thank you to Michelle at Cicada Studio , for featuring my soft stars in her guest blog post on Indie Fixx, what a wonderful surprise! : )

folksy

Anyone heard of Folksy? It is a new UK handmade site, based along similar lines of etsy and dawanda, where people have their own shop within the site. It is in beta mode at the moment, and you can only join if you are in the uk, but in February it is due to open up to international customers. Pop over for more information and have a look, I have added a new button in my sidebar which will take you right there. I only have a few things on there so far, but I have been lucky enough to have my soft stars appear as featured items, and my new pouch was on the front page, which was very exciting! : )

twinkle twinkle

This set of red soft stars will be appearing in my shop very soon! Despite having a few items in progress, I haven't managed to take any other pictures of them, Hmm. But some of my purple soft snowflakes appeared in this gorgeous purple treasury, which was a lovely surprise. I don't know where the week is going, I managed to squeeze in half an hour of christmas shopping today and got a few things, but I need to do a lot more! Are you all organized for christmas? : )

new!

I've been having lots of fun with my silver fabric, and have come up with this zip pouch, perfect to give anything a little bit of sparkle! This is a sneak preview as it won't be going into the shop until tomorrow. : )

FREE CARD OFFER!!!!

Because I managed to miss my 200th post and christmas time is on its way... From now until the end of Monday 24th November (2008, UK time), with any purchase from my etsy shop you will receive one of my cards (with envelope) from either of the sets shown above absolutely FREE! All you have to do is write 'circles' or 'leaves' in the message to seller so that I know which set you would prefer your card to come from, and I will add a card from that set to your parcel. You can even choose which one you would like, or I will randomly choose one for you. ***AND you get a free card with each item, so if you purchase two items you will get two cards, and if you purchase three you will get three, which equates to a free set, which is worth $8! **** Click here to visit my shop : )

the green one

I've just been reading yesterdays post and I think in my excitement it wasn't that clear, sorry! Each of my 'homes for pins' is double-sided, one side featuring one of my favourite fabrics and the other with a hand painted design. And each one comes with two of the little leaf pins in the photos. So the pictures in yesterdays post (apart from the group shot) are of either side of the same pincushion - a bit of variety into something that could get used an awful lot! So the same applies to these two pictures, they are of one pincushion, a shot of each side! (sorry to those of you that knew that, just reading it back it wasn't clear to any new readers) I'm off now to list it in my etsy shop... : )

new home...

for pins! Every time I make one of these I decide that the latest one is my favourite, which has happened again this time, except as I made two I am a bit confused. Here is the first one, which is in my shop now, it has lots of hearts already - thank you! The second one (which is green, bottom right in the top photo, will be listed tomorrow, the other two in the photo are already in my shop.) : )

a bit better!

Ok, so I have now managed to list my pair of silver soft snowflakes! At last! These pictures are a bit better than the rest so far, and they are now in my etsy shop. It took a while to get there, phew! : )

aaahhhh!!!

I've been having lots of fun creating these new christmas decorations with some of the new fabric I bought at the weekend. That is until I tried to take the photos, have you ever tried to take pictures of silver fabric? It is probably my fault for sewing the white snowflakes onto it, but it just looks so wintery and christmassy I couldn't resist! I have spent the last few days trying to take photos, even taking them to work and trying to photograph them outdoors in my lunch time. These are the best I can manage, but I don't think they are good enough for a listing in my shop so I am going to try again tomorrow, it is typical that the photos that came out the best had the worst background! aaahhh! : )

fireworks

We had a great time at the fireworks on friday, they weren't as good as last year but we all enjoyed ourselves, especially Holly! The rest of the weekend was divided into fun things (fabric shopping, my sister visiting) and get-things-done things, (sanding walls and getting rid of lots of dust, food shopping) and then before you know it it is monday again. I have been having ideas with some of my new fabric, I will show you soon! And a thank you too to cutedesigns, for including some of my soft snowflakes in this treasury : )

new!

I finally managed to take some pictures of this new little purse, at 7.30 this morning while Holly was having her breakfast! I used a piece of my most favourite fabric in this one. We are off to watch Bonfire Night fireworks in a minute so it won't be in my shop until tomorrow. Just a short post tonight as we are off to wrap up warm! : )