Where to start ?

I've got so much to tell you !

We've been down in Cornwall for the last 12 days visiting Paul's family. Fortunately, the weather was half decent this time so we managed to be out and about pretty much all of the time. I'll try not to bore you with all of my holiday snaps, but thought you might be interested in a few of the things we got up to ?

Before we went away I googled "Things to do in Cornwall when it rains". Normally when we go to Cornwall it chucks it down the whole time and we can never find stuff to do, so this time I decided to be organised and find lots of things to do before we went. During my internet search I came across this particular site Treasure Trails. What a brilliant find !! Based in Truro, this company has lots of treasure hunts in Cornwall, so we decided to buy the Boscastle and St Ives trails.

Boscastle, apart from becoming well-known from the "Seaside Parish" tv series, unfortunately became far more well known after the devastating floods. However, this wonderful village has picked itself up, dusted itself down and has returned to the beautiful Cornish village it used to be.

We spent a good 2 hours wandering around looking for treasure hunt clues, and enjoying the lovely surroundings. And the good thing about the treasure hunts is that you get to see lots of things and parts of the towns and villages that you wouldn't normally see.

Our 2nd treasure trail was in St Ives. Unfortunately, the weather on this particular day was absolutely awful but we met up with some friends that happened to be on holiday in St Ives and spent another 2 hours wandering around in the pouring rain searching for Murder Mystery clues this time. Again, we saw lots of parts of St Ives that we haven't seen before and we've been to St Ives A LOT !!

We were so impressed with the treasure hunts that I've bought another 2 for Essex and we'll be doing these later in the school hols. Why not take a look and see if there are any trails near you, or for places that you'll be visiting on holiday ?

I had also booked our 2 monkeys on a Baywatch Babes course at Lusty Glaze centre in Newquay.

Don't panic - it's not what it sounds like, and I do think they could rename both the course and the centre - but anyway ... What a fantastic 2 hours they had !! As neither of them are old enough to learn to surf (properly) yet, Lusty Glaze has a course for 4-7 year olds which covers life saving, rock pooling and boogie / body boarding.

The centre provides wet suits so you only need to take a towel to dry the kiddies off when they're done and they have a great cafe / bar where we were able to sit and drink hot chocolate (it wasn't the warmest of days!) and watch the goings on.

There is loads to do at the centre for all ages - including inflatable sumo wrestling .. designed for adults but hysterically funny when two 7 year olds are taking part !! Sadly, Sam wasn't able to overpower our friend's daugther, but like I say - very funny to watch !

Are you still with me ? I hope I'm not boring you too much !

What else ? Ah yes. Trevoole Farm.

I read about this lovely place on someone's blog last month (can't remember whose it was sorry). Opened as part of the National Open Gardens scheme, Trevoole Farm is a really beautiful place. Sadly, we missed the actual open day, but Beth very kindly agreed to let us wander around. What a treat !

It can't begin to tell you how wonderful it was, but please believe me when I say I've never seen anything like it !!

My favourite part had to be the Summer House. What I wouldn't give to have a summer house like this !

Once again we cycled the Camel Trail. This year we did it the other way round - parked at Padstow and cycled to Wadebridge for lunch and then cycled back to Padstow for a bit of retail therapy. Not a spot of rain to be seen and a lovely day out !

A few other days on the beach - Porthminster and Hayle - completed our very lovely Cornwall holiday 2010 !

OK - before we went away this is what the view from our dining room to the kitchen looked like.

When we came back ... it looked like this !!

I can't believe the difference having a wall removed makes (I also can't believe the amount of dust having a wall removed makes !!) We are now steeling ourselves to be without a kitchen for around a week whilst the new one is istalled. Our new AGA will be installed on the 11th August (very exciting !). I have no idea how to cook on an aga so would welcome all of your hints / tips and favourite recipes !!

The day we trotted off to Cornwall my massive felt delivery arrived. I had been waiting for it for what seemed like forever - sometimes I wonder whether the couriers actually use aeroplanes or just donkeys (as seen in Truro last week !!)

In the 6 GIANT boxes was lots of lovely felt as well as supplies for the new Blooming Felt kits which I'll be launching at the Knitting & Show in October - so watch this space ! I've updated the website so the following is now back in stock:

• Felt string
• 10 x 10 inch felt squares (4mm thick) - not many P1 sheets as they were missing from the delivery - sorry
• Grab bags of stars, hearts, pebbles, plain and beaded felt balls
• Felt shapes
• Wool roving
• Gillian Gladrag felting kits

Right - I think I've probably bored you to tears by now so I'll say thank you for sticking with this very long blog post and I'll see you soon (probably covered in dust, and very stressed from not having a kitchen and having to do the washing up in the bath !!)

Sarah x

Helloweeeee !!

Hiya !!

We've made it back from Cornwall, wet and bedraggled unfortunately, but we did have a good time :o)

I was rather brave whilst down there and visited a number of shops and galleries with some of my felt accessories. I just want to say a massive THANK YOU to Sara of all-about-eden who had very kindly done some groundwork for me the week before and checked out a number of places that were suitable and then sent me an envelope full of business cards and leaflets and suggested that I visit some of them. Sara - you're a star !! A little thank you will be winging its way to you very shortly.

As a result of visiting some of the places, I managed to secure quite a large order of my loopy felt brooches and also needle-felted brooches with Crafty's Country Store in St Ives. I also spoke to a lovely lady in the most fantastic litle bead shop in St Ives and she gave me a tip off about a few other places I could try and also a couple of websites that might be worth contacting. Of course, it would have been rude not to buy something from her shop after spending so long chatting to her, so I purchased these lovely little seed beads which will be used on my Christmas stock. They also have a website where you can buy beads online - so if any of you beaders out there are interested, the website is http://www.gjbeads.co.uk/

I also dropped leaflets and business cards off at a number of other places and spoke with a lady at the Duke Stret Gallery in Newlyn who also happened to own another gallery in St Ives and she is quite interested in some of my felt corsages. So ... a busy time all in all and added to that, I also received 3 orders through my website whilst I was away, so spent all of last night packaging orders up to be shipped off today.

I really should go away on holiday more often because when I got back I checked the answerphone and there was a message from a lady who is organising a charity christmas shopping event (for "ladies that lunch" !) and wondered whether I would be interested in taking a table. Of course, I said yes and she then gave me 2 fantastic contacts, both local to where I live, who she thought would be interested is stocking my felt accessories, so I shall be contacting them both tomorrow and will let you know how I get on.

Another thing that was REALLY exciting was the fact that I received a phone call (whilst I was sitting in the pouring rain on the little Lappa Valley Railway) from the features editor of Crafts Beautiful magazine. You may recall that last month I placed a joint advert with Sarah from paper-and-string in the magazine? Well, the features editor wants to do an article on me and my needle-felted accessories !!! YAY - fame at last ;0) She wants to me to send her some of my hair bobbles, fridge magnets and hairclips for them to feature and also a piece about how I got into felting and what I like about it. Fingers crossed it will kick start the felting supplies side of my website.

I've just realised that this post sounds a bit like a self-promotional article, which I really didn't intend it to be, but I was just so excited about all of the things that happened whilst I was away - I just had to tell you lovely like-minded crafty people. Apologies if it seems like I'm blowing my own trumpet - I'm really not.

Of course, going on holiday means spending money and I couldn't resist this lovely card for my hubby as it's our wedding anniversay on Sunday (although Paul will be on his way back from Snowden as he's taking part in the 3-Peaks 24 Hour Challenge this weekend). I shall be dismantling the card in the future though because I want to reuse that lovely ceramic button. You can buy the buttons from Stockwell Ceramics

We also splashed out on this beautiful print which will take pride of place in our hallway (apologies for the flash in the middle of the picture !). It's entitled "St Ives on a Foggy Day" and is a little reminder of Paul's roots back in Cornwall.

and these little coat pegs for Grace's room and towel clips for Sam & Grace's towels in the bathroom

And now, it's back down to earth with a bump - sorting the piles of washing and ironing out.

Sarah x