I'm Back !!

Hi everyone !

Well, we made it back from Florida and boy did we have a good time !!

We visited every Disney Park, including the 2 water parks and also both Universal Parks. Unfortunately we ran out of time to visit Sea World, but we have done that one before and I don't think our little lady would have been able to sit still for long enough to watch all of the shows there anyway. Sam ad Grace were so excited to meet Mickey and Minnie (or Mimi as Grace insists on calling her). Sam was over the moon at meeting Spiderman and Buzz Lightyear, so I think Florida is definitely a hit with the children (as if it wouldn't be !!)

Unfortunately Grace got a reaction to the measles jab she had a few weeks before we went away so suffered with a temperature and a nasty rash for a few days, but she still had a good time.

To top it all I ate far too much food and spent far too much money !!

Why is it that everything is so much cheaper in the US. And I mean everything !! My dear hubby bought me an ipod shuffle and it was half the price it is in the UK. Also Crocs shoes - half the price again. I bought some for our 4 year old son and he is absolutely chuffed to bits.

And as for the crafty bits ... I visited a fantastic shop called Michael's. It has to be the biggest craft shop I've ever seen and I was like a kid in a sweet shop.

I managed to fill my basket in the first aisle, so decided it was better to exchange the basket for a shopping trolley. I bought brooch pins - a pack of 60 mixed sizes for around £3.00. Now, I pay anywhere between 10p and 50p (depending on size) here, so that was a bargain !

Also, buttons, ribbons, scrapbooking card (to make up some packaging for my felted items), gift packaging (as I'm going to offer this as an option on my website), fabric, craft books, gift tags and embellishments, beading elastic, beads etc etc etc .

I've only posted a few pics because it would take me forever to show you everything I bought. Needless to say it was a very productive craft shopping trip and I've got Mum on standby to buy replacements of everything when she visits again in June. I'm hoping that the craft fairs will be busy and that I'll need to buy extras !

I had an email from a lovely lady at Crafts Beautiful magazine whilst I was way asking if I would like to run an advert alongside a needle-felting article they are running in their July issue. Unfortunately the cost is quite high, but I have asked a good friend (and fellow blogger) if she would be interested in doing a split advert with me - so watch this space !

I have done the monthly draw today - and am just waiting for the winner to contact me with their full contact details. Once I have these, I will put her name here in the blog for anyone who's interested.

Right - that's it for now. I have to add to my stock pile (pic below) and get stitching with the hair elastics, keyrings and brooch pins !!

Bye for now xx

Greetings ...

from Florida !!

This is a real quick post from the Sunshine State. I have managed to get online and check my emails and stuff and suddenly remembered that my monthly draw will take place the day after I return home - so I wanted to remind all of you lovely people that read my blog that in order to be entered into my monthly draw to win a freebie, all you need to do is join my website mailing list. Just click here and then at the bottom left of the "Welcome" page, is a box where you can join the mailing list.

I'll be back home on the 29th April and will be able to bore you all with the details of our excellent holiday and post lots of pictures of all of my crafty purchases (and there are rather a lot !!!)

Until next Sunday ... x

I think that's it !!

Well, I think that's it ! I have been manically packing suitcases (and having little people unpack them) for the last few days. What isn't in there now, there isn't room for anyway and it's too late !! I'm NOT repacking :-)

As you've probably gathered, we're off on our hols for a couple of weeks - whilst I can't wait for the actual holiday itself, the thought of 10 hours on a plane with an 18 month old ... well, it just doesn't bear thinking about actually ! Fortunately we've got my parents with us, and as my daughter is just slightly obsessed with my Mum, I think she'll get stuck with her for the entire flight ! Of course, all the security issues that we are all sadly faced with now if you want to fly are a real pain. You can only take so much liquid with you and only in 100ml clear bottles, which must be in a resealable clear plastic bag, which is only allowed to be a certain size etc etc. How on earth anyone who is flying on their own with a couple of small children that still have a certain amount of fresh milk every day manage, I'll never know. I think I shall have to keep my temper in check tomorrow, all those long long long security queues, questions about everything under the sun, being asked to drink my daughter's milk to prove it doesn't have any explosives in it - just think calm thoughts and about how sunny and hot it will be the other end and how excited the children will be when they get to meet Mickey Mouse !

So, of course, all this packing has meant that I haven't had a whole heap of time to get on and sew. I'm very aware of the fact that I haven't posted any pics of my own work lately so thought I would show you the almost finished baby mobile. It just needs a few beads at the bottom of each string and a nicely painted embroidery hoop to hang it from and it will be finished. I'm planning on taking this to the craft fair with me and will try and get another one done that is more suitable for little boys - maybe on a transport theme.

The sun has been shining forever here and the blossom is now out on most of the trees in our garden . We're waiting to see what the blossom will be like on the ancient Mulberry tree in our garden - as we've only been here since last June, we have yet to see the garden all year round, so it's really lovely to wander around and see what beautiful plants and bulbs are coming up. This week I came across this rather large clump of what look like snowdrops, except they are very tall and have flowers twice the size of a normal snowdrop. I must look them up in my gardening book.

And now I must dash - so many more things to get done before tomorrow. I shall leave you in peace for a couple of weeks, but be warned, once I get back I shall be boring you to death with pics of the holiday and hopefully lots of lovely pictures of all my crafty purchases.

Until the 29th .... byeeee x

What a Nightmare !

Well, from having a good start to the Bank Holiday weekend on Friday and Saturday, things have rapidly gone downhill !!

Yesterday, we had my family coming for lunch (as England were playing Australia in the World Cup Cricket and my family love to watch England playing cricket!). So, I had said that I would do a roast turkey with all the trimmings. I turned the oven on at 10.15am to pre-heat it and after 15 minutes put the turkey in. Hmmm, I thought - not particularly a warm oven, but I'll just put the turkey in anyway. 45 minutes later I went into the kitchen and thought to myself "no nice smell of turkey cooking", so I opened up the oven - no hot air - took the foil off the turkey - still smothered in unmelted butter !!! OMG I thought, the oven isn't working !! I checked the top oven and that seemed to be heating up ok, so I shoved the turkey in that instead and then phoned my Mum to tell her what had happened and asked what I should do because there was no room in the top oven to do the roasties and sausages and stuffing and stuff. She offered to do the roast potatoes for me and bring them over and we could just stick them in the top oven to warm up once the turkey was cooked and resting. Good old Mum, major roast dinner disaster averted !!

Today, we decided to take the children out on the bikes for the afternoon. We have a lovely farm track opposite where we live which leads down to the farm, fields and public footpaths. Off we went in the beautiful sunshine - once we got to the public footpath it became difficult for Sam to peddle his bike (because of the stabilisers), so I had to push his bike and my own while Paul pushed his bike with Grace on the back. Soon we came to a stile over a little stream, so after a bit of dithering we decided to lift the bikes over - all ok so far. We went through a lovely wood (still pushing all the bikes) and came out onto the small country lane at the top (which has no footpaths but lots of traffic on their way to the sale at the garden centre !!) Turn round, go back down the public footpath and take a diversion (Paul's great idea !!) across a field - by this time Paul has got Sam's bike slung across his crossbar. Eventually we got back onto the original farm track, stopped for a bit of a rest and could hear a hissing sound. It was Paul's back tyre slowing deflating. Never mind - we're only HALF A MILE from home - we'll just push it and carry on walking. WRONG !! The tyre then came off the bike. So then we have to get Grace out of the bike seat and try to get her to walk because everyone else is pushing their bikes (well actually, Paul is by now carrying his bike). Grace decides she's too tired and just lays down in the middle of the track ! So I have to dump my bike, pick her up and carry her (much screaming and thrashing about of arms and legs then ensued) all the way home and Paul had to go back for my bike later. What a lovely afternoon we had :-)

I'll update my blog, I thought to myself, that's relaxing. But of course, in my widsom I thought that it might actually be quite nice to get a custom blog template sorted out. I found a lovely free one I liked, uploaded it to my blog and it didn't work. So I deleted it and tried to reinstall the original blog template. It didn't work - I ended up with the most bizarre looking blog (so sorry if you were attempting to read my blog at this time). Finally, I've managed to get my original blog template back - well, I think it's the original one - it looks pretty similar anyhow.

So, hopefully that's my 3 disasters out of the way now. Well, it had better be - I can't cope with anymore !!

Back on to nice things now - I sold another one of my felt brooches through ebay this afternoon - hooray - they seem to be popular. I need to start restocking as I'm hoping that they'll be popular at the craft fair. Talking of craft fairs, one of my friends did the Jimmy's Farm Easter craft fair yesterday. She said it was quite slow in the morning, but picked up in the afternoon and she did well, although a number of other stallholders didn't do quite so well. I'm really hoping that her good fortune will rub off onto me and I will do well, especially as it's my first fair. Below is a picture of her beautiful stand. I really hope that I can get my stand to look as lovely as this.

If you would like to buy any of her bits and bobs, her website is www.sommerwood.co.uk. She has an amazing range and is a very talented lady. It's definitely worth a look.

I've been very busy revamping my website - do please take a look and let me know what you think www.pictureitinstitches.co.uk . I'm hoping that it's more crafty looking and also more welcoming. Whilst I was happy with the previous design, I did feel it was a bit "utility" looking, so have been playing about and came up with the latest design.

Of course, all this website design means I've been a bit lazy with my crafting lately so don't have any pictures of my own to show you today. BUT, I found this beautiful needle felted duck on the internet the other day and really hope that with a bit of practice, I can get to do something as beautiful as this :-)


Enjoy the sunshine and the rest of the Easter holidays x

Happy Easter !

Ok - so I know I'm a day early, but I probably won't get a chance to do a post tomorrow, so whilst Gracie is asleep and Sam is bouncing away to his heart's content on the trampoline, I thought I'd do a quick post :-)

The Easter Egg Hunt went brilliantly yesterday - everyone had a good time and the weather was absolutely gorgeous so we were in the garden all day and even managed to eat our lunch on the patio.

Today I spent the morning in the hairdressers, followed by lunch at good old Pizza Hut and I then shot over to the tea shop in Writtle (they stock my pictures), to collect my earnings from last week and show them some of my new range of felt accessories. They thought they were great and said that I should go along to see them after my holiday to discuss which pieces they would like and whether they would sell them on a commission basis or whether they would buy wholesale from me and then retail them themselves. Fingers crossed for more sales there then !!

Below are a couple of felt keyrings I finished last night - I'll be doing a whole range of colours in these particular designs, as well as a few other styles. They are for sale on my website priced at £4.00 each INCLUDING POSTAGE to the UK.

I wanted to show this fantastic Easter Egg tree I splashed out on today. I just couldn't help myself I'm afraid !! Too late for our Hunt yesterday (there are lots more years to come though), but I thought I could use it at the craft fairs to hang my bits and bobs from ... I know, I know, I was supposed to be doing the twig tree, but I was looking at it yesterday and decided a. that it's too big and b. that it's not twiggy enough, hence this lovely purchase. I think it will look very striking though (especially as it's in my favourite colour combination of pink and lime green!) and hopefully people will be drawn to it (and my lovely crafts of course !!)

Right, that's it I'm afraid. Have a lovely day tomorrow - don't eat too much chocolate (yeah, right!)

Catch you next week when I shall probably only get to post once or twice because we're off on holiday on Saturday - YIPPEE - Florida here we come !!!!

xx

Happy, Happy, Happy

Yesterday I sold one of my lovely felt brooches on ebay. I was extremely excited because this was my first Picture it in Stitches ebay sale - and hopefully the start of many. AND, I've just had a phone call from a little tea shop on The Green in Writtle, and was told that they'd just sold one of my pictures, so now I'm REALLY excited (and happy of course) !!!!

I've been fiddling about with Google Picasa which a friend very kindly told me about - it takes a bit of getting used to, but I think I'm slowly getting there. It doesn't help that I'm now using my new laptop which uses Windows Vista rather than XP, so I am trying to get to grips with that as well !! It really does make a difference if you're not using a PC on a "professional" day to day basis. I bet if I was still working in the City I wouldn't have any trouble at all, but after having two children, I seem to have lost half of my brain as well so am seriously struggling with all things PC related at the mo ! Anyhow, if you would like to see the fruits of my Picasa labour, you can click on the 2 collages to the right - My Latest Felt Projects and My Textile Pictures. All of the images you see there are for sale, so if you're interested, do please email me at mail@pictureitinstitches(dot)co(dot)uk or vist my website www.pictureitinstitches.co.uk

I am frantically felting every evening at the moment as we're off on our hols in a week or so and when we get back there will be exactly 1 month until the Jimmy's Farm craft fair, so I'm desperately trying to get stock levels up so that I will have plenty to fill my little table.

We're holding an Easter Egg Hunt for some of Sam & Grace's little friends on Friday - I'm manically trying to organise that, as well as lunch for everyone - there will be rather a lot of us. Honestly - it seemed like a good idea at the time (except I forgot we were going away soon after and would have 101 other things to try and remember/organise !)

I haven't got any pictures of my own to show you today (apart from my collages on the right), but I thought I would show you a cool picture of an Easter Egg tree which, if I had been more organised, would have done as a table decoration for the Easter Egg Hunt. Oh well, there's always next year
:-)




If I don't speak to you before - HAPPY EASTER !!! xx

Happy Monday

What a beautiful warm day it has been here in Essex today I just love this time of year when the sun shines, the blossom is on the trees and the evenings are starting to stretch out. We've been out in the garden all day today - cutting down a grape vine this morning and then Sam had one of this friends over to play this afternoon as it's half term. They had great fun riding their bikes and digging numerous holes in the borders. I read an article in the paper at the weekend that children are more likely to need treatment for repetitive strain injury due to constant use of games consoles and PCs than to need treatment for falling out of trees because they're just not being allowed or given the chance to do all the things that we used to do as children - so we made sure that trees were climbed this afternoon and boy did they have fun !

I've spent the last few evenings finishing some of the needle felting projects I started recently. These are the finished articles




All of these will be for sale through my website. The hair bobbles willl be £3.00 per pair, as will the strawberry hair clips. The pink flower ponytail holder (2nd photo from the bottom) will be for sale for £3.50 (the size of this would probably suit an older child/adult), and the large brown brooch/corsage (last photo) for £4.50 - all prices INCLUDE postage to the UK. If you would like any of these items, or would like to commission your own pieces, do please let me know. I love working on commissions !!

I have almost finished the cot mobile as well, which I have to say I am particularly proud of - so, as soon as it is finished (I just need to find an embroidery hoop to hang it from), I will be posting a few pics here.

And now it's time to find out whether Tracy is found guilty of murdering Charlie - Corrie here I come !!

x