No it's not cold in my house!!

This is the dehumidifier in the cellar and yes that is ice on it - brrrrrrrrrr!!


Luckily it seems to have warmed up a little now and there is only a little bit of ice on it now :)

Mug Swap Goodies!!

I was in the craft room yesterday and Tara took an opportune moment to stop chatting just as the postman knocked on the door 2 floors down! Luckily I heard him and rushed downstairs to be greeted by my mug swap parcel :) When I saw the name on the back of the parcel I knew it was going to be a good one! The goodies came from Sharon of Iris and Lily.

This is what greeted me when I opened the box - the postcard has already been repurposed into some art work!

Mmmmmmmmm nicely wrapped goodies!

I got some yummy buttons to add to my ever growing collection and they came in the cutest little marbled paper bag. I also got some ribbon and trim.

I was thrilled when I saw this pincushion as I have been meaning to make myself a chicken one for months now but haven't got round to it. At last the nasty tomato pincushion has been relegated to the bin!

I also got some beads and some fabulous marbled papers.

My favourite is this marbled map piece.

Some beautiful fabric - I think some of these are destined to become chicken pincushions!

Mmmmmmmmmmm mini eggs!! These didn't last long enough to go into the fridge!!

And onto the main part of the swap - the mug!! I love the blue of this one. And the garland is fab and has been made by recycled security envelopes which is something I enjoy doing too - I'm glad I'm not the only one who does that!

The garland is already up in my craft room near my window - I'll have to get a photograph.

So thank you Sharon - I'm really thrilled with all my goodies. I'll show you the things I sent off for the swap tomorrow as I know my recipient has received them :)

Button treasury

I'm having to post a couple of times a day as I have soooooo much stuff to share with you - including some very exciting news but that will have to wait until Monday at least :) I managed to grab a treasury yesterday and as I'd spent the morning sorting out my buttons (yes again!) I thought the treasury should be button themed!

There are some gorgeous buttons out there but I think my absolute favourite is the songbird one in the middle at the bottom - so cute!! Don't forget to click on the link and go and visit :) And if you fancy buying me some buttons then feel free :) :)

Charity shops

As I said in this post I went to the charity shops of Harrogate with my mum and Tara the other day and this is what I found. There wasn't a great deal to be honest but I still managed to get a few bits!

The 3 children's books were 3 for £1. We already have the mum version of the brilliant book so I thought we would even it up with the dad version! The Pooh craft book is for me to try and make some things for my mum who is an avid Winnie the Pooh fan. And the top children's book I bought purely for the illustrations but it is quite a good story too. And as me and Matt hardly have any books (!) I thought we needed 2 more :)

I've been looking for a thin knit dress for ages and when I spotted this red on I had to grab it. It's got really cute pockets and was £4.99

You know when you spot something across a crowded charity shop that catches your eye - well that's what happened with this top. It's a promotional top for The Beautiful South and features the artwork off the Superbi album* It was £2.99

I didn't spot this one - my mum did! She spotted that it was my size and wandered over with it. I didn't buy this straight away but debated about it all day. Just before we left we went back to the shop and it was still there - I was obviously meant to have it! It's got lots of cute buttons on it and is originally from Per Una (posh Marks and Spencer's). It cost me £4.30.

*The best song on the Superbi album is Manchester - it rings a bell for all of those who live nearby this fab northern town :) I had to link to this version of the song as all the other videos have enbedding disabled but if you want to see the actual video then just search for it on You Tube.

Books meme

It is well known that I love books and reading in general so when I saw this meme over at Ethel's then I knew I had to have a go. I'm not going to tag anyone but feel free to do it and let me know how many you have read. The BBC reckons that people will have only read 6 of the books here so how will you measure up.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - X 10 at least
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - X
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X 5
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman X at least 20 as these are my favourite books!
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X started it but to my shame it is only one of 2 books that I could't finish as it is dire!
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy -
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier -
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - X
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger - X x2
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot X
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - X
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh -
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - X
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy X
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - X
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis - X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein - X
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden X
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne - X
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell - X
42 The Da Vinci Code - X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez X
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy -
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan -
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel X
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - X
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zifon X
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon -
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov X
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold - X
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson X
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker - X
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White - X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom -
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X I've read a couple
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton - X x goodness knows how many times!
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks X
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams - X
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factoy - Roald Dahl - X several times
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

So I have read 42 of the books on this list but we actually have 87 of the books mentioned - just need to get round to reading them!!

Competing!

Tara and me are heading off to Harrogate today to meet up with my mum. We are hunting for bargains in the charity shops of course! In honour of there being lots of yummy mummies in H'gate I thought I would dress up a bit and try to compete with them - hah!! My jeans are new wide legged ones that I got on a shopping trip to Tesco with Alex (we go to all the best places!) and my top is new too - from Primark. The shoes as you know are also new and they actually feel quite comfy. How they will feel after a day traipsing round the charity shops of Harrogate I don't know! You can only just see them in this picture but they are the reddy/orangey shoes I bought the other day.

I feel a bit guilty because I'm wearing all new clothes and that very rarely happens - I normally have at least one thing that is secondhand on. The coat I'll be wearing is from a jumble sale so I don't feel as bad but still feel guilty.

I have lots of goodies to show you from the huge annual jumble sale and the charity shops of Ripon but they will have to wait until a) they are washed and b) we actually have some decent weather to photograph them!! I'll add the goodies I find today into that pile too.

Two wips

This trio of chickens are awaiting their eyes and the big ones are waiting for zips on their bums. The little one is destined to become a pincushion/paperweight once he has been stuffed with rice!

These are some alien ink blot gift tags that are half made in this photograph - as you can see I make them using each colour in turn on all 10 tags and then move onto the next colour. These are now finished and have been sent off to the lovely lady who ordered them from me! They are surprisingly time consuming as each alien is unique :)

And here is the chaos that was my kitchen table just before Anya went to school - it often is this messy minus the breakfast pots. I'm quite good at putting them away usually!

Back properly now!

Phew - we are back properly now but I still have no photographs off the things I got to show you! I've had quite a few orders to fulfil from while we were away and have no time to photograph things :) I did get some fabulous stuff from the jumble sale though which I will be sharing with you soon - I promise :) Right need to go and sew......

Back but off again...

Cor - we've arrived home but are off again tomorrow so this is very short and sweet! The washing machine is busy as I type. I will report back after the weekend with tales of the worlds best jumble sale - hopefully I will grab some bargains :)

Owl video

Another one for you!



I hope this works!!

Some cards!

My mother in laws cousins daughter in law has just had a new baby girl so here is a card I've made for them. Made of course (as all my cards seem to be this year!) using Ruth's fabulous toppers.


And I couldn't make a card for the baby and not have one for Annabelle the big sister could I?

I also sent one of my heart babygrows - got to spoil them while they are little!!

Hello!

By the time you read this we will be well on our way to France for part of half term. I have been clever and scheduled a couple of posts for while we are away so you don't get bored. needless to say one of them is an owl video - I know, I'm predictable!

Open the box, see what's inside....

It's a pretty boring box in the photograph but I prettied it up with a ribbon.

Oooooh goodies!

First we have some sparkles

And some more!

Some card blanks

And some other important crafty bits and bobs

All of this (and some more things) are for a little girl of a crafty mum who enjoys making and doing! Happy Birthday F!

Shoes!!!

So Claire from Miso Funky posted a picture of some fabulous red shoes she bought the other day - of course I had to peek and when I saw they were from Primark I knew that my Wednesday was sorted!! I had great fun looking at shoes and trying on dresses that looked ridiculous on me!! Here are the shoes I bought.

First up the red ones - they are more of an orangey red than a bright red - they clashed horribly with my orange tights when I tried them on!

And would you believe it - the white ones jumped into my basket too!

And some fab black ones!

They did these patent ones in purple too - drool drool - but not in my size :( :( I contemplated cutting my toes off to fit into the size 4 (I'm a size 6) but I didn't think it was quite worth it! And to prove that shoe love runs in the family, here are the girls!

Eeek!

No proper blog post today as I have been out all day trying on shoes and badly fitting dresses!! I did have a little time this evening but I am trying to get my posts done for Cuteable the evening before they are up :)

This picture of Tara will have to keep you going until I get back into the swing of things hopefully tomorrow! Don't you just love that Postman Pat jumper? It came from a charity shop of course!

Snoopy Doopy Do!!

I used to love Snoopy books when I was little (especially Woodstock) so jumped at the chance to get some damaged ones from the charity shop to cut up! I've used them for badges before and this time I used them for magnets.

Two hours after listing them in my Folksy shop they had sold! I was thrilled! It looks like I'll be making loads more now :) I'm also going to make some tags using Snoopy as I haven't done yet. I'm going to be busy!

Crafting In Colour feature!

Yeah!! I have been featured on the Crafting In Colour team blog this morning! It's multicoloured Monday and my popular alien disco ACEO made it on!

You can see it there in the middle! Right I am going to be productive today :)

The alternate use for peel offs!

Well this is what my girls like to do with them anyway!!

They are bindi's and mendhi patterns apparently but I think they are channelling Adam Ant!!

Some more ACEO's

I have been busy!! These 4 ACEO's were all made yesterday although one had been partly made for months now!

'They lived at 27 Cass Court' is the one that was partly made! The image of the mysterious house is a cigarette card and the wording has been cute from an antique book (a damaged one that the charity shop couldn't sell I hasten to add) The numbers are from an educational game from the 1970's/1980's.

Another cigarette card has been used in this ACEO entitled Play, Giggle, Dance. This one is a silk cigarette card though so it has been sewn onto the ACEO. I also wanted to bling it up a bit hence the glitter strip down one side.

And these 2 are the first in a new series of ACEO's entitled Weird Plants. I have 2 others planned but I just need to get them made! I'm very pleased with these and have lots of other ideas for the Weird Plants series. I'm sure you will be the first to know :)

Treasury!

Yep I'm in another one - this time a Crafting in Colour one! If you search with the word cicteam on Etsy you will find lots of goodies from team members. And my item that isewcute choose for her treasury is certainly colourful!

It's the popular alien disco aceo at the bottom in the middle. Don't forget to go and click away to your hearts content over on the treasury!

Phew - busy busy me!

I am very very busy at the moment with tidying the house (yep still doing it!) and with trying to keep up with posting 3 times a day over on Cuteable. I am determined to do it though and having 'themes' for each weekday is making it slightly easier. So I am going to be a little boring on here until I get into the swing of things but rest assured I will still be posting. It may not be very exciting but I will still be posting :) Here is something to cheer you up - a picture of me wearing stripey tights on Sunday. And yes I did go out wearing the outfit, much to the amusement of some people in the pub. Don't care though as I got a huge dessert to bring home - it was my birthday weekend after all!

And yes I do realise that I look scared in the photograph - not sure why - and that I seriously need to do something with my hair!

New items!

I know I said I would be back yesterday but I was still feeling under the weather and couldn't be bothered to do much! I am feeling better but my nose looks like Rudolphs and I'm still sneezing a bit. Here are some new bits and bobs I have been working on.

Everything in this Spring Blossom brooch is recycled/repurposed or reclaimed except for the brooch back. And yes that includes the thread! Expect to see more brooches on a similar theme soon.

I have also been having fun making some magnet sets featuring similar repurposed papers to those I use on my badges and tags. I like these junk mail magnets purely because they are never going to be exactly the same as other sets!

And who doesn't like a bit of Beatrix Potter? Well my sister for one but that's a long story :) This magnet set can be found here.

I have 3 more magnet sets to put up into my shops so expect more product blog posts soon :)