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!

Catching up, ami swap and I've reached 100 followers!!

Well hello everyone!  Welcome to my new followers, lovely to meet you :-)  That means WOOHOO I've passed the 100 followers!! A giveaway to celebrate is in the offing, details to come next week so keep watching :-)


So this week I can show the things that I couldn't show last week because everything is in it's new home now and it won't spoil any surprises. I'll start off with ami swap time!! A quick expanation to those who don't know what this is, the lovely Steph over at Dolly Dolly Daydreams and me swap a crochet or knitted amigurumi (cute softie) at the start of every month. The swap is always fabulous and getting a present every month is great :-) 


So for this months swap Steph sent me Daisy the donkey! Isn't she sweet!!! 

I love her gorgeous face and the cute bee button in the middle of the daisy :-)
I sent Sally the bear to Steph,

Now I admit, she was hard to part with, I can see me making another one to keep :-)

Also this week was the fabulous Laura's birthday! So her pressies were also in the top secret pile until now. 

I stitched her one of the mushroom needlecases, a Union Jack keyring and a crochet owl

and a bookmark too, I loved this quote by Louisa May Alcott 'She is too fond of books and it has addled her brain' :-)

I'm pleased to say Laura loved them :-)

For my makes this week I was making things for my stall at the craft fair this month. Being at a garden centre I seem to have come over all flowery! First up I made some embroidered butterfly brooches, 

then the flowers started to appear. Daisy felt hearts, which I really like, I can see these in a few different colours.

Then an explosion of keyrings appeared! These were really fun to make, I got to pull out all my ribbons and make up the colour schemes to suit them, I got a little carried away and I'm not done yet! 

Next I'm back on the mushroom cottages as I want to build up a few more for making a fab village on the stall :-)


So have a great week everyone and I'll be back with the giveaway next week so don't forget to come and enter!

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!

Finished bunting and the travelling craft box goodies!

Hello everyone and welcome to my new followers :-)

Been a busy week this week as my boyfriend was off work on holiday so my routine was thrown right off! Tried to keep organised and make time to get things made but it can be a bit tricky when you're also trying to get taken out and spoilt too :-)

The travelling craft box is now with Kayla so I can now show what I made for the box and what goodies I kept too!

These are the gorgeous things I kept...

The gorgeous biscornu box charm (which is on my bag now), lovely bookmark and button heart by Kerry and the pretty pincushion and ami heart and monster by Laura All lovely treasures that were tough to choose from the box of loveliness :-)

To replace them I added these....

a cute baby octopus ami, felt heart, crochet flower brooch, stitched bookmark, 3D birdhouse and cupcake keyring. Can't wait for the box to come back my way again :-)

I finished off the mushroom bunting too for my stall, that was fun to make! I made each mushroom with different embroidery details of flowers, bushes, butterflies and flags. I think this will look pretty hanging on the front of the stall.

I got my ami today from the monthly swap that I do with the lovely Steph but she doesn't have mine yet as I'm posting tomorrow so in the next post at the weekend I'll be showing them :-)

Lots to get done this week then, busy stitching an Easter cake band for an order and I have a lot of small things planned too for the next fair in a couple of weeks so I have lists to wade through!

Oh if you haven't already entered my giveaway you have until Sunday, see the previous post!

Goodies arrived!

Hello!

As a few of you will know the lovely Cucki (who's fabulous blog is HERE) Had  a Christmas giveaway and I was the lucky winner, YAY! The goodies arrived so here they are......

A lovely Christmas cross stitch pattern booklet, very sweet zebra notepad, two sparkly threads (slightly unravelled as Poppy stole them and I had to catch her to get them back, lol!) and a very sweet elephant card. Thanks so much Cucki it's all lovely :-)

So I guess I must be having a good post week as on Saturday I got a letter that I wasn't expecting, I was puzzled as it had to be signed for and I wasn't expecting anything. It turned out to be from Hobbycraft, the big craft shop telling me I had won the competition in Cross stitcher magazine a few issues ago and here was my £100 in gift vouchers, WOOHOO!!! So now I'm planning a big splurge when I can get a lift there, oh I'm going to enjoy this one!

I'm hoping to start doing craft fairs this year, there's a monthly one at the beach (inside not out, thank god!) so I started making small things that I can sell for around £3-4 as I have heard that it's tough selling at the moment with everyone being broke. I've been making more little felt brooches so far and have nearly finished some little felt cupcakes for keyrings too. 

I also finished the cardigan I started on Christmas Day, this is knitted from Rowan Cotton Denim yarn in a lovely mixed pink and white and feels lovely and warm too. 

and lastly a birthday card for my sister which after thinking I had ages and didn't have to rush it realised I'd waited too long and actually only had a few hours left to do it, I'm the Queen of procrastination! But it turned out nice, I really like this one. If the writings too small it says I'm sending you this card corsets your birthday.

That's my finishes this week, I have a lot planned for this month!
Have a great week everybody!
Lori xxxx

The big kitchen makeover reveal and some more crafty stuff of course!

So I'm back without too big a gap since the last post, well done me, lol!

Firstly my new makes, I've been mad busy playing with felt this week, it's the CRAFTfest online craft fayre at the end of the month (check out the side bar to see where and when) and I'm on a mission to fill my stall with loads more stuff by then. Don't forget to come over and see us all, there are around 150 stalls of fabulous different crafts so you can get your Christmas pressies in!

First make of the week is this mushroom house....

I embroidered lots of  french knots for the window boxes flowers and had great fun stitching this!

I want to live there!

I thought I'd do some pretty brooches too in felt that I can sell cheaply as I realised I had nothing for under £5 in my shops for stocking fillers. So here's a couple of them....

and a keyring too...

 There's a couple of heart hangings too

I hadn't realised until now how much I'd done this week, lol! Lastly there's my cross stitch Christmas cake bands that were a custom order. They were a pain to stitch with all the repeats of the patterns but the results were fabulous so I'm glad I did them!

Here's a close up of them both, this is the ice skating  ladies,

and the swags and bows

So that's all my finishes this week, I must have bored you to death now with all those, lol! 

I promised to show the before and after of my kitchen re-do last time so here we go.....
Before....

Those orangy looking cupboards were awful, really dated looking. The worktops I hated, with being blue it meant that the walls had been yellow since we moved in 8 years ago as not much goes with them and I don't like white walls! ('scuse the bag of potatoes, I forgot to move them first and that's the back end of Poppy at the end of the worktop too!)
We got new worktops for free (handy to have a relative who can get them!) Bought new handles for the cupboards and with primer and cupboard paint and some bright emulsion for the walls this is the result...

I love the bright pink walls! The cupboards came up great too, it looks like a new kitchen.

and to finish it off my fabulous new kettle!! I so had to have this :-)

So a new kitchen for about £120, how marvellous!