How to make a little girl happy

You simply put her bed on top of her sofa bed! They were like this when Anya was born and she was in a cot in her room - we took them apart when she first went into her bed and decided this weekend that they could go back together again.


So we have a very happy girl and a very happy (apparently) teddy bear :)

On a side note I want to get a little reading light for Anya to either clip onto her bed or to go on the wall - can anyone recommend one that is available in the UK?

I like charity shops

My thrifting buddies couldn't come with me yesterday but several nice people on Twitter suggested that I go by myself - so I did! I will apologise for the quality of the photographs now - the weather was awful last night and it was about 5pm when I took these. Only one item cost more than £3 and I will show that to you last. I got....

A lovely yellow shirt - it is much brighter than this in real life and I loved the lace detail.

A pretty jumper originally from Next - it was the detailing round the top that I liked.

A linen dress with white embroidery detail - this was £1!

Some books for me - I have the first HIVE book and was thrilled to find the next two. I just need to figure out what order they come in!

A pretty patchwork skirt - it looks nicer 'in the flesh'

Another skirt - the contrast in colours isn't as prominent in real life. This will be a great basic skirt to team my more colourful tops with! I also got a plain back skirt too for the same reason but didn't photograph it.

Some pajama's for Anya - brand new with tags on for £1 and the t-shirts in this range retail at £15!

A pillowcase and a machine appliqué book for 10p each.

Some books for Anya - she loves chapter books at the moment!

A nautical top - I couldn't resist that sequinned anchor! This is one of those longer tops designed to be worn with leggings or skinny jeans but seeing as I wear neither of those things I have yet to decide what I will wear it with! It may either become the world's snazziest nightshirt or I may take it up to become a normal top although the thought of sewing this kind of material scares me!

And the piece de resistance for me is this fabulous cardigan! It's all hand knitted and it cost me £3.75. I love it although it looks like it may well be too big for me - it would function as a nice warm coat when it's not raining out there which in this part of the world is probably 6 days!

A close up of the neck detail!

And just look at that wool - fabulous!! I have a thing for knitwear that other people would turn their noses up at - I have a great cardigan with bird houses all over it that I got in America which I love.

Hope you enjoy my bargains - and someone else tell me that they like the cardigan too so I don't look odd :)

A little ray of sunshine!

Despite the nasty rainy dull weather here a little ray of (bright yellow) sunshine entered the Swirlyarts fold this morning in the shape of a cheeky chicken pincushion/paperweight.

He is called Twist (he is named after the fabric that he is made from) and he has brothers and sisters who are blue, green and pink! He is in my shop at the moment and I'm sure his siblings will be following along soon :)

The benefits of sorting and tidying

No trust me - there are some benefits! I have found a great deal more stock than I thought I had and looking through my Flickr photographs I realised that I have photographs of the items but that they just haven't been listed yet! Things like this.

Actually I have just listed this as my September Star listing for today over on Folksy!

I also found a lot of cute little sticker sets that I am yet to list. I sell these online as you can look at the pictures of them and get a good feel for what stickers are in each set. I haven't yet sold them at craft fairs as I store them in some of the mini envelopes I make and they are not conducive to getting good sales if people can't see them! I am loathe to buy new packaging products just so that they can be seen (and you would only be able to see a few anyway) so can anyone else think of a good way to show them off at fairs. I was thinking of making up a selection of 'spares' so that people can handle them and see the size and type of stickers that are available but I'm not sure. And bear in mind that my table is normally full to bursting point anyway!!

Mr Blue Sky

Visited us nearly all day yesterday - yippee!

Although it wasn't too long before the rain clouds started to roll in from the south!

The joys of living in one of the wettest parts of the UK :) I love it really.

Pictures taken out of my craft room window.

How new products are made in Swirlyland!

It normally starts with either day dreaming or some tidying up. This time it was tidying up the new chest of drawers in my craft room and the putting away of all my papers for envelopes.


'It's a pity that the pictures on these knitting patterns are too big to make gift tags out of' thought I. Then I spotted the back of a different pattern poking out (it evidently wanted to be used) and the cartoon light bulb went off in my head.

So out came my trusted tag punch and some papers were punch from knitting patterns.

The waste was put away into the recycling bin too! Aren't I a good girl!

My favourite bit is choosing pretty colours to work with.

Some doodles of balls of wool with needles were drawn onto a spare bit of pattern.

And eventually transferred to some of the actual paper tags (card and string will come later) Once I got to this stage though I wasn't sure - do they still look enough like balls of wool?

I drew one tag with two balls on to see if that made me happier and it did a bit but I'm still not sure - especially after Anya looked at the yellow ones and said I like your new bumble bee tags mummy!

What do you think? You can see the full size photographs on my Flickr if you still can't decide. It's whether enough people at craft fairs will recognise them as balls of wool.

Some treasury love

Did you know that you can now search the treasuries over on Etsy to see if you have been featured? Just pop in your user name and off you go! That''s how I found out that I have been featured in quite a few treasuries recently but I am only showing you a couple as 23 is a fair few to wade through!


Just click on the picture to be taken to the treasury.

I'm a lucky girl!

While I have been ill this week Matt has been a super star - he looked after me at the weekend and took Monday and Tuesday off work to ensure that I was well enough to look after the girls again. He went back to work yesterday evening (he works in London at the minute and we live in Lancashire!)

Look what he made for tea on Sunday*

Cajun potato wedges

With yummy from the farmers market burgers (Aberdeen Angus for me and Matt and pork and apple for the girls)

And to finish off, a raspberry crumble and, let me tell you, he makes a mean crumble!

And what was I doing while he was rustling up this delicious meal?

Watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with the girls (can you tell we were at a bit with the child catcher at this stage - the girls were terrified!)

I'm feeling a lot better now - my kidneys still hurt but nowhere near as much as they did and I'm not exhausted all the time now which is good - thanks for all the well wishes both here and on Twitter.

*This was evidently before I went off my food!

Taking a mini break

Because our internet connection is dodgy (engineer coming to fix it Tuesday evening) and because I am ill with a nasty UTI. Hopefully back soon raring to go!

Folksy September Stars

For a good few months there have been listing clubs on Folksy where you list items in your shop everyday for a month. I started out trying to list something everyday in July (July Jesters) but failed and I have started listing in September (September Stars) So far it is going well but we will see if I last the month!

Here are some picks from fellow September Stars (to see my listings just go to my Folksy shop)

Cute owl bag from Lonely Hearts.

Silver Moon necklace from Esme Dodsworth.

Felted Christmas Baubles from Woolly Lakes.

Meadow Bracelet from Twinklyspangle.

Gorgeous purse from Pants and Paper.

Dala Horse from Court & Spark.

Just in case anyone reading this is looking for gifts for me then I would quite happily have any of these items :) Especially the horse!