A Mr Men Christmas

A couple of days ago I recieved two lovely ATC's from the Bubble December swap. The first was from Laura and goes nicely with the Dove one she sent me as part of our goody bag swap.

The second was from Roberta and is a lovely teacup design. 

In my last post I was attempting the impossible and making the children's stockings/sacks for Christmas. Well I can reveal that I did infact get them done even if it mean't I stayed up until almost 3am this morning stitching like a woman possessed. I cheated a bit this afternoon and used bondaweb to attach them to the hessian sacks I'd brought a couple of months ago when the idea struck me. The designs are from Cross Stitcher 205. I stitched them on 11ct Aida as they were more card sized designs and I wanted them to form pockets for the Mr Men books of the characters.

So there is Little Miss Christmas and Below is Mr Christmas. The children seem quite pleased with them, but I'm sure they will hold even more appeal in the morning after Father Christmas has visited.

Here they are with their books and our Mr Christmas soft toy too.

The rest of my Christmas Eve will be spent wrapping presents as I've not done one yet and dealing with my hyperactive children, Lottie has no idea why Thomas is so excited but is happy to join in the madness anyway, so they are charging round the house as I type. I may try and finish the biscornu I started for Mum too, but with all the wrapping and the Midnight service at Church to go to (me time) I think it will be a very tall order. There will be no 3am stitching miracles happening in this house tonight, for sure! Time to iron our clothes for Christmas day I think before we have a little walk round by us to deliver the last of the cards and look at the lights.

May you all be blessed this Christmas and have a wonderful time, whatever your plans.



Christmas post

I was very lucky today to receive 2 Christmas ornaments in the post yesterday. The first was the replacement ornament from Rae, from our bubble swap. Rae's first ornament went a wandering in the post, so she was very kind and sent me these very sweet Robins .

The second came completely as a surprise from Kayla, and was another little decoration for my tree. I was very excited to recieve this one and it's now on the tree along with Rae's one.

Decoration from Kayla (left) and Rae (right)

I'm working on stockings for the children of the Mr Men charaters Mr Christmas and Little Miss Christmas. Now bear in mind that it is 4 sleeps until the big day and I will only be starting the Little miss one tonight. They are fairly small designs but I want it to be a surprise for the children so I can only stitch in the evenings and sleep has been the last thing on the childrens mind the last few nights, so wish me luck with them, hopefully I can post the finished pics on Christmas Eve for you to see. 

Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas to you all if I don't get chance later in the week. xx

deja vu?

Hi Everyone,
I hope you are well on this wet and windy Tuesday. Now that Laura has recieved her goody parcel from the Craftbubble swap I can reveal the contents...

The parcel contained brads, a funky highlighter, buttons including 2 cool Union Jack ones, sewing stitckers, glow in the dark thread, ribbon, Mouseloft kits, Christmas fabric, Lindt choc and hot choc too.

As you can see I also made a few bits for it. Laura and I did an ATC swap and you can see the Noel ATC above. The design was from an old book called 2 hour country cross stitch and stitched on cream and gold lurex aida for a bit of Christmas sparkle. I used red seed beads for the berries on it. The backing papers are from an old Dovecraft pack, but I forget which one.  The fabric heart was also embelished with red seed beads on both sides.

The Angel biscornu was a pattern I'd made up myself using an angel blackwork design from the country cross stitch book too. It was stitched on navy aida and has gold seed beads round the edges. The bottom of it was stitched on the gold lurex aida again. Sometimes I feel the simplist things work well.

I loved making the kilt pin brooch too with the miracle beads. I'm having trouble uploading the pic but Laura has some love ones on her blog, hence the title of deja vu! I'm hoping to make one for me but I'm sure time will get away from me as I have 5 felt decorations to make for custom orders, 2 Christmas stockings for my children and a biscornu to finish. That is a fair bit to do in the next 11 days.

Finally the card I made, the design is a Mouseloft one, using gold card, Dovecraft backing papers from the Christmas blues range and on an embossed card blank from Lakeland.

Thanks for stopping by. x

The Giveaway goodies have arrived!!!

Hi Folks,
I hope none of you have that Monday morning feeling, but are getting into the Christmas spirit. I'm off to the Panto this afternoon with the School as a helper to see Jack and the Beanstalk. It'll be a laugh, I hope my group of charges behave themselves!

Today my giveaways arrived from Laura. The incredibly cute ladybird ami has been named Gloria! I love the biscornu, I do have a bit of a thing for them as you know and in my giveaway after Christmas there will be a rather lovely one I'm sure. (Keep watching this space).

So here is the front of the biscornu.

and the back, such a sweet sentiment and I love the ladybird button.

I finished a Handbag for my friend Sarah-Jane yesterday. It's a design from the Cath Kidston book 'Sew!' I've made this bag 3 times now and they are so easy to do. I even put a lining in this one, which isn't in the pattern so I made it up as I went along. I love the fabric and it feels very Cath Kidston-esque.

Finally a proud mummy moment. My son aged 6 won the pupil of the week award at school and here is the pic of his certificate and trophy. SOOOOOO Proud. Unfortunatly he only gets to keep the trophy for a week.

Well thats all from me today. Hopefully Laura will recieve her goodie bag today and I can share the pictures tomorrow. Thanks for all your uplifting comments you leave me. I love reading them. xx

Christmas ATC's and a bargain book

Hi folks,

Well two weeks today my two will be in a present unwrapping frenzy so I'm really starting to build up to it now. I've done most of my Christmas shopping, just the cards to do now. I don't usually wrap my presents until Christmas Eve, accompanied by some festive music. We start with all the christmas social activites this week too, Tuesday is our Mum and Baby group Christmas Party followed by a leaders lunch, Wednesday we have Thom's School play - 'Bethlehem's Buzzin'. He plays Traveller 2, a pivitol part!!! I'm looking forward to Friday Evening when we Hubby and I get to have an evening out to friends for Christmas drinks.

And on to the makes...

I joined in the Bubble ATC swap this month and here are my two. I used the theme Christmas Carols, and I love the little Bethlehem one.

I popped into my local charity shop Friday and found this book. It was only published last year and is in imaculate condition. There are several projects in there I'd love to try out so after Christmas I shall be getting stuck in.

Well folks that's all for today, you might see me back tomorrow with pic's of my win from Laura's blog of the ladybird set, she's having another little  giveaway too - a Christmas one,  so get over there and have a go. CuteCrochetedCreations Giveaway. Cucki is also having a  Christmas giveaway so try that one too Cucki's Giveaway. Good luck!!!

Goodies Galore!

Hi Everyone,

I've been blessed this week with some fab crafty post so this will be somewhat of a picture heavy post. At the beginning of this week I recieved my giveaway prize from MsStitcher - a lovely little knitted bag with a little pocket inside. My Daughter is 19 months old and has a bit of a handbag obsession, so needless to say she was very excited to claim another. Ms Stitcher's blog is here

The Postie brought me another parcel today for the Craftbubble Christmas goodies swap. My swap partner was Laura and her blog is here. I love doing these types of swap, they are lots of fun to gather all the little bits for. So here are the goodies I recieved.

I'm very excited to get stuck in and making with all that. There was also this fab little bag of buttons and charms. Laura knows I'm a little obsessed with them. I love the green Christmas tree buttons, they're my favourites.

Along with the crocheted sweets in the main pic, Laura also made me these cute little Angel earrings in this lovely little pouch. 



Laura and I also had a little ATC swap too.

Lastly, Here's the card Laura stitched for me too. I posted Laura's parcel today so hopefully tomorrow I can share with you what I sent to her.

We at home finally entered into the Christmas spirit and put our tree and decorations up. I have a few more odds and ends to put up but on the whole we are done.

Our tree is an eclectic mix of handmade decorations and anything we like and is pretty. I love to add little bits to it every year. I can remember where most of the decorations came from or when they were made. I love the idea that it has a history to it all, even though it's only 9 years worth of gathering so far. One of my new additions this year is a 'Mr Christmas' soft toy sat in the fireplace. I picked him up in a charity shop a few weeks ago and paid 49p. I'm rather fond of the Mr Men so he was a good find.

Last week I said I'd give you a few crafty facts from all my making for the fayres. So, as you know there were 480 buttons used but here are the rest:

10 Skeins of stranded cotton (8m each)

20m of Ribbon

56 sequins

96 beads and charms

15 A4 sheets of felt

Well time for bed for me I think. I have my voluntary work tomorrow so a busy day. I need to write my Christmas cards at some point... a task I'm not that fond of really, but that will have to wait for tomorrow. I expect I'll read in bed, at the moment I'm reading 'A Cotswold Mystery' by Rebecca Tope. I've read a few of these now and really enjoy them.

Thank you for reading my rather long post today. Look forward to sharing more with you soon. xxx

bah humbug!

Well not quite Bah Humbug but I did finish a gorgeous humbug design last night for the ornament exchange on Bubble. The design is one I've wanted to stitch since I saw it at the beginning of the year. It's my first attemp at a humbug, but like the biscornu, very addictive. The design is one of 7 different humbug designs (including Bah!) on the Kincavel Krosses site and is called Holly Jolly.

So here it is before I sewed it up. It was stitched on 14ct gold/cream lurex aida with DMC threads 700 (green) and 666 (red) and finished off with pearl seed beads and Mill Hill antique glass beads 03048 (lustred red).

So here come the pictures from all sides.

I'm completly in love with this design and I hope my exchange partner does too. Just to add to the mountain of christmas stitching I already have to do, I would love to stitch a few of these for my tree too.

Well thats all folks for today, bit of backstitch and a biscornu awaits me tonight. Hope you're having a good day. x

Birthday surprises

Hey folks,

I'm very excited to be able to reveal the birthday presents I made for Rachel (visit her blog here). As you know we met up at the NEC earlier this month and I took with me the presents I'd made here, She was very good and only opened one as we needed the scissors. I'm not sure I'd have managed to wait 3 and a half weeks though.

So as you can see I made her a biscornu, matching scissor fob and keep and a keyring/bag charm. The biscornu pattern was from CSC 200 and came with one for the scissor fob too.

And the back, both have clear, silver lined seed beads on them, which show up a little more in the close ups. The thread is one of my favourites and is an Anchor varigated called Harlequin.

I used design elements from the pattern to make the scissor keep and backed it with pink felt and edged in the same pink ribbon used on the fob. I did also pop in a small pair of pink embroidery scissors for Rach too. They all have these gorgeous glass like buttons in the centre that I found at my local sewing shop and absolutely love.

I had the smallest biscornu left over as it was a pleasant mistake lets say! Hubby gave me the idea of a keyring and using ceramic 'icing' beads from the Brighton Bead Shop, made it up as I wasn't sure what to do with it at all.

There were two other gifts in the bag (Pink and spotty of course). One was a box of Turkish Delight and a little felt heart with a cute little wooden heart shaped charm. I forgot to take a pic of this so will get Rach to post one later.

I also made little sweet bags for her boys to put on the Christmas tree with their initials on. The alphabet was from a recent Cross Stitcher.

This week I've been stitching things for exchanges, I did a card for Laura on Monday evening and stitched a humbug last night which just needs beading and making up. That's the plan for tonight.

Christmas Fayre fact: I used 480 buttons to make the 164 decorations and brooches!!! more fayre facts on the next blog. Can you guess how many metres of ribbon it took?

Well thanks for reading, Have a lovely Wednesday. xx

A big thank you

Just a quick blog to say thank you to all of you who take the time to leave me such uplifting comments about my work. I love sharing my work with you. I must say I am looking forward to getting back to the stitching tonight. I've got a few biscornu planned and a couple of Christmas decorations too. 

Well the two fayres are over and I was pleased with how I did. I did have a fair few bits over after the second one today but I will advertise on facebook and take them to my Mum and Tots group in December. So here is the photo from the first school.

I hadn't put all it all out when I took this photo. I did well and sold 45 items so I was pleased. Below is the second stall, as you can see it was a rather small table, in a poor location so I didn't do as well as I'd hoped. I only sold 12 decorations/brooches but I did sell alot of phone charms after reducing the price of them considerably.

I've been asked by the PTA of the other school to do their summer fayre so I'll be thinking up idea's for that over the coming weeks. It's all exciting.

So a huge thank you for all your support over the last few weeks and on to the stitching YAY!!!!!!!

2 days to go!

Yes folks this time Saturday I'll be packing up all my crafty wares and taking them off to the first of the fayres at Norton First School. My friend's son goes there and Keira being on the PTA asked me to have a stall. I must say I'm a bit nervous about this one as I'll only know 3 people there so will feel like a fish out of water somewhat. Monday's fayre at my Son's school will be fine. I help out with events alot and know the PTA well. I was also asked to do another fayre at an old work colleague's children's school yesterday, but I decided that 2 was enough for this year.

So here are yesterdays makes. The lime green and red trees are left over from last year and were triangle shaped. I decided to make this years more tree like so ended up taking the old 4 apart too and reshaping them lets say. I'm much happier with them now. I also made another santa and started the third one so my completion count stands at...drum roll please...113 with 11 to go. So the 11 consists of 3 Santa's, 4 stockings, 2 Gingerbread men, a heart and a star. Good thing really as I'm fast running out of buttons. It's funny really it was the stockings I made last last year. I should be able to get them all done for Saturday as I will be spending the weekend making extras of anything that sells particularly well.

Oh before I go, two giveaways that may interest you dear readers. Firstly Laura over on cutecrochetedcreations is having a fab giveaway where you can win a very cute ladybird ami and a matching biscornu. MsStitcher on her blog is giving away a lovely knitted bag. So check them out and enter.

Well time to get off blogger and look for more jobs. I have the unenviable task of signing on at the job centre again (shudders at the thought.) Best I pack a decoration to take with me as it's bound to be a bit of a wait. Have a great day. xx

losing momentum

Yes Folks, it's finally happened and I've hit the wall. Last night I only managed 3 (very pretty) hearts and started a tree. I did spend the afternoon cutting the last of the felt shapes out and finishing the snowmen too. The current decoration count stands at 84 done with 23 to do. I decided to vary my colour scheme a little last night and use coloured buttons on the trees and also do a blue and white heart. I loved the way it turned out so much that I made two. The great thing about it is that it could be kept out all year.

So there are the last of the snowmen all wrapped up for the chilly weather. I brought the blue heart buttons ages ago and finally I've managed to use some of them. I'm a bit odd when it comes to the buttons in my tin. If the button has come from a piece of clothing or was brought specifically for something, I only want it on something special like a biscornu, something that I know will be treasured by either me or it's recipient.

My button tin

Anyway the close up of the hearts...

The last picture is of Monday's creations. This was another day where bits got finished off. The snowmen got warm, except for the one who just got a mouth, just in case anyone is worried, He was in the group of four finished off yesterday :-) I put brooch backs on the trees and gingerbread men, put the ribbon on the red hearts and white band on the stocking and lastly made up the white hearts and fabric panels. That was the last of the fabric panels I needed to do so all 35 are complete.

Thanks for reading everyone. I hope you all have a good day, and hopefully for you one that's filled with crafting. I'm hoping for a more productive one!

Second post of the day...

Having braved the rain, I've just got back from town and I had to share my Santa with you. I needed to get the googly eyes. I love how he's turned out. He was worth the effort even if he took 40 mins to make. I have since shaped his eyebrows a little!

So I'm going to spend the afternoon finishing off the snowmen as they were getting chilly without their hats and scarfs, along with the last of the fabric sachets, 2 hearts and a stocking. Thats my plan.

Have a fab afternoon folks and thanks for reading. xx

Generous friends

Morning friends,

I hope today finds you all well. Yesterday morning I was stopped on the way into church by a lady I've known for about 18 years but only in passing. She mentioned to me a few weeks ago that she has some cross stitch bits she wouldn't use and would I like them. So here is what the bag contained. I was amazed by it's content, I was expecting a couple of battered half started kits, maybe some threads or cheap stuff.

Aren't they all fab, the kits are all anchor kits and the card one is kind of embelished embroidery. I love the two bookmark kits. All are in perfect condition and unstarted. A big thanks to Jo.

As for the Christmas fayre. I promise only 10 more days of you having to hear about it. I'm right on target and I only have 40 decorations/brooches left to make (Laura - I forgot to add the brooches when I told you my progress this morning). I got a stack more bits cut out yesterday and tried a santa design, that looks fab so far but needs a couple of finishing touches. Off to town later for a few final supplies. I need to get my price list sorted and find all my display stuff this week too (read steal mug tree from Mum's). Next Monday I could be cross stitching again, now that would be a treat!!! So here's what I made yesterday. I may try and get to bed before midnight tonight as I'm somewhat sleep deprived!

Have a great week one and all. xx

Progress report

So 2 days since my last post and here is the progress. I'm on target pretty much with what I need to do as long as today is very productive. Yesterday was a rather productive day with 23 phone charms/zipper pulls made, 6 christmas puds, 6 snowmen and 1 and a half hearts. I say 1 and a half as I couldn't get the blanket stitching right on the second one. The fact it was 1.20am may have had a bearing.

Phone charms made with metal charms and 6mm miracle beads

As you can see since my last post I've used alot of the ready cut shapes so today's plan other than the stitch-a-thon is to cut the rest of my shapes. I have plan for a santa face and an owl along with a larger stocking (6") to fill with sweets. Tomorrow I will be off to town for more felt, ribbon and buttons (again). At this time of year I'm in and out of my two local shops 2 or 3 times a week. (and stand at the counter dithering about how much ribbon I need) When I pop into the shops I also keep my eye out for little bits to put in my Christmas gift exchange parcel for Laura. I'm pleased with what I've got so far.  

So here is the latest group of pictures. I've already sold 3 which is great and have been offered a place at a 3rd fayre but i've declined that as I don't have the time to make any more and I'd rather be stitching my christmas gifts for my family and friends. (read 6 biscornu, a coaster and a Christmas ornament for an exchange along with 3 ATC's) Oh and the 2 christmas stockings for the children.

The snowmen just need hats and scarfs now

So thanks for reading, leave me a mesage if you can. Have a lovely Sunday. xxx

x