A few months ago I noticed that Sam of Incy Wincy stitches had organised a button jewellery swap. I hung off joining because things are just MANIC busy for me right now, but when Sam mentioned she was one person short i decided to go for it. I was paired with Laura Figiel of She Draws and I finally got round to posting Laura’s package off yesterday. Only a couple of weeks late – sorry Laura!

Unfortunately, being as far North as we are I’m struggling to get good photographs these days so you’ll have to make do with this. Time to dig out the lightbox again perhaps!

On the left there are two brooches, in the middle there are two hair bobbles, a keyring, a ring and a necklace. I had initially made a bracelet and decided I hated it so had to start afresh. I packaged these up with a FQ of Japanese fabric and a little pouch of Daim sweeties so hopefully Laura is happy.

I will get a photo of what she sent me later in the week Thanks to Sam for hosting this swap!

Posted under jewellery, sewing, swaps

Firstly a wee thank you to everyone who has left comments, emailed and twittered congratulating us on the birth of baby Greer. It’s hard to believe that this time last week I was in the throes of labour, terrifying passers by as I pottered about the newsagents in the hospital having very painful contractions whilst searching for a decent ice lolly! She has settled into family life with ease and dare I say it, is sleeping and feeding very well.
If you’re interested in keeping up with her progress, Bob has set up a photoblog project here entitled ‘Greer’s 365′ to chronicle her first year in visual form (WARNING – Day 1’s photo was taken immediately post-birth and shows my big boob).

Secondly, the next post will feature my belated 100th post giveaway. I hope to post this on Tuesday as long as I get time to finish the prize and decide what the entry criteria will be.

Finally, considering the Time for Tea swap was finished on the 27th March I am very late in posting this list! In my defence, I have been waiting for a swap between international partners to complete before I posted and that didn’t happen until a couple of weeks ago so forgive me.

I have linked directly to each participant’s entry so that you can see for yourself what a creative bunch we have reading this blog. Additionally you can view the Time for Tea Flickr group to see photos there. A couple of participants either haven’t blogged yet or don’t have blogs – they’re nearer the bottom of the list.

Apryl and Kathryn

Julia and Tor

Megan and Kat

Julia and Eileen

Hannah and Amanda

Courtney and Chrissy

Laura and Kathryn

Ali and Izabela

Anne and Sam

Jen and Kerry

Gill and Katie

AnnieB and Laura

Sue was stuck with me!

Pennie and Emma

Erin and Helen

Nadia and Fiona (hasn’t yet blogged the swap)

Posted under family, swaps

Firstly I’d like to say thank you to everyone for your very kind comments over the last week or so. Things here are still nowhere near back to normal but as the saying goes, “This too shall pass” and in fairness the worst certainly seems to be past us. I am frantically grabbing at the door to touch wood right now!

Secondly, I would like all of you with young children to head on over to Amanda of Kitschycoo fame’s blog, in particular this post and this post. You see, a month ago I bought this pattern and Amanda also sent me the pattern for her Matinee jacket asking me to test it for her. The pattern pieces are still sitting cut out but unsewn – a month after Amanda asked, I haven’t had two minutes peace to finish it. The thing is her patterns are fantastic! Very easy to follow, beautifully put together and unlike anything I’ve seen anywhere else so when I saw she was doing a giveaway I thought, “I must let my readers know about this!”

Thirdly, I finally managed to get my Time for Tea swap goodies posted off today although I’ve missed the last collection. Sue has been very patient with me as the world collapsed around my ears and I just hope that she’s as happy with what I’ve sent her as I was with her package which Sue blogged here. I actually wore the earrings the night my package arrived and they’re just gorgeous so thank you again, Sue!

This is what I sent to Sue – the candle is made from beeswax and is made in a vintage teacup with matching saucer. This was my first attempt at candle making and in fact I made another to burn myself and make sure it was okay! The silver caddy is filled with Faerie’s blood tea from my favourite little teahouse and there’s also a packet of shortbread fingers as I believe shortbread to be the best biscuit in the world

I also made a little bag with a felt cupcake appliqué and Japanese knot-style closure which I’m very proud of!

What do you think?

Posted under general crafty updates, sewing, swaps

So I have a list of 23 people interested in joining the Time for Tea swap which is just thrilling! I’m very excited about this and I will be looking for some more information from everyone over the weekend.

In the meantime, I’ve had a few questions which I’m going to attempt to answer.

I would like to do this but I has no crafty blog. Can I still play please?
Of course! The reason I asked for a link to your crafty endeavours is purely so I can make sure everyone involved in the swap is legit and unlikely to welch on their commitment. If you don’t have a blog/folksy/etsy set up, you can still get involved if you are either known to me or known well to someone else involved in the swap who will vouch for you.

Sounds good but I’m mainly a coffee drinker and not much of a tea drinker…
Then we can either match you up with another coffee drinker or with someone sympathetic to your requirements (you heathen!)

So, would a lace doily, a teapot cozy, or a take-out cup cozy apply for the “time for tea-related handmade item”?
The “Time for Tea-related item” is totally open to interpretation. Maybe you would like to send something you’ve drawn or painted that represents time for tea. Maybe you make jewellery with little cakes and teacups involved. Maybe you’d like to send an apron, or coasters. Maybe you’d like to send a massive stuffed teacup. The crucial thing is that you have discussion with your swap partner and that you answer your questionnaire fully in order to help your swap partner.

I’ve thought about doing a swap for awhile but I don’t really know how it works.
In terms of how it works, you will be emailed with your swap partner’s contact details and answers to their questionnaire. You then have until the 27th March to put together your package and send it off to them and you can also get in touch with your partner for more information or inspiration. The general idea is that you and your partner will co-ordinate your parcels so you should hopefully receive on the same day.

I’d love to take part in a swap….i’m scared I’ll be rubbish though!
Relaaax! When I took part in the Owl Swap I told my partner that I was so nervous about what I was making, but in the end it’s all meant to be fun and an opportunity to get to know another crafty type. Besides, your partner’s questionnaire should give you all the help and support you need to make your swap ace.

Also, do you mean a crafting supply of some type when you say “Something your swapping partner can use in a crafty fashion”?
Yes. Some fabric, some yarn, stickers, some buttons, a canvas – something that your partner can use to create something.

Are there usually min-max value/costs for these types of things?
Yes, for this swap you’re looking at a retail value of around GB£10 I’d say. Anything above that is down to your generosity.

For inspiration I would definitely recommend searching flickr, a simple search for “swap” will bring up lots of groups and images to inspire you. Craftster has a whole sub-forum dedicated to swaps with a section just for people to post what they’ve sent and received for you to peruse.

If you would like to participate there is still time. Email me using this link to note your interest (PLEASE use this email address as it is one I have set up purely to deal with the swap and it’ll save me getting confused!) by Monday 2nd March 2009 at 12noon. I will send out the questionnaire email on Monday evening to all participants and I’ll need it returned by 8pm Wednesday 4th March in order to delegate swap partners on Wednesday night.

Posted under swaps

I’ve been contemplating running a swap for a while now, and since I’ve wrapped up the Owl Swap with the fabulous AnnieB which was organised by Apryl from Meridian Ariel it’s about time to get something else started.

So! I am proposing a swap entitled “Time for tea”. Participants should be prepared to send their swap anywhere in the world although I suspect most if not all will be UK-based going by my readership. Please Email me in the first instance to express an interest, ensuring that you link me to somewhere I can view your crafty endeavours (blog, flickr, etsy, folksy – that kind of thing). It will be a direct swap (ie you will be matched with someone else and you will swap with each other) which will be completed in time to post by Friday March 27th 2009 and should include as a minimum:
A time for tea-related handmade item
Tea (loose tea, tea bags – or if you’re not a tea fan, hot chocolate?)
Something your swapping partner can use in a crafty fashion

I’ll be back by the end of the week with more information and links for inspiration if this proves to be popular.

Posted under swaps

Annie is my swap partner in Apryl’s Owl Swap and I received her parcel yesterday. I am so spoiled!

I had told Annie during our first discussions about my love for The Owl and The Pussycat and she clearly picked up on that as she’s made and sent me these beautiful toys which are going to have pride of place on my bed under my new print. Annie also sent me some gorgeous yarn which I suspect is cotton, a flake (which was eaten immediately!) and a butterball bath bomb from Lush. I am so grateful – your gift was so thoughtful Annie and I hope you are as pleased with what I send you.

I had planned to bake today but I accidentally put 1.2kg of wool into a soaking bin earlier and filled it with water so I suspect I’ll be dyeing it later! What are your plans (crafty or otherwise) today?

Posted under dyeing wool, general crafty updates, swaps

Oh. My. Goodness.

Scotland was not supposed to get this snow dump! Scotland was supposed to have light snowfall today with sleet intervals. We weren’t supposed to get this!

I have spent most of the day panicking about Bob getting home and the babies all getting back from school & nursery but at 3.15pm the last of my clan finally walked in the door and I could breathe a sigh of relief. This was of course after I’d already had a near coronary when my car drifted across the street and nearly hit a van this morning. Ah well. The kids all went out to play in it (except the baby, who has been asleep for the last three hours and now won’t sleep tonight) and I got this brilliant photo of my biggest kid building a snowman…

ANYWAY! Onto other things – the eggciting giveaway from my last post! As a refresher, here is the photograph again and I asked you to guess which row was shop-bought:



The correct answer was – the back row! All the other eggs were laid by my girls, and to answer a few of you yes the last on on the right of the middle row is a real egg. It’s laid by Meatball who is my eldest son’s hen, she’s a Cream Legbar and her egg is a nice blue colour. As soon as she’s laid me a few more I’ll post better photographs for comparison.

I collated the correct answers, allocated each person a number and ran the numbers through the random.org integer generator coming out with #3 as the winning number which was allocated to Gill from Hollingdale Designs. Congrats Gill, I’ll be in touch for your address details soon.

The owl swap I’d mentioned before will be completing this week as my swap partner Annie is finished her side too. It’s all very exciting as I’ll now be able to share what I’ve been slogging away on for the last few weeks. Wahey!

Hope you’re all safe and warm. I’ll be back later this week!

Posted under family, general crafty updates, self-sufficiency

Sod’s law, innit? I’m actually getting some crafting done and I can’t post about it until after the 14th February when it’ll be sent to the very lovely Annie from overmilkwood. Annie actually mentioned that she’d left a comment on the entry featuring my Give a Hoot mittens but it hasn’t shown up and since Hannah had already mentioned this I’m now slightly worried. If you’ve posted a comment and it hasn’t shown up please would you mind sending me a quick email so I can do some investigating? I do love getting comments and I worry that I’m missing some.

My lovely husband and I went to Stockholm for a few days last week on a very belated (well, it’s our first anniversary in three weeks!) honeymoon. It was absolutely marvellous and I’m trying very hard not to do that really dull tourist thing of coming back from holiday and showing everyone 50 bajillion boring photographs but I feel I have to share this one.

Those are the two Great Grey Owls resident in Stockholm’s Skansen open air museum. The female (Ropia) is on the left of the picture and the male (Bert) on the right, and Bert got so close to me I could have touched him. Seriously! It was absolutely amazing until they both ate some mice which wasn’t so pleasant.
Stockholm was lovely if very cold and definitely somewhere I’d like to experience again.

I will be back as soon as I have blocked out the most recent items I’ve been working on. My friend Eileen had a baby a few weeks ago and I’ve made a really lovely little lace hat for her daughter plus I must show you blocked photos of the Give a Hoot mittens.

Posted under general crafty updates, knitting, swaps

My sister’s ex-flatmate has a cat, a very lovely cat who had seven kittens. C was really not having much success with getting them rehomed and I finally managed to talk my lovely husband into letting me have a kitten to keep our last cat company. After chatting to a few friends I managed to find homes for six in total and I collected them yesterday. Unfortunately, someone changed their mind last night so I may have to keep an extra kitten. Bummer, eh? Two of them left me late last night to go and live on a farm and here are the rest:

As I’m sure you’ll understand, my life as I knew it has now ceased and I’m spending much of my time staring at them and making cooing noises. My eldest sat for the better part of three hours last night with three of them asleep on his lap. He’s going to be gutted when the other two leave on Saturday for their new lives!

Craft-wise, I haven’t done anything since wrapping up the Give a Hoot mittens. I’ve just signed up today to Apryl’s Owl Swap which I have around six weeks to work on. I’ve also been eyeing up the Make 50 things in 2009 craft challenge. A few of my friends have signed up to it and I love the idea in theory, but I know in practice how sporadic my crafting is. Actually, how sporadic I am in terms of meeting deadlines too – November’s NaBloPoMo attempt proves that! Anyway, the lovely folks on the Crafteroo forum have set up a 50 things Flickr group which I’ve joined in the meantime…

Posted under general crafty updates, swaps

Well, I started back at work last week. What was an eight hour contract has swiftly become me working two days a week in the office with additional working from home. I’m loving it to be honest but I’m finding that I have absolutely no free time between working and planning my wedding in three weeks, so although I’m reading my blog list I’m not managing to post much myself.

This is a ‘meme’ post. I’ve been tagged you see.

So anyway here are the rules:
Link to the person that tagged you.
Post the rules on your blog.
Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
Tag six random people and the end of your post-link to their blogs.
Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
Let the fun begin!

1. Painkillers don’t work for me, but I’m very sensitive to caffeine and artificial additives. For example I had a latte yesterday at 8.30am and forgot to ask for decaf. 8.30 last night and I couldn’t stop jabbering away.
2. The feeling of sandpaper makes me recoil. I loathe it and #2 has got wise to this. He has a book called, That’s not my bunny and on page two the bunny has pads made of sandpaper. He growls while opening the page, mimicking me because I hate it.
3. I had eight teeth removed to facilitate my orthodontic treatment as my jaw is so small.
4. I have very few photos of me taken from my left side. This is because I have a huge bump in my nose after breaking it, and you can’t see it in photos from the right.
5. I was on the Women’s committee for a major UK union for two years.
6. I would be a vegetarian if the rest of the family would go along with it too.

In return, I’m going to tag :
Jen at PurpleJen Knits
Eileen at FatMuncher
Jenn at Matersum
Kirsty at WWDG
Kawaii Crafter at Zakka Life Crafts
Semprini at Title Goes Here

You may have seen a few blogs mentioning the ‘Pay It Forward’ exchange. Thanks to this, and to the generosity of Kawaii Crafter I am being gifted with a beautiful mizuhiki knot. I am also involved with a more local exchange as PurpleJen is also gifting me. The exchange has been brilliantly explained by PurpleJen therefore I’m copying this verbatim:

The Pay It Forward Exchange. It’s based on the concept of the movie “Pay it Forward” where acts or deeds of kindness are done without expecting something in return, just passing it on, with hope that the recipients of the acts of kindness are passed on. So here’s how it works. I will make and send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment to this post on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. What YOU have to do in return, then, is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

So, I will make something for the first five* people to comment on this entry. I’m happy to recreate anything that has been posted on here and is postable (so yes to crayon holders and chunky crayons, no to lemon drizzle cake). Participants must be aware that my exchange will not be sent out until at least the end of February as I have the wedding to deal with before that.

Normal service will hopefully resume soon!

*I’m offering it to five people as I’m doing two swaps and I hope to spread the love

Posted under Uncategorized