Merry Christmas

Its been a busy week recovering for coughs, colds, and flu... and frantically trying to make presents, wrap presents, and go shopping too.. the fridge is full to bursting, the cupboards full of chocolates, cookies cooling on the rack and fresh reindeer food in jars to set out for Santa to take to his reindeer.

Thank you to all my readers, my lurkers, my friends. Thank you to all the people that I have met through blogging and crafting, through swaps and crafter..oo. Its been lovely to meet you, e-mail and leave comments back and forth, since last Christmas I have learned to make jewellery (some of which I have even managed to sell) I have learned to embroider (slowly), and to sew (with a little machine no less) my life has changed for the craftier! Though I still knit quite badly

I wish you all the best this holiday season! I have cookies to bake now (chocolate chunk), and poor H has fallen asleep beside the fire next to Alys the cat... its all a little too much excitiment for him.

feel free to pop by for a coffee and a cookie! Merry Christmas Everyone

lavender and rice warm bags

lavender and rice warm bags

I would probably call them heat-y bags as that's what we call H's warming wheat bag. I made these with a bit of "help" from H, for his great-grandmother and for his grandma too... they are made from some Laura Ashley fabric that any grandmother or great-grandmother would love. Probably a little wonky in places due to my less than exemplary sewing skills but they look nice and smell like lovely. They can be warmed in the microwave or popped in a bag and chilled in the freezer.

They were quite simple to make even with my sewing skills and that makes two more presents to pop on the ever growing pile of wrapping I have to do later. After I have been shopping later today to get all the things I have been too sickly to sort out during the week. Luckily we are all on the mend so its going to be very busy these next few days before Christmas. If I have a chance I will blog a few more Christmas-y recipes and maybe a few more crafty things too before I put away my scissors, my pliers, my pens and just wear an apron and carry a wooden spoon in hand constantly. Tis the season after all...

Luxury Granola (aka reindeer food) recipe

Luxury Granola (aka reindeer food)

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups porridge oats

½ cup flaked almonds

1/2 cup desiccated coconut

1 teaspoons cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup maple syrup

3 tablespoons melted butter (margerine)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons light brown sugar

¼ cup raisins

¼ cup dried cranberries (sweetened)

3/4 cup plain chocolate chips (optional)

Pre-heat the oven to 300F (150 C)

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl, mix thoroughly and place in a single layer on a non-stick baking try ( if you don’t have non-stick then you will need to grease the baking tray with butter or oil).

Place in the oven for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Every 5 minutes you will need to open the oven door and stir the granola mixture.

Cool completely and add the raisins, dried cranberries and chocolate.

The granola can be eaten on its own, or with milk for breakfast, sprinkled over yogurt or ice-cream, and of course left out on a dish for Santa’s reindeer on Christmas Eve.

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A little help for those who don't use cups as measurements. Oh and for the record I just use normal everyday teaspoon and tablespoons for measurements, less hassle than attempting to locate the measuring ones. Which I think have migrated to H's toy box.

U.S. to Metric Conversion Table
1/5 teaspoon = 1 ml
1 teaspoon = 5 ml
1 tablespoon = 15 ml
1 fluid oz. = 30 ml
1/5 cup = 50 ml
1/4 cup = 60 ml
1/2 cup = 120 ml
1 cup = 240 ml
2 cups (1 pint) = 470 ml
4 cups (1 quart) = .95 liter
4 quarts (1 gal.) = 3.8 liters

Cooks Notes: The recipe is mine based on several granola recipes that I found on the Internet and was quite disgusted by the amount of salt, and vegtable oil used in them. In the end I ignored the recipes I had found and experimented with what I thought of as Christmas-y tastes: dried cranberries, cinnamon and brown sugar.

It smelled devine and tasted great, I kept nibbling on it as I added the dried fruit and baked the second half of the batch. I gave the granola out as gifts last Christmas and may do the same again this year when we make some that is. Both H and I have been poorly with cold and fever and haven't had the chance to do any Christmas baking just yet but we will be. H keeps asking to make Reindeer Food and this is alot better than the kind with glitter in.

cupcake snowman recipe

ingredients:

cupcakes:
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups self raising flour
1 ½ cup caster (white) sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter (softened)
1 cup milk
3 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (180 C).
Grease 12 cupcake cups or line with paper muffin liners. (recipe makes 24 cupcakes (not fairycake size, muffin tin size.)
Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.In a small bowl mix the milk and the vanilla.

In a large bowl cream butter and sugar until fluffy.

add half the flour and mix well. Add half the milk and vanilla mixture.

Add eggs, one at a time mixing well. slowly add in the remainder of the dry mixture.

Add the last of the milk and vanilla.

spoon the batter into the cups and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the cake springs back when touched.

Remove from oven and let cool for about 10 minutes, then turn out of pan and onto a rack to finish cooling completely.

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting
ingredients:
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup unsalted butter (softened)
1-1/2 cups powdered (icing) sugar
1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract (flavouring)

Place the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla in a bowl and slowly add in the powdered (icing) sugar as you mix. Blend until smooth.

decoration:
1 large bag of plain m&ms
1 industrious child to separate the m&ms ( you only need the brown and orange ones so bribary is easy)
sweetened and tenderized coconut
1 bag plain chocolate chips


assembly:

place the sweet coconut in a bowl
ice a cupcake with the vanilla icing and gently dip the cupcake into the coconut.
use the brown m&ms for the eyes and the orange ones for the nose, and chocolate chip (coal) for the snowman's smile. Its a fun job that the kids can help you with, especially seperating out the m&m colours, as H quite happily sat for an unheard of 10 minutes sperating out all the m&ms and was quite happy to steal a few.

alternatively you could use other orange sweets for the snowman's nose or colour some marzipan orange and roll flat and cut small triangles (carrots) or roll into small carrot shapes.

cooks notes: I made two batches 48 cupcakes to sell after H's school Christmas Concert. every single cupcake sold at a £1 each, M assures me they were very nice I never got one though I may have made myself just the teensiest bit sickly "tasting" the icing....and cake batter... I also made 2 trays of brownies (recipe soon) which all sold out as well, so I was quite pleased that even if my jewellery wasn't selling my cakes were appriciated and raised some money for H's school.

all cupcaked out

been busy making these for two days.... huff puff more later..

illustrated ornaments

a little toadstool

I have been having a play around with making a few more scrap fabric ornaments for gifts. This time with more illustrations done with permanent ink on a plain linen blend fabric. I ironed (shock horror) the doodles to set the ink, though not fabric ink this time just several art pens I have kicking about the house, well not actually strewn about the place, that would be too messy they are tucked away safely in a little blue zippered pouch with Russian dolls machine embroidered on them by the very talented Anna from the Russian doll swap ages ago... though for some reason I can't find where I blogged the pictures.. hmmm blogger being evil again I assume.

a cup o' joe for M

Hopefully M isn't snooping on my blog, he doesn't visit very often anyway so I should be OK to blog this little coffee cup ornament that I made for him.. its only going to be a glorified tag on his present but still its nice to keep some secrets for Christmas.

a little pug for my mother

I posted the pug ornament off to my parents yesterday so I doubt it will make it to Idaho before Christmas but one can hope. all set for Christmas? er no not really but I'm trying to be.. though I think I'm getting a cold which is just what I need in the two weeks before Christmas.

an owl in a tree

This little owl in a tree is my favourite, its from a quick sketch I did while at a abysmal fair after I had exhausted my supply of beads to make more jewellery and it was better to draw something than to sit twiddling my thumbs. I best get going now I have brownies in the oven and they need checking then I have snowman cupcakes to make... I may blog the recipes later in the week!

Its beginning to look alot like...

o Christmas tree

....well you know how the rest of the song goes! We got the tree up yesterday, its crooked but H picked it and is very happy with his choice. He put about 5 ornaments up then scarpered with a small box he filled with all the fabric ornaments I made last week. Five minutes later he returned triumphant that he had place a fabric ornament on every door in the house to make everything suitably Christmas-y. Alys and Starbuck (the cats) glare at the tree as if its some monstrous intruder into their domain... well Starbuck looks like that at everyone so its nothing new. Alys retreated to the relative safety of the rumpled up duvet on the bed, safe from the menace of sparkly trees.

scrap fabric ornament

We went to a birthday party for H's friend over the weekend as well, and I made the little Lamb ornament to go with a Christmas card I sent along with a birthday present. My friend's last name is Lamb so I thought it would be perfect to doodle a lamb onto one of the fabric ornaments I have been working on. And now apparently need to make more as I dare not take them off the doors or there will be serious upset from the boy.

doodle button pins

Last week I had this idea to draw/paint some little faces on some fabric buttons, on brooches/hair pins, and Sam helped me by quickly sending me a batch of buttons I ordered. They are meant to be a present for a friend's daughter but I ordered more than I will be giving out. They have turned out pretty good I think.. except for an owl I did on some white fabric (the pen bleed and made a hell of a mess on the white fabric). Your can see my original doodles for the project on the picture below. I have another 5 buttons to doodle on, and the owl disaster that needs fixing ( I will try to paint over it and see what happens) though they don't have homes to go to yet.

pins and original doodles

bad owl

hmmmm... not sure if this has worked out right or now.. its meant to be a little owl shaped rice bag for H. For Christmas... I'm just not sure.. I want it perfect and today is one of those days when everything is far from it. I will tuck him away and see if he is stilll a bad little owl in the morning.

hmmmm....

Scrap Ornament Tutorial

scraps and samples collected from various places Ikea, and Laura Ashley

ahem

materials:

an assortment of fabric scraps

garden twine or ribbon

needle and thread or sewing machine

poly-fil

(buttons, fabric pen, beads, paints optional)

step 1:

you will need two pieces of fabric the same size ( I didn't measure anything I jsut went by what little scraps I had to hand) and a small piece of twine/ribbon. I used gardening twine from a garden centre but you may wish to make fancier ornaments than me.

step 2: Put the fabrics together facing each other and place the twine/ribbon between them. You may want to hold the fabric and twine in place with a needle or two. Sew along the left side the top (careful of the twine) and along the right side.

Step 3: carefully turn right side out, pressing out the corners, with a chopstick or knitting needle. Fill the ornament with poly fill (if you wish you can add dried lavender, or cinnamon to make the ornaments smell lovely.

step 4: Fold the ends of the material in and hold them with more pins and sew along the bottom of the ornament.

Its not a complicated tutorial because my sewing skills are decidedly advanced, there are a lot of different techniques you could use, you could sew an ornament with the right side out and then crimp along the edges with pinking shears (I don't have any) add buttons, or embroidery. The owl and the quail I hand drew with a fabric pen, ironed it to set the ink and I think they look quite special. I will be giving these out as Christmas gifts as well as decorating our Christmas tree with them.

If you have any questions I will try my best to answer them, and if not I will point you in the direction of someone who can. Its a fun way to use up little scraps that might otherwise sit about in your scrap box feeling unloved and cross breeding with rogue dust bunnies. My scraps and samples have come from some lovely friends, and from ikea, Laura Ashley, and Cath Kidson online ( I er only ordered the samples too chickenshit to order real fabric)

Scrap Ornaments

little scrap ornaments

As you know I have been experimenting with learning to sew, I am now in possession of a dinky little sewing machine and a box full of scraps to play with. Its not all been easy, its difficult for me to follow directions well, as in other peoples patterns though it doesn't stop me from loving to read a good tutorial. I think its just the way my brain works.

I'm left handed and have struggled all my life to understand the right handed world beyond teaching myself to cut using the red handled scissors in school. (The green Lefty scissors were always a.) broken b.) rusty or c.) stuck together with supposedly kid safe glue). I like to look at things take them apart in my head then try to see if I can do it for myself. Sometimes it works and sometimes it hits an iceberg or several before I go my own way.

just hanging around

This Christmas I am really trying to stick with the handmade theme, I normally do a lot of baking for friends and family, and this year I wanted to do more. So I have been experimenting with my box of scraps to make these cute little ornaments. The scraps are all fabric samples from Laura Ashley that either my Mother in Law gave me or I have asked for on trips to Laura Ashley. I have more to make and more scraps to work with, I'm hoping to give some ornaments away as gifts, and gift tags, and will probably play about with adding a few buttons, and possibly drawing or painting on some scraps of natural linen I have been hiding.

the little scrap oranments are really easy to make, if you would like a tutorial I would be happy to write one up and list what materials I used.. aside from the scraps of fabric of course!

30 posts in 30 days

Today's post marks the end of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Post Month), a post every day for the entirety of November, 30 posts for 30 days. I signed up in hopes that it would make my writing flow a bit and get me to write every single day for a month.

this is post 30 and I must admit I am quite happy it is over, I tried to make my posts witty and meaningful, but I must admit a few of them were just a chore... and a few more were total cheats as I back dated a few posts here and there when I haven't been on the Internet for a day or two.

Today we went down to the Bullring in Birmingham, to gorge ourselves on Krispy Kreme Donuts at Selfridges. But mainly so H could go goggle eyed at the donut machine and tell me how it works. Then later on I wandered around to food hall cooing and fondling all the American imported food stuff... or should I say junk food stuff.. I really don't see why they have so much marshmallow fluff and Lucky Charms cereal.. both of which I would touch but seeing the packaging make me smile wistfully.

Treasury

so guess who is in a treasury this weekend? Me! well my little poison apple tree is. Its in the Crafter..oo two treasury.

thank you Kerry from Penny Dog Jewellery for creating the treasury for everyone who is a crafter...oo etsian.

I should be crafting now...

.. but I'm tired and this week has been a total whirlwind. I have done two window displays, thanksgiving dinner, meet up with a fab lot of crafty bloggers, got stuck in the rain waiting for a bus that never came. Had a wander around Chatsworth, elbowing grumpy old ladies aside so we could stake out a table. and a trip to Caudwell's mill for coffee and cake... and so H could drag M all around the mill looking at various cogs and things.

Today if I'm lucky I will get a bit of sketching done and possibly write up how I made the display for the studio window. I have had a few more ideas for Christmas presents in my hopes of having as handmade as possible a Christmas... aside from Mario things for H (the boy is obsessed), the books I am coveting, chocolates and lovely Laura Ashley things for M's mum.

I have so much that needs doing.. parcels to send out to California, Idaho, and Finland. crafts that need crafting... cakes that need baking, and a house that is in desperate need of a tidy. and coffee that needs drinking.. busy busy... . mmm coffee

happy turkey day!

wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving. I have cooked and cooked .... admittedly I didn't cook a whole turkey we just had turkey steaks with Parmesan mashed potatoes, asparagus, sweet potatoes carmelized with brown sugar, stuffed peppers, and cupcakes for pudding. The dishes are done and I'm ready for my bed.

the twinkling of lights

Window display at the Studio

This is what I have been working on all day today, sorting out the window display for the studio. What do you think? M thought the tree was a bit too creepy to being with but I love how it looks on the paper and with the fairy lights twinkling gently. Well maybe not gently I opted for them to be on straight as every time I tried the pretty twinkling setting they would switch to epileptic fit mode and I would have a temper tantrum and grizzle at the lights.

if anyone is interested I thought I might do a little tutorial about how I made the painted tree decoration for the studio window... I love it and am considering doing one on a smaller scale to go on the fireplace with one of those battery operated lights.

busy day tomorrow.. not only is it Thanksgiving but I'm meeting up with some very talented craft bloggers at a meet up in the morning.

the Coconut Cookie Experiment

Coconut cookies

Ingredients:
1 cups self raising flour
1/2 cup butter/margerine (softened)
3/4 cup caster (white) sugar
2 teaspoon vanilla
a pinch of salt
1 eggs (large)
1 1/2 cup desiccated (sweetened and tenderized coconut*)

Pre-heat the oven to 375° F

In a large bowl beat the butter, vanilla extract, and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Add the egg and mix thoroughly.

Add the flour slowly until well blended. By hand stir in the coconut.

Drop the dough by teaspoon onto un-greased cookie sheet. For larger cookies drop by the tablespoon.

Bake for 10 minutes, until the centre is puffed up and the edges begin to brown. Remove from the oven, let them cool for a minute on the baking tray before placing on a wire rack to cool.

* I meant to grab the normal desiccated coconut but grabbed the "tenderized and sweetened coconut" by mistake... and I must admit it was lovely and I stole several pinches from the bag before I had finished making the cookies.



cook's notes: as I said above I had bought the wrong coconut by mistake when doing teh shopping last week and the packet was sitting rather forlornly, or as forlornly as a packet of dried coconut can sit, in the cupboard waiting to be used. I love coconut and have expirimented with several diffrent recipe creations, this one I was expirimenting with in an attempt to make a recipe up for Katy to make a dairy free version, as the last tiem she was over I made some coconut rocks. They were meant to be cookies but puffed up a bit too much, they still tasted nice though. These should work out much better and will work nicely with margarine. The turned out lovely and crisp and very coconutty!

and the winner is......

the giveaway is now closed thank you everyone who left a comment, if I was rich enough, or at least sold enough jewellery and art I would send you all a gift!

I was left 27 lovely comments that have been really lovely to read thank you so much, it really improved my spirits reading such lovely comments and all about everyone's Christmas plans. I cryed a little bit reading through the comments. Thank you for your support and I hope you continue to read my blog and perhaps one of you will win on my next giveaway.. or maybe we will get to do a swap someday!

so I suppose I should let you know who the winner is... as picked by the lovely and lazy random number generator is number

Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers: 17...

Timestamp: 2008-11-24 19:56:58 UTCRandom Integer Generator

the winner is

syko kajsa who said:

"I would like Santa to bring me some nice clothes, I haven't bought myself anything new in ages! And a pair of new glasses, if he can afford it...I love pendant and would love to find it in a box under the tree!"

rice hand warmer

rice warmer

Hey look what I made!.... no not the picture(thought it is one of mine that M says looks like Kelly Osbourn), the little gingham pillow.. its a little hand warmer, filled with rice that was lurking in the back of the cupboard and a pinch of cinnamon. Now you all know I have been slowly learning to sew well my Mother in Law bought a little mini sewing machine and we had a play on it earlier, she showed me what to do to make it go and we made a little pillow that H confiscated for his Vampire doll (who is afraid of the dark apparently).

another view but for some reason blogger keeps turning the image sideways.

I dug a piece of material out of my scrap box and sewed this in the little sewing machine. Added the rice and a pinch of cinnamon and sewed up the last little edge. its a bit wonky but that's ok, it smells lovely and it works and I made it all by myself. I am very proud of my little hand warmer as I plan on making a special one for H for Christmas.

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There is one day left to sign up for my smokey quartz pendant giveaway!

so please sign up and leave a comment on the giveaway post and I will draw the winner monday afternoon/evening time.

seven things

a while ago I got tagged by a few people to do the seven wierd things meme, which I have done before but thought I would do again.. though I'm not going to tag anyone, if you leave a comment consider yourself tagged if you so wish to be.

I love memes, I love filling them out and I love reading them to learn intresting little tidbits about people. Its facinating and fun, and you get to know people better by seeing a bit of what makes them tick.

so here goes 7 random things about me:

1. I love gift cards... but not in the traditional sense, I love blank ones from my favourite shops, I use them as bookmarks (another unhealthy obsession), my favourites are ones from Old Navy and random coffee shops, the Flying Goat in Santa Rosa, California or the Sunflower Cafe in Sonoma, California the very first Starbuck's in Seattle, Wa. and a card pilfered from Bloomingdale's in San Francisco ( I nearly gave it to Katy but then I thought she might think I'm a total wierdo) . I have converted H who collects them where every we go, often times I just ask if I can have one and they will give them too me, I'm not sure if that is enabling me or not.

2. I'm a somewhat reformed rock hound, I used to collect all sorts of rocks and stones, arrowheads, crystals, fossils, even washed up bits of glass on the beach. I have more expensive tastes now, and just collect semi-precious beads and chunky sterling silver and semi-precious gemstone pendants. but my eyes still search the ground whenever we go for walks and especially when we go to the beach.

3. I was a rather melancholy child, sitting reading Stephen King novels instead of playing at recess time at school. The stand (unabridged) is still one of my favourite novels that I re-read every few years. I probably would have been a goth if it didn't take so much work to be pale and interesting and dressed in black. I'm more of a moral grey area type of girl than that.. though I must admit my reading tastes tend to go dark side a bit.. and my movie tastes too...

4. The X-Files brought me and M together. And is the reason we named our cat Starbuck, though most people assume its for the coffee, actually he is names Starbuck because its Scully's nickname from her father.

5. I wanted to be a girl Indiana Jones for years when I was little, but as I got older I realized he is actually a rather crap archaeologist, though I still adore the moves and M just bought me the new boxed set. H has been running around the house singing/humming the theme music, its adorable.

6. I once had a cat named Daisy, named after my favorite TV character at the time Daisy Duke from the Dukes of Hazard of course I think I was 5.

7. When we moved into this house, sitting in its lovely little close but I couldn't help think what it would be like if the zombies came like at the beginning of Dawn of the Dead. So now you know what a total geek I am.

a little peek at what I'm working on

a little peek at something I am working on... if it works out then it will get blogged and its own tutorial.. if not then you never saw this.. right? oh and the tube of filler has nothing to do with the project I'm working on.... it was just on the table and I forgot to move it.

...oops I almost forgot...

king of all he sees, but not a mouse in sight for little owl

....to show you the pictures of my little craft table from Sunday's craptacular pamper fair. At least Little Scrap Owl hid in my art box and popped out to survey that I had done a decent job of displaying my jewellery and art. The he made a little nest out of some bubble wrap and discarded tags and went to sleep. I wouldn't have minded but he did snore a bit, it might have been what kept people away from the event.

I think the paintings mix well with the jewellery

I thought the stall looked nice and I did get a few compliments on my vintage book page art and the use of book pages to display my jewellery on. I was quite proud of my sign as well, its a magnetic frame from Ikea that M helped me print a sign for me Meridian Ariel art, craft & jewellery design by Apryl Lowe.. it looked professional-ish.. at least for me.

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p.s. there is still time to leave a comment on my giveaway.

I would be ever so greatful if you could link back to it from your blog! thank you.

the winner will be drawn on Monday.

Tile Magnet Tutorial

Stone tile fridge magnets

Materials
5cm x 5cm stone tiles (they come in sheets from your local tile or DIY shop)
acrylic paints
magnets (as many as you have tiles)
1x tube superglue (or all purpose crafting glue)
1x can varnish spray

Step one: remove a tile from the sheet of backing it is stuck to. Clean and leave to dry out.

Step two: sketching your design. I sketched directly onto the tile, but you can draw your design onto some tracing paper and transfer it to your tile. Alternatively if you don’t draw or sketch you can used rubber stamps to stamp on a design.

Step three: paint your design using acrylic paints. I used them because I normally use acrylics in my art, they dry quickly and are pretty durable.

Step four: I sprayed my tiles with an acrylic varnish (2 coats)

Step 5: glue the magnet to the back of the tile. (the magnets I bought came with adhesive on the back but it was not nearly strong enough to hold the tile up. I know because I tried it and the tiles clattered down to the counter top)

I'm really happy with how they turned out, and seeing as there are several more sheets of tiles in the garage I plan to make some more tiles up as Christmas presents. I may even rope H into helping by getting him to make some Jelly Bean People magnets. I hope you find this tutorial fun and helpful.

p.s. if you look closely at the last picture you will see that they are indeed my kitchen tile leftovers. The noticeboard is a metal topped shelf from Ikea.

recycling the kitchen tiles

upcycled/recycled stone tiles (aka magnets to be)

In a box in the garage are several sheets of unused sheets of small stone tiles left over from the kitchen. In an attempt to amuse myself yesterday I dragged my paints, and tatty paint brushes out and had a go at painting on stone. My idea is to turn them into magnets, once I have sourced some strong magnets to glue to the back of the tiles.

teal cup (my favourite)

I think they look pretty good for a small quick experiment, and once I have found some magnets and sprayed some varnish/lacquer on top they will make a great little stocking stuffer for Christmas. The teal cup and the toadstool are my favourites so far, and I have a few more sheets of tiles to rip from the backing and have a play with. When I have found some magnets I will share with you what I have found and maybe write a mini tutorial if anyone would be interested?

a starbuck's red cup for M

Smoky Quartz Pendant Giveaway

smokey quartz and onyx beaded pendant

I have been wanting to do another giveaway for awhile now, and as yesterday was such a bust I spent the whole time I was at the fair making a few more pieces of jewellery and made two more pendants identical to this one. With Christmas come soon I thought it would make a lovely present to give or something to keep and wear when going out.

All that I ask is that you leave me a nice comment (I could do with a bit of cheering up) and tell me about something you plan make this Christmas Season or what you want Santa to bring you.

I will draw a winning name next Monday!

crap day at the pamper fair

Had a really crap day at the pamper fair organized by the parents of H's school, it was very well organized, we advertised everywhere and sent leaflets home with all the parents but it wasn't enough. only about 10 parents came to the event which was quite shameful as the event was to raise money for the school Christmas fair, Santa and presents for the kids.

there were a lot of stall holders but no people really. Some of stalls closed down early and went home... I stayed till the end but only made one sale, to the main organizer of the event. I think she felt sorry for me. Everyone felt really down about the event after all the effort to organize it. I was supposed to give a percentage of my sales to the school but I only sold the one bracelet, to the main PTA lady and she wouldn't have me give the money in... so I bought a few snacks to at least give some money back to the school.

My only other pet peeve at the event, aside from it being a ghost town, was that i was next to one of those stalls selling shitty- glittery tat from China. "Any item of rhinestone encrusted crap, that will tarnish your skin and fall apart on the first wear for a fiver."

argh....

p.s. my little table did look nice but you will have to wait a few days for pictures as M has the camera, and my computer is poorly again... *sigh*

toadstools in frames

Just a quick post to show you some of my toadstool paintings sitting in brand new frames. I think they look so different. I was sitting in the living room looking at them and it was like I was looking at something someone else made. I didn't feel like I had made them because they look nice.

more to come soon as desperately trying to finish stuff off for tommorow.

why has this image turned out so big? I'm not getting along with blogger at the moment.

The Thursday Night Project

smokey quartz bracelet

The Thursday Night project is an ongoing community crafting project through Crafteroo and

Flickr . The aim of the project is to photograph your work in progress and what you have finished for Thursday night. Its a great way to push yourself into finishing those few crafty things that you started and have been ignoring and setting aside for awhile.

smokey quartz and onyx pendant

I probably should have gotten more done last night than I did, but I had to help M book flights for visiting the states in the spring, and it took a lot longer to sort out than we had hoped. But its sorted now we fly from Heathrow to Seattle on the first of April, then the next morning (our Anniversary) we get to spend 6 hours driving across Washington State to get to my parents home in Idaho. I can't wait.

rose quartz and silver bracelet


The chunky faceted smokey quartz featured at the top of this blog post is one of those happy accidents, I ordered the beads because they were on offer, what I didn't pay attention to was how big they were, I knew they were rough, which is what I wanted and I have completely fallen in love with them and want to order more, as I hope I can sell a few pieces this weekend in order to buy more of these beads so I can justify keeping a bracelet for myself.. as it is I may just have to keep the pendant and wear that on Sunday as I set up and mind my jewellery an art stall. M says the beads look like something Betty Rubble or Wilma Flintstone might wear, but I think they are beautiful.