A corner of my home

Pretty purple tulips standing on top of my toilet in the bathroom. I love putting flowers into my vintage poison bottle and dotting them round the house! Oh and just be grateful I'm not showing the the huge pile of washing to the left :)

I'm much better (thanks for all the get well wishes) but I won't be around much as I have a sale or return order for a shop to finish and a big wholesale order to complete. I may bob in again before the weekend but only for a quick hello! I'm dying to get on with some sewing just for us but it will have to wait a couple of weeks until the orders are done!

Blurgh :(

I got back from picking up Tara from a friends house last night and promptly threw up twice. I've been feeling knackered for the past few days (and have a horrendous pain in my side) so I went to bed at 6.20 last night and I'm still there. The joys of wireless and laptops :) So don't be expecting anything wonderful from over here for the next few days will you?

My workspace today

I'm a mean mummy and I made the girls clear off their craft table in the front room so I could use it last night and today :)

On the table today are, bottom right, 3 packs of finished envelopes. Top right, 7 more sets waiting to be stuck together and packaged. Far top left, some of the girls books they have been making and next to that is a pile of envelopes for me to use for sending out parcels - when they have been stuck together that is! Not seen (which is a task for later) are lots of sets of gift tags that need sticking.

Busy day planned and as these are going to a new stockist on Friday I'd better get my bum in gear!

Featured

As I was catching up with my blog reading this morning I found that I had been featured on the Eco Etsy blog :)

Spot the chicken tags?

Cute!

If you follow me on Twitter then you will have seen that on Monday I had a little friend helping me out while his mum had some things to do. I had lots of parcels to pack so he came up with me to the study while I wrote out address etc to send the said parcels to.

He really liked the Fisher Price school desk - especially banging the magnets around and posting them off the side of the spare bed!

He was also entranced when the phone rang as we have one of those old fashioned ones :)

What I had forgotten is how tricky it can be to get things done when you have a little one around - simple things like getting down twisty stairs with packaging and a baby to hold!!

Make Tea Not War

Admirable words!

I got this fabulous mug from Miso Funky the other day :)

And it came with a cute Delia magnet that will be going straight onto my fridge! Claire is also the stitcher behind the sampler that hangs up in my kitchen - you can see it here.

Transforming my to-do list - hopefully!

My lovely Mother-in-Law, Pat, had this large, page to a day, diary given to her but she couldn't use it. She asked if I would use it and I immediately said yes as I had an idea for it.

At the moment my to-do list comprises of two pieces of paper - see below!

But now my to do list is here!

It's also acting as a reminder for me to do certain things on certain days such as book the car in and pick up my prescription etc. My work to-do list will start making it's way over into the diary soon as most of the things in there so far are housework/domestic. The reason for that is this, which is written in for today :)

Get train to London! As you may be aware, Matt works away quite a bit and is currently working in London. However, this is his last week there for a while so he arranged for the aforementioned lovely MIL to come over (hence all the housework!) so that I can spend a few days in London with him. He will be working during the day but I'm sure I will find plenty of things* to do!

*The East End Thrift Store is where I found 7 dresses for £20 in the summer. Hoping for bargains like that this time too :)

Stop Motion Lego

Don't search for stop motion Lego on YouTube as you will be there all day! This is one of my favourites - Bernard Cribbins Right Said Fred.



And the girls thought this next one was very funny - Lego man farts!

Crafty help for the Queensland Floods

I'm sure you are all aware of the flooding that has hit Queensland in Australia and is now spreading south into Victoria. Toni over at Make It Perfect has done a fantastic job of co-ordinating the huge list of people who have donated their crafty prowess to help. There are a very large number of auctions along with 'giveaways' and promises of portions of sales. You can check out the list here. You can also donate directly to the cause here if you would prefer.

I'm persoanlly going to enter the giveaway from Ric Rac - I want to win those cute goodies!


*This is exactly the same post that I have posted over on Cuteable today - the more eyes that see it the better!

I had an interesting meeting with a snake last week

His name was Bob and he's a Boa Constrictor :)

And he was quite good until he decided to stare me out and then sniff my neck!

The girls wanted a go too!

Anya also got to hold a baby lizard. We also met some giant cockroaches, a tarantula called Incy Wincey that I really wanted to hold but we weren't allowed, a scorpion, a bearded dragon and lots of other fun creatures!

It was all down to Ranger Rob who was the star of a birthday party we went to.

Bookshelf porn!

Following on from button porn yesterday I just have to talk about book porn today :) We love books in our house and have thousands of them scattered everywhere - the girls have bulging bookshelves in their bedrooms, the study and craft room are filled with books and we always have piles of books next to our beds. We even have a dedicated reading area for the kids downstairs! Suffice to say we really like our books in this house. So when I came across Bookshelf Porn I think I actually drooled onto the keyboard! I want to live in all these places but especially love the top photo (it's a bookshop I think but it just looks so cosy!)

Our bookshelves are nowhere near as extensive as this although I think there may be a similar number of books :) I will have to take a picture sometime. Do you like books?

Why I buy lots of buttons

Other than to run my fingers through and just look at them filling the (many, many) jars in my craft room that is!

To make fabulous Buttontastic chicken doorstops :)

And pretty button brooches :)

I also use lots of black buttons as the eyes for my chickens. See not just pretty things to look at although these next photos may be classed as button porn :) Enjoy :)

My button jars!

Matt found these - 50p per tin

My best EVER charity shop haul

Donated by a lovely, lovely friend

Rummage, rummage!

 

Soda Bread - yum!

So the other day I was reading The Really Good Life and read about a quick and easy recipe for soda bread so I decided to make it! It's an unleavened bread so is really quick (40 mins) to make and it is really delicious - Matt and the girls thought so too! Go try it out!

My very rustic looking bread

 

New sticker packaging

When I just used to sell my stickers online I didn't need to worry about packaging as I had photographs of the actual stickers so people could see what they were buying. This is what the stickers used to be packaged in.

Great for online selling but not so good for craft fairs! So this is what I have come up with - simple and could do with some tweaking but it will work fine for now :)

Close up - front view

Close up - back view

The see through packaging is a mixture of the bags I use to package up my gift tags and some sturdier packaging that you would recognise if you ever go to Ikea. You know the plastic bits that they put the price tags in on sofas etc? Well one of those came home with us on a bathmat (we hadn't realised!) so I grabbed it to reuse! I also have something similar that was in one of the wallpaper books I talked about yesterday. It's a lot better than the plastic bags I use for the gift tags but I doubt I will get something similar again - unless I go to Ikea any time soon :)

And don't worry about the original packaging being used - I use my mini envelopes for snack and trip money at school so all they need to be ready to be reused is a blank sticker!

Busy!

My craft room is a tip and the to do list is getting longer and longer! The craft room has a mixture of stuff that can be put away easily (about 20%) and the other 80% is stuff that I need to do something with. I have a huge pile of cardboard waiting to be turned into gift tag backs for example but I can only punch out about 50 at a time dues to a) crap wrists and b) crap tag punch! I have nowhere to store the card when it isn't punched so it is sitting in a pile on the floor - along with with a whole load of other stuff. Last night though I did manage to get wallpaper ripped out of 3 sample books and put into a pile (yes on the floor!) The wallpaper is used for these

Matchbook notebooks that are a freebie when you buy something from me

And these

Previously used envelopes covered in wallpaper to make them pretty and usable again!

So you will be pleased to know that an hour this morning was spent using some of the wallpaper to cover the padded envelopes we got over Christmas. I still have a massive pile of paper though so I need to get cracking with some of the matchbook notebooks I think!

Stickers galore!

Anyone who follows me on Twitter will have seen that I have been posting lots of stickers sets into my shops. These are the sticker sets that have been waiting in  Flickr since mumble mumble. Yes that's right, since March........

Anyway, that wait is now over so here are a select few :)

Pirate stickers

 

 

Flower stickers

Nature stickers

Fairy tale/fantasy stickers

Circus stickers

I have another 6 sets waiting to be photographed (waiting for any decent light!) and hopefully they won't be in my Flickr stream for as long as these ones were before being listed! Although saying that I have about 40 items waiting to be listed already...........

A custom chicken

This chicken is a special chicken that was finished in October and sent off to my lovely customer as a Christmas gift for a friend. The friend is a Girl Guide Leader and the chicken has been made from the special 100th anniversary neckercheif.

The badge was added as an extra to make it extra special.

If you have some special material that you would like turning into a chicken (small or large) then just get in touch :)

Disco girls!

Me and Tara dancing at a little friends birthday party. Incidently the dress is one of the ones I bought in London over the summer - 7 dresses for £20 :) :)

Camp blanket

Were any of you Girl Guides (or non UK equivalents?) If so did you have things called camp blankets for use when you sat around the campfire singing? This is what my mums looks like. Note the hole for your head at the top.

It was tradition to sew on badges that were significant (others were allowed too!) We went on various camps and got badges from them.

I say looks like and I should have said looked like. My mum gave it to me as she knew I was looking for badges for my own blanket (without the hole for your head) I've taken the badges off this one and have a pile ready for my own blanket. I took them off carefully so that I can reuse the blankets - I know what I want to use them for so keep watching although it may take a while :)