My Creative Space

Today I have been working on the girls crafty table in the front room. It makes a great space for photographing my work and things just tend to stay there to be honest! The girls have been banned from it as I have several sets of similar gift tags that aren't strung yet but need to be kept separate from each other. I'm hoping that by tomorrow they will have their table back!

There are stickers and gift tags waiting to be packed up and the stickers are waiting to be photographed too. The pile to the right of the table is stock waiting to be put away.

And this pile of pages is waiting to be turned into envelopes :)

More creative spaces over on Kootoyoo's new blog just for Creative Spaces

New Rule*

*self imposed and may be hard to stick to new rule but hey, the thought is there!

Tee shirt from here

Yesterday instead of getting straight on the computer as soon as we picked the girls up from school I sat and did some work. I got a little bit done - not much as we were all watching Dumbo and I had to snuggle my sensitive girl during the sad bits. But I also got the tea ready at a reasonable time, tidied the kitchen, made the lunches for today, sorted some recycling and hoovered the floor - mopping is for another day. I am very busy with work stuff at the moment so the house stuff is slipping and it is driving me mad as I just don't have the time to sort it all out. So I am thinking that between 3.30pm when the kids get home from school and 7.00pm when the kids go to bed, I won't even pick up my computer. I can do work as long as it's not computer work. Sound good? I think so and so does my sofa in the dining room that is drowning under a huge pile of clean clothes that are waiting to go away!

New things

Finally you can get a glimpse of some crafty happenings around here!

A set of gift tags upcycled from a vintage Mabel Lucie Attwell book.

Some cute teeny tiny envelopes :)

Not much evidence of work but there has been lots going on. It doesn't help that my motivation has just gone out the window even though I have piles of stuff waiting to be photographed or that is half made and needs finishing. I also have a 3 day fair at the end of the month so I really should be getting my arse in gear for that but aren't. Any ideas on how to get myself organised and motivated? I can't even be bothered to go to charity shops so my motivation/energy levels are kaput!

Garden

Our front garden is only small but it overlooks a lovely park so we get added greenery for free! It's very overgrown at the moment but that's ok. Actually it's just had an hour of us all out there pulling up weeds and plants that we don't like so it's less overgrown than it looks here! The said plants spread like mad and we spend at least half a day each year pulling up the bloody things.

Our Magnolia (?) flowered for the first time this year and it's very pretty. So far it has had 3 flowers but I'm hoping for more next year.

Also found in the garden was Mr Thistle who had managed to grow to a foot and a half! That's the trouble with letting your garden go a bit wild - thistles and dandelions thrive :)

My Creative space

The smallest is off school today due to her part of the school being used as a polling station so we are dropping the big girl at school, coming back to do some gardening and then heading off to a play centre with some friends.

I will be taking lots of and lots of business cards with me to finish off and then my box ready for Saltaire should be done :)

For more Creative Spaces, head over to Kootoyoo.

Juice!

I didn't only buy postcards from the brocante in France - this juice bottle jumped into my arms too. Quite a feat for a glass bottle to have the faith that I would like it that much to jump from a very high shelf :) Anyway, back in the real world this is what the bottle looks like.

The farmer looks very pleased with his tomatoes here doesn't he!

We don't drink tomato juice in this house so we filled it with orange juice instead. The juice through the frosted glass is pretty :) It only cost 1 euro too so a bargain to ensure happy breakfast times!

Wrapping paper!

I acknowledge that I may have a problem with fabric, buttons and books (see the last post) but I also think I might have a problem with wrapping paper too. It was only when I was taking photographs of the books in our house that I noticed quite how much wrapping paper we have!

Plenty for five years worth of presents at least!

We *heart* books!

A while ago Alex from Daisie Days wrote a post all about the books in her house and I thought what a good idea it was so here is my post about the books in our house. It's no secret that we love books so be warned as there are a lot of pictures ahead!

Utility room - all cook books

Dining room

Front room - the bottom of this cupboard is also full of books but I forgot to take a picture!

The girls reading corner which is at the bottom of the main stairs.

Tara's room

Bathroom

Anya's room

Matt's side of the bed - I forgot to take a picture of my side!

Craft room

Study - this is where we keep most of our books. And please note that the huge pile of Nat Geo mags have since gone and the whole room is a lot tidier as it is also our spare room and we had guests!

The landing outside the craft room and study.

So we have a fair few books! There is a box of books that are on Amazon waiting to be bought  so we are getting rid of a few of them :) One solution to the 'book problem'* is to stop buying books although with a local post office that sells second hand books at 50p it is tricky to resist temptation!

*I personally don't think that having a house full of books is a problem but some may disagree :)

Do you have lots of books? Show me pictures!!

Carte postal

Near where we stay in France is a fantastic brocante (junk shop) which I always visit when we are in the area (which is about once a year) It has boxes and boxes of postcards that are fabulous. Here are some of the ones I bought from there and also a local collectors fair.

This isn't even all of them!

The guy in the bottom left looks a heck of a lot creepier in real life!

I love the shading on them - some is done with such care and others aren't.

As you can tell I like the ones of people best!

Does anyone else think this looks like Ed Miliband? That last reference might allude those of you not interested in UK politics!


I buy these cards because they are very pretty and they make a nice collection. I am also planning on using some of them to make humorous greetings cards - I have a few catchphrases up my sleeve for some of them. I should say that my sister, her boyfriend and Matt all came up with humorous sayings too :)

I know that I have broken my nothing new pledge but I only get to go to the brocante once a year, if that, so I feel justified in buying them. The fact that I have also got phrases ready shows that they will be used soon too :)

Lazyish holiday

So we have been in France over the Easter break and it was lovely. I deliberately didn't take any work sewing/making with me (first holiday in ages where I haven't) and as there is no internet access I couldn't faff around online! I made sure that I didn't just laze around in the sun and read although I did manage a fair bit of that! I took some personal projects to do and here are the results.

My spirograph bag was fixed using nice bright crazy embroidery and I am very pleased with the results. It took me ages to decide which colours to use and in the end it went to a vote. I'm pleased to have it back in use as a bag and think that I may add some more pockets inside so it will become very useful to have around. I hate loosing things in my bags but need a big bag to carry everything around!

The cross stitch sampler was started but is nowhere near being finished yet - it's destined to become one of those pick up, put down projects that will take a while! I settled eventually on a colour scheme of 5 colours - 4 pastel shades (not as washed out as they appear) and a grey (not as dark as it appears!) All the little people around the edge are going to be grey except the 4 corner people who will be in a pastel colour. I have no idea what any of the other items are going to be - there may even be an injection of another colour at some stage!

The quilts for the girls teddies are nearly done! They just need the binding adding and then they can be popped into the present cupboard ready for Christmas! I have an idea of the binding I want to use but I need to see if I have enough of it left over. I got it from Sams and I'm pretty sure that they will have more but I am still in my 'no buying for two months' pledge* so I will have to make do with what I have. The orange linen on the back is brighter in real life and I got it from Ikea.

*more on my no buying pledge tomorrow, ahem!