Can't see the wood for the trees

Just wanted to share some of the wonderful items you can find on Etsy. Just click on the photo and you'll be whisked away to the relevant shop. Enjoy!

Fun and games with animals.

I have been trying to get on and make some stuff, I promise but it has been manic.  Last Thursday the fox came and killed one of our chickens and we have been busy trying to make the garden safer for them. In the mean time the chickens are kept in the run and the geese have been moved to the front garden. Not ideal but I can keep an eye on them.  Friday it got to be very hot and they were looking a bit distressed and I decided to get them a tub of cool water to chill. This was a huge hit!

Obviously the box wasn't  big enough for two of them at the same time so they had to take it in turns but they had so much fun. They had a big paddling pool in the back garden but they  kept puncturing it so I had been looking for an alternative. So Saturday I got them a kiddies sandpit/paddling pool and it has been fantastic. I shall post photo's of them in that soon.
In the mean time my husband and son have been slogging away at the garden, cutting trees and undergrowth so we can put a fence and a "Goose Hoose" up.  Of course with the weather being so nice I have done stacks of washing too (lots of washing in our house!) and folding and ironing has been a huge task.

So this morning I was happily (or at least pretending  to be happy) doing a mountain of ironing when I heard a peculiar noise. I turned around to see Tilda "the fat one" with  her head in a jamjar. I laughed and got my camera out to take a quick snap. As soon as I had taken the photo I tried to take the jar of her head but to my and her great consternation it was stuck!  I tried twisting the jar, twisting her head and pulled gently, but it was stuck. Suddenly she went floppy against my legs. I freaked and yanked hard at the jar. This seemed to wake her up a bit and she struggled hard and suddenly she came free. I sat on the floor in the kitchen cuddling her and breathing a sigh of relief.  There is never a dull moment in this house I promise!

Meeting fellow crafters

Last Saturday I braved another fair.  I went with the thought that as long as my table fee and petrol money were covered it was a good day and I did that plus a little bit extra.  I shared my table with local crafter Milly  who knits ragbags and makes very cute owls amongst other things.
The lady who organised the event had a specific idea in mind. She wanted to get local crafters together so we could build some connections. Well I really did that (even though I find that normally very difficult) I really loved chatting to my fellow stalholders (easy to do as it was quite quiet for a while) and they helped me with a few more contact and ideas.  I hope I will be able to return the favour sometime.  Hopefully this was the first of a few so hopefully we will get some more visitors next time.  Here are some of the lovely stalls

 This was Anne's stall, she makes the most gorgeous bead embroidered jewellery.

I had met this lady previously and I bought a lovely kit from her for my son.  He still has it, it is a little lamb marionette, and he loves it.

 This stall  is "Hooray for clay" with scrumptious buttons, dishes and other lovely ceramic goodies.

This lovely lady spins her own wool and she knits lovely jumpers.  She is a retired crafts teacher and she loves to encourage others to be creative.

 The only chap at the show was Mr Roy Leett.  His photographic artwork was really lovely, and I bought some of his fridge magnets as they were ever so pretty.

This is a stall called Chwaethus, and she sold these very cute signs (some of them in Welsh, as we are in Wales)  You can find her here on Facebook and her work is also for sale in Funki Blue

These two very cheerful ladies were making cards (some very elaborate) and knitted wire bracelets and tiaras. 

Well it was fun to do and I will look forward to next month when there is another one.  I will keep you posted.

Bead making marathon.

 Here are the first beads I made and the necklaces I turned them into.

Over the last few days I have been making lots of fabric beads.  It is a great way of using up small pieces of fabric.  I decorated some of them by winding matching or contrasting silks around them.  I was however finding that some of the scraps I had were too little to make beads from. I then had a brilliant idea, I made a bead from plain fabric and the wound a small piece of the pretty fabric around it. I am thinking of decorating some of them a bit more with silks,ribbons ar raffia but for now I have been turning them onto pretty gorgeous necklaces.  Some of them have already gone on sale at FunkiBlue and some will go on my website.  Just for now I am just rolling,rolling rolling.  I will have to go and search out the local charity shops for some more pretty fabrics and hopefully some coloured denim.

Home sweet Home

It has been a hectic few weeks for me and I really haven't  had time to blog.  I had planned to do a Home sweet Home about an old moneybox but that wil have to wait.  I will share a bit of my home though but as it turned out is was a rather wet home.
Saturday morning I finished my coffee and went to the kitchen to tidy up when my son came in asking me who was having a shower upstairs.  I told him no-one was. He said that there must be, as  he could hear water running.  We went together to the living room and had a shock as there was water dripping from the ceiling!
I dashed upstairs and ran into my bedroom to find a good inch of water covering the floor in my bedroom and en-suite bathroom.  I have to say I rather panicked.  My mind went blank about where the stopcock was so I ended up yelling for my son as I thought he would know.  He stumbled down the stairs (he is not very well and finds it hard to move first thing) I was correct in in him knowing where to find it and he shut the waterflow off immediately. That however left me with a soaking bed and bathroom.  My husband had arrived home in the middle of this (he'd been out getting a paper) and brought a stack of buckets he'd just bought.

We spend the next few hours dipping towels in the water and wringing them out into buckets.  It is a back breaking job I tell you.

The cats thought we were being weird, two of them actually wandered in to see what we were doing in spite of the wet  floor, but I removed  them swiftly when they wanted to go on my bed with sopping wet paws.
In all the panic upstairs I had forgotten about the dripping downstairs but the kids had been very good and parked pots and pans all around to catch the drips.

Fortunately there seems to be very little damage and most things have dried out very well. 
Well it is not the Home sweet Home post I thought I was going to do but there you are, I shared a bit of my home with you.  Hopefully next week I can share a pretty thing with you.