Long time no blog!

I haven't been blogging for a while as I have been busy making stuff for various ventures. However I thought I should just write a little blog post and just let you all know what I was up to. I have been setting up my website. You can now find me here. I chose this webside provider because they said it was really easy to do.... Well of course me being me I couldn't make heads nor tails of it and got quite frustrated by it. But help was not far away and my daughter helped me to sort it out in short order.  I have also started a shop on ASOS  (PS my daughter is also the gorgeous model in my ASOS shop!) and have been happily promoting Shhim.  So all in all a busy time. I hope that it will bring some benefits in the form of sales as they have been a bit thin on the ground recently. Anyhow here are a few goodies I have made recently

And a few  nice shots  of my furry companions too, who keep me on my toes as they have a crazy obsession with the wool I use for felting. I managed to keep my stuff out of their way but they are very cunning.....

The A to Z of me (just a bit of fun)

A - Age - 45

B - Bed size - Kingsize, but I usually en up with a tiny part of it, squashed between hubby and mister cat


C - Chores you hate - Washing up


D - Dogs - no dog at the moment.


E - Essential start to your day -  a nice espresso.


F - Favourite colour - Blue/turquoise.


G - Gold or Silver - Silver.


H - Height - 5' 7"


I - Instruments you play - learning to play the saxophone.


J - Job title - expert finder of other people's belongings, and in my spare time  painter and jewellery maker


K - Kids - 5.


L - Live - Wales.


M - Mother's name - Geertruida


N - Nickname - Don't have one
 
O - Over night hospital stays - When  my daughter was stillborn.


P - Pet peeves -People driving too slow, as we have to drive great distances for everything here in Wale


Q - Quote from a film -Did you all see that, cause I won't be doing that again! (Pirates of the Carribean)


R - Right or left handed -mostly right.


S - Siblings - Two older brothers.


T - Time you wake up - I don't like waking up, alarm goes of at  7.20


U - Underwear -  whatever is reasonably priced and not a thong.


V - Vegetable you hate - none really but not fussed on broad beans


W - What makes you run late - Kids cats and hubby.


X - X-rays you've had - can't really remember x-rays, only remember ultrasound scans.


Y - Yummy food you make -  loads, love cooking.


Z - Zoo animal - Fossa, stunning looking creature


Copy the list and add your own answers! It's fun!

A pair of handmade earrings!

After all the furore on Folksy about what does or doesn't constitute "handmade" I felt we could all do with a pick-me-up.  I have got this pair of needle felted earrings , handmade by myself as a give-away prize.  What do I want you to do to have a chance to get these beauties?  Well I would like you to look at my Folksy Shop and my FB Shop  (and if not following this blog do that too please) and leave a message on here to tell me what items you like best and why. On the 27th of September I will then randomly select one of you to be the owner of the above mentioned earrings. They have sterling silver hooks and are made of merino tops in a nice teal colour. I have finihsed them of with a pretty little fan shape and some teal coloured beads from Black Cat Beads

Preserving a bit of summer!

For the first time our orchard has given us a harvest. The plum trees were so full of fruit that the branches were drooping down to the ground. Picking them was fun as the wasps had also found them and were there in great numbers. Fortunately they were to busy gorging themselves to pay much attention to me. I just had to be careful not to put my finger on wasp occupied plums. I made a nice plum cobbler yesterday which we had with custard, yummy. My middle son Conor had already made a load of jam so I thought I would freeze the last bucket full of them.

There you are, five bags of preserved summer. Now we can have a few cobblers in the winter too!

A-listers week 1

Another month of listing club goodies. I followed a butterfly/dragonfly theme and found all these gorgeous goodies. Click on the pic and you'll go straight to the shop where there are more delectable goodies to be had.

Peg dollies.

Just a quick post to show you how I spend a happy hour with my 5-year old. We grabbed a box of felt and fabric scraps, some googly eyes (of course, what would we do without them?) and some other odds and ends. This is what we made together

He has called them Elisha,Mabel and Linda..... No idea where he got those names from but there you are. We had FUN!

My first Craft Fair!

Last week I did my first Craft Fair. The weather forecast was horrible, so I was a bit worried. As it turned out it was a gorgeous day, just a bit windy. When I arrived there was only one other seller and he turned out to be a fellow Folkser! Here are some pictures of our stalls

This is mine 

Astrid's Garden  and Hannelore's Atelier

 

 

and this is Aberfan Turning with some gorgeous pens and other lovely goodies.

 

I bought one of his light pulls as I'm planning a make-over for my bathroom with driftwood and sea themed items. Really chuffed with it, as it was just what I was looking for.

There was quite a bit of entertainment and a few other stalls but it was rather quiet overall. These cuties gave the children rides

There were plenty of edible goodies to be had and one of the local Art Clubs was also there.

Penlon Farm Produce

(seriously yummy jams and chutneys)

Delicious cakes from Derigalteisen

All in all it was a good experience and I did manage to sell a few things. I won't be so worried about doing it again. Although outside fairs are definitely  more worrying as the wind did tip some of the gazebos over. Mine stayed put as my husband had tied them down with sandbags.  He stayed around all day too, getting food and drinks for me, wasn't that nice? Later in the day my daughter and son turned up too and my daughter actually managed to double my sales, clever girl!

June Bugs go floral!

I won't have time to do much blogging over the next week as I'm going to a wedding and then have to prepare for my first craft fair. I'm quite excited about the fair but a little bit worried too as I have never done it before. Not sure if I have invested to much in packaging but I thought a purchase looks nicer if it comes in pretty packaging. We'll see how it goes.  In the mean time I have been listing every day in my Folksy shop as a member of the June Bugs.  I have picked the floral themed items listed today. They are very varied and pretty. Click on the picture and you will be whisked off to their respective shops.

I'm afraid I didn't make any floral items, mine were inspired by the Pirates of the Carribean and have Black Pearls in them. Hope you like them, I'm quite partial to them myself.

June Bugs are busy bees!

I've not had much time to get creative recently but fortunately I have quite a stack of pretty things prepared  for this months listing club, the June Bugs.  Other busy June Bugs have also made lots of gorgeous items and I will show a nice selection of them as well as some of my own.

And here are a few pretty items I have made

Couldn't sleep last night.

Last night I was lying awake and my mind was whizzing with ideas to make stuff.  I had bought some gorgeous red pearls from Madcowbeads and was totally at a loss what to do with them. On one of my wanderings about I walked past some red spotted fabric and a little light bulb came on.  Today I actually started of with some of it.

This is the pile of materials I started with.  I have some spotty fabric, some iron-on vylene, wooden skewers and large wooden beads.  I was being supervised by a sleepy feline who had stowed away in a cardboard box.

 Fortunately he was very sleepy and stayed in his box so I managed to get on and give a couple of different bead styles a try.  I made some barrel beads an inch long and just under half an inch diameter, some titchy "bi-cone" ones and covered three large wooden beads as well.  I have made the bi-cone type before but I had never covered wooden beads or tried to make really tiny ones either.

 Tomorrow I will add the gorgeous pearls to it and post the results.  Please let me know what  you think.