Tara's necklace

Tara received a jewellery making set for her birthday (with other fab things!) from the lovely Ruth. She was adamant this morning that she wanted to make a necklace and who was I to argue! She was very specific about the beads she wanted to use and the order in which I had to string them.

I think it has turned out nicely!

And here she is hamming it up for the camera! In the t-shirt my sister made for her birthday - love it!

I must be mad!!!

I think it must be the early morning from the other day but I have decided (whilst the UK is in the middle of a heatwave) to wash ALL of my fabric! I'm not one of those people who pre washes their fabric when they buy it (I do with stuff I buy at the charity shop though) and have decided to use the heatwave to help me wash and dry it all. I really should prewash all of my fabric to stop it bleeding if washed once it has been made up into something. And I am sure I will do from now on - especially if you take a look at the photograph below and see my fabric stash.

And this is only part of it! I think there will be approx 3 loads of washing per shelf and due to the number of shelves I think I will have about 45 loads of washing (there is more fabric hidden away)

Wish me luck and remind me that when I buy fabric to wash it before I put it away! And lets hop that the weather holds :)

What to do at 4am

Yep - I am stupid and was wide awake at 3.30am this morning and decided to give up trying to go back to sleep at 4am. It's Tara's party today and I didn't want to start cooking anything as I know what my family are like and would wake at the smell of food so I decided to ice the shortbread creams I made yesterday. Looking mighty fine I think!

This one was all mine - yep I have just eaten it at 5.30am. It was delicious too :)

The recipe is here if you want to try it out.

Cleaning ALL day

And when I say ALL day I do really mean ALL day. I'm knackered but at least the house looks presentable. Just some last toys to move and the hoovering to be done in 2 rooms and then that is it. I'm relaxing now by listing some more things in my Dawanda shop - the self employed never stop working :D

Photo credit - Dr_loplop

My creative space

This where I wish I could be today - at my kitchen table turning bits of unloved and damaged books into beautiful envelopes and funky gift tags.

Alas I have to move my stock from the front room and tidy and clean it all up instead. Maybe tomorrow?

Don't forget to check out more Creative Spacers over here.

Happy Birthday Tara!!!

Tara is 3 today - Happy Birthday gorgeous! How time flies :)

From this

To this :D

Quick dress refashion

This is a photograph of Tara in one of her favourite dresses. The photo was taken when she was about 15 months old - she cried when she could no longer fit into it when she was 2.

It sat in my 'to do something with pile' for ages until I spotted it earlier this afternoon. A quick snip of the straps and a quick turn down of the front panel and a quick spot on the sewing machine and we have a new skirt for a girl who is very pleased!

So pleased that she decided to spin until she fell over! So pleased that she is going to wear it for her birthday tomorrow :)

Dawanda promotion

I re-opened my Dawanda store just in time! There is a huge promotion going on over there at the moment - it's called the Discovery Sale and basically you get 15% off in a shop if you haven't shopped there before - only if the shops are participating that is. I'm one of the many, many shops participating so go and check me out if you haven't shopped with me on Dawanda before! Did I mention that it's 15% off everything in my store?

Here are some pictures of the goodies that are in my shop and therefore have 15% off!

Some transport gift tags

Some fairy tales gift tags

Gertrude the chicken doorstop

Some colourful cheeky chicken gift tags

And a groovy alien disco Aceo - with free shipping on my aceos!

The sale runs until Sunday 28th June.

How many times do you think I will bang my head in Bumble before I learn to duck?

That is the question I was asking myself yesterday and today! We went on an overnight trip in Bumble to Settle and at one point I turned around four times and each time hit my head on the roof! I'm sure I will learn not to do it in the fullness of time :)

We played

We drank tea

We looked for trains

We went for walks

We nearly had an argument with a sheep :) He asked us what we were looking at!

We were woken by this sleeping beauty peering at us from the pop top

And we ended the trip with a full English breakfast cooked by Matt :D I could get used to this.

My husband is fab!

Look what he ordered for us!!!!!!!!!

Aren't they fab???? Tara has already claimed one of the bags (there are two mugs and two bags) and promptly filled it with toys to carry around the house. The mugs are staying in the house so when I need my Bumble fix I don't need to go outside and stroke him - not that I do that you understand :D I caught the girls kissing him the other day - luckily on a bit that they had just cleaned but still! There are t-shirts still to arrive for the girls but don't tell them - sshhh.

Thanks Matt :D

Phew - busy day and clearance section

I spent most of the morning getting my Dawanda shop back up to speed. It had been shut since November when I had that nasty stomach bug and most of the listings ran out in January. So now everything is up to date over there and I will be adding new things throughout this week and next. Speaking of adding things I went through all of my Flickr photographs (all 2,987 of them!) to find the ones that hadn't been listed in any of my shops yet. I have 254 photographs in the set waiting to be added to shops! That's not 254 items I hasten to add because each item has at least 3 photographs of it (if not more) but by my reckoning that is around 80 items to list! I'm not making any more things until those are listed!!

To aid the massive influx of items into my shops I am having a big clear out in my Etsy shop and things in my clearance section are now down to $1. Yep really, $1! Here are some of those $1 items (the chicken cards at the top of the page are included too!)

Some recycled envelopes made from a French magazine.


Some pig silhouette cards

And some knitting envelopes. There are also more things and as I get listing I'm sure other things will be going into it.

P.S. it poured down when we were out in Bumble earlier so I now know where the windscreen wipers are!

The craft fair

I've just realised that I didn't write about the craft fair. I had the camera with me but completely forgot to get any pictures if my stall - daft I know. A shame really as I had some new features such as chickens that had their own stand! Oh well, next time I'm sure! I did well sales wise and found lots of like minded people who understood my stuff and the recycling ethos - phew! thought I was going to get negative comments from little old ladies all the time!!

Matt did get some pictures of the girls having a go at plate spinning - there was a circus group at the fair.

Anya was very pleased to be able to spin plates and move them from one stick top the other.

Look at the concentration on her face!

Whereas Tara thought it was fun to throw the plate on the floor instead!

A to Z meme

I first spotted this meme on Nikkishell and then I spotted it on Meet Me At Mikes. I decided to join in the fun too :) Here's what to do : one by one, type each letter of the alphabet in the URL Line of your Browser. Your most visited sites beginning with this letter - or using this letter within their address - will show in the little pop-up box below the URL Line. Take the top site - or the next one if you have privacy/security issues with the first - and add it to your A to Z list.

A - Aceo Showcase - one of the blogs I run
B - BBC News - a great online news page
C - Cuteable - another blog I run!
D - Daisie Days - a friends blog
E - Etsy - a fab online marketplace for all thing handmade
F - Folksy - another fab online place for all things handmade
G - Gmail - my email site
H - Etsy Treasure Hunt - fab little site for telling if you are in a treasury
I - Iris and Lily - fab little blog
J - Craft Juice - a site for showing off your work for free - yeah!
K - Kala - another great blog
L - Linda Boucher - fab blog full of great things
M - Google Maps - for when I need to know where places are!
N - Club 80-90 forum - not sure why it came up under N but there you go! Got it - new forum!
O - Flickr - organise on Flickr - I seem to spend half my life there!
P - Paypal - need to get my money somehow!
Q - Confused.com - I got a car insurance quote from them
R - Google Reader - I read all of my blogs through here
S - Swirlythoughts - this very blog!
T - Twitter - kind of obvious to those who know me!
U - UK Handmade - 'cos it's good
V - Vacuuming in High Heels and Pearls - great blog
W - Wise Craft - another cool blog
X - XE.com - a good currency converter
Y - You Tube - need I say more?
Z - Zebula Designs - this came up as the lady who runs it won the HUGE giveaway prize on Cuteable at the start of the year!

Phew, that was fun and quite long to do but it shows some of the sites I visit regularly. Perhaps I should do one from my Google Reader next!

Card for a little one

This card was one of my simple lets do it in 20 minute cards. I had only a little time to make it before the party!
I used one of the fab toppers from Ruth at Tip Top Toppers but wanted something different for the background. I spotted some fabric and we went from there. The fairy is sewn onto the fabric with a few simple stitches and the fabric is then machine sewn to the card. I think it went down well anyway!

Introducing.... Bumble!!

We've bought a camper van :D And here he is. Can you guess why he is called Bumble??

We were sorting things out to put in the van and it was teatime so the girls decided to have tea in Bumble while we were sorting.

Anya doesn't look impressed with having her photo taken at tea time though!

Look at the funky floor - easy to entertain the children at least!

A couple of interior shots showing storage space and the fridge and grill.

This is why I am going to develop strong arm muscles (well I suppose I need muscles somewhere!) Obviously no power steering and first gear has a knack to get it right (i.e it is a bugger to get into!) And first gear is in the wrong place (far left at the bottom) but something I will get used to.

Side view with the sliding door shut.

Front passenger side door with flower decal.

Do you think Matt is pleased??

I am very, very pleased with it and we'll never lose it in a car park :)

My tidy porch

If you follow my Twitter then you will know that I have been on a cleaning spree - not sure why as that is not really me! Tara and I went to fill up the bird feeders the other day and that then turned into a 'must clean the porch where the bird food is kept' frenzy. We'd already sorted the coats at the weekend as many went to the charity shop so there was already much more room in there. The shoe cupboard was also sorted and some shoes donated too!! I also hung some pictures up to make it look more like a room and less like a dumping ground!

The pictures all came from the jumble sale apart from the one on the bottom right which we think came in a job lot from the auction.

This is the original glass between the porch and the hallway from 1898. It has lasted well but I daren't clean it!

More original glass but this time around the door.

And just in case you think I've strayed from my normal slummy mummy phase then here is a shot out of the tidy porch into the messy hallway and through to the kitchen where you can see a pile of black bags waiting to be taken to the charity shop!