lollipop, lollipop ....

..... oh, lolly, lollipop! I've seen some decorated lollipops recently and thought I would like to give them a go - so here is a little something I've come up with ..... these are for a High School Musical themed party. Take one lollipop (well, 25 in this case):


Add a card base:

Decorate the top:

Et voila!:

An army of yummy decorated lollipops! Neat eh?

you spin me right round .....

..... baby, right round

I've been going round in crafty circles this week ..... making the following things:

Circular felt needlebooks - yes, the nights start to get dark and I turn to felt and blanket stitch for comfort.


Decorated teeny, tiny paint cans - featuring the wonderful Lime Ricky papers from Basic Grey.

Circular card toppers - made using Inkscape (thank you Inkscape for the wonderful "text on path" command!)


I've started working on my Christmas things - decorated menu holders, decorated lollipops, pegs and a whole other photo session full of things! Can't wait to share them!

I've been .....

.... busy, busy, busy!

I've been exceptionally busy papercrafting recently .... and that is never a bad thing! I've had lots of custom orders and have had great fun working on them. Here's a sneaky peak at a few of them ....

A paper bag book to celebrate a day out at a farm:


Some cute "band aid" tins with little note books inside - these were to record all those very important first day at school details:


Some cute little tag albums:


Some jewellery and matching gift boxes:


Not too shabby, even if I say so myself!

The postman has (literally) just delivered some rather cute charm sets that I got off ebay from a seller called A Charm For All. I can't begin to tell you how lovely these are and how very long it took me to pick from the fabulous collection that she has! And, best of all, it only too around a week for delivery from the USA. I can't wait to start using them - I've got plans for a lovely fat Halloween bag book using the vintage Halloween charms and, of course, I need to use those before I can move on to the lovely silver Christmas charms!!

three of my favourite things .....

..... buttons, beach huts and badges.

I found a wonderful shop called Just Delights on a recent visit to Cornwall, it made my heart ache with all the wonderful, wonderful things on sale - I have the perfect spot in my home for each and every item that this shop sells. The website doesn't yet reflect what they have on sale, but I'm visiting it every day to double check and when it's up to date then I shall be buying like there is no tomorrow! I especially fell in love with their ceramic buttons, I didn't have as much time to choose as I really needed but I managed to select these little beauties:


I don't know what I shall use them on just yet but I'm sure there will be that special something that calls out for one of them, in the meantime I shall just keep looking at them :-)

We spent last week in Preston, near Torquay and it really is one of my favourite places to stay. I love seaside towns .... sitting by the harbour eating fish and chips, crabbing, crazy golf .... what more could you ask for? My dream is to have my very own beach hut for those lovely beachy days ... one like this would do:

I've been making some more bits and pieces to sell in my MISI shop, I'm still very taken with sewing on felt - I think this is because it is such a change from my usual papercrafting .... I made one of these to match a bright pink top of mine and once I'd started sewing them I just couldn't stop!!


I've had a bit of a destash and have listed some crafty bits and pieces for sale .... I need to make space before my craft room explodes!! :-)

monkeying around .....

..... in Monkey World

Ever the optimists, we had a family day out in Monkey World in the hope we could rehome the boys (after all, Monkey World is famous for rescuing primates). It didn't happen, but we did have a great day out. We took hundreds of pictures and it was hard trying to pick some to share - but here are a few of my favourites:

And the cheekiest monkey of all .... Jack Devin:

I've been distracted by all things domestic recently, but I have managed to fit in a small amount of crafting, mostly notebooks which are on sale in my MISI shop:

I need to knuckle down to some serious crafting .... so many things to make .... so little time! :-)

how lucky ....

.... am I?

We had a stash swap on MISI .... the lovely Sprinks sent me some fab goodies and I am absolutely thrilled with them! I'm also very impressed that I had the strength of will to take a photo BEFORE I ripped open the pink tissue wrapping paper! (doesn't tissue paper make a parcel that extra bit special?)


So - Sprinks knows me very well indeed. My lovely goods included lots of jewellery findings:


Lots of lovely glass beads (check out that fantastic blue spotty pendant!):

And some great pink, blue and lilac spotty felt:

My fingers are itching to get making ..... I just need to decide where to start!!

I've been working on .....

..... my garden. It all started when one of us (I think it was me!) had the genius idea to remove the large raised patio at the end of the garden ...... so we did. It took a week of rather hard labour (cunningly timed to coincide with half term so my boys did most of the work! And there it was gone, and left in its place was a largish flat patch that we were going to fill with a smaller patio.

And then one of us (I think it was me!) said "why don't we reshape the lawn into a circle or two, we could edge it in bricks and fill in around it with some slate chippings" ... so we did.

And then one of us (I think it was me) said "rather than have a second, smaller patio why don't we build a couple of raised beds so that we can grew vegetables?" ... so we did. I say we, Mr G built these and I can't begin to describe the trauma, even a shiny new drill didn't help very much. (If you look closely you can see where he had to "patch" one of them because the wood was so warped that the soil just fell out ....)

It's almost finished ... the lawns are almost edges (photos to follow) and the raised beds are built ... we're just waiting for the compost and the slate chippings and then, hopefully, nobody will come up with any other ideas!

The veggies that I've been growing in pots are all starting to come through .....

My second lot of chilli seedlings:


My strawberries:


My potatoes (in my old wheelie bin!):



And my all time favourites, peas:

I love my garden, hopefully I'll love it even more when we've finally finished it and I can spend more time crafting!

Time Out .....

..... in Torquay.

What great Bank Holiday weather! And what better than to spend time with our family in Torquay; walking lots, eating lots and (shame on me) drinking too much!! We loved Dartmouth, especially the colourful houses:


We found some great cliff top and beach walks around Torquay:

Devin took time to perfect a classic "pointing into the distance" pose:

And Jack Devin worked on this "soulful and alone" number:


Jack discovered what good fun go-karting is (even though he got overtaken by a girl):

All in all, a not too shabby weekend!

A little bit of ....

.... wonderful thriftiness.

I found this lovely pot holder at one of my local thrift shops this weekend. I'm not sure what I am going to do with it just yet, but I'm almost certain it won't involve plants. I love the old-fashionedness of it .... and I especially love the £1.20 price tag.

I also managed to snag some baby themed bargains at the Pound Shop for a project that I've been dreaming of for a while. I love the idea of making gift sets, a decorated container, a small book and some appropriate gifts .... perhaps completed by a matching card and gift tag.


I'm hoping make some more themed sets over the next week or so .... all of my recent "makes" have gone off to a friend who is having a craft sale and I have a craft fair in less than four weeks so I really, really do need to knuckle down and get making. My immediate "to do" list consists of:

• pages for a swap for my favourite Yahoo group
• the remaining 20 of 90 wedding invitations
• a baby themed bag book to celebrate the birth of twins
• a formal album for a work colleague
• make stock, stock and more stock for the next craft fair and my MISI shop

I was lucky enough to take part in a wonderful MISI swap this month, the idea was to make items that reflected your swap partners name. I received Martin the Monster and some Handwarms (MMH for Magic Making Hands - clever eh?) from the very clever Sharnemainiaknits. Martin the Monster was immediately adopted by my 20 year old son .... what better compliment is there than that?