taking a .....

..... bloggy break

I'll be back soon :-)

a swap, a "ta daa" and a work in progress .....

..... I took part in the Summer Swap that Becki organised and on Wednesday my parcel from Buttonz  arrived:

you'll see that Otis is in the background, he likes a bloggy swap almost as much as me :-)

inside were lots of brown paper packages ..... which contained:

a window transfer ..... it's a camper van with "are we there yet" underneath .....

a beautiful heart (now hanging on the mirror in my downstairs toilet!) .....

a sundae glass and scoop .....

a packet of butterflies .....

some cupcake ribbon (the prefect reason to dig out the cupcake rubber stamps I haven't used yet!) .....

and a lovely "gone to the beach" sign which is now hanging in my craft room .....

how lucky am I?  thank you Jodi for a lovely, lovely swap :-)

On Tuesday I got a call from the framers to tell me that my cross stitch was (finally) ready, it's now hanging in my hall .... so here is the "ta daa":

 

And, finally, this week after what seems like months of waiting my living room and dining room floor were finally finished .... here is a quick shot of the living room just after it was finished:

now, just need to get everything back in place! :-)

A Monthly Make - 2011 - June

I'm really busy with commission orders at the moment, which is lovely .... but sometimes I like to just make something without a reason.  And this book is one of those makes, a lovely, no reason, super girly bag book:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please don't forget to have a look at the monthly makes on the Felt Fairy's flickr site - go on, feast your eyes on some crafty loveliness!

Saturday .....

..... a day for:

fabulous, thrift shop finds - a lovely wicker tray and embroidered tray cloth .....

crafting with beautiful dotty papers and flowers .....

and charms .....

lots of ribbon .....

and vintage buttons .....

and, of course, this to read later .....

what could be better?

button up .....

..... button swap goodies!

I took part in the Button Swap over at Lemonade Kitty's place and this week Vintage Vicki and I managed to get our swap goodies delivered on the same day ....

Otis helped me unwrap (I suspect this was down to the chocolate inside .....)

inside we found this beautiful box:

with lots of lovely parcels inside:

a hand embroidered linen button bag (*sigh*):

with green and pink buttons inside:

 a green and pink corsage:

the cutest lavender bag:

carded buttons (another *sigh*):

  
a trinket box:

and chocolate buttons .... squirrelled quickly away before Otis helped with those too!

So, big THANKS to Vicki for my lovely parcel and a big THANKS to Lemonade Kitty for organising such a lovely swap .....

well, fancy that ....

..... despite the fact that I've been positively rubbish at blogging over the past couple of weeks,  I've been nominated for the kreativ blogger award by my friend Callie (you can find her over at MuMu and Squeak's Place and also just down the corridor from me at work!)

so, I have to tell you ten things about me .....

1. I find it incredibly difficult to listen to a music album all the way through without playing my favourite song(s) over and over and over again.
2. My favourite song of all time is Another Girl, Another Planet by The Only Ones, it never fails to make me smile.
3. I have a bit of an obsession when it comes to hanging the washing out.  There has to be something of mine or Mr G's at each end of the line so that everything else is in between.  In the event that I don't have something of ours then something like a towel or bed linen will do ..... it's not uncommon for me to rearrange the washing on the line if somebody else has hung it out.
4. I am really, really squeamish.
5. I love lunch with the girls and shopping trips etc but I am rubbish at planning them ..... that is what my lovely, organised friends are for (and for carrying my train ticket so I don't lose it!)
6. I don't do forms.
7. Meeting new people makes me very nervous.
8. My bra always matches my pants.  Always.
9. I love to be organised, to the point that it annoys Mr G whos likes to live life as it comes.
10. I really, really don't like exercise classes.

and then nominate ten other kreativ bloggers.  Now, I can see that many of those I'd like to nominate for this have already been nominated so I've really just got a couple to add:

1. Jodi at Art from the Hart
2. Rachael from Knitting Snippets

.... and just one more thing, for those that think I'm tidy, I thought I'd share these shots of my desk earlier today:

of course, it doesn't look like that now!

A Monthly Make - 2011 - May

I've been busy making things to make my "practical" house less, well, practical .... and here they are:

Crochet cushions ... well one to be precise, but there is another on the way!  I love this cushion and it was so quick to make!  You can't see it very well in the photo, but it's lined with bright pink cotton so that is matches better with my stripey cushions.

And a lovely, little, buttony curtain for my downstairs toilet ..... nothing too "practical" in this photo eh?  This curtain started off as a shower curtain, I loved the almost dandelion patterns on it ..... and the bargain price of £2.00 from a charity shop!

Please don't forget to have a look at  the Flickr group and see what everyone else is up to this month!