hello again...

So here I am, back from the land of chocolates. We had a great time, though it passed too quickly. In truth I didn't indulge too much, though it would have been so easy as there are so many yummy looking things to eat!


I did actually eat this cake!


After being in Belgium I feel inspired to start baking delicious looking cakes...



The weather was gorgeous, the hotel fantastic and we managed to do some touristy things like eating Belgium waffles and visiting the Grand Place. So all in all a lovely trip!

So here I am back home again and before I forget, I said I would pick a comment from this post to do a little giveaway of the Zine from Sprouthead and some other bits and pieces. So without further ado the name I picked, (using a very scientific method of giving you all a number!) was number 8 which is the lovely Catherine. {Catherine if you email me your address I'll make sure a little package wings its way to you...}

celebrations and packing...

Today is M's Birthday and so we are spending the day partly doing lovely things and partly rushing around like mad people, as we are off to Belgium tomorrow to have a few days enjoying a city break, (also combined with helping a relative move from Belgium to London - we are helping to bring some boxes back).




As we are super busy today we will be continuing the birthday fun over the next few days - after all as the land of chocolate beckons, it would be rude not to partake don't you think?!

I'll be away until about Friday next week but have {fingers crossed} scheduled a post for Saturday which will have a give away of sorts! I'll see you when I get back as I don't think I'll have time to go online, as I'll be too busy sampling the chocolates! ;)

a little bit of happiness and a winner!

Hello and happy Monday! It's been a busy week and sadly the sun has stopped shining but still things could be worse!


If you're interested in a little happiness at the beginning of the week, why not head over to Soul Aperture a lovely blog that I've come across recently, belonging to the lovely Christina. Tomorrow for no reason at all, (10th June) she wants us to celebrate the things that make us happy and post them on our blogs. I know I'm in, are you?
Talking of being happy remember this post when I promised i would do a giveaway if you left me a comment. In the interest of fairness if you left more than one comment, you still only went into the draw once, (lol! but I admire your trying!) also, even though I myself left a comment, I didn't enter my own name, (though I was tempted ;)


I was going to get Sparky to draw out a name but A. as you can see, he wasn't that interested and B. his paws are a bit too furry so in the end I got M to do it. I was going to do the whole random number generator thing but I prefer the low key version myself! Drumroll please...and the winner is Hanna - yay!


So Hanna if you email me your address, I'll send you a little gift in the next week!
Oh...and an update on my Etsy shop, I've only got one thing in there at the moment, (lol!) as it has taken me so long to sort the pics of the pouches as Etsy keeps desaturating my photos when I upload -grrr so I'm trying to get a handle on that. I should finish uploading the rest of my pouches tomorrow! Here's a little sneak peek of my first item! In there as we speak!

change of plans...

Mmmm so... the idea was to have my little Etsy shop up and running from tomorrow...but I'm still waiting for labels to go inside my pouches and some photo prints! No matter, instead of opening tomorrow I'll now open the following Monday on June the 8th! Some things are worth waiting for (lol!).



The good news, is that there's still time to leave a comment on this post to be entered into a giveaway for some handmade goodies, as instead of drawing a name tomorrow I'll do it the next Monday.

Hope you're all enjoying the sun, wherever you are! (I can't believe it's still hot here - hooray!!)

so this is what I've been making and an announcement...

So back from being away with work and I promised I'd show you what I'd been up to on the crafty front... I'm pleased to say that everyone I sent a pay it forward gift to, has now received it - yay! and so I can show you what I sent out.


the little butterflies are from my packaging

I've been making little pouches to use for money, ipod, lipstick or whatever, (Martina says her camera fits in perfectly the one I sent her).



I then did freehand embroidery on each of them, (remember these) and all I can say is how much fun I had! Each person got a little pouch and a small photo print from me.



So... because I've enjoying making these so much, (and also because I have become obsessed with pouch making,and embroidery in particular and you can only use so many pouches or give them as gifts!) I have decide that as of the 1st June there will be an Etsy shop!


I am super excited, as it means I can carry on playing - hooray! I'm thinking of making two sizes, the small ones and a bigger size to use as a make up bag. If anyone has any thoughts on this, regarding useful sizes or just a comment in general, leave a comment in this post and I'll pick one at random by the 1st June and do a giveaway of some handmade lovliness! (oh and did I say I'm also thinking of doing photo prints as well!).

a bit of friday happiness...

Yay! It's Friday again and here in the UK it's the beginning of a bank holiday weekend which means no work Monday. Typically though it's raining here which is usual for a bank holiday but still, I'm sending out positive vibes so the sun might at least make an appearance, even if it doesn't stay long...

I've also managed to 'finally' get to the post office today and so all you lovely ladies who joined in with me for my 'pay it forward' give away - your gifts are in the post! Hopefully good mail might bring a little sunshine your way soon...

and it came with flowers...

Hope you all had a lovely weekend. Mine was full of sun and lounging about in the garden,along with finally planting some seeds and eating lunches consisting of homemade bread and avocado, mashed with little flecks of chilli and silky yoghurt. There would have been a photo and I did think of going indoors to get my camera but greed won out!



The other thing that's happened over this weekend concerned our car. Remember when I told you we were having problems? Well a month without a car and a bill for £700 resulted in the car basically being useless - aaargh! The problem still couldn't be sorted and we ended up having to make the decision to get rid of it and get a new one. I've never had a brand new car before but we worked out it made more economic sense to do this as it would be covered under warranty and a whole lot cheaper than the recent bills we've been having for our other one which was only 4 years old. When M returned from the showroom he also presented me with a big bunch of flowers which the showroom gave him for me! Corny - yep, but still the flowers are lovely. Not having done this before it made me laugh, though maybe this is a standard thing!



Ive also been playing with these lovely threads over the weekend...



and another sneak peek of what I've been up to.



For those of you who were interested in the pay it forward in this post, I shall be sending out a little gift to Jessica, Rachel and Becka, (if you guys can email me your details I'll sort your gift out). I still need two more people to pay it forward to, so if you're interested email me, or I'll do another post on this in the next few months...

good mail and a give away...

I so love receiving lovely mail and today was a good mail day. Not that it wasn't expected you realise but still... I'm trying to get organised and make more time for craftyness and so to help me on my way I bought some embroidery threads from ebay. I love a bargain and a crafty bargain is even better. I found 100 Anchor embroidery threads for £14.99 - yep you heard me right £14.99!! I have a limited collection already but they cost me about £1.25 each so to get 100 for £14.99 had me swooning, so of course I had to purchase, it's only economic sense right?!



Today when they arrived I was so excited and I confess a little dubious to see whether I had been duped by some clever wording but nope; they were all perfect and lovely in their colours.



In fact I could have spent far too long just playing with them and arranging into colour combos but instead I started to play...A little sneak peek of the beginning of my little makes...



Check out this post of mine to find out how you can join in with a crafty giveaway from me.

pay it forward giveaway...

Hope you all had a lovely Easter out there in Blogland. The Easter break brought sunshine which was an unexpected surprise as the weather was forecast for rain...so cue lots of lazing about in the garden pretending that this was summer. A tease considering today is dull and overcast!


Just before the Easter break I received some lovely goodness in the mail thanks to Jodie from Appreciating Light as part of the idea of 'Paying it Forward'. If you haven't heard of the concept then check out this site which explains it in a lot more detail. Basically the idea is, that if you benefit from something, (a favour, gift, loan etc) instead of paying back the person who made your life easier etc you then in turn do something for others. Jodie sent me a little handmade gift, (which my photo doesn't do justice by the way - the badges are so sweet!) so I now in turn will send a handmade gift out to 5 others who in turn will then send a handmade gift to 5...


I love the idea of sending out a little piece of handmade goodness into the world, so if there are 5 of you out there who would like to receive a handmade gift from me and then in turn send a little handmade gift onto 5 others, then leave me a comment. If there are more than 5 of you I will draw the names. (I figure I will give it a week and then draw the names out next Tuesday 21st) As soon as I have the names I'll then email you for your details and send you a little gift in the next couple of weeks. It's up to you how you do it after that, I'm sending out my gifts quickly but I know others who say they will send out gifts to their chosen 5 sometime in the next 6 months, (could be nice if a gift landed on your doormat that you'd forgotten you were getting but there is always the danger I might forget - hence the sending out quickly!!).