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I'm all rather confused by all this google reader business and bloglovin etc...so to 'claim my blog' here goes...

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Kerry

Anniversary!

Hi Everyone,

It is my 10th Wedding anniversary today and we've blessed to receive some fabulous presents in the post from Steph. I knew Steph was making a couple of things as she had been dropping hints for a couple of weeks! I was amazed when I opened this huge box. A HUGE, HUGE thank you to Steph. xxx

She made each of us an Ami - including my children and put some lovely little gifts in too along with an amazing smoking dragon.

Charlotte was sent the amazing bunny and a little soft monkey.  She has a really cute ruffle skirt on and Lottie has put into the ami basket to live.

Thomas had the cute little sausage dog on the right and Andrew had the Direwolf from Game of Thrones. There seems to be a little ami competition between the family at the moment, Andrew is losing though. He has 2 ami's, Lottie 3 and Thomas has 7. That's pretty amazing since I can't crochet for toffee and just shows how wonderful my blogger friends are.



I had an ami too, introducing Lady Lavinia Giraffe. You all may get up from your curtsy's now. Underneath her couture she does have her giraffe spots. (although we shouldn't really know what is under a Lady's dress). She sits very regally on the fireplace surveying her court (the ami baskets).

Another present to both Hubby and I was one of Steph's smoking dragons. We've not made him smoke yet. I really must get some incense cones. He now lives on our fireplace.

Steph did one of her sweet memory boxes, this one is memories of Cornwall, We honeymooned in Cornwall and had planned to go back this month but a few things came up so we haven't been able to go. Steph also put in a little giraffe, a handmade soap and a little green man charm into the parcel too.

We also had 2 of Steph's fabulous Wee Witchy cards. The first is the annivesary card...

And the second a notecard...I've opened it out so you can see the front and back. They're amazing drawings.

I didn't manage to get the Game of Thrones stitch completed for Andrew, but I am hoping to make him a couple of bits today with some fabric I've had ages. We're off out for a meal tonight and  both have today off, although the weather is a far cry from the glorious sunshine we had 10 years ago.

Well I'm off out for morning coffee with hubby. Have a lovely day all. xx

Engaging in Fathers Day!

Hi Everyone,
I really am blessed to say that I have a job I love and work with great people. When one of them got engaged at the weekend I knew I wanted to make a special card. When I brought some fabric at the weekend you may recall it had a sweet little dove section on it. You can see it below bottom middle.

I put some wadding behind it and stitched round the gold outlines using a machining gold thread which I doubled. It was one I grabbed in Tesco of all places for another project that is half done and I'd not used any so I had no idea how suitable it would be but it was a dream to stitch with. I also satin stitched the little heart in the middle in pink and went round the darker pink hearts in good old DMC. I also added their initials.

I mounted it in a square card and added a little peel off at the bottom, I decided that I didn't want to go overboard and I wanted to let the stitching speak for itself.

It's often a gamble when you give a  handmade card or gift to someone you've not given to before as to whether they will like it, but I'm pleased to say they both seemed to like it.

Right on to Fathers Day.

This was something that had been in my WIP basket since March and I decided that it was time it got finished for fathers day. Hubby is a big gamer so when I made the 'read on' one for Laura, hubby asked if I could do a Game On version. It was easy enough to get the word game in instead of read and I used the little space invader from an issue of Cross Stitcher.

As you can see it's still unfinished as I the hangers I wanted for it were out of stock, so if anyone knows a good inexpensive supplier of the little hangers for stitching/quilting/embroidery then please let me know.

So on with the next project! I've been putting in a few stitches here and there on the Game of Thrones chart but my ME has rather gotten the better of me and I've not been stitching anywhere near what I'd like to be. It'll be a lovely gift whenever it gets finished and I know Hubby will like it.

Kerry.

Charming!

Hi Everyone,

I hope you've all been having a lovely weekend. We had an in and out day yesterday. I had a hair cut (at least 8" cut off so it's quite a change!), popped over to mums and did a birthday party run with my eldest. Tesco was visited and a friend popped in too. I was rather glad when I could collapse on the sofa and watch the voice.

I've got a couple of new followers too, so welcome to you (*waves). Thanks for following and stopping by. I hope you'll visit regularly. Right on with the makes.

It was my oldest and dearest friends birthday a couple of days ago and along with a CD and some flying saucers I made some jewellery. I chose charms that represent her and put on some funky pink and white beads too.

The bracelet has a shopping bag, cup and saucer, sunglasses, football shirt, cocktail, mobile phone, dress, cross, pair of boots, handbag and a best friend heart.

I couldn't leave it at just that and made a simple necklace and earrings too. Here is the set together.

So I'm pleased to say Sarah really liked it and I know it will match rather a lot of her outfits as she's rather a pink person!

I found a sweet little blog today hosted by Kim and she is having a giveaway to win some beautiful things. Check it out here

Thanks for stopping by. Have a lovely Sunday all. x

Bloggers are the best!!!

Hi Everyone,

I'm blessed to have very generous blogger friends and Laura is no exception. I've had 2 lovely parcels from Laura in few weeks full of goodies for me and my quilt along with fab postcards to add to my collection.

I've already put alot of the fabric into the quilt and I'm thinking up some ideas to use the animal panels. There were 2 giraffes so one may end up in the quilt too.

Laura also sent me a sweet parcel from her holiday. I really should photograph things as they arrive as I'm sure there was something else in this one too. The stash postcard Laura sent me seperately but isn't it fab! The pink one contains the opening to the novel Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.

There is a beautiful pair of Milleflori earrings and a green glass bracelet along with some very cute pirate and crab fabric for my quilt.

Laura has had a hectic couple of weeks at work too so I decided a little care package was in order. I only had time to make a little pair of earrings, but they're purple so Laura should like them! You can never go wrong with chocolate and stash! I'm pleased to say it was very well recieved and the chocolate and sweets provided some rather useful sugar boosts.

I hope everyone is having a great week so far.

Love Kerry

Hexagon Quilt Kit Giveaway

I'd completely forgotten I had a giveaway running to win a hexagon quilt kit until a flash of something hit me and I remembered to draw a winner. I used the random name generator also known as Thom to draw the winner. So this was the prize...

So without further delay the winner is...

Angela CG

From Stitching in the Zoo.

So Angela please email me your postal address and I'll get the kit in the post to you.

My blogversary is only 60 days away  now so I'm planning a series of giveaways to celebrate that, so If you didn't win today there will be some giveaways coming up soon. In the meantime Nancy at Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe is having a lovely giveaway so check it out.

Bye for now. xx

June TUSAL ORT report!

It was a new moon yesterday and thanks to on the ball bloggers I'm only a day late posting this! Each month Daffycat hosts the Totally useless Stitch A Long. you can find out more by clicking on the button in my side bar.

Ok so I've been fairly hopeless with keeping up with the ort reports these last couple of months. I've not done an ORT report in 3 months and would you believe this photo shows the extent of 3 months of stitching. There are some cottony bits in which are from where I've sewn my quilt, a bit of wool from a bunny and the rest show just how frugal I am with my threads or just how little stitching I've done which is nearer the case.

I know it is all my stitching orts as the pot only gets emptied when I do an ort report. Hopefully July's will be full of colourful threads as I have so many things to stitch for.

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend. xx

A little stash to help me on my way

I've had a bit of a stash accumilation this week,

Firstly came the Made in felt bookazine, Its actually quite good. I don't usually buy the bookazines as they tend just to be a collection of charts from the magazines but this had some lovely projects both in felt sheets and to needle felt too. I loved the mermaid and am very tempted to do that one, also the needle felting projects were lovely too. I actually think it was a good investment for the needlefelting projects as you don't tend to see them covered in magazines much - when they are its one project and a fiver spent.

You can see with the felt mag 2 Lizzie*Kate charts I brought. The work Pray Trust one is for a housewarming for 2 friends and the home one is just for me! It may get to the point when I just frame the chart as my to-do list is so long at the moment it may never get done!

It is my wonderful best friends birthday on Friday and I always try and make her something. It's usually jewellery as she wears a lot so I brought some fab pink beads and some charms to describe her. The ones loose on the table are the ones I intend to use and the rest were from the packs the charms were in. the charms were from a fab etsy store here

We had a lovely day at the Evesham Country Park which is near where we live, seeing the trains as they have a narrow gauge railway there and it was they Gala today so they had them all out. There just so happens to be a needlecraft shop so it would have been rude not to go in. I popped in and got the new cross stitcher magazine and chanced upon 2 FQ's of fabric for my quilt. I couldn't quite see what was on the label style one so brought it hoping it would be nice. Here is the section of it before it repeats, it's a bit wedding-y but there are some lovely bits too, I love the doves and I'm going to use that this weekend to make an engagement card for my colleague. Well that's the theory anyway!

Lastly I started something new last night, It's a game of Thrones themed design I'm stitching for my hubby for our wedding anniversary in a couple of weeks. He's a huge GoT fan so I'm hoping he likes this. I had a bit of help chosing it as I've never seen the programme/read the books so thank you Steph for explaining it to me. The chart was from Etsy and you can find it here Ok you can't see al lot but there is a little bit done...honestly!

With all that shopping done, best I do some crafting, enjoy your weekend everyone.

Kerry. x

Travelling Box Makes - round 3

So the box has made it's way to South Africa and is now with Cucki so I can reveal all my makes for the box. The travelling box really is a joy to make for so I had no problem coming up with several ideas for it. So below you can see, knitted bunny, satin corsage, bunny scissor fob, flower bookmark clip, heart feltie, friendly plastic brooch and the close ups I'm about to show you...

This was a piece of printed fabric where I crossed stitched over the top of some parts to give a raised effect. I brought the fabric when visiting Laura.

I love making charm bracelets and here is one with some pretty mottled beads. I couldn't decide on the earrings so ended up making 2 pairs!

More jewellery, this time the bracelet was made by my 8 yr old. He chose the beads and pattern and I just helped him put on the clasp and made some matching earrings for him.



So here is a little toadstool keyring bag fob thingie with some glass bead charms. It's from a biscornu chart designed by Steph.



I had to add a biscornu and here is one on some hand dyed linen.

And the bottom, I really love working on Steph's hand dyed fabric and the little mill hill beads worked perfectly as they were a kind of grey with different coloured centres.

I once again stitched on hand dyed linen with another of Stephs fab charts is the wee faerie. This is Wee Plum Faerie and I do love her. She is a joy to stitch and I made her up into a little cushion hanging thingie. Not the best picture I must admit, propped up on some duplp, perhaps haniging from something may have made a better pic...oops!

The other thing I wanted to show you a close up off was the dragonfly brooch I made in friendly plastic using a shaped frame I found in a craft shop, but there doesn't appear to be a pic of it on my camera. you can just see the tail in the picture with the toadstool keyring. I've got a couple of others to try out so hopefully I can show you then.

So just a few more months until the box returns and I can't wait...on with the travelling box round 4 making ideas list!!

Don't forget my Hexagon qiult kit giveaway too, It's open until Sunday. You can find it here.

I shall apologise now if  I have another little break from blogging as most of my projects coming up are secret ones so posts may be few and far between.

Happy crafting friends.

Travelling craft box picks

Hi everyone,

I've been very lucky to have the travelling box visit me again and whilst it makes it's way to Cucki, I thought I'd share my choices from the box that once again was full of beautiful things from very talented people.

So the doll and lipbalm cosy were made by Steph O, Kokeshi embroidery, tulip keyring and daisy coaster made by Lori, the button magnets, biscornu fob, cameo earrings and binky made by Laura, the purple pear by Steph S and the bookmark and mug cosy by Rae.

The travelling box has become quite a family thing now and everyone choses something. My hubby wanted the mug cosy, My son, binky and the bookmark and my daughter loved the doll. This time round both of them made things for the box too, which I'll show you once the box reaches Cucki.

Once I'd taken the photo my son decided he wanted something else from the box and chose this cushion from Cucki for puppy (his toy dog to have a pillow) and the keyring made by Laura. Here he is with all his picks from the box. The owl has caused a little sibling rivalry as my Daughter is having a quite intense 'yellow' phase and wants it quite badly.

So now to wait a few more months before the box of delights returns to me. I don't think I could ever get tired of this exchange.

I'm looking forward to showing you my makes...can't wait for it to get to South Africa.

Happy crafting friends!