Birthday pressies!!!!

Hello again!

As promised yesterday I'm back to show the fabulous presents I got for my birthday from my fabulous friends :-)

So I'll start with the lovely Laura, a box arrived late last week and when I opened it lots of pretty little wrapped presents were inside so I was very good and left it alone until Monday! Not easy I can tell you!

Laura had stitched this fabulous Fizzy Moon card for me, isn't it gorgeous?

The silk flowers were scattered among the presents in the box and looked very pretty! There was tw packs of tatty teddy tissues, a Gorjus bookmark a set of Little Red Riding Hood pegs, some lovely b uttons and a fabulous bracelet made by Laura :-)

This fabulous little fairy which I have to say I love so much, she's so pretty!

A little pretty tin filled with buttons, charms and eyes, love those flip flop buttons and the owl!

There were even mushroom house charms, how perfect are they!

The prettiest little kokeshi doll ami and a cute mushroom ami along with a super cute bug too.

This lovely little tulip which is hanging in my craft room now and a hello kitty tin of mints

and this adorable little fabric owl and the loveliest quilted purse with little beads on it made by Laura's very talented Mum :-)

WOW! How lucky am I getting all those lovely things! But that wasn't all as I got a HUGE parcel from the fabulous Steph, I mean huge as well! There are so many pics though I'll post them in a separate post or you'll be fed up of me :-)

So see you again in a day or two with even more fabulous presents!

Back and another year older ..........

Hello!

I'm trying to get over the shock of being 40 as of yesterday, I mean who knew that would happen to me! Still I have wine and  chocolate birthday cake to get me over the worst of it so not all bad  :-) I have to say my lovely friends more than make my birthdays brilliant with the fabulous presents I get to open though!  More about them tomorrow as this post would get waaayyy too long otherwise :-) You have to see them though, so much loveliness to show you!

Well lots to show you this week, lets start with the craft fair on Sunday, it was a new one for me at North Shields fishquay and it turned out to be right on the river in what I guess was a warehouse that has been reborn into a big two floor building full of stalls of collectables. One Sunday a month the craft fair joins them for the day. So last week I made some new things for the stall, a new batch of felt flower brooches and some more heart keyrings.

Love making those flowers it's easy to get carried away and make lots of them!

I had a request for a custom order this week for a monkey amigurumi too so here he is, named Banana by his new owner a little boy in the USA even though he hasn't arrived yet!

Hope he's happy in his new home :-)

So back to the fair then, here's my stall complete with new shelves that I'm still very proud of! They turned out to be great for propping up the monster and Norman the gnome as they don't stand on their own and of course a good seat for the fairies and elf too.

Mushroom village

I made a Sunderland owl and a Newcastle owl and thought it best to separate them so they didn't fight!

The fairies on their shelf.

All the flowers on the cake stand,

Basket of keyrings,

and the mushroom tree!

It was great to watch as the huge ferries for Norway and Amsterdam went right past the window too blowing their horns :-)

Next month the fair is themed Spirit of the Sea and is on International Fairy Day so I'm thinking mermaids.


And look what arrived too, my knitted cactus from the fabulous Nicole's giveaway over at her lovely blog! Isn't it fabulous! Thanks Nicole it was a lovely surprise  :-) It now sits on a shelf in my bathroom beside my real cactus and looks fabulous!

Right this post is getting a bit too long to add all the pics of my birthday pressies so I'll be back again tomorrow with pictures of all the fabulous pressies I got from Laura and Steph. I know two posts in two days, what's come over me, lol!

A week in amigurumi

Hello everyone, lovely to see new followers :-) I'm creeping ever closer to 100 followers and a giveaway!

This week seems to have been all about ami's which has been fun and a nice little break from mushrooms too! It seems to have been a long time since I made some new ami's but that's now been put right.

I started out with the polar bear with a brown mouse on it's shoulder that I mentioned last week. I now know the story too :-) It's about a game where the person who asked me to make it and a relative (who's nickname is  polar bear) try to hide a brown mouse ornament in each others houses. It's been going on for years apparently and the mouse has been smuggled in in a lot of inventive ways including posted! So this ami is for the relative. I love mad quirks that people have!

So here he is, I think it's a cute one!

I managed to make my little shelves too without lobbing a finger off for my stall at the craft fairs, very basic really so can't brag too much about my woodworking skills but I'm still proud of them. I gave them one coat of cream paint and left it at that as the grain shows through and it looked really nice kind  of like bleached wood. These will be great for sitting little fairies on the edge and maybe owls on there too, not sure yet.

I made a gnome too, Norman! He's one of my favourite ami's yet I think and i want to make more in different colours.

Oh I love gnomes and he looks like a very friendly one :-)

I sold three of the four owls I'd made for the next fair so need to make more again! I had a request from the lady who bought two of them for two more, one pink and brown stripes and one brown and purple stripes so I came up with these two which I'm pleased to say she loved.

Now it's the 27th for the next fair so I'm in mad make mode, as if that's any different from usual, lol! I started a batch of ten felt flower brooches last night, all cut out and ready to stitch in front of the TV with a glass of something and some chocolate, heaven! Dragged the boyfriend out today to two craft shops which thrilled him no end but made me very happy! I have a pile of gorgeous coloured felt, some pretty buttons, lovely wool and other lovely stuff to play with  now :-) Oooo the fun I can have!

I'll be catching up with all your lovely blogs this week, looking forward to seeing what everyone's been up to :-)  Off to stitch flowers then, have a great week!

I'm back :-)

Hello everyone and welcome to the new followers, lovely to see you :-)

Firstly, sorry! I know it's been longer than usual for me in between posts. The things is, for the past few weeks I've been realising something has to give! I spend wayyyyyyy too much time on the computer every day, usually over 6 hours (I know it's riduculous!) with Etsy, Folksy and Wowthankyou shops, facebook page and blog as well as all the usual stuff that I've had no time to actually make much and really, that is very important if I want to keep selling! So this week I have been trying to be ruthless with my time online, that is why I've been away and not caught up with your blogs too, sorry! My big plan is to just turn the bloody thing off more so I don't waste time and get distracted, which by the way is very easy, I must be the World Champion when it comes a wasting time and procrastinating, lol!

Anyway, it means I will be around but it might just take me a bit longer to catch up with people, hope you understand, I love you all honest :-)

So lets catch up a bit here with things. Last Sunday was the craft fair at the pub, it was also the day of the Sunderland Marathon which went right past the place. It could have gone either way, the roads were all closed so if people were out to watch the runners then they might pop in and buy or the way it did work out which was no one went out because all the flipping roads were closed!  Not a lot of customers around unfortunately but still a good day, I did okay, and it's always a nice fair with lots of lovely people so happy day :-)

I took a pic of my stall, typically I only took one and it's a little  bit blurry so sorry about that, must do better next time! I have big plans to make some shelves for the stall, I can't find anything that I like as they all seem to be made of acrylic and I want wood so it looks nice. So I have a hacksaw and I'm getting some wood from B&Q tomorrow, what can possibly go wrong?!! I'll try to not cut my fingers off, promise :-) Wish me luck!

I had four Jubilee Cottages to make for sales last weekend and I made it, they were ready and off to their new homes no problem. I also made a new Party Cottage.

and in typical fashion, one of the first pictures I took...... Daisy really wanted to be in the picture :-) 

Then I was mushroomed out! I had sold my ami owls at the fair so made a new batch of those......I have no idea what a group of owls is called, a hoot maybe!

The red and white one is inspired by Sunderland's football strip, I need to make another as he sold this morning to the local butcher :-) I plan to make black and white too for Newcastle so I can tailor it to wherever the fairs are and keep everyone happy! As the  fans of both hate each other it can be swapped depending on venue, lol!

Also had a birthday card to make for the MIL, I came up with an idea for using charms that I bought ages ago, loved them but no idea what to do with them until now.

They are such beautiful butterflies and I loved how it looked with a simple ring of roses around it.

And finally..........drumroll please, TA-DA!! Fame at last! The Craftseller magazine with the feature on Hippywitch Crafts came out this week. Love the big mushroom cottage picture they used as it stands out :-) Here's hoping it pays off!

Now I've started an ami for an order, a polar bear with a brown mouse on it's shoulder! It's a friend of my boyfriend who asked him for this and like a man he never asked why!? Why are men so useless at gossip? I really want to know the story behind this idea, I mean there must be one! So I guess I have to make my own story up then :-)

So that's me for another week, hope the sun is shining wherever you are :-)

Ami swap time!!

Hello everyone, and welcome to my latest follower :-)

This week was ami swap time with the fabulous Steph. A quick explanation for those who don't know, the first of the month we swap an amigurumi (crocheted or knitted toy). It's wonderful to get a present every month :-)

So this month Steph sent me Timmy the tiger :-) How sweet is he! I think he looks like Hobbes from Calvin and Hobbes when the adults are around and he's just a stuffed tiger, which makes me very happy as I'm a big fan!

Also with the tiger theme, this fabulous biscornu and cute finger puppet! Love them both, the biscornu is brilliant with the beads around it. Apparently this was stitched from a knitting chart which makes it extremely clever too!

A couple of gorgeous stickers, a tiger (of course!) and a fabulous fairy,

and more gorgeous goodies. Some tigers eye beads, tiger buttons and tiger ribbon and a lovely tigers eye bracelet too :-)

Such a gorgeous fairy card too! Love it all, thanks Steph for another gorgeous swap :-)

I sent Steph Geoffrey the giraffe :-) I love how this one turned out and the boyfriend says I have to make another one for him!

Love his little tail :-)  I also sent ribbons and pink and purple feathers, a card and a Yankee Candles wax tart  too but didn't take pics of those, I forgot as usual!

Apart from Geoffrey I haven't anything new to show this week, I have been really busy but it's been the Jubilee Cottage selling and me just making another to replace it! I've made three this week so far and have four to get done before Tuesday for orders!

So just a quick post today as I have a lot to get done, I'll catch up on all your blogs when I get a minute, I promise :-) The fairy fair which would have been tomorrow was cancelled unfortunately on Sunday, such a shame as I was looking forward to that one :-( However I'm still going to make fairies and gnomes as they go well with the mushroom cottages and are so fun to make. When I get time to make them! Better go and get busy stitching then, the craft fair I usually do is on Sunday at the pub so lots to do and not much time.

Bye bye for now!