Treasury!

I love making treasuries!! This one features lots of colourful Christmas items from the Crafting In Colour team.

The link is here if you fancy giving it some love and clicks! This is going to be my last blog post until the new year as we are going to be away with no internet connection!! I'm not sure how I will cope but I'm sure I will :) Cuteable will be updated while I am away (pre planned posts) so if you need something to read then head over there. See you in the new year xx

Random photos!

These first two are of me that Anya took on Sunday morning - I'm trying not to panic as she is holding my very expensive camera!!

And yes I am in my pajama's (it was Pajama Sunday on Sunday after all!) and yes those are sparkly reindeer antlers on my head. What do you mean you don't normally wear sparkly reindeer antlers on Pajama Sunday?? You may have guessed that we are in the bathroom - don't know how you can tell! I was in there to chat to Matt and I just had to take this photo of him in the bath!

He loves the new bubbly spa bath! I hasten to add that the tiles are now grouted behind the bath and we have been given a provisional finish date for Sat!!

And this is my new haircut - I didn't have time to get a fringe cut in (not sure if I want one anyway!) but I did get it shorter than normal and I love it. I like that it can get messy and not look too bad either which is a bonus for me!

And this is how you will normally see me with my new haircut - up behind my head. I'm sure it is the way for all mums!!

You know you are a mother to daughters when...

... you set up a mini hairdressing salon at your kitchen sink for the Barbie doll complete with shampoo (well washing up liquid) mini hairbrushes and a pair of scissors! And that's all I'm saying on the matter!!

Feeling a bit crap again - maybe too much info!

Thought I was getting better - but the stomach ache and resultant diarrhoea are back - boo! Also it turns out that I am resistant to the antibiotics I was taking for a urine infection! So I popped back to the dr's and got some new ones and hopefully they will shift it. So I am going in the bath now and then to bed - hopefully I will be a bit brighter tomorrow.

The salt dough ornaments!

As you can see Anya was very excited about making salt dough ornaments for her teachers!

Here is the dough all mixed up - I added food colouring but next time I think I will add more green as it looks very similar to the yellow!

The girls were more excited about the pink though! Here is a shot of the girls in action - and yes they are still in their pajama's as we had a PJ day yesterday!

And here are some of the finished ornaments.


This is before they were baked and afterwards I mixed some pva glue with glitter and coated them in that to give them some shine and sparkle. The recipe I used is here but I would recommend baking them for longer - mine stayed in for nearly 3 hours. So if you are one of Anya's teachers or a special relative then you haven't seen these, right?

She doesn't get it from me!

I snapped this photo of Tara doing the pretend washing up! She was actually washing her hands after making salt dough ornaments but decided to wash up - as I say she doesn't get it from me!

Hopefully I will get photographs of the salt dough ornaments later (they are baking at the moment) and I can show you them. The ones Tara made are for relatives and the ones that Anya made are for her teachers :)

Boring title

I honestly have no idea what to write for a title so the one written will have to do. I reached that pppffffffff (read can't be arsed) stage yesterday with the house being a tip, plumbers in and out and not having a decent bathroom. My creativity has gone out of the window (the one that the plumbers insist having open!) along with my motivation so I have closed all my shops for the Christmas holidays. To be honest I don't think people would be ordering things now so I have decided to take a break from it all - yes it does happen occasionally! The shops will be opened again in the new year with some items offered on sale as I won't be continuing with some lines in the shops. I'll hopefully get a chance to revamp photo's and generally have a decent clear up of all the shops. We are going away for the holidays next Sat so have presents to wrap, clothes to wash and a house to try and rescue from the dust and muck this week.

I will be posting a few things this week but then once we go on holiday I won't be back until the new year - hopefully feeling refreshed!!

Yummy treasury!

Yeah - I'm in a treasury!! Thanks to I Heart That! Dance

You can visit the treasury here and my OOAK chicken doorstop here.

Cropper Hopper!

A strange title I know but you'll see what it is about in a minute. I couldn't resist temptation today and after we had picked Anya up from school we went to the lovely crafty place that is Sams, my local scrapstore. The title refers to this Cropper Hopper Photo Case which you can see below.


And yep - you've guessed correctly that they had some in Sams and it was included in my £5 bag!! It's quite large and will fit 12 x 12 papers in the bottom half of it. There were pink and purple ones to choose from and I think I got purple (can't be bothered to move and check!) The only fault is that some of them had been bashed on the edges or part of the clicky bit to close it was missing but not enough so that it still closed. Bargain! I'm writing about it tonight as there were 4 or 5 left and I thought that crafty friends might like to know about it as they are members of Sams too (and it was one of the lots that you are only allowed 1 of so I couldn't grab one for you guys!)

Of course I got some other bits and bobs but my stomach was hurting and I didn't rummage as much as usual. Have to plan a trip back for after Christmas!

Bathroom progress

Well it has cracked on a fair bit since I last posted - we now have a bath!!!!!!!! I don't have up to date photo's due to being ill but I will get up there later to take some. Here's how it has progressed so far.

This is the wall behind the toilet!

The shower tray with the remainder of the tiles in it!

This is the wall that the door sits in - more on this wall in a minute.

This is what was hiding behind the shower - an old doorway. We knew shortly after we bought the house that it was bodged in places but we didn't realise quite how much until we started the bathroom. The old doorway had been patched up with bits of marine plyboard, odd bits of wood and brick and newspaper! And not only that but the two doorways (old and new) was the only thing holding the wall up - the plumber pushed on the wall and it moved which was a bit scary. You can see some pictures of the dodgy wall below.

And below is what the wall looks like from the hallway.

And this is what it looks like when it is demolished to build a brand new wall!

I'll hopefully get more up to date photographs tomorrow!

I'm back - sort of!

Well I'm feeling a lot better but that's only about 80% of where I am normally so I'm hoping the 20% will come back soon :) My shops are still closed at the moment but hopefully this week they will be opened again - bit of a rubbish time to get ill in the run up to Christmas but hey ho! I'm also liable to be feeling sorry for myself this week as Matt is going back to work :( so any amusing things to tell me will help me feel better :)

Bye for now.

In a treasury!

The lovely Kitty Kent featured me in one of her treasuries - a pantomime theme! So you can see my Peter Pan envelopes in the treasury :)

I have closed my etsy shop for a little while to try and get over this stomach bug. I'm hoping to have it re-opened next week sometime :)

Owl video

You can tell when I am busy because these owl videos keep popping up!!



Back tomorrow hopefully with more exciting posts!

My super duper husband!

Is a wonderful superstar :) He's made me a fantastic new website and here is a screenshot of the front page!!

Can you see the little white chickens underneath the header banner? If you hover over them they cheep!!!!! Yep they really cheep :) And you get to see a lovely piccie of me on the profile page and some photo's of some of the products I make.

Oh and the best bit is that it is all on my new domain name swir.ly Matt loves the geekiness of that :D

Quick treasury!

Here's a quick treasury I grabbed for the Crafting in Colour team this evening. You can visit it here or go and see what else the Crafting In Colour team have been up to here.

Blurgggh!

As you may have noticed (please let someone have noticed!) I have been absent for the past few days. Lets just say it boils down to a nasty stomach virus (I won't go into details) but needless to say I am feeling a bit better today. I'm actually sitting up and not lying on the sofa! I will hopefully get back to regular blogging soon and I'm catching up on the blogs I read so you might spot me commenting. :)

New things on Etsy..

A break from bathroom posts today :) Here are some new things that I have posted on Etsy recently.

A new green stripy chicken doorstop - he enjoyed his photoshoot in the sunshine :)

And this pink pegbag is part of a new range of recycled goodies. This one is 98% recycled - only the thread is new!

I'll be back with more bathroom pics tomorrow x

Cuteable is down

Cuteable is down at the minute so apologies if you are trying to get to it - we think it is the hosting site! I will let you know when it is back up and running :)

Urrggghhh

Turns out that the people who lived here in 1974 (we have newspaper stuffed into cracks to prove it!) thought that blocking up an old doorway with marine plywood and tiling on top of it would be a good idea. They also though that leaving bloody great big gaping holes in the wall behind said tiles would be good. We knew the house was bodged in lots of places but stuffing newspaper into cracks in the brick work instead of doing it properly is a step too far. Turns out the wall between the bathroom and the hallway has to come down as it is only supported by the framework for the old door and the one that was blocked up. It seemed a bit dangerous when the plumber lent on it and it moved!!!!!

Bugger :(

Bathroom progress

This was the bathroom before - I hasten to add that we didn't do it and it was like this when we moved in 6 years ago. They had children and I honestly don't know why they though wood cladding was preferable to tiles or even why they had a huge gap round the bath that is perfect for pouring water into and therefore the floor as that's where it leads too!! Needless to say it is going to be fixed!



And here is the bathroom at the end of day 1.

The shelf space under the window frame has had the front removed as you can see from the photo below.

The shelf/windowsill bit was built because the waste was at a funny angle and they wanted to hide it - we are re-routing the waste so that it goes straight out through the wall and then we can claim that space back.

The nasty wood cladding has gone from all the walls apart from this little bit left behind the toilet.

The bath ended up in the shower last night as only the plumbers assistant was here and couldn't carry it downstairs by himself!

And this is where the bath and sink were :)

They are banging away up there so hopefully I will have more photographs to show you tomorrow :)

Really quick post!

As I have guests staying from tomorrow until Weds (thank goodness it's only my mum and sister and they don't expect the house to be tidy!) and the plumber is also coming to rip out my entire bathroom this week! I obviously forgot that Mum and Sarah were coming when we booked the plumber but luckily they aren't adverse to a stand up wash :) So this is my list for the rest of the night.

Clear out the dining room so that the plumber has somewhere to put the new bathroom suite

Move the clothes horse upstairs so I have somewhere to put the washing out (it's normally in the dining room) and actually find room in our bedroom to put it

Put the washing out on the afore mentioned clothes horse.

Put all the things away from my lovely shopping spree with my lovely mum :)

Tidy the stairs to the study and craft room so that mum and Sarah can physically get up them tomorrow! Although this one can wait until tomorrow.

Not a long list but I have also cleared out the bathroom tonight and stacked all of that in our bedroom too along with two sets of shelves from there.

Anyway I will be busy for the next few days so I might not be blogging too much but if I get chance I will take photographs and give you a photo of the day or something like that. That's if I remember of course :)

Back soon xx

Whoooooooo hooooooooo!

500 hearts in my Etsy shop!! Yeah!! It's here if you fancy going to add to it :)


Thanks to everyone who has hearted my shop :)

New treasury and goodies!!

My lovely Beatrix Potter gift tags have been featured in a treasury by Kitty Kent - thanks!

If you fancy clicking and looking then you can do so here!

I also got a wonderful parcel from the lovely Sharon of Iris and Lily. I won the giveaway on her blog and got some really nice goodies :) First up look at the wonderful packaging.

And then when I opened it I found this wonderful sight!

Again beautiful packaging - and look at that spoon on the screenprinted tea towel.

I pinched the full tea towel picture from Sharon because mine didn't come out - I'm sure she won't mind!

And how fab is this spirograph printed bag?? I loved spirograph when I was younger so this is ideal for me! And look at the inside - squeal!!

I am really pleased so thank you Sharon :)

Quickest sale ever!

Last night I popped these gift tags onto Etsy and then tweeted about them.

Imagine my surprise when they sold (along with another set!) 15 minutes later! I'd heard of things selling straight after being listed but it has never happened to me before. I was very pleased :)

I'll be testing my luck later and list some more tags on Etsy - here's a sneaky peek for you.

These are Beatrix Potter ones

And these are from a couple of fabulous 1970's books featuring a very cute baby - they were kindly donated by Daisie.

I'll be posting lots of new goodies (including more tags from the books above) over the next few weeks as I have lots of things I have made :)

*Update* Both sets of tags are now up in my Etsy shop.

On my desk....on a Wednesday

As ever my work today is not on my desk but was photographed on the kitchen floor this morning in the mad rush before the school run! And it's not typical work (sewing or papercrafts) but the more boring task of sorting and finding new homes for things in my bursting craft room! I've had a trip to Sams you see :) Sams is my local scrapstore and they offer everything from fabric to paper, plastic containers to mod rock with lots of other things besides. It's a wonderful tresure trove of bits and pieces and is wonderful for sparking off ideas. Because the stock changes so quickly (local businesses donate everything) you never know what you are going to get each time you go. I use that reason as an excuse to go as often as I can! Anyway enough waffling - here is what I bought.

A wallpaper sample book - the fabric has mainly been ripped out but the wallpaper is still intact. Here are some of the patterens below.

Some bubble mailers will be made from this paper and maybe some gift tags too. I also got some swatch cards with little fabric swatches in.

These are the perfect size for my business cards :) And gorgeous bright colours too!

I also found a little group of oddities that will come in useful somewhere - but not quite sure where yet!

I got a whole bag full of these horse cardboard pieces - they may be turned into gift tags if my punch will go through them!

These will be for mixed media work.

These are going to be decorated by the girls and have photographs put in them and magnetic strip (also from Sams) stuck on the back and will be Christmas presents :) And these glitter things below - no idea what I'm going to use them for but I couldn't leave glittery things behind could I?

I also got some yummy fabric - Sam's has fabulous fabric!

I also got 2 bags of this lovely ruffle stuff - badges and rosettes are calling me with this I think!

I also got some wadding for a quilt I'm making, some magnetic strip and other bits and bobs that aren't worth photographing. Oh and all of this little lot cost me the princely sum of £5 :) Happy Lynsey now :)