Ami swap time, travelling craft box and Little Ladies everywhere!

Hello everyone! Happy Monday to you all :-)

So hope you are all well and having fun! The rain and thunder here has been mad for a couple of days here, I would love some sunshine again but the British weather strikes again.

This week I can show you the ami swap goodies! The monthly swap with the lovely Steph always makes me smile :-) Steph sent mine a week early as she was away last week so I couldn't show them until she got back and received mine. So my parcel from Steph was brilliant as always, she sent me this gorgeous knitted kitty

How gorgeous is she!! I love her little bell and the pretty flowers stitched around her, so cute. Also, Hercule Poirot arrived! This is brilliant, we both love Agatha Christie so he's just perfect :-)

And some lovely kitty ribbons and beads, bells and buttons. Thanks Steph, I love everything!

Oh i nearly forgot, there were also two super cute crochet mice for Poppy and Daisy too :-) Here's Poppy who had pinched them both straight out of the wrapping paper!

I made a ballet dancing bunny for Steph, seen here dancing in the flowers :-)

I also sent a lot of stickers and a stitched card of a fairy,

Also the travelling craft box has been and visited me. Now it's with the next person on the list Kayla, I can reveal what I took from the box......

the fabulous stitched notebook, lovely metal bookmark with the painted wooden hearts and white and pink felt heart are all by Kerry. The lovely big heart and sweet mini mitten and flowers were by the lovely Cucki.

The things I made and added to the box are the felt flower pot and butterfly brooches, a Little Red Riding Hood bag tag.....

and the little knitted Converse boot pincushion and embroidered mermaid  scissor keep. 

I had a lot of fun making these, in fact LRRH gave me the idea to make a series of bag tags on a theme of Little Ladies for my Etsy shop. I have six so far and lots of ideas for more, they have become a bit addictive, lol!

So I have so far Snow White, Alice, mermaid, fairy, a little girl and another Little Red too. Hope you like them as much as I do :-) These will be appearing in my Etsy shop over this week. Finally I made Billy Bunny too, a lovely little sailor bunny from a Debi Birkin pattern, I love how he turned out :-) Isn't he sweet!

Well that's me this week, I have a custom order of a big hanging mushroom I'm busy making, it has a fairy on it which is fun! Have a good week everyone!

Mushrooms everywhere :-)

Hello everyone!

Well I've been lost in the land of the mushrooms this week and had great fun :-) I started out with making cottages, three of them in fact!

Ta-da!

First up is the 4th of July Cottage with the American  flag flying outside the door. The flag has 6 French knot stars as I couldn't fit the whole 50 on an area that's so teeny! 

Next I made a replacement for the Celebration Cottage as it sold at the last fair I did, so this is the new one.

The third one is a new one which I named Marigold Cottage. I got a new hanging basket full of lovely Fuchsia's which hangs outside the window near where I stitch, I guess it inspired this one!

Then a hanging mushroom too in the Jubilee Cottage style,

 After that I moved onto some more needlecases. Two new ones are done so far and one more is ready to embroider and stitch together.

I've had a busy week of mushrooming :-) The cottages and needlecases are now in my Etsy shop.

Oh yes and two Father's Day cards appeared too,

Now I'm onto the sea! I have a craft fair on Sunday at the quayside in north Shields and it's themed Spirit of the Sea and it's International Fairy Day too!  I'm just finishing off a baby octopus and next on the list is a mermaid so that'll be fun.

I have found what looks like a great fair at a garden centre not too far away which will be every month on a Saturday. It looks so promising that I rang up to book for next month and ended up booking in for the rest of the year, lol! I don't do things by halve and the dates were filling up quite quickly so I figured why not. Since the last fair I did every month finished I've been looking for a new home which suits my makes and me to be my regular place and this fits the bill nicely and I admit I have a huge love of garden centres :-) It's a craft and food fair so there'll be cake too!

Well I better get back to my seaside makes. Have a great week everyone!

I seem to be coming over patriotic this week!

Hello everyone and welcome to my new lovely new followers, lovely to meet you :-)

This week has been the usual mad mix of making that is my life! I started off with a hanging mushroom decoration that was a custom order. I was asked for a lime green door, tulips, lots of hearts, a gingerbread man, cupcakes in green cases and hearts for the spots! A lot for a little mushroom but not for a bigger one so a bigger one it became. I used little heart buttons to make some bunting around the roof and for the gingerbread man's buttons and a black bead for the door handle. It's bigger than the usual and measured 6 x 6 inches.

So that went on it's way to it's new home :-)

I've made two Jubilee Cottages this week too as it sold twice! It makes me very happy to send away my mushrooms to new owners, it always gives me a thrill to know people will pay for my creations :-)

I'm off Sunday to the craft fair. It's moved location since last month due to the council causing problems with the venue we were in and now is in a pub (yay!) called The Alexandra in Sunderland. So I've been making some keyrings for my stall. St George's Day is Monday so I thought flags would be good.

These are the same both sides. Then I moved on to Union Jacks and came up with these,

the middle one is the reverse side of them. I'm thinking maybe pink ones or something now........

Today I've started to knit fairies, I have a Fairy Fair at the start of next month and plan to have plenty fairies, gnomes and elves done for that which will be fun!

So it seems that there is a theme for this weeks makes and it's all patriotic :-)

Have a great week!

Lots of gorgeous post and it's ami swap time!

Hello :-)

Hope everyone has sunshine back again after the cold and snow of this week and  I thought I was being a pessimist last week in the gorgeous weather when I thought 'we'll pay for this!' lol!

Well this week has been interesting. I was out on Saturday night with all my family for my parents golden anniversary, posh hotel for dinner, ooo fancy! Then I was up all night and ill all Sunday throwing up so I guess it wasn't that fancy, lol! Turns out it was only me that was ill so I have no idea if it was a bug or something I ate but not fun. Luckily it didn't last and I was fine again Monday :-)

So while feeling awful and trying to stay focused I had an order for a Tulip Cottage to get stitched and posted for Monday morning. I made it! I loved the red door that was requested, I hadn't thought about red for a door as there was so much red with the cap of them but it looked good.

Lots of tulips around the garden and purple climbing flowers round the door.....

I also made another Jubilee Cottage for a customer, I do like stitching that one :-)


Now I'm back to the 3D cottage I'm cross stitching, it seems to be taking ages to get done but the walls are stitched and I'm onto the roof then I just have to build it! Here's a progress picture so you can see how much detail is in it with all the backstitch and French knots.

The bit at the top that looks like a barcode is the start of the thatched roof!

It's getting there! 

Ami swap was this week too yay! For those who don't know this it's a swap I do at the start of every month with the lovely Steph over at Show and Tell. We have been doing this for a couple of years now and it's always brilliant to get lovely presents every month :-) So This month Steph sent me this gorgeous pink sheep, isn't it so cute! Also a little bunny, very sweet and a little stitched friendship cushion with gorgeous beads around the edge. Thanks so much Steph it's fabulous! 

and this fabulous card too, it's the sheepish sheep, lol!

I sent Steph this cute bunny and chick and embroidered card. 

This was the first of these bunnies I made, it turned out so cute I made another for my Etsy shop :-) I can see more bunnies in the future! 

Got a lovely surprise this week too from Laura with a Easter pressie arriving! Thanks Laura! She sent me the cutest little blue birdy with a sweet tuft of hair, three gorgeous stitch markers and a bag of Creme Eggs :-)  

Two lovely cards too from the lovely Helen and Laura.

And if that wasn't enough gorgeous post I got this! My lovely friend Jeanne in Canada made me this fabulous business card case...............

Isn't it perfect for my cards? I was amazed that this is the first felt thing she has made, wow! It's gorgeous! It's been a great post week :-) 

Whoa, that was a lot of stuff! So that's me for the week,  have a good Easter everyone!

Now back to the cottage building.......

Busy mushrooming :-)

Hello everyone and welcome to my new followers, lovely to meet you :-) 81, woohoo!! I'll have another giveaway when I hit the big 100!

This week has been mushroom themed. I had been busy with the 3D cross stitch cottage that's on order but  it's not due until the middle of next month. I'd been busy posting all the pics of my stuff onto my facebook page and I got a custom order from there. A mushroom with a blue door, purple flowers around the door, yellow curtains and two dragonflies one the roof, one bigger than the other. I do love how specific people can be about what they want :-)  So this is the mushroom that I made from that description.

The dragonfly wings are stitched with metallic thread so they really sparkled.

Then I thought I'd better get on with an idea I'd had for a Jubilee Cottage or time would run away from me and I'd be too late! So this is what I came up with,

and a close up of the front detail...

I admit that I'm insanely proud of this one :-) It turned out so much better than I'd expected! I had an order for one in a couple of hours on facebook which I'm busy stitching up now and this one is in my etsy shop. Now I'm thinking of new occasions that I can make them for........I could make this one for the 4th of July with a stars and stripes on the flag pole :-) 

So that's what I've been up to this week and the 3D cottage is growing slowly too. 

Oh yes, I can now confirm the news I had a couple of weeks ago, sorry to tease you like I did! I was asked if I wanted to be featured in Craftseller magazine and I'm in Issue 11 out on May 8th :-) They are doing a piece in the Crafty Tales section about something that inspired my makes and there will be pics of my stuff, my website address and a pic of me (that is the photo on my profile). All good free publicity!  Speaking of the website, did I actually tell you about setting that up?? I probably forgot sorry! Anyway you can find it here, www.hippywitchcrafts.co.uk  It's a work in progress as I am totally fumbling around in the dark when it comes to web design! 

Have a great week! 

Ami swap time, a giveaway win and some new makes too

Hello everyone and welcome to my new followers, lovely to meet you :-)

So it's ami swap time again! For those of you who don't know about this, at the end of every month I swap an amigurumi with my lovely friend Steph, if you pop over to her lovely blog she has a giveaway on with lovely dragony prizes!  So there was a theme this month, usually they're just a random surprise, so it was Chinese New Year and the start of the year of the dragon.

Steph sent me these two gorgeous dragons!

How cute is that! The teeny one is a finger puppet and so cute, my kittens are loving playing with that when I put it on my finger :-) The purple one is called Jelly Bean and is knitted from the most fabulous sparkly wool, I love them! Jelly Bean is such a cute lovely thing, look at her wings with sequins....

How cute is that! There was a lovely ball of sock yarn too but I forgot to take a pic of that, lol! Thanks Steph, love my dragons, I think Jelly Bean is one of your best yet :-)

So I sent Steph this Chinese dragon,

He turned out a lot bigger than I'd been expecting! Was fun to make though and Steph likes him :-)

So another fabulous swap as ever, looking forward to next months surprise pressie already! We've been doing this swap for a long time now and it's still as much fun as when we started, I mean it's a present a month for no reason who wouldn't like that, lol!

Also my lovely giveaway prize from Kerry's lovely blog arrived, lots of goodies in the post this week :-) This gorgeous biscornu, I love the thread colours and it's one of my favourite designs too!

and all these lovely goodies, it was impossible to get a pic without Daisy gatecrashing in somehow, she was determined, lol! So pretty coloured bits of aida, two lovely threads, love those colours! Lots of pretty beads and  fab buttons, I love beads and buttons so very happy there. Thanks Kerry for a lovely prize :-)

So onto the makes of the week, there are things I can't show as there's another swap coming up in a week or so but this week I had to make two new mushrooms and a toadstool as they are selling pretty well over on etsy! Oh yes while I remember, I was totally wrong, you can all tell me that and rub it in if you like. A while ago I asked for opinions on the Valentine Cottage with the hearts on the roof as I didn't think it was good enough to sell, you were all lovely and told me it was a good'un and you were right, I've sold four so far. So there, what do I know!

The latest this week are Hyacinth Cottage with French knot hyacinth's around the door...

A new Valentine Cottage to replace a sold one...

and the last I finished off last night. I had an idea for a birthday/celebration type cottage and came up with this, Party Cottage has bunting around the roof and balloons tied either side of the door. What do you think?

Guess it's been a busy week as I also had a custom order for some embroidered hearts with an A on them, so I made these....

I also made two kitty key rings, I'll be making more of these in different colours....

So that's my latest things, hope you like them :-)

See you all soon and I have a giveaway planned as my first blogiversary is coming up on the 19th of February so don't forget to watch for that!

Hope you all have a great week,

Lori xx