I'm still here.......

.....busy sorting and tidying the craft room. So far 5 black bins bags full of fabric have gone to the charity shops/fabric bins for charity shops* and the equivalent of 3 big blue Ikea bags have gone to a friend. Another friend has got 2 big boxes of stuff to play with (with the possibility of more) and so far only one black bin bag has been filled with rubbish.

The stock that is normally in the dining room (where else!) now has a new home in the craft room and Anya has a new desk in her bedroom that she is very pleased with. I have spent far too much money on new shelving but it will look fabulous when it is all up. There are no pictures to this post as the camera is upstairs and I am down and am very tired after lugging box after box after bag of stuff down 2 flights of stairs :) There will be some more at the weekend (hopefully!)

*with the addition of 3 more black bins bags of stuff from us :)

There's a desk under there somewhere...

Apparently there is a desk under there somewhere..... Oh yep......

There it is :) The desk is going to be moved downstairs to go in Anya's room and I am going to have a set of drawers and lots and lots of shelves for lots and lots of goodies*. Possibly a large floor cushion or two as well! Yeah for sorting.

*said goodies are being sorted at the moment so expect to see some popping up as giveaways. It may be a while though as I have only bought part of the shelving system and all the stuff that was on the desk is now in a big pile on the spare bed in the study waiting to be put back. Hoping no-one wants to come and stay!

A new skirt for Anya!

My friend Alex made a dress for Anya and it doesn't fit her properly any more so I decided to turn it into a skirt as it wasn't the right fit for Tara.

I chopped it off under the arms and made that the waistband and the bottom was already hemmed.

It's apparently very good for twirling in too :)

Elsie the chicken

When I was at Saltaire I was visited by lots of people who follow my blog or who have seen my work before (hello!) and one of those people was Wendy. She bought a chicken from me and then sent me a picture of Elsie (that is her new name) settling into her new house.

Can you see her there peeking out?

Doesn't she look happy in her new home? I love knowing that people enjoy the things I make! Thanks for the photos Wendy.

New chickens

Listed last night :)

Meet Janice - she's over on Folksy.

And Maureen is over on Etsy. They are both one offs made from fabric I won't get again so if you fancy giving Maureen or Janice a home then be quick!

Bird tags

While the girls aren't allowed to watch TV on a Tuesday and Thursday I am trying to ban myself from the computer in that time too. Actually I try to ban myself from the computer during the time the girls come back from school and when they go to bed (about 4 hours) but it doesn't always work especially if I know I am due to receive information via email etc. Anyway, while the girls were busy with the plasticine on Tuesday I got busy with my tag punch.

These tags are made from a pack of British bird playing cards. Some of the cards were missing and so it couldn't be used for it's intended purpose. I rescued them from a jumble sale where they were 10p (due to them not being usable) and have punched them into tag shapes. They still need attaching to their cardboard backs (which could be interesting as they are already quite thick!) and they need string etc. I'm hoping to get them up soon into my shops but I do have 50+ items in my Flickr account waiting to be uploaded to my shops. I'm going to try and get those up before I make/list anything new but we will see how that goes eh?

{This Moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savour and remember. 

Inspired by Soule Mama.

Tuesdays and Thursdays

We have a rule (one that bends and sometimes breaks completely!) that Tuesdays and Thursdays are TV free for the girls. They would love to come straight home from school everyday and watch TV. For the first 15 mins they sit there completely absorbed but then they have it on as background noise and to look up at occasionally while they do something else (usually drawing and writing) We have been known in the past to use the TV as a babysitter (and will continue to do so - bad parents!) as the girls do learn a great deal from it (Horrible Histories is particularly good) The rule we have is that they only watch Cbeebies or CBBC - nothing with adverts on it :) This way we have managed to avoid a lot of the pester power that other parents have had. Not that it would have worked on us anyway - we're not that easy :) Anyway, this whole ramble is to say look at what the girls did on Tuesday evening!

My mum got some plasticine free with one of the newspapers a while ago and being a good Nana dutifully went to collect two of everything for the girls :) Thanks mum! They LOVE it. They made shops and then craft stalls that morphed into a cafe and they wrote down orders and made to order :) The playdough we used to use went hard but plasticine states all over the packaging that it never dries out - fingers crossed eh? Oh and fingers crossed that they want to play with it again tonight!

Finally a blog post about Saltaire

We had Saltaire last weekend (which was fabulous!) and then we went away to Scotland (more on that in another post!) so I have been a bit busy and not able to blog. However here is a quick post about Salatire.

Here is my stall! I tweak the stall each time I do it and this is one of the layouts that worked best for me. However I need to have a think about something to go behind the stall that says something about me and the products. I did have the option of having a back board but had nothing to put on it so I declined. I'm thinking something recycled that will fit in with the whole Swirlyarts brand but I have no idea what! Any ideas?

The bargain box was only there for the third day but worked a treat - I sold off lots of stock :)

And I* unveiled a new product on the third day too - map fronted bottle openers on a keyring. Perfect for Fathers day or the walker in your life! They will be in the shops soon and are completely customisable with any map :)


*I mean Matt of course as he is in charge of the badge machine now :)

Sad and Lonely monster

Want to read about this cute, but sad and lonely monster that came to live with us last week?

Then you can do so over here :) Enjoy his tale!