Charity shop goodies

I had hoped to get out to the charity shops on Monday but forgot that I had to stay in to wait for a courier to collect a parcel - grrr. However I made it out to a local town, Accrington, yesterday and I am very glad I managed to go. Accrington hasn't let me down yet (I got my massive button haul from there) and it didn't let me down yesterday :) In fact if you search my blog for Accrington you will see the many bargains I have got. Anyway, back to yesterday's finds!


Innocent looking boxes you say? Hah - they house treasures :)

Gorgeous thread - the colours aren't captured here very well.

Buttons!

And some intriguing wooden buttons - some have been painted/drawn on already. I'm going to have fun playing with these!

Tara was wearing this funky half apron while I was taking the photograph hence the blurriness. She wouldn't stand still!

A book to chop :) It has two pages missing.

A lovely tablecloth with matching napkins still in it's original packaging! All of the above was mine for £5! I couldn't quite believe it either! I then went to another shop where I bought.....

A top for Anya - there are cute birds and bikes on the red fabric.

A faded pillowcase

A hanky for 10p

Two pretty linens - one was 30p and the other was 65p!

Two lots of bias binding for 50p

These placemats/napkins (there are 12 of various sizes) for £1.50. They are very sheer fabric - organza perhaps?

And this pretty dress from Marks and Spencers - it is brand new!! It cost me £3! It also has lots of nice details which are lost in the photo.

I got these 3 books for £1 in a different shop. Destined to be cut up as they have damaged covers/pages.

This Dirndl dress was the 'piece de resistance' of the whole trip. I spotted the back first so didn't realise it was a Dirndl dress until I turned it round. The embroidery is gorgeous and it fits like a dream :) The only snag is that is shows quite a bit of boob and while I do have it, I don't necessarily want to flaunt it quite *that* much! So the hunt is on for a top that I can wear underneath it - I may just go for black long sleeved at the moment. Or I can wear it backwards - looks just as good :) I'll just have to remember not to wear Heidi plaits on top of my head at the same time as wearing this dress as it may enter the realm of costume!

Can you guess what it is yet?

Happy Birthday Rolf Harris - he is 80 today :) I don't care if it is naff or daggy (see I'm up with Australian slang!) but I love Rolf Harris. Watch the below and tell me you don't like him too :)







I can't listen to these at the moment as the sound has gone on my computer :( Hopefully the sound will work for you! Happy Birthday Rolf!

Stickers!

I have been a busy bee making lots and lots of stickers recently.I love the way they use up the tiniest pieces of paper so that hardly any bits from the books I rescue is put into the recycling.

2 different sets of people stickers.

A set of nature stickers (these have already sold!)

And these are my favourites yet - 3 little pig stickers!

Check out this guy hanging out his washing!! Fabulous :) I'm seriously considering taking this set of of my shop as the pigs are so cute!

These are available in my Etsy and Folksy shops.

Puerile fun on a Sunday!

Matt and the girls were playing with this online fart machine this morning - very funny if you are, like the girls, into bottom humour!

I think my favourite is the letter r - which is the race car fart sound! And yes - I did extensive research of the sounds for you :)

New brooch

Cor two posts in a row which don't contain either chickens or gift tags!

Instead I have made one of my button brooches (ignore the awful photographs - better ones will be taken as soon as there is decent light!)

It is 100% recycled/upcycled - nothing new went into the making of this brooch. The buttons are from Oxfam, the felt from the scrapstore, the thread was given to me by Lupin in a swap years ago and the brooch back also came in a swap but I can't remember who from.

Once better photographs have been taken it will be listed in one of my shops :)

Work in progress

I'm getting a *teensy* bit bored of making chickens and gift tags all day long so I have decided to take a break from that for a little while. Not too long I hasten to add as my shops are still woefully understocked! Instead I am going to be making something just for us.

And these are the patterns I'm loving at the moment!

Creative space

My creative space will not be taking place for a good few hours yet as in 10 minutes I am going to nursery to collect Tara and several of her friends (with parents) for lunch and a play. However when I do get change to do some crafting it will be to sort out this little lot!

All my tags were nicely set out in piles on the girls craft table by the window last week and then of course the burglars paid us a visit - all my work was swept up onto this tray and hasn't been touched since. My to do list is under there somewhere so it really does need sorting :)

For more creative spacers check out Kootoyoo.

Two more into the coop

Two new chicks that is!

Green Twist is in my Etsy shop

And pink flowery is in my Folksy shop. I've only had time to list these 2 but there are more waiting in the wings - hah, geddit?!

Charity shop gold!

These folders have been sitting in my front room for weeks now waiting to be photographed to be shown off to you - well here they are!

Recognise the image on the front? How about the writing on the sides?

Yep - Golden Hands magazines!! 6 folders full of Golden Hands magazines!

Only about 5 mags from the 75+ are missing and I'm hoping I can collect them from ebay or somewhere similar.


I could make things like this but don't think I will be!

I spotted these beauties in a charity shop when we were over at my mums for the jumble sale - £1 a folder. So I promptly grabbed all 6 and handed over my £6 :) I left very happy!

A new week!

Well it hasn't been the best of weekends(!) but we went to see this chap last night in Blackburn and he proved to be very funny and gave us both a boost :) Thanks Dave!

I won't tell you what he talked about as it would spoil the surprise if any of you are going to see him soon but rest assured he was his usual funny self. I'll hopefully be back to blogging properly again now although I am using Matt's laptop so any spelling mistakes/dodgy spacebar using is down to the laptop and not me, ok?!

Edited to add - how rude of me! I forgot to say thank you to all of you that left nice supportive messages/sent emails and texts. Thank you.

Bastards

Apologies for the swearing - some of the above broke into our house last night and stole Matt's wallet and my laptop. Little ****s! SoI won't be around for a few days while we sort things out.

Talk soon x

A buttontastic present

My friend Alex likes buttons so when it was her birthday this week I knew I had to have a button theme.

First I made a bottle of buttons topped with some pretty flowers that will never fade.

A pretty button box (bought from a Folksy seller via ebay for the Sue Ryder charity auction but I can't remember who!) that was filled with these; EDIT - it's this lovely lady :)

Shortbread button biscuits! I got the idea from here but used my own recipe.

All packaged up in this pretty bag.

And topped off with this cute button card from Ruth.

My Creative Space

I started early in my creative space this morning making these cakes - they look a little flat because I wanted to ice them.

Note to self - buy a decent icing set before attempting this again - they came out ok but I had lots of icing oooozing through the bag all over my hands (it was a kids one the girls had got for Christmas!)

I have also been making shortbread but I can't show you the finished items as they are for a birthday gift. Photo's tomorrow when the presents have been delivered!

I am continuing my gift tag re-stocking and it is very boring! I am getting on with it but they take a long time to make from scratch. I only have 88 sets (880 tags) to go! Wish me luck!!!

For more creative spacers check out Kootoyoo.