December 5

I like Fridays... the end of the week and the promise of time spent with the family at the weekend, chilling out, eating pizza and watching trashy tv. My favourite Saturday programme is Merlin. VERY loosely based on Authurian legend. I always make time to sit down and watch it with the girls. They like sharing the experience with me. We have a giggle as King Uther has banned the practice of magic. One of our cats is called Magic so the girls think this is great fun and say.. 'Magic not allowed'!

This weekend is the School Christmas Fair. I like to help out but this year we are just going to enjoy attending it and support it in that way. They have gone to school in Mufti (no school uniform) today with a gift of small goodies for the fair in return for this treat. It should be fun.. wonder how i'll do on the bottle tombola this year. ... maybe a bottle of black tower ? .. my friend still hasn't drunk hers from last year! I luckily got a large bottle of good lager which was finished very quickly by my man.



Today I want to share this photo with you of my wee family who mean the world to me. I have it pinned to my pin board and a glimpse of it as i walk by always makes me feel so blessed. This was taken on Fathers day earlier this year on a lovely river walk. It was one of those days that are not planned but gently unfold and end up being perfect. One to remember when I am away from them.

Have a lovely weekend with your friends, family and loved ones... they are what life is all about.x

Shop update

I have finally got round to updating the shop and adding the latest flower brooches that i have made...



I have also braved the cold today and finally photographed (outside as the light was good) the remaining handmade decorative dolls and have added them at a reduced price.


Isadora is a decorative fairy doll perfect for the top of the tree. (has a hanging loop at the back of her neck) We only have six left now but they are dressed in a variety of wonderful vintage prints. Each doll has been lovingly designed and handmade by either Alice or myself and we really hope they will find new homes this Christmas. (they are boxed and i could really do with the space now as my studio is very cramped... hence the reduced prices).



Matilda is probably the doll that we have enjoyed making the most. We have three different Matildas left. I think this gold one is my favourite as i just love her skirt which is made from such a beautiful sumptuous piece of fabric.



Lastly our Flora gardener dolls, most sporting Liberty print Tana lawn blouses recycled from Liberty print blouses. They all wear a quirky little flowerpot hat and have an apron to keep their garden twine and seeds safe.

All the dolls are placed on a bed of raffia in a specially made and decorated box. They do make a lovely gift. Please take a look at the website at our other designs.
thanks
ginny x


Edit to add.... Author signed copies of our book Sew Fabulous Fabric now available here with free postage to the UK.
We have had a lovely review of the book in the latest issue of Sew Hip and I discovered by chance a great review here at Whip Up... a fabulous site that if you haven't come across it before I urge you to take a look. x G

December

I am so happy to finally greet December...

Yesterday, on the first day of this new month the sun shone brightly. It was chilly but perfect. The best kind of Winter's day. I felt really uplifted and a sense of excitement about all the festivities to come. It was a good to be alive kind of day and despite my huge workload and deadlines I felt happy, and unusually calm.

This past week has seen the kittens finally enjoy a bit of freedom as they are now allowed out to roam. So many new exciting smells for them to follow and a new world for them to discover.
They are so funny to watch, particularly the tree climbing. Everyday since being 'free' they have both got stuck up trees. The neighbouring garden has 3 very tall pine/leyandi type trees. Straight long... very tall trunks with spindly drooping feathery pine style leaves. Well these trees are a magnet to the cats. Yesterday Paws was about 30 feet up. He was up there for about half an hour. His mewing was pitiful. Magic went up to join him, I thought to help him but then realised that it was only to get closer to a bird. They finally both climbed or should I say slid down to safety. I fear that this is going to be a daily occurrence and dread the day when they have put on a lot more weight and those spindly branches break!




After school the girls and I got out the Christmas box and started thinking about making some cards and tags. I had seen Clare's bauble tutorial and fancied having a go with the girls. The girls had other idea and stated making little gift dishes and Christmas cards and pictures using old Christmas cards...

I continued with Clare's tutorial and cut out 20 circles for one bauble...

The next stage I shall make a start on tonight. While all this was going on we were listening to Christmas music.. Santa baby, little drummer boy... that kind of easy listening thing to get in to the festive spirit. Whilst cutting up the old cards I remembered a gift tag that I saw on Caireen's blog which used an old greeting (a very pretty vinatge one), so I saved all the greetings from mine. I hope to stitch them on to cards or tags later.



Do check out Caireen's blog as she is posting each day of Advent with eco friendly and creative ways of gift wrapping.


Finally we lit the Advent candle and I read the girls the first chapter of this book about a boy who buys a magic Advent calender. (more info here).

Happy Advent and Happy December.
ginny x
p.s. please excuse the poor photos in this post.... black cats are hard to snap and it's too much hasseljust now to get the good camera out.x

all the fun of the fair...

Yesterday as many of you will know was the Vintage and Handmade Fair in Rangeworthy, South Gloustershire, organised by Michele of Cowboys and Custard and Jayne of Country Cottage Chic.

I live a fair way away so made my way down with Alice and baby Rufus on the Friday afternoon to stay with Alice's brother, who lives near Bath. It was lovely to spend time with him, his wife and the 3 children. We were thoroughly spoilt and were even made a full English breakfast prior to setting off early on Saturday morning.

After getting lost, in my usual style we arrived at the hall. It was a pretty hall and perfect for a Vintage Fair. (see Hen's blog for a pic of the outside). The tables had been set out beautifully and each stall holder had a lovely space... it was not at all cramped.

I was excited and delighted by all the beautiful things that were there... everyone so amazingly talented.
Michele, Sal , Hen and Jayne have posted great photos of everyones stalls if you fancy taking a peep just click on their links.

I only managed to get a few photos to share...
Nicky from The Vintage Magpie's bunnies look fabulous on her site and were absolutely delightful to see in real life. Her stall looked great and she is so lovely.


I was so lucky to be sitting opposite Annie from A saucerful of secrets. Her work is exquisite, her dolls, works of art. I was bowled over by her talent. These dolls must take hours to create.

She and her husband are such nice people too. Annie trained in fine art and amongst other things also makes felt pieces. I fell in love with her needle felted birds. Look at this little blue tit who, unbeknown to me, found it's way back with me... thank you so much Annie I love it and shall treasure it.

I would have loved to purchase something from everyone as it was all so tempting but sadly I have to be careful about what I spend these days... still I did manage to buy a few gifts to put away till Christmas.

fab vintage nostalgia from the lovely Michele x

some treasures from Sal, who I was so pleased to finally meet.
We also had the great pleasure of meeting her lovely husband Mr Snippets too.

I also brought a wand for myself from Hesta who creates hats and pieces from recycled fabrics. It is a beautiful green colour with feathers and a bell on... it is for my fairy godmother duties as I never got round to making one myself. I shall have to keep it away from the kittens though.

...and a few cards from Joanne. I have always loved Joanna's paintings and it was lovely to meet her and also see her in the process of creating a new picture.

I also have a little something for Rufus which was made by Carol which I cannot show yet as I think he reads the blog!

It was so good to finally put faces to blogs ...everyone was so nice, thank you for being so friendly and letting me witter on. (especially to joanna!) It was lovely also meeting blog readers, particularly two couples who had travelled a long way to get to the Fair (one from Wales) and the busy stream of friendly folk passing through the hall. There were folk there too that I wished I had been able to catch up with but sadly missed (mainly you Emma).. next time hopefully.

All in all a great day, great cakes (see Jayne's blog) and lots of inspiring people. A huge thank you to Jayne and Michele who have been living and breathing this for months. I hope you both can now relax and enjoy the festive season.

Sorry this post is link heavy but if you haven't already met these great bloggers I urge you to visit them. (links for everyone on my last post).
ginny x

a bad blogger...

Hello! I have been a bit lapse about updating both my blogs recently. Life has been very busy here, so although i have wanted to do a post i have had to prioritise. My cupboards were pretty bare until today and my girls have been resorting to watching far too many films.
Things will only get busier for me over the next month or two so even if i don't post regularly i shall still be catching up on reading everyone else's news as this is always a treat for me and a nice way to relax.

So what has been keeping me busy? Apart from the usual running the household and general mum duties (after school clubs, helping with homework, bed time stories... etc) I have been making and processing Christmas orders, preparing for a few Christmas Craft Fairs, finishing my Christmas swap for Kali (now posted) and creating projects for a new book due out October 2009.

phew... writing it all down like that makes me feel more tired than i am ... and i am pretty tired at the moment. I am very guilty of staying up late too resulting in being slow to rise in the morning. Luckily my eldest girl is always up early to organise us all on school mornings.

Tomorrow I drive down to stay with Alice's twin brother and family in Bath. The car will be packed up with some bits and pieces to sell at the Fair.



The Fair that I am so excited to be taking part in is The Vintage and Handmade Fair organised by Michele and Jayne. They have worked so hard to put this together and I am sure it shall be a great success and great fun. I am really looking forward to meeting everyone, relaxing and chatting. The bloggers exhibiting are as follows but there will also be lots of other blog friends there to meet too.

1. Lucy Bloom
   
2. Cowboys & Custard
3. A Saucerful Of Secrets
4. Katherine'sDream
5. The Flour Loft
6. Pretty Practicals
7. Vintage To Victorian
8. Things[Handmade]
9. Lavender House
10. Sea Angels
11. Country Cottage Chic
12. The Washerwoman
13. Higglety Pigglety
14. Sal's Snippets
15. A Little Bit Vintage
16. Green Glamour
17. Jane And The Happy Crow
18. The Vintage Magpie

I shall (hopefully) be bringing Alice with me too and we will bring some books to sell and also sign if anyone is interested.

So if you live nearby please do pop in and see us all this Saturday the 22nd of November 2008 at Rangeworthy Village Hall, nr. Chipping Sodbury, South Gloucestershire. 10 a.m - 4.00 p.m.

Finally...

I am so pleased with myself as I have finally added some items for sale on our website!

I think it was the email from a lady wishing to buy online and alerting me to the fact that i had only 2 items in our shop, which prompted me to sort it out. So thank you Bevon! I hope to add further items when time allows.

For those of you who maintain a website, Etsy or similar you will appreciate that it's not often the making of items to add to a shop but the photographing of them and putting them up there which often takes much of the time. I have a few items which alice and I made a while ago but due to poor photographs have never made it to the website. I am having to put aside my desire to rephotograph them and just use some of these photos as the lack of both light and time don't permit me to take more and as this is the time of year when we generate more sales i would be foolish not to .


I am also pleased that i have gotten around to posting too despite the obvious difficulties of two cats sitting in front of the screen. When i sit at the computer it is like a magnet to them, as is the external sound box that sits on the table and gets very warm... they like to sit on it... and we have to keep checking the vents in case they overheat and we end up with two exploding cats. They are very sweet though and so affectionate to each other. They are now curled up on the computer desk just in front of me... and i can now just about see the screen.
They also like to follow the mouse arrow....




Orders are still occupying some of my work time and these are a few stockings which I have recently made.




Christmas is not far away now... i can't quite believe how quickly it has come round again. It is Firework night here in the UK now and i expect fireworks and celebrations will be being enjoyed elsewhere in the world too. What an amazing and historic day it has been.
g x

Our Halloween...

I don't remember celebrating Halloween as a child at all. These days children in the uk seem to get very excited about Halloween (maybe it's the sweets?) and with any excuse to dress up we have gradually got into the 'spirit' of things. The girls really enjoyed making cards and decorating cakes to take round to our friends for Friday night's festivities. We usually get together with friends for food and games. Apple bobbing being the funniest thing ever. ( i don't know if i cheated but i was lucky enough to find one with a stalk this year!).

It has been very chilly here this week and we even had a light dusting of snow... in October.
Baking and soup making has been my reaction to this... and wearing lots of layers. I am now also wearing bed socks at night (for those of you who are interested in an update of my chilly feet)... my mum has knitted me a pale blue pair (very pretty) from an original 1940's pattern that was passed down from my grandma. I am sure my grandma would be pleased to know that my feet are now toasty.

I hope those of you who have been on half term have survived and had a great time. All back to normal routines for us again. I have some stock to make this week for the Vintage and Handmade Fair as time is whizzing by and it's less than 3 weeks away. I will also be adding a few more items for sale to the website which is overdue an update.
Have a Happy Week.
G x