Threadless carpet

I hope you all had a lovely mothers day, I received some beautiful handmade cards and presents!

And...my husband hoovered the house - including my work room.   It's carpeted up there and as anyone who sews (and is as messy as me) will appreciate it seems to get carpeted in a layer of threads that are a nightmare to get up.  Or is that just me?! Shamefully it had got very bad.......

Wow look at it now!  Not a single little thread! Thank you wonderful husband for one of the best mothers day presents!

xx

Our favourite christmas decs xx

Our nativity set

The most delicious white chocolate gingerbread decorations!

Beautiful French Mermaid

Felted acorn angel

Oh yes and he speaks too.. 

Our fireplace xx

Hair Clip Organiser Tutorial

I thought I'd blog about something which caused a lot of comments on my stall on Saturday, (mostly "Oh what a good idea - I could make that") so I thought I'd show you and tell you how I made it.

Its a hairclip organiser!

 This is one I made one originally for my daughter, as every morning we have a frantic search at half past eight for school hair clips (preferably two that match) no matter how often they are replenished seem to vanish into thin air never to be seen again.

This is the one I made for my stall on Saturday.  Its so easy and you can probably see immediately how its made, (so it feels a bit silly calling it a tutorial!).

Find a nice frame, this one used to be gold I think, and paint it your colour of choice. I like to use spray paint or Annie Sloan paint.

Take the backing board and add some wadding to pad it out slightly, then staplegun your chosen fabric and the ribbons to hold the clips onto the back of the board.

Cover up the back of the board with some felt, (I glued this) and that's it!

A pretty solution to the hair clip problem!

If you'd like one but don't feel like making one, I will be putting this one for sale in my Etsy Shop!

Sally xox

An Aladdins Cave of Russian Dolls

Whilst out and about in the holidays we happened across the most amazing shop.

So we were so excited when we saw a new shop had opened in town selling everything relating to Russian Dolls.

Would you like to see some of the beautiful things for sale?

Did you know that the Russian doll is known as Matryoshka, and is a symbol of motherhood and the everlasting circle of life?

There was a huge variety of every type of doll, from the decorative fun sets, to the true collectors pieces, the painting work on some of them was so detailed and skilled.

Speaking to the owners husband, he told me that his wife was Russian and the things they sold were all made in Russia by people known to them for a fair price. There is concern that true Russian Doll making is a dying art, Fair Trade helps safeguard the true industry for the future.

We really liked these sets. This one is the Three Little Pigs with their houses of Straw, Sticks and Bricks and the big bad wolf.

This was our favourite - run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread man!

Look at these stunning Christmas Decorations, I looove these houses.

and these...

We couldn't leave without buying something, we bought this cute brooch with a tiny Russian Doll family, but we will definitely be coming back nearer christmas to buy some of the beautiful decorations.

If you love Russian Dolls too or would like to visit their online shop, their website is here.

Fantasy Creature Making

We are lucky enough to live near a fantastic gallery that during the school holidays offers family workshops in all sorts of things from sewing, printing, working with clay, and even bread making and hot cross bun making.

Today we were very much excited to be booked onto Fantasy Creature Making. When we arrived we looked at the sample creatures laid on the table made by Ruth Waller.

Teachers Pet - pocket shaped to fit into a teachers pocket.

A sock slug (which could be turned into a snail). Don't you just love the lips on this one!

Another sock creature

An apple collecting monster, with long springy legs to jump high into the tress and put the apples into his apple bag!

To get started Ruth suggested we take some felt balls and string them together to make caterpillars, which we could make into brooches. Here's my daughters' brooch.

Here is my son's long caterpillar that I was very impressed that he sewed together himself!

We then chose a creature we would like to make. We chose the Apple Collecting Monster and the one eyed sock creature.

I did the sewing on the machine, and they helped with the cutting, stuffing and adding the details. The Apple monster was soooo fiddly as he had verrry long thin legs to turn through and stuff, but with a little patience we did it.

The one eyed monster has a rubber ball in his bottom which means when you throw him on the floor he bounces. What a brilliant idea!! Needless to say he was a total hit with my son and was thrown all around the courtyard.

Here are our finished creations!

My daughter finished her monster off with a dress out of an elasticated fluffy sock, and completed her with a necklace of felt balls.

I'm not sure who had more fun today, them or me!

Summer Holiday Bunting!

Hello again! We're back. We've just returned from a fabulous week in Devon, it was so sunny it felt like we could easily have been somewhere in the mediterranean!

An unfortunate accident the week before the school holidays with our poor caravan, meant we weren't able to go for our intended two week break in the caravan to a family site near Brixham, and instead we enjoyed a fantastic week in a beautiful hotel just down the coast from our planned location. Oh what a treat! Breakfast cooked for us, fantastic evening meals and a beautiful pool. What more could you ask for in the sunshine, we were thoroughly spoilt. I spent a lovely time sitting by the pool crocheting (heaven!) whilst the children swam all day long. We had a fantastic time, here are a few pics.

Covering our toes on the beach

The famous afternoon tea!

Just look at that view from the dining room!

Whilst we were away I took some crochet (of course) and whiled away the sunny hours by the pool whilst the children swam crocheting these granny triangles which I made into bunting, and put into my Etsy shop today!

(Just for those of you that I've already mentioned the poor caravan too, all is not lost, its not written off and is going to be repaired and we are looking forward to hopefully getting her back in September!).

Getting Ready

Things have been soooo busy here, over the last couple of weeks, our driveway has gone from this

to this

I'm really looking forward to planting it up, but have decided to wait until the Autumn especially for the shrubs and the evergreens. I have planted some pots though on our new patio and its nice to see the bees buzzing round them.

The twins have been away at Beaver Camp. This was their first ever time away (apart from Nana and Grandads) and they had to pack themselves.It really amused me the difference in how they packed their bags. Son - opens his pants drawer tips entire contents into his bag, then a few pairs of socks, adds a lego magazine, essential toys and sweets. Yes, he says he's done. Daughter - makes detailed list which she asks everybody in the house to double check, then ticks everything off one by one as it is neatly packed into the bag.

(I tried to sneak some maltesers in her bag as a treat when she got there, but she caught meand ordered I take out again as they weren't allowed sweets!) (By the way I did check and repack my sons bag!).

Then there was the little matter of picking up our caravan from being serviced, driving a few miles down the road and it coming off the towbar and going into the back of our car... The caravan trip to Devon in the first couple of weeks of the school holidays has now been postponed :-(

But apart from all that, on the crafting front, I have been madly crocheting bunting, sewing strawberries, knitting tea cozies and making patchwork covered notebooks ready for my stall at this weekends village Family Fun Day. I'm so looking forward to it and I've had some lovely comments from friends who have had a look at my things in my shop and on my blog so I just hope people like my things!

Tomorrow I want to decide how I'm going to display everything and have a practice set up so I thought today was the day I had to paint the shelves my husband has made me,

print and laminate some labels

and do a little stock check.

Now I'm just going to cross my fingers and hope the rain doesn't stop play on the day! Have a good weekend everybody xx