This is......

........my favourite fabric/craft shop.

Well I don't actually have any pictures of Sams so pictures of the things I have made (and one from Anya) from items from Sams will have to do! Sams isn't a proper craft store but more of a scrap store that takes surplus items from companies and offers them to others (for a tiny fee per year) so that they don't go into landfil. I LOVE it there as there is always something different every time you go and you can never really plan which makes for a better rummage in my mind. It is tempting to grab lots of things though because you are never sure whether they are going to be there again - but for £3 a bag, £5 for 2 bags or £13 for a shopping trolley full it's well worth it!

I also love charity shops too for a rummage and fab fabric and my local post office is good source for the books I turn into envelopes and tags.

Thanks to Handmaiden for this weeks theme and to Three Buttons for the idea!

My baby isn't a baby anymore!

Here she is this morning looking cute and very tousle haired in her cot (she had only just woken up so you can forgive the hair!)

And this is the big girl bed that she is currently asleep in - I quite fancy that bedding for myself but Ikea don't make it for king sized beds!

And here she is enjoying it. Just after this photograph was taken she requested some books and she lay there for a good half hour reading and generally being lazy in bed (wonder where she gets that from!)

Do you think she is pleased with it!?

Yeah - adress labels!

Finally I have perfected the address labels that have been waiting to be sorted for a while! I have decided on sets of 20 and they are all hand drawn by me - none of this printing malarkey! Each set will vary slightly due to being hand drawn but you can expect 10 of each of the two designs below.

My personal favourites are the ones with the fancy edging although they are slightly more time consuming. I'm thinking of offering them at £3 ($6) a set - what do you think?

Playing!

I decided that after a day of sitting on our bums in the house yesterday (we did tidy up a bit!) that me and the girls had to go out and have a bit of a play. We went to Little Treasures, a play area that is fantastic and the girls love it. They do cheap and cheerful lunches too which are delicious - I had a tuna and cheese toastie!

Anyway, while the girls were playing I was doing some playing of my own with buttons. I made two more large buttons brooches - my only dilemma is which shop to list them in!


My favourite is the green one below - I like the contrast with the purple stitches.

The easiest way to make jam - ever!

This recipe came from my lovely mother in law and she now uses it to make all her jam - which is delicious by the way :) It takes about 15 minutes and at the end you have lovely jars of jam.

You will need

Berries (I used blackberries which had been picked when camping)
Sugar
Microwavable bowl
Microwave
Electric hand whisk (optional)
Jars for your jam

1. Firstly wash your berries - I do this as ours come straight from the bush and I need to make sure that the bugs have gone!

2. Weigh your berries. You should ideally have 1lb of berries to 1lb of sugar but if you have more or less then just adjust your sugar - just make sure you have a ratio of 1:1

3. Pop your berries and sugar into the microwavable bowl and microwave on full for 4 minutes. They will look a bit like this.

4. Stir your berries and then microwave for a further 4 minutes.

5. Stir the berries again and pop back in for another 3 minutes.

6. I now whizz the jam to get rid of the lumps of berries that are left but this is a personal thing (remember that your jam is boiling at this stage so be careful!) You can also push the jam through a sieve if you want to remove the pips/seeds. Again this is a personal preference.

7. Once I've whizzed the jam I normally put it back in the microwave for another 2 minutes to ensure that it has boiled enough to make it set. It will still appear runny at this stage so if you aren't sure if it needs boiling again you can leave it to cool for a bit and if it still doesn't look like it is going to set then you can pop it back in the microwave.

8. Pour your jam into jars and let it cool - I would place your jars into some warm water first to ensure that they don't crack when the hot jam goes into the cooler jars.

9. Ta da - you have lovely jam without all the fuss of thermometers and great big jam pans!

If anything doesn't make sense then just leave a comment :)

So.......

.......do you like the new header? And does anybody have any idea how to get it to the size of a banner for my Etsy shop? Paint Shop Pro is crap and isn't doing what I tell it to so I've given up on that so if anyone can help me then I would be eternally grateful :)

On my desk....on a Wednesday

I've decided to join another weekly 'challenge' and this one is 'On my desk on a Wednesday'. I first spotted it over on Curly Pops and thought that it was something I could do easily - not sure I'll manage to do it every week but I'll try! The idea was first thought of by Kootoyoo.

My desk today is actually my coffee table! Here are some gift tags that need the holes punching in them, string attaching and then packaging. There are a couple of sets that need photographing too before being listed in one of my shops.

Here are some more chicken tags - I thought I would stock up on some while I had the tag making things out.

Here are some more of my recycled tags - an old lego box that Matt let me cut up and some paint chip cards rescued from the manufacturer. They are completely recycled too as I use cereal packets etc that are destined for the recycling box as the backing card.

And this book just jumped into my hand at the post office (I officially love my post office because it sells second hand books!) and is destined to be turned into more gift tags. These will probably be going into my Folksy and Etsy shops when they are ready.

This is........

......my favourite book as a child - I read it and re-read it hundreds of times (and I'm not kidding about the hundreds of times either!)


I love all the Roald Dahl books but this has got to be my favourite. Mr Twit is disgusting and I loved the fact that he saved his food in his beard. And Mr and Mrs Twit were so nasty to each other too - it made me laugh so much. I can't wait until Anya is old enough to read it.

Just thinking though too if we are talking about children's book in general then my favourite as an adult has to be Philip Pullman's Northern Lights Trilogy - just magnificent and again I'll be introducing them to the girls when they get older. Go and search them out if you haven't read them yet.

Thanks to Potty Mouth Mama for this weeks theme and to Three Buttons for coming up with the idea! And apologies because it is 3 days late!

We are back!

From a very wet Bank Holiday Monday in the Lakes - the rest of the weekend was lovely but it chucked it down all morning because (yes the weather is especially mean to me!) we were taking the tent down! Just got to find somewhere to hang it now to get it dry.

I'll leave you with the news that I have reached 400 hearts in my Etsy shop! I'm quite pleased as I'm not one of these people who heart everything they see in the hope that someone will heart them back - I only genuinely heart people I like and I think that it will follow through to the people who heart you. Anyway enough drivel for tonight - see you tomorrow :)

Isn't it amazing.....

....how hours of fun can be had with some bubble wrap and Bob the Builder toys. They wrapped them up as presents, made 'furniture' out of the bubble wrap for the toys, the toys went shopping and at one point they had an elaborate game of hide and seek - the toys, not the girls!

Muck is letting everyone share his house while theirs are being built.

Tara is directing Scoop in his activities.

Scoop at the shops - he was talking on the tannoy at one point!

Chatting away about the houses they have built for Dizzy and Benny!