No post today

As Tara isn't well, I'm coming down with something and I have lots of sewing and packing to do this evening :) Following on from my chickens, birds and robots here are some robin tags to keep you happy til I am back - which will hopefully be tomorrow :)

Giveaway winners

*Drumroll* The winners are numbers 3, 8 16 and 21!


3 is Gugaw

8 is June at Noon

16 is Petit Filoux

21 is Small Cloughs

Well done guys! I will be contacting you to get your addresses tomorrow :) I also found another few sets of envelopes so you will be getting an extra set each too.

Just a quickie!

To show off some new gift tags as I am heading up to go in the bath with my book!

Cute little robots! These came from a comment Tara made about my chickens being made from triangles so I thought I would see what other shapes I could use hence the birds yesterday and these robots today! These are in my shops though now if you would like to buy :)

Creative space

I am using my sewing table today as my creative space as Tara is using my other desk as a playdough table!

I am making lots of chicken gift tags as I am running low and I will need some for the fairs I have coming up.

I have drawn 50 chickens so far and have another 50 to draw, then colour, then glue to the cardboard, add string and then package up!

I am also making some alien gift tags as I have none left at all!! I have only done 1 of the pile (and that was for this photograph) so I will crack on with those later. They are all hand drawn and take a little while but I enjoy making them and seeing the little alien personalities come to life!

And I would love your opinion of these bird gift tags! With wing or without wing? I'm thinking of offering them in sets of 10 with 5 top hatted birds and 5 bow birds. There will also be the option of buying 10 of 1 kind. The bow and the top hat will be coloured - I think! What do you think?

Head over to Kootoyoo for more creative people!

Giveaway!

Phew - I'm finally doing the giveaway I have been planning for weeks! It was meant to be for my 700th post but this is post 724! So what am I giving away? Lots of my recycled envelopes that's what. There are 16 sets of recycled envelopes so I am going to have 4 winners ensuring that you get 4 sets each - perfect for presents for others or for keeping for yourself! If I am feeling generous I may well put some extra goodies in. I will ship worldwide too!

Here are the ones I am giving away.


Lots of nice, bright envelopes recycled from magazines and catalogues. I'm moving away from using magazine pages as envelopes and focusing on using the pages from damaged books etc to make the envelopes instead, hence the giveaway! The giveaway will end on Sunday the 29th November at 9pm (GMT)

All you need to do do is visit one of my shops, Etsy, Folksy or Misi and tell me what you like in there and then what you feel doesn't fit in with the majority of what I am doing. I have my own opinions on this but would love yours too! And please do tweet about it and generally tell everyone you know :)

It's always nice to say thank you!

It's always nice to say thank you so Anya and I set to making some simple thank you cards for all the lovely gifts she received for her birthday. The ones for school friends were sent out yesterday and these ones have just been posted.

She helped me to choose which stamps we would need to stamp 'thank you' but declined to stamp the cards herself!

She did however draw cute pictures of the people who sent her gifts!

She was doubly pleased as Tara let her borrow the sparkly glitter pens she had only just got :) I love it that my two get along quite so nicely!

Squeal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guess what?? I am featured seller on Folksy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Squeeeeaaaaallllllllll!!!! :D :D :D

My Place and Yours - My Collection

I have been wanting to join in with My Place and Yours from Pip for a while but just haven't got round to it until now. This weeks theme is My Collection and I knew straight away what it would be!

Buttons of course!! I do like a nice pile of buttons to rifle though and sort and play with - occasionally I use them in projects too :) I prefer vintage and pre-loved buttons but if anyone wants to offer me a whole load of new buttons then I'm not going to argue! And with any good collection it is always ongoing :)

Some more photo's of buttons :) I love them!

Craft fair :)

The craft fair was good today but I am shattered now so here are a few pics and a few words!

My stall in all it's glory - lots to look at!

The right hand side of my stall.

Yep - you guessed correctly. Now the left hand side of my stall!

And finally the mini tree with my decorations on. Lots of people looked but no one bought one. It just means I will have some for the next fair in 2 weeks!

A big thanks to Ruth for taking me to the fair (she gets a trip in Bumble to the next fair!) and for being nice and sewing button eyes onto chickens for me!

New chicks on the block

I can't believe I haven't used that title before!! Meet the newest additions to the Swirlyarts nest.

Terence Tweed D'Arby (the name came from Matt!) loves singing and you have to keep your karaoke machine away from him if he comes to visit.


Hamish McPlaid is very proud of his Scottish heritage but just don't ask him what is under his kilt!!

Both these chickens can be bought from all three of my online shops - just choose which one you want to buy from!

Eeeek - there are chickens on my computer!

I wonder what they are doing there? Especially that little guy up at the top - he looks like he is the boss! I think these 4 are the ringleaders as the rest of the chickens were behind these ones on the sofa - awaiting orders I think.

I'm hoping to get this lot sewn up (zips and eyes) ready for the fair on Saturday - along with all the other things I want to get done too!!

New packaging

My printer has decided that it will not print onto cardboard now - not even thin cardboard.

This is what my packaging used to look like but won't now because of silly temperamental printers! Instead I dug out my trusty typewriter.

And made the following

Sorry for the really awful picture - it's the same info as the first ones, just typewritten rather than printed!

And what is this packaging for I hear you shout! My knitting needle bracelets that I have been making this morning for a wholesale order :)



Excuse the tea towel - they were drying after their dip in hot water! I'll get a photograph of the bracelets on their packaging when I get a photo of the whole order :) Which will hopefully be tomorrow!

It's a good job I tidied my desk.......

.....the other day as I have been a gift tag making machine this morning!

This is what 8 lots of gift tags look like - there are another 2 sets out of shot and another 2 lots to be made. These are for my wholesale order.

You can see comic gift tags (none in my shop but custom orders are welcome!), security envelope tags, paint chip gift tags and London Underground gift tags.

Right I'd better get back to it and get those tags finished, strung and packaged up :)

Anya's party

We went to a local party place for Anya's party this year. It's called It's My Party and is really really good. They don't have a website so I can't link to it for you I'm afraid!

Here are the girls in their party dresses waiting to go!

Here they are waiting to get onto the pirate ship - yep there is a pirate ship that they can play on too :)

Here they are having their lunch at a banqueting table and Anya got to sit in a throne which she loved.

And here is the birthday girl with Fidget the Fairy and Rebellious Red the Pirate. A great time was had by all - including us!

The trouble with trees

Yep it's great having a view like this but when it is very very windy at night it can keep you awake with the wind whistling through the trees. I wouldn't change it though!

Short post today as it is Anya's school friends party after ballet and we still haven't got her a cake!

Artwork on my wall

Phew, I finally have all the artwork up on the wall in the craft room - until I buy some more that is!

The view of the whole wall - I put 10 new pictures up today!

Here are some of them :)

And a couple more pictures with sausage dog :)

And *look* - a tidy desk!!!!!!! It's not like that now I hasten to add :)

My Creative space...

.....is being tidied today so no post with what I am doing as sorting piles of things and ripping pages out of damaged books is not fun to photograph even though it is fun to do! Instead you get to see what I won from the lovely Hannah at Span's Stitches.

A beautiful slouch hat which will come in perfectly this winter - in fact I am going to wear it up to school later :)

And I won one of Hannah's fabulous crocheted snowflakes too! It is up in the craft room at the moment but once the front room is done then it will be coming back downstairs to hang in the window - winter time or not! If you want one of your own snowflakes then find them here. Thanks Hannah!

I must go and finish sorting through my craft room so that my next post contains some of my own crafts :)

Anya's birthday

My little girl is 6 today - I guess that makes her my big girl! Happy Birthday Anya - we all love you so much.

Some chicken cards

I would love your opinion on these please! I have been wanting to make some chicken cards for a while now to go with the rest of my chicken stuff but hadn't thought about how to make them when I spotted a triangular piece of fabric in my scraps and voila!

The stitching is deliberately messy to match the scrappy aspect of the materials used.

I think I like the coloured backgrounds with the plain chickens but I also like the first chicken one too!

The photo of the one above is awful but it was taken at 8am on Sunday morning when the sun had barely come up!

As I said I would love your opinions (good or bad) and would like to know if you would buy them? Thank you :)

Two Treasuries

I am in two treasuries at the moment so I am going to show them off here :) And of course please feel free to hop over and click and comment!

The first one is called Orange Bleue and has been made by Dina Fragola - thanks Dina! My coloured Cheeky Chicken gift tags are featured in that one.

The second one is perfect for me as it is called 'Do the Funky Chicken' and features my Mod Chicken doorstop. It has been curated by Quilting Granny - thanks Granny :)