A book, a pretty little book

A very pretty book don't you agree? Lets have a look through the pages.

Ooooooh this page looks very interesting. Upcyced bubble mailers? Hang on a minute - lets have a closer look at the name at the top.....

Oh yes, that's me!! As you might have guessed from this long winded post, one of my tutorials has been featured in this book :)

See, a pretty picture too of my nursery rhyme bubble mailer.

The book was published in October last year and I forgot about it until I found the letter about it when I was tidying up the craft room recently - doh!!

So, how are you all?? I feel like I have been away from here for ages but it's been lass than a month!

More garden stuff

I'm sure that this used to be a craft blog but the gardening is taking over at the moment (I'm sure I am more excited about this than I should be!) Some of the seedlings I have grown over the past few weeks on my front room table have grown much bigger so have been planted outside.

First up the spinach went to live on the windowsill outside - it looks a bit flat as I watered them a bit too vigorously with a large holed watering can!

The peas also went to live outside - do you like my DIY effort for them to climb up? Only time will tell if they work :) These are just as you come out of my front door - I am determined to make use of all the space in my small garden!

And this little beauty came to live with us a couple of weeks ago. What is it you ask? It's a wormery!!!!!  Our garden is very small and we can't really have a normal composting bin so I've been looking at wormerys. And this one was a bargain - £3 at a car boot a couple of weeks ago :) And I ordered the worms to go it (in with a starter kit from Wiggly Wigglers) last night and I can't wait to get them and get the wormery set up!!!

I'm very excited about this gardening malarkey - why did no one tell me it's so addictive?

Spin, spin, spin!

Hopefully you will be able to see the little video I made of my bobbin winder in action. Lots of people have been asking me why they would need a bobbin winder when they have a sewing machine that does it for them. I always argue that you do need one as you don't have to unthread your machine just to wind some more bobbins - particularly if you need another bobbin in the middle of a project :)



Am I the only one who can see a face in the bobbin winder? The green button is one eye, the bobbin is the other and the clasp in the middle is the smiley mouth :)

Oooooh shiny toy things without the shiny toys!

I like Instagram photos - they look fab and very retro which is my kind of thing but I don't have an iphone, fondle slab or even anything that takes photos without actually being a camera (I'm a philistine like that!) However, after an early morning Facebook chat with Vic from Punky and Me I researched How to get an Instagram effect without an iphone and I got quite a few results :) The one I like the look of most is Pixlr-O-Matic. This is what I did in two minutes this morning (and bear in mind it's early so I'm slightly sleepy and therefore it must be easy!)

The original school photo of the girls.

And the manipulated.

Quite cool eh? And it was very simple to do and there are lots of options to choose from. I think I'm going to be a fan of this!

Matt has an Android phone and got some rather cool effects from Lightbox. And exciting news for us philistines - there is an online version so you don't need fancy phones!

Expect to see lots of super shiny edited photographs from me from now on :)

Etsy and Folksy sales

As you may have seen I hit 200 sales in my Folksy shop on Sunday and yesterday I hit 300 sales in my Etsy shop :) :)

Yay for sales :) And which shop do you think will get to 201/301 first?

Swirlyarts on the Folksy blog!

Eeeeeeeek! I'm thrilled to featured on the Folksy blog this morning in the Shop Talk section.

There's lots of information about me and what will (hopefully) be my next steps in building up the Swirlyarts brand.

Pop over and leave a comment and let me know what you think :)

A new family member!

A new member of the Swirlyarts family arrived at the weekend - she is called Taz and is a beauty :) Want to see some pictures?

See I said she was a beauty :) She is a 1999 T4 high top campervan and she now belongs to us! Although we love Bumble (our 1988 yellow campervan) so much, he is not right for our family any more and so he will be going to a new home (hopefully soon!) If any one wants more details about him then leave a comment and I can pass on the details of the garage who now have him. Want to see some more pictures of Taz?

This is where the girls will sleep in the high top part of the van (Bumble has a pop top meaning that the roof pops up whereas Taz's roof is always up) We have bought them a new memory foam mattress for up there and as Taz is fully winterised they will be nice and snuggly :)

This is where we will sleep - on seats that turn into a bed :) As well as being fully winterised there is a diesel heater so with those two combined we should be able to make more use of Taz throughout the whole year rather than just when it is warmer - yeah!

The seats when up - they have the addition of full 3 point seat belts too which is always a bonus - Bumble had lap belts for the girls.

Part of the kitchen view and you can see why she is called Taz with the red sticker :) We'll have to You Tube videos of the cartoon so they girls know what we are waffling about when we sing the theme tune!

Another view

View of the fridge and bed when down from out the back of Taz.

And a better view of the kitchen area. All of these photographs have been taken by the previous owner as a) it has poured down since we picked her up and the light has been crap b) she is full of stuff that has moved over from Bumble and c) we haven't had time to put all that stuff away as we are still deciding where to put everything!

Taz also has a bike rack on the back and a rack on the side of the high top for a surfboard. I'm planning on using that in some way to get extra stuff back from the brocantes and vide greniers of France but don't tell Matt, ok?

Raffle for Japan

You are bidding for this group of Swirlyarts handmade goodies. There is a buttontastic doorstop chicken, a pincushion/paperweight chicken, three sets of recycled envelopes, four blank cards and eight sets of gift tags. In total this set of goodies is worth £50. (see below for more detailed photographs)

Bids are to be made in GB£ and each raffle entry must be a donation of £5. To enter, go to Global Giving and make a £5 donation, when you have done it come back to this post and leave a comment with your receipt number and you must also leave a valid email address. You can write the address in the format of mymailname ‘at’ hotmail ‘dot’ com. You may enter as many times as you like but each time you need a new receipt number. If you wish to donate £10 then donate two lots of £5 and enter the raffle twice! For help with the donation you can refer to this post http://jojoebi.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-to-make-donation.html

Raffle closes at 12.00pm GMT 26th March. If you make a mistake or forget to add you email address please delete the first comment and re-write it. Winner will be drawn randomly. I will ship internationally so feel free to enter wherever you live!

The giveaway / raffle / auction is being held on this blog, in cooperation with a Bit of This and a Bit of That. We are in no way affiliated with global giving, that's just our chosen method of getting funds safely to the affected area.

Lots of sets of gift tags including Richard Scarry, chickens and recycled story books.

Set of four blank cards made from upcycled catalogues and magazines.

Charlie Brown, French and English dictionary recycled envelopes.

The chickens!

Good Luck and lets see how much we can raise :)

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 :)

Eeeeeeek!

Looky what I got hold of this afternoon :)

And look at the things we love page.

What's that featured at number 7?

Oh that's right - a Swirlyarts Tweed chicken pincushion!

Eeeeeeek!!

He couldn't resist a sneaky peek! The other chickens have already been asking him for his autograph!

Thrilled :D

P.S. I have known about this since early October and have been bursting to say something but I didn't!

Lovely lovely mention!

A lovely lady I know online informed me the other day that I was mentioned in Sew Hip (a UK based sewing magazine) Oooooooh I thought! It turns out that Michelle from the oh so fantastic Craftsville has been interviewed by them and she was asked to mention which articles on Craftsville were her favourite.

Can you guess who was mentioned?? Can you?? I'll bet you can't!

And I'm mentioned first :D :D :D The mention is in the Do It Yourself section and is the tutorial for my padded envelopes which you can find on Craftsville here. If you click on the photograph you can see the text better. And apologies for the awful photographs - they were taken late last night!

I'm thrilled to be mentioned in a national magazine even if it is only a tiny mention :) Thanks Michelle!

More nice post!

I can't believe that I fogot to post about some goodies that came through my door last week (or maybe the week before) Sorry Laura!

I won Laura's giveaway! Yay me! And that giveaway was for 4 fabulous Eastenders cards. I don't watch Easties now but used to years ago and Ethel was one of my favourite characters - along with Little Wille too :) And I actually like some of Pat's earrings and would wear them which is quite a scary thought!

But not only did I get the 4 cards (which will be framed and not defiled with handwriting of any sort!) but I also got a pinwheel brooch kit too which will come in handy in my self imposed blogging (and most craft) exile which is coming up in August. More about that later.

Laura had decided that she wasn't going to do any more Eastenders craft items as she wanted to branch out - and look she has! My two favourite things in her shop right now are these below (although I am quite partial to that Hulder print)

Bunting in a box - squuuuuueeeee!

And this fabulous test card girl and clown.

Thanks again Laura and sorry for the delay in posting this :)

Nice post :)

I knew I was expecting a parcel from Curly Pops but wasn't sure when it would arrive all the way from Australia. It arrived today and to say I am thrilled with it is an understatement! I'd commented on a post of Cam's about Tim Tams and I had wondered what they were - Cam said she would send me some and I said I would reciprocate. Here's what I got :)

Some yummy delicious treats that are just for me (and maybe Matt too!) Tim Tams are quite a lot like Penguins for you UK folks but the biscuit of Tim Tams is a lot crispier and the chocolate tastes slightly different.

Along with the treats I got this lovely wrapped parcel.

Inside was my very own Curlypops brooch!!!!!!! My dodgy, taken at 8pm photo really doesn't do it justice.

And a chicken tea cosy :) How cool is that?

Alternatively it could be used as a foot warmer :)

Thanks so much Cam - I am thrilled. I hope my parcel to you isn't delayed much longer and that it doesn't get opened by customs.