A Weekend Off !

Helloooooo !

Following on from my birthday with the horrible number, hubby has decided to whisk me away for the weekend ! YAY !!

So tomorrow we are off here for the weekend !

It's in Battle, East Sussex - scene of the Battle of Hastings in 1066 where King Harold reportedly got an arrow in his eye !! I can't wait - we have actually been to this hotel a few times before and it's just beautiful. The food is fantastic and it's not too far from Brighton, so we have decided to spend Saturday mooching round the Lanes in Brighton and just generally chilling out. The children won't be coming with us - they're having a sleepover at Nanny and Pa's which is very exciting ! And even though the hotel has wi-fi in every room, I have decided to leave the laptop at home this weekend and have a Blooming Felt free weekend. Although I shall be taking a whole pile of crafty magazines with me which I have had sitting on the table for absolutely months now and I'm hoping to be able to catch up with some reading which I never get the time to do, but absolutely love.

I'm sure I'll have lots of piccies to bore you with next week.

A couple of website updates - BOOKS.

2 new books on the site:

A Passion for Buttons has some fab ideas for button jewellery and of course there are no shortage of buttons to choose from on my site for use in the projects !

The Savvy Crafters Guide to Success - this is a bit of a departure from the books I normally stock, but I've found it to be sooooo interesting and informative that I thought others might benefit from it so decided to stock it on the website. So many people have asked me about how you can make a living from crafting - ok, so I don't actually get to do much crafting myself - but I think that if you're looking for ideas and inspiration on how to turn your crafting hobby into a business, then this could be the book for you.

See you next week x

Outings & Updates

So last week was half term. Hubby was at home all week after having his widsom teeth out the Friday before and I have to say he was the perfect patient ! Barely complained of the pain he was in or the fact that he was getting just a little fed up with having to eat weetabix, soup and rice pudding all the time. Thank you Hubby - it was lovely having you at home !!

On Wednesday I had organised an outing to Duxford Air Museum for my little man - we were meeting up with 4 of his school friends and their Mums for the day and whilst I wasn't particularly looking forward to the day out (aeroplanes aren't really my thing !), I was pleasantly surprised ! Duxford has changed so much since the last time I was there - probably around 25 years ago !! There was a fantastic American Hanger which had loads and loads of US planes in it and we just couldn't believe the size of the B52 bomber - its wingspan was way bigger than the length of the plane and it just seemed to fill the hanger completely !

OK - so now I feel like a bit of a geeky plane spotter !! But it was a great day out and I can highly recommend it, especially since it's free entry for children.

Also last week, the first shipment of my new stock arrived. I had attended a Trade Fair last weekend and met up with lots of my current suppliers, and also managed to get a few new suppliers on board. I'll be boring you all to death with the new stock as and when it arrives ... sorry !

So, first up are striped buttons ! Available in black & white, hot pink & white, pale lilac and white, and sage green & white, each button measures approximately 1.75cm in diameter. They're already loaded onto the website here.

A couple of other new additions to the website from current suppliers - mini felt stacks. These are 6x6" squares of my 4mm thick 100% wool felt and you'll get one square of each of the 20 colours that I stock - check them out here

Also, felt square scrap bags. These bags contain 40 tiny squares / offcuts of 100% wool felt each measuring approximately 1-2". Whilst you won't get a square of every colour, you will get a good selection - they're just offcuts and I thought that rather than just chuck them away, I'd offer them up for sale - they're here on the website if you fancy some.

Oh, and the felt sample cards for the 4mm thick felt are also loaded onto the website now (same page as the mini stacks and felt square offcuts).

Now, these are from a lovely new supplier and are fantastic. Hand crocheted flowers. All made from organic yarn, I'm offering 2 sizes (1 inch and 2 inch) and a range of different colour combinations - you can see the whole range here.

I think that's it for today - tomorrow I'm off to Ikea to buy lots and lots of storage jars to house the hundreds of buttons that will be coming within the next couple of weeks - don't worry, I'll be back to update you (read: bore you) with details of them soon !

Sarah x

What happened ?

Last week has been one of the strangest weeks - the week before we were snowed in and then last week we had a whole month of rain in 24 hours and were flooded !! Then once the rain had subsided just a little bit, we had another load of snow ! This is a picture of a local park in Chelmsford town centre - you can normally walk or cycle along this path !!

Then our internet connection packed up for nearly 3 days. 3 DAYS !!!! What a nightmare. I can't believe how reliant we are on the internet. However did we manage before the internet was invented?!

Consequently, I had a backlog of orders that were waiting to be posted ... because I couldn't get to the Post Office because of the floods. Then I've spent virtually all weekend packaging all the orders that arrived whilst the internet was down - so if you ordered anything between Wednesday and Friday, I'm so sorry for the delay in getting your goodies to you - they will be on their way first thing tomorrow. All other orders will be processed tomorrow and if I have time to get to the Post Office will be sent tomorrow, failing that it will be Tuesday - sorry !!

BUT, fortunately the floods didn't stop the DHL man bringing me my lovely order of 4mm 100% wool felt sheets, which have all now been loaded up onto the site here

I've also got these lovelies which will be used on the colour card for the 4mm thick felt - not on the site yet, but hopefully later this week.

I've also been having a bit of a spend-up and sourcing lots of lovely new products for the website. I've managed to find a new supplier for the needle felting sponges / pads and these should hopefully be back in stock within the next couple of weeks. The felt flowers will also be back in stock in a couple of weeks, along with quite a few other designs of felt flowers - watch out for them on this blog and if you subscribe to my mailing list, you'll get an update as to when exactly they're on the site.

Right - that's it for now. I need to get on with all your orders !!

Chat soon

Sarah x

40 not out !

Yesterday was that particular day. The day when I just wanted to bury my head under the covers and not get up. The day that I was desperately trying to avoid, despite my best attempts at forgetting it !

But none of my friends or family would let me forget about it. Granted, some of them were kind enough to send just normal birthday cards that didn't have 40 plastered all over them - thank you ! But as for the rest of you .....

Hubby scooted off to work at his normal ridiculously early hour and then the children burst in on me at 6.30 laden down with presents which I had to let them open !! And they were all lovely pressies, with not a number 40 in sight !

I then had a lovely day shopping at Bluewater with my very good friend Amanda and even managed to treat myself to a gorgeous dress in Karen Millen (I've never bought a single thing in that shop before so it felt very special !) Then it was back home for a lovely chinese meal with my family, followed by chocolate birthday cake !!

All in all a lovely day and the only time that particular number appeared (apart from on a few cards) was when I was driving down a road that I don't normally go down and the illuminated speed sign suddenly lit up and flashed the number 40 at me !! Never mind, I'll just remember to slow down on that particular road in future or even better - don't go down that road again !!

So, back to normal everyday things.

A while ago I was reading on a blog post (can't remember whose) that they had decided to re-read some of the Enid Blyton books. What a good idea I thought - so I started scouring ebay for old copies of the Malory Towers series and also the St Clares series of books that were published around the time I first read them (in the 70s!) Sadly my Mum had got rid of my original copies, which were all in immaculate condition and in box sets (they'd probably be worth a fair amount of money now), so I had to make do with buying secondhand from ebay. The thing is - both of these series of books are still in print and have been updated to fit in with today's way of school life which is fine, except I wanted to read the copies that I remembered.

I was fortunate enough to buy both sets on ebay (one of them very cheaply) and the other was quite expensive, but they are fantastic - very old, very battered and I'm sure were very well loved. I don't remember them being so un-PC though !! There's an awful lot of slapping and ear-boxing going on and some of the girls are really quite spiteful !! But all of the midnight feasts, tuckboxes and games of lacrosse are exactly as I remembered them and I'm having a whale of time snuggling down every night and re-reading these fantastic stories.

Perhaps that's what happens when you get to my age !! Don't bother with Cosmo, Heat and all of those trashy mags (save them for the hairdressers!), get yourself some great vintage books and relive your youth !!

Next week I shall be back with news of more FELT !!! The 4mm thick felt is on its way and will be on the website probably towards the end of next week - I'll let you know for sure when, next week.

Have a lovely weekend !!

Sarah x

Snow & Surprises

Hiya

Welcome to our winter wonderland !!

The weather forecasters finally got it right and it snowed .. and snowed ... and snowed. And is still snowing right now. At 10am this morning, my little madam and little man (both of whom are at home because school and nursery are closed) took their ruler out into the garden and measured the depth of the snow - 3.5 inches. It's now 3pm and as it has been snowing for last 3 hours, I'm sure it is at least another inch deeper. Beng in the south east of England this amount of snowfall is very unusual - so if you're reading this blog from another part of the UK that does gets lots of snow or from abroad that also gets lots of snow - sorry. This is probably a little boring to you !

Of course, snow means great excitment in our house, not least because it means we don't have to go to school, but also because we get to play out in the garden and be snow angels, make snowmen and roll the biggest snowball you've ever seen (well, in our garden anyway !)

I'm hoping that hubby will make it home shortly - he just called and said he was at the train station and there is severe disruption on the trains and he might not even make it home. NOT impressed !

So that is the "Snow" part of this post.

The "Surprise" part is that last Friday, I got home from the school run to find a parcel sitting on the doorstop. Not unusual, but I wasn't expecting any parcels, especially not from the USA. So I rushed it indoors and with great excitement opened the box to find this little lot !!

What a lovely surprise and how exciting. I then realised that it was a "sample box" from an etsy seller who had contacted me way back before Christmas asking if I would like to take part in their monthly sample box. Basically, I contribute some free samples of my goodies each month and it gets put into various boxes which are then sent out to subscribers of this person's shop - they pay a certain amount and get a box full of lovely samples. If the contributors to the box supply 40 or more samples, then they get a freebie sample box of their own ! I'd completely forgotten all about it - although I had noticed that sales of felt balls to US buyers from my own website had increased, but didn't think anything of it. The box contains all sorts of lovely roving, knitting needles, various wools and threads etc and lots of lovely money off coupons for other etsy shops. If you click here you'll be able to read Jesse's really lovely blog post about Blooming Felt. Thanks Jesse !!

Right - that's it for today. If you're experiencing the same amount of snowfall as us, then have fun. If not, bad luck !

See you soon xx