I'm still alive!!!!

Hello everyone!

I'm just popping in quickly to say I'm still alive, I know it's been ages since my last post and since I got to visit you all and I'm really sorry. I got a lot of custom orders for Christmas and have been doing lots of fairs too, this is the first Saturday I've not done one for weeks as I wanted a break. I'm getting there and hope to be back here properly by Christmas :-)

I have called in to see a couple of blogs in the last week and entered a advent giveaway on the fabulous Laura's blog and I won yay! This morning the postman brought me this.....

A parcel with lots of little parcels, one for each day until Christmas! The first one was swiftly opened and this gorgeous little crochet snowman was inside :-)

He's now on my Christmas tree along with lots of other handmade decs from my lovely friends, Kerry and of course lots from the wonderful Steph as well as some of my own. I'm getting quite a collection now :-)

I have some exciting news too. Two of my felt cupcakes went to Hong Kong this week, they were bought to put on a headband to be worn by a local celebrity in a TV commercial!! I've asked if it's possible to get a picture of them in the advert and hope to get a reply, fame via cupcake! :-)

I was also in this months Craftseller mag again :-)

I'll try to get back here in a few days as the ami swap pics need showing too! So much to catch up with!

Have a fab weekend and I'll be back as Arnie said.....

Stopping by to share news!! And ami swap too!!

Hello everyone!

Right.... the mad month that is October is getting in the way of me updating this little blog of mine! I've popped in to share some news that I've had this month and to show off the fabulous ami swap goodies!!!

I'll start with the ami swap because it's fabulous as always :-) For anyone who doesn't know about this swap it's a monthly swap I do with the lovely Steph (do stop by and visit her lovely blog, she has a giveaway on at the moment for a lovely greenman!)

Steph made me this gorgeous monkey, I've called her Pinky for quite obvious reasons!

Isn't she beautiful?? I love her pretty fabric face!

Also some gorgeous acorns and Autumn leaves, so pretty! And look ate these fab purple pearl stars and cookie monster ribbon!! Love cookie monster! Thanks Steph, I love everything :-)

I made Cinderella for Steph,  here she is in her rags......

and from the side.

She's a topsy turvy doll so when you flip her over........

She's ready for the ball!!

With her hair in a posh bun with pearls round it.

It was a fab swap as ever and this months will be a Halloween one, yay! Looking forward to that :-)

So onto the news that has me so busy. I got a phone call last week from Hartlepool Art Gallery and they asked me if I would take part in their Christmas craft exhibition sale that runs from next month until January. They want 12 mushroom cottages by the start of next month!!

So that's on top of three other events in a couple of weeks time! I am at The Biscuit Factory art gallery in Newcastle on the 20th for a book event and exhibition of  felt artist Moy Mackay (Check out her website to see her amazing works.) I also have a Halloween craft fair on the 21st and the usual garden centre craft fair on the 27th to make for!! I'm thinking I may have to give up sleep......I certainly won't be around too much on here until all this is over!

So here's some of my makes for the week while I'm here...

Elf boot Christmas decorations, and here's a couple I had an order for with names stitched on.I think these would look great with candy canes in them :-)

 A whole box of cupcakes as the last lot had almost sold out, Daisy was checking them here, quality control you know! :-)

I had a custom request for five currant buns for a nursery school too for the rhyme, five currant buns in a bakers shop....so they're round and fat with a cherry on top!

I had a request for a donation for a Macmillan Cancer Care evening raffle from a friend a week or so ago so I made Macmillan Cottage for such a good cause.

Then we get to the start of the twelve cottages for the art gallery, Rose Cottage......

Daisy Cottage...

and Sunflower Cottage.

So that's three down, nine to go! Wish me luck and I'll be back to catch up with people soon as I have a moment to spare again.

See you soon!

My name is Lorraine and I'm a useless blogger!

Hello everyone and really sorry I've been AWOL for a while! I see to have had a couple of weeks with no motivation and a basic can't-be-bothered-with-anything feeling. The boyfriend has been off work this week on holiday too so I've been making the most of it and getting him to take me out, as you do!

Anyway, I'm back now and have lots of finishes to show you all :-) So lets see where do I start.....

Oh I've just realised how many pics I haven't shown you since I was last here!! This is my cake stand full of lots of felt cakes, I loved how it looked and sold a few since so need to get felt baking again :-)

These beaded mitts were for me! I saw this pattern on ravelry and decided it was about time I made myself something again and they'll be great for keeping me warm now the weather is cooler.

This is Olly and Pinky his girlfriend :-) I sold Olly at the craft fair last Saturday so I had to make another one as she looked so lonely...

A custom made mushroom for the lovely Steph. Now I admit when Steph asked me for a purple and green one I wasn't too sure about the colours but doesn't it look excellent!!

 It's a witch themed cottage so the broomstick, cat and cauldron are in the garden :-) Thanks Steph for asking me to make this!

While at the craft fair last week I sold the little elf I had on my stall and was asked to make four more too! The order was for a pink elf and three Christmas elves too suitable for hanging on a tree. These are always fun to make and look very sweet!

 Christmas elf 1....

2...........

and 3.

Finally a new Party Cottage, this was sold a few weeks ago and I've just finished ff this to replace it,

A close-up of the details......


So that's my makes for the last couple of weeks and I promise to kick myself up the backside and get back on track again with everything in blogland. I don't think I can possibly check every post I've missed from everyone as it would take days but I will be starting again from now, promise :-)

• Have a lovely week everyone and it's nice to be back again.

It's ami swap time!!!!!

Hello everyone, sorry I've been slacking off with the blog posts but will try to get back on track now, I have a lot of blogs to catch up on so I'll be stopping by soon to visit :-)

So this has been ami swap week, just got my lovely parcel from the fabulous Steph this morning so I can reveal the fabulous pressies I got and the ami I knitted for Steph today. For those who don't know the ami swap has been going for a long time now and is fabulous, at the start of every month we send each other a parcel with a knitted/crocheted amigurumi, simple and it's so lovely to get a present every month :-) So the goodies for this month, Steph sent me the amazing Wenda Barlow!!

The name was on the pattern so we don't know why she's called that but isn't she fabulous!!! I'm so thrilled with her, thanks so much Steph :-) Inside her cute little ice cream cone purse was all these goodies too!

Also a few extra goodies, Steph had gone for a bit of a summer theme so we have a cute sun, fabulous biscornu, a reel of lovely summer days ribbon, fabulous Hello Kitty fabric and a lovely hologram sea shell bookmark.

 AND if that wasn't enough all these fab buttons, charms and embellishments too! The black cat buttons are just adorable and I love those little kokeshi dolls too.

The summer card below was from Steph and the witch card was from the lovely Laura in another parcel of loveliness I've been meaning to show you but forgot!

 More about that below but first the ami I made for Steph. This is Fizz, I loved her and had to parcel her up very quickly so she didn't end up staying with me! Fizz is a bit of a hippy with her flowers on her jeans and multi coloured bracelets. I felt she needed a crochet flower on her hat too to finish her off. She was a lot of fun to make and I'm pleased to say Steph loves her :-) Another fabulous swap then, thanks Steph I'm looking forward to next month already!

So back to the parcel that I was bad and forgot to post pics of....
Laura sent me this gorgeous fabric, which is so pretty I don't want to cut it, lol! Sad but true I have a lot of fabric that I think that way about! The embroidered black ribbon is stunning and a pretty button one too and some gorgeous beads and buttons. Thanks again Laura for a lovely surprise and sorry for being so slow to show it off too  :-)

So for the makes this week, apart from Fizz of course. I decided to add something new to my stall for the fairs, something that I hadn't seen made by anyone else at them as I sometimes end up competing with other crochet and knitted toy sellers. The mushroom cottages fall into this category but I wanted something new too. After the last fair where my stall was right next to a cake stall with the most enormous chocolate fudge cake I've seen in my life (torture I tell you!) I thought I'd have a play with making cakes from felt. This is chocolate and banana dessert, with a kiwi, wafer and little creme caramel on top!

Yum!!! It's quite large this one and ended up taking absolutely ages to make so I thought I'd go for cupcakes and these appeared......

I have a lovely two tier cake stand which I currently use for brooches on my stall but I want to fill it with cupcakes this week as I think it'll look fabulous :-) They could be used for play food or a pincushion or just a calorie free pretty ornament. I'm going to get some pinking shears today as I think they'd look good with the top of the cake cases cut in a zigzag too. Is this what's called playing with my food!

Also it was a lovely friends birthday this week so I stitched this butterfly card,

and made this piggy needlecase as she has two lovely pigs I thought it was fitting :-) 

So that's me for another week. Hope the sun is shining where you all are as it's come back here, hooray! I'll be catching up on blogs soon to find out what everyone is up to and I'll see you next week.

Hello, sorry I'm late this week!

Hi everyone and welcome to my new followers, lovely to see you :-) I'm a bit late this week posting as been busy painting the hall, I hate painting! Now I'm hoping the smell of the gloss will go away quickly as it's awful! On the plus side it looks fabulous :-)

So this week and a bit has been busy. I got an email last Friday as a local craft fair had some last minute cancellations for their fair on Saturday so did I want a table, I thought why not, I had nothing else on. Not a great day for sales but whatever, you can't win them all! It was at the garden centre Plants R Russ in Sunderland and we were all outside in a polytunnel, WOW was that hot in the sun, sitting in a greenhouse all day! I was certainly wilting don't know about the plants! They have another fair tomorrow, the food and craft one this time as last week was just craft, and I'll be back there again. This one is the one I'm at every month this year. The weather is forecast for rain, obviously, it is a bank holiday weekend so what else would it be :-) Fingers crossed it doesn't put off people coming to a garden centre!

So lets see, what have I made in the last week and a bit....  a Witch's Cottage.

with a spider making lots of webs....

a broomstick and a black cat....

a ghost and a pumpkin.......

and a cauldron with something strange bubbling away inside! I added the bat button to finish it off and I love this one! It seems I wasn't alone as within five minutes of posting the pics on facebook it had sold, yippee! I've since made another one which is now in my Etsy shop and hope this will be a popular one.

Also this week, a couple more Little Ladies for Halloween,

Wendy the witch......

and Debbie the devil :-)

Also Snowball the cat, not very Halloween but I do love cats!

I was also approved to stitch and sell designs made from the fabulous patterns of Sublime Stitching :-) I love these designs so I'm thrilled about this! You have to apply and they check out your shops and send you a contract if your accepted to try to stop copyright theft which is a good idea. I've stitched two designs so far but not sure what to make them into yet, any ideas? I was thinking maybe little cushions or even just frame them but any suggestions are welcome :-) They need a good iron! The first is these cute little kokeshi dolls

and the second is this gorgeous pin-up fairy, I so love this one! I'll be adding some silver metallic stars around her. The pics aren't great as the weather is so dark and miserable here :-( 

Almost finished a new mushroom too, this one is Geranium Cottage and should be done today and on Etsy. So I guess even though I've been busy painting still a lot done this week. Three mushrooms (almost) and three bag tags and two embroideries not bad! 

Better get back to the preparation for tomorrow then, I'm making a batch of quick card bookmarks at the moment. Have a great long weekend everyone, hope the sun shines on some of you too :-)