New stuff on Etsy

I've just listed a couple of more envelope sets over on Etsy - more fairy tales envelopes. I like the Brave Little Tailor ones and this one is my particular favourite from that tale.


Here's a peek of the others I have just listed.


It's also a week until my first craft fair - arrrrrgggggghhhhhh!!!! I'll not be on here much then!

I knew that one day....

.......I would be tagged! I'd looked on as people I knew were tagged and finally I have been - now I've just got to think of 7 interesting things about me!! Thanks ColdCell for tagging me!

Here are the rules which you must abide by if you are tagged.

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

Right 7 interesting facts about me - hmmmmm

1. I come from a family who like their tattoo's. My dad has lots (arms, chest and back) my mum has 3 and I have one. It's on the inside of my left wrist and is of a monster type dragon thing - I'll get a photo! I plan on having more done but I then feel guilty as I can't then give blood for a year. Maybe I should get them all done at once and then I only have to have a year off from giving blood! My sister is letting the side down as she doesn't have any although she does have her nose pierced.

2. I'm a bit of a geek! I like Star Wars, Hero's, Dr Who (the yummy David Tennant makes it very,very watchable!), Lord of the Rings (the books more than the films) and I do like Anne McCaffrey's books. Here's a picture of me and the girls at the Star Wars convention in London - gotta get them trained young!


3. I used to be a teacher of primary children (4-7) but I grew to dislike the amount of time it was taking up - and this was before I had children. I can't imagine doing it now with two children - they would never see me!

4. I feel very lucky to have met the love of my life when I was 16 - he's been mine for 13 years now!! Ain't he gorgeous!


5. I love recycling/reusing things - as you can see by my Etsy shop!! My favourite thing to make is my chickens (using vintage fabric of course) and these little egg box sewing kits.

6. My spelling and particularly my grammar is terrible! As is anything to do with numbers - I was told in front of the whole class when I was about 7 that I was very stupid because I didn't know my tables and that fear has stuck with me ever since - numbers ergh! Good job I only taught reception and year 1 really wasn't it!!

7. I am very good at remembering and recognising faces (I'm a whiz at the pub quiz on the pictures round!) but I'm not very good at remembering facts. I definitely have a visual memory - doesn't stop me loosing things though!

Cor - that was harder than I thought - I hope they are enjoyable facts and that you managed to get to the end!

I'm now going to tag

Anice
Picklesticks
Steven
London Mummy
Emma
Lisa
Shiso Mama


I'm looking forward to reading your random facts now!!

Places I sell my gorgeous things!

So I've had a Dawanda shop for a while now but I only had one product in there for a bit - I now have 4 products in there!! I's very easy to list things in there and it has the advantage of being Europe based rather than US based like Etsy. It just means that I've got another place to sell my products! I also sell on Tuggle which is UK based but it's quite difficult to get in to sell your things there - you have to fit what they are looking for and luckily I did! It also means that I can offer my nappy cakes there - I would do it on Etsy but there are lots on there and it wouldn't be worth trying to ship it because the cost would be exorbitant. I'm also selling at my first craft fair in just over a week (!) so it will be interesting to see how that goes!

Right best go and make tea now! Here's a picture of some tags that are on all 3 sites - I have lots of maps!

Mini notebooks

Matt came up with a super idea the other day to re-use the mounds of paper he brings home from work. Currently the girls use it to draw on but they don't really need piles and piles of it even though they are prolific drawers - Tara mostly on the sofa but... His idea was notebooks using the paper (you can only use one side) and repurposed cereal box etc. The recycling went out on Sunday night so I grabbed a few cereal boxes but I think that they have turned out so well that I wish I'd grabbed more!

Here's a picture of the three together


My favourite is this purple flower one and my mum will have one of the tea ones to go with her tea themed bag and badge that she is getting for her birthday!




Matt is becoming decidedly crafty - he came up with this idea and the idea for my paperweight chickens. He's a member of the craftsforum (nearly 300 posts!) and he sat sewing the other night - I'm glad I'm being a good influence on him!! He was sewing patches on this little chap - he is a spare Bo bear that we used to have for Anya but we won't be using him again so this one has been renamed Boris (he is Bo's cousin!) and he has come to live with us to snuggle Tara.


You can see from these pictures that it is quite dark and gloomy here - they were taken right by a window too!! Off to make some Christmas envelopes before getting Anya from nursery - busy busy!

Phew!

The sun finally came out in Burnley today so I could take some photo's of some of the work I have been doing for the craft fair. These are some of the paperweight chickens I have been making. It had just rained hence why they are sitting on a tea towel - they didn't want to get wet bums!




They look like they are having a good party there! Wonder what they are talking about!

Speaking of parties I had another craft party today - no photo's though because I forgot to take the camera. The little girl whose party it was seemed to enjoy it and the other girls had fun too - they got a bit noisy at one stage but no more than my class used to when they were doing arty/crafty things at school. I'm glad I'm not teaching any more but it's nice to interact with children again without the endless paperwork!

I've also made some more cheeky chicken doorstops but the only photo I have is of a spotty one I'm going to call Pox - geddit?? It was actually Matt's idea but I'm going to claim it as my own - hee hee! I have plenty of this fabric so I'm going to add some to Etsy, Dawanda and Tuggle as well as taking some to the craft fair. The photo is a bit dodgy so I am going to retake these to list on the aforementioned sites.

Routine

It's gone out of the window here! Tara is still not 100% - I'm typing this as she is snuggling on me! I was hoping to get some more chickens sewn this morning and to finish off my wholesale order but I don't think that's going to happen. I was also hoping to get some photo's taken of the chickens I have got finished but it is pouring with rain - Autumn is upon us!

So today I am going to have to share some photo's with you of my poor car the other week when I ran over what must have been the biggest nail in history! The brand of car we have doesn't have a spare tyre hence the dramatic photo's of the car on the tow truck. The tow truck driver was very nice and we spent the journey to the garage chatting about camping!

If you look carefully you can see a reflection of me in a yellow t-shirt carrying Tara!!

Lurgies!

Yuck - both Tara and I have been ill for the past couple of days. I have had a tummy bug and spent all of yesterday throwing up and most of today doing the same! I am feeling better now though - touch wood! Tara has had a raging temperature and has been quite snotty and just generally under the weather - she wouldn't let me put her down at all yesterday so lots of crying ensued when I put her down to be sick. Fingers crossed though she is on the mend too. She spent last night in our bed and when she woke up this morning she didn't have a huge temperature so fingers crossed that she will be like that tomorrow too. She did eat a little bit of tea too so hopefully that will give her a bit more strength.

Anyway Anya is off to bed soon and I am going to put my pajama's on and settle down in front of Top Gun with some sewing - and try to prove my point to Matt about Top Gun!!

Stroppy Sunday

Well I think that Anya got out of bed the wrong side this morning because she has been in a funny mood all day! Every little thing has been a major incident - stubbed her toe in the kitchen and it became a reason for big tears. She was playing a game where she had to catch a train to go to a party but she missed the train and this prompted more tears. Matt and I tried lots of different remedies to get the tears to stop - get a taxi/helicopter/plane to the party, fly to the party, get the party to come to you - but none of them worked. She helped me to stuff one of my paperweight chickens and that stopped the strops for about 10 minutes but then she hurt her toe again! So we made soup!! I'd planned to make some anyway but as Tara was in bed I thought it might be a good idea to get Anya to 'help'. So here is a picture of Anya (and Big Bo of course) with the finished soup. I couldn't be bothered to stage the picture so here it is in the pan!



Here's Big Bo deciding that he wants some for his lunch too!!

Matt and the girls are heading to the park this afternoon so I am heading up to the craft room so that I can get some of the chickens I prepared last night made. Photo's later I promise!!

Crafty mojo

Well my crafty mojo has come back!! I've been busy making things for the craft fair (which is creeping ever closer) and I've even listed some other things in my etsy shop. My favourites are these Halloween tags.


Such a cute cat with the frankly, quite comical looking witch. They came from an old children's book (suprise that they are recycled!) all about a witch trying to tempt some children to do the wrong thing like play with fire and in the road. I'm making some tags shortly with the pictures of the children - they are very cool, typically 70's pictures.

I also made my very first pair of earrings!! I've been collecting old plastic bottles for a while now so that I could re-use the plastic. The fruit shoot bottles I have been collecting are slightly too thick to fit into my punches so I used the lid of an old margarine tub. Excuse the slightly dodgy photo - I was in a rush to show them off on Flickr and the forum!

Me and the girls have been out this afternoon to a play barn type thing and I've managed to sew lots of my paperweight chickens! Only two more to sew and stuff and then three in total to put the eyes on! Group photo coming later.

Three posts in one day.......

.........that's not happened before!! But I just had to show you that I got into a treasury on Etsy!! It was Marmalady's birthday on Monday and she did a birthday inspired treasury. I'm on the left hand side - the bright yellow birthday card.

Happy Birthday Marmalady!!

One completed project!!!

Unfortunately it's not something for the craft fair but it's a finished project non the less! The chicken t-shirts I posted here are finished but I only got a photo of Anya wearing hers because I managed to delete the ones of Tara with hers on - doh!! Anyway Anya seems pleased with it!

Better crack on with some more stuff for the fair instead of being on here!

Sunshine!!

Well I could get used to this camping lark if the weather stays like this - such a big change from our first camping trip when it rained pretty much the whole time!

It was boiling on Friday when Sarah (my sister) and I put the tent up. Sarah is a campsite warden at the site and she had a day off so she came in very useful! Tara has discovered the joys of blackberries as you can see by this picture!

We picked about 4lb of blackberries over the weekend and we've made jam out of them - Anya took a jar up to nursery so that they could have it at snack time. Here's me and Anya picking some blackberries - we got scratched quite a bit but it is very addictive - we kept saying 'that's it, we've got enough' but then we would spot some others that looked delicious and start picking again!


We bought some all in one waterproof things for the girls and although we didn't need them during the day, they really came into their own first thing in the morning when the grass was still wet - ignore the Morrisons carrier bag in the background - it was our bin!

Breakfast al fresco - Tara loved eating outside as it meant she didn't have to sit down and could wander around as she was eating!

The campsite is right on Lake Windermere and is gorgeous - I could quite happily have sat down here all day looking at this view!

Productive day!

Hmmmm - I didn't think I would get much done today as my lovely sister came down to see us but I've managed quite a lot. I'm rationing myself at the moment and I'm only going on the forum three times a day now which is very good for me! I'm going on first thing in a morning, when Anya is watching The Night Garden just before bed and then once before I go to bed. And it's actually working because I'm not tempted to just sit and browse the forum and pounce on every new post that comes in. It means I'm not doing as much as a moderator at the moment but Mr M I promise that it's only until I have enough stock for the craft fair!

Firstly I was meant to be making chickens so that I could take them away camping this weekend to add the finishing touches.

This is a pile of 10 paperweight chickens that need machine sewing tomorrow during Tara's nap and then they can be packed for the weekend along with beads for the eyes and rice for filling! So I can tick that off the list tomorrow when these have been done and then I can tick them off THE LIST after camping!

I also had a fab idea the other day after Matt bought me some super chicken things - he had them made actually. No pics yet but coming soon I promise! Anyway my idea was this. What do you think??



I've made Anya's at the mo with pinked edges so I will have to see how it turns out once sewn and Tara's has been hemmed which is more work but again we will see when they are sewn up tomorrow. Pre sewing I think I prefer the one with the pinked edges but we will see.

I also made some fabulous envelopes with wallpaper from those big sample books that you get in DIY shops. I've found a wonderful scrapstore near me and I got a couple of these books the other day - the colours of the paper is great.


They are to go with these cards that I made a while ago but I just haven't got round to showing you them. The paper on the cards came from an old book which was falling apart and recycling Lynsey didn't want it to go to waste!!

So all in all a productive day - long may the productiveness stay :)

Sister's in law!

Aren't they great?

Matt's sister Nicola (and her husband John) bought us this little beauty for our wedding anniversary. I'm not sure Matt was too pleased but I was thrilled!!



Isn't it fab!!!! There is a brocante (junk shop) near to their house in France and it has to be THE best shop I have been into for a long time. There is so much dusty stuff in there and it's quite cheap. The only problem is that it is open very infrequently and often not at set times of the day so we took (mainly at my instigation) to popping out just to see if it was open! We'd been one day where I bought these and I'd spotted the little calender but hadn't bought it. Of course we were leaving the next day and when we went back to try and get it, it was shut. Bless them though Nic and John went back to get it!!!!! And I'm soooooo pleased - thanks guys!!

On to my other sister in law now. It Kate's 4oth birthday on Thursday (she is Matt's brothers wife) and I made her this card. Looking back at the pictures it looks as though the 4o is off to the bottom - it was meant to be like that to take advantage of the swirls near the bottom. It's only now that I look at it that it looks a bit odd!



Hopefully she will like it!

I spent most of today tearing pages out of magazines to turn into envelopes and I got couple of wallpaper sample books at the scrapstore the other day - they did not want to come out of the books they were in! Anyway, I'm spending the rest of the evening making those into envelopes!

Routine.........

.......or lack of. I love the summer holidays but the lack of routine gets to me sometimes. I've done hardly any crafting this holiday but tomorrow Anya goes back to nursery so I'm hoping to get back into it. I made a card for my nephew's 10th birthday but forgot to take a photo, but I am making a similar one for my sister in law's 40th so hopefully I will have a photo of that. I also need to take a photo of a project that these guys appear in - Matt played super husband!!




A bit vague I know but all will become clear when I get the camera out! I will be back soon with crafting goodies soon!