Even quicker still!

Ok, another hurried blog! I have a few writing deadlines, which are running late, due to one client's rubbish time-keeping, not mine! Why can't people just flippin' do things on time?? It would save my diary looking like the arse-end of paper-shreddings, because of the amount of rubbing-out I've done this last week, re-scheduling and re-arranging. Seriously. Grrrr. 


Anyhoo, here are some of my Chrisumerism makes:

Some turquoise and glass bead earrings for my aunt

Part of the GS season swap for Talie - I was going for it's-friggin'-cold-theme of blue crackle glass earrings

A tree decoration for Talie (there was a bookmark but I can't find a picture so I probably haven't taken one. Biff.

Some freshwater pearls in candy and chocolate, for the mother and MIL

A make for someone 

The finished mice for my pixies 


And their new home

I couldn't get the box out of my head; it's identical to one I had as a child, and I managed to find a vintage one on eBay for pence. Awesome!

Half a scarf I'm crocheting for my big pixie, with some left over wool


And the finished upcycled bags for the pixies, just need to add a flower brooch to them both and tidy up loose thread etc


Both children have worn both pairs of these jeans, before I made them into little bags so they have something to remember if their childhood clothing!

Loose thread waiting to be chopped! The flower lining is from a cord Mini Boden dress that little pixie has grown out of, but managed to stain it so I couldn't pass it on. I'm really pleased with the outcome.


So there you go, nearly done now. Just a little bit of embroidery to finish and then I can relax, collect our new kitten as a surprise for the pixies and celebrate my girl's birthday with some awesome cakey.


Merry Yule and Christmas to you all, have a peaceful New Year, and I'll catch you in 2012 :)


xxx

Quickly, quickly...

Crafting furiously, in an attempt to finish projects for a big pixie's birthday and the vileness that is Chrisumerism.


So, I have finished my two needle-felted mice. Hurrah! They are rather cute and I managed to find a vintage cigar box, exactly the same as I had when I was a small girl. I used to hide lots of precious things in there.


Anyhooo, I thought it would be a fabtastic little house for the micey mice, filled with delicate little paper shreddings. 


I've also finished two little handbags for the pixies, upcycled from their old trousers. Just need to do two little matching flower brooches out of the remaining fabric.


And I am 3/4 through a crochet scarf for big pixie. It's a lovely colour and I don't at all want to keep it for myself...


I can't show you anything today, because my bloody husband has nicked the batteries from my camera to power some lights for his tree. *insert a big grrrrr here*


So hello, hurrah and ta ta!

Our Thanksgiving Tree

A quickie again!

Our little tree, on our seasonal hearth, that we use to hang on notelets of things that we are thankful for. The children hung some decorations that they made onto the tree. We open the notes of thanks all together on the 25th December during dinner and read them out. It's a lovely way to encourage the children to think about the lives they have and the things that matter most to them (as opposed to the material shite that Argos will have churned out at this time of the year...*gets down from soapbox*).

And my companion whilst I turned the entire house upside down and moved sofas from here to there and back again

My faithful boy, snoring comfortably on his sheepskin rug (one of our friends' sheep *sob* but at least the whole animal was used).

I do get itchy feet in the house, with regards to shifting and moving furniture. Last night was no exception and I finally got to bed at 01.00hrs, following my fabulous decision to move 4 bookshelves and their contents into a different spot. And I also got an armchair stuck between the kitchen and children's play room. But we won't mention that to the chap, because I think I *may* have buggered the paintwork too...anyhoooo, it's all organised again now, ready for the blasted Chrisumerism tree to go up on Saturday.

Can you tell I'm not a twinkly-and-sparkly-Santa-loving kinda gal?!

I shall now crawl away to my cave of doom and misery and emerge in January, happy and jolly when most folk will be pissed off, dreading the flippetty-flap of the letterbox as their Visa card lands and the imminent New Year Blues set in. Hurrah for 2012!

Thanksgiving and needlework

Ugh. Time again. I won't whinge too much though.

I have managed some crafty time though, when I probably should be in bed!

Here is my first needle-felted mousey for my big pixie:

I am really pleased with my little self, and enjoyed making it. I have another one to do now, for the small pixie, and I'm after some of those old-style cigar boxes to make into little houses for them. 

Also some hand-embroidery which will be a door name plaque:

Again, another few of those to do.

We've just put our Thanksgiving tree up this evening, in the children's play room. Lots of pretty lights.

From the 1st to the 25th, everyone writes one thing a day they are thankful for, and hangs it on the tree. We have a box of pre-cut cards with threads through, and when it has been written, it gets folded so no one sees the inside of it.

On the 25th, we open the cards at dinner and we all read them. It's worked really well for a few years now, and it's really important to us to focus the children on things that aren't material.

I'll hopefully blog again this week with a picture of the tree!

I need a Time-Turner...

...I wonder if Ms Granger would lend me hers??





Another busy week again. Where do the hours go to? I have a list as long as both arms put together, nestled on my desk; conveniently being hidden by crystals and a cup of tea. Because it's hidden, I can't see my jobs, hence bugger all gets done.


It's a simple pattern really: try it sometime! 


We are awaiting shipments from Hong Kong for some stock, and awaiting the final version of the website from our designer. I hate waiting. It makes my grumpy. Well, more grumpy than usual.


Our client base is shooting off in all weird and wonderful directions, which whilst being awesome, it means we need to rethink our stock, staffing and premises again. But not today. I can't be arsed. A few broken night's sleep has left me a bit disjointed so I need to regroup and re-org again.


As I type, I can see our hens completely decimating the garden. Totally. They have crapped *everywhere* and eaten everything, even the stuff that wasn't even remotely edible. Not the best thing when you're trying to run two businesses from home. Ho hum, I still love them, although they will be returned to their little pen shortly, when we've extended the fence higher.


So I have actually managed to do some crafting:

.925 sterling silver crochet pendant, interspersed with citrine and topaz, for an 18th birthday gift.


A sterling bracelet with drop citrine and topaz charms, and a crystal and silver heart charm.

Some earrings to match

All packaged, ready to go.

And a new stash of crystals for me!

It was quite nice to play with jewellery again as I rarely get the time these days.


And I'm back on the training programme. I have another race  next week, only a 10k, but I feel quite fit and my knees no longer resemble little puddings after the half-marathon!

Shocking, I keep forgetting to blog! Such is being a super-busy girl here.


My first half-marathon was yesterday - awesome! I had a great run and crashed in much quicker than I thought. Due to a persistent groin injury I thought I would be hugely slowed down (well come on, I can't very well ask my physio to give me a little rub 'down there' can I?!).


So yeah, all cool there. I have a 10k race in a few weeks, and am hoping to enter the NYC Marathon 2012...THE big one! Hooyah!


So what else? Errrrr....lots of work, interspersed with my glorious pixies, lashings of cakey and the love of a good chap, actually.


We also have more new hennies, not such great pictures as I was chasing them around the garden at the time.

We have a White Sussex, two Rhode Island Reds, a Warren, a Silver Speckledy and a Blue Star. We lost our oldest girl last week *sob* Small pixie said "For tea?" I was horrified! The Boy thought it was hilarious (me and the children are vegetarian).


We are going to get another two girls soon.


We've been working really hard on the business and it's gotten rather busy, so I've done slightly less writing and more admin for the website and deliveries...it has taken some setting up and isn't finished yet, but we're really pleased with the progress. We have a great designer who has an excellent eye for colour and graphics.

Gratitude

It was my friend's daughter's birthday this week and we had made her some little gifts - a crystal charm with her birthstone; some button hair slides; sweeties and a handmade card with an upcycled envelope from an old beautifully-coloured Katie Morag book that we have a duplicate of.


The little girl was delighted with the whole lot and so thankful that we had made an effort to make something entirely bespoke to her.


It just made me think of several kids' parties we have been to recently, where the parents have been waiting at the door, collecting gifts and shovelling them into bin liners! This horrifies me and makes me not want to bother with that extra-special wrapping paper or the gift tag made from letter beads, as I just know that no one really gives a shit. Except me.


I do know of some children who are really appreciative of gifts. I always make sure my children send thank-you cards following being gifted something. 


Christmas/Yule this year will again be handmade, like it has been the last few years. We do a Thanksgiving Tree, encouraging the children to be grateful for other things, and not just the materialistic ones. And thus avoiding the seemingly regulation Argos catalogue, with turned-down pages most children are handing to their parents (who incidentally, find this behaviour wholly acceptable).


Here is our Thanksgiving Tree from a few years back (when we had a skanky carpet!):

I leave a little cauldron of cards on the hearth, with a hole punched and folded so it can be closed with wool, and every time we think of something we are thankful for, we write it on the card and hang on the tree. We open them all together after dinner. The big pixie's thankfulness was all about being loved, having a lovely warm house and lots of food!


Just a small rant because this subject really pisses me off.

Upcycled bag

Can't believe where time has gone to this last few weeks. Completely stacked out with work and family. The website launch is coming closer and not everything is sorted. Pro photography is scheduled for Wednesday, so we'll be further on then. 


It was gone 02.00hrs before I got to bed last night and urgh, I felt grotty this morning. I'm not cut out for late nights. But I did get to spend the evening with a wonderful friend and we played in her office with a mahooosive stash of fabric and sewing paraphernalia...more in another post, chilling out and listening to our rock hero Jim Morrison.


So I finished off this week's make: an upcycled bag from an old pair of jeans and some fabric that I had imported from Hong Kong. I fully lined the inside and thought about more fancy bits, but seriously, I had no time to faff!

 I made this little scrunched-up flower but it was just too heavy to sit properly on the bag

 So I fashioned this instead, on a brooch fastening

 Hopefully I will get to blog more this next few days :)

Fruity boozes

Some raspberry vodka on the go

And the bonus of having a family-run sweet company:

Sarsaparilla vodka and pear drop vodka. Awesome.


Teeny tipple, anyone? 

Flylady-ing my ass off

Over at GS, we have our very own FlyLady, ready to haul-ass on the cleaning side of life.


If I am left to it, without any organisation, I get all of a dither and not much gets done. I need to split my day up into work time, play time, cooking time, cleaning time, chill-out time, wine time...


Today was cleaning the hallway. So I did. It's all sparkly and dog-hair-free with nicely polished bannisters, although not by doing this:





I even managed to tidy my crochet basket

It probably won't look that neat by the morning; already a naughty small pixie has been fiddling and twiddling with my wool.


I am running a half-marathon next month, to raise money for Help for Heroes and I have been struggling with shin-splints. My Army days have seen my pretty little pins pretty much buggered, but hey-ho, it's marathon training we go. I'm running the NYC marathon next year so my legs will bloody well have to keep up. I have rested for a few days now, but am on a 10-miler tomorrow evening. Ice at the ready :-)


I have lists-a-go-go today. Lots of planning going on for work. Because I work from my little desk overlooking the garden, I do find it much harder to stay motivated. Oh look, the hens are out again...


See? So I *need* my lovely lists to retain brain power and stay driven.


And I do need to transfer the remaining herbs before we change the hen pen yet again. We're getting another four girls, some cutesy little ones with fluffy heads. We're extending the run onto the veg patch over winter, so they can poop and fertilise the patch for next year. 


Must add that to my list...

Vintage beauties

I have been lucky enough to acquire a gorgeous 1960s vintage Liberty of London silk scarf. It's so elegant! And unworn. Still wrapped delicately in tissue paper.

It reminds me of a unicorn, with its silvery and cream flecks.


And what's more, it even came in the original box, date-stamped and everything!

There is also this

A vintage pearl collar choker. Not very me, but still very pretty. I am off to the Manchester Opera House this evening, so I may wear the scarf on its first outing from its box in almost 50 years!!!