Stealing a neat idea .....

..... and sharing an excellent giveaway!

I've just found (another) fab blog to follow - and saw this list (and thought I could steal the idea for a quick, mid week bloggy upate) so I here is my own version of it:

• listening to - Lily Allen singing "straight to hell"
• eating - nothing just now but looking forward to a lovely dinner cooked by Mr G
• drinking - sparkling mineral water
• wearing - jeans, dress and fluffy slipper boot things
• feeling - inspired .... been blog hopping again!
• weather - mild and sunny
• wanting - to finish crochet flowers to adorn my cushions (long story, involving the word "practical" in a description of my house ...  practical?  neat, yes and ordered, yes but practical?  it sounds so, well, practical. ...and who wants to live in a practical house?)

• needing - more hours in the day
• enjoying - time in my craft room :-)

And whilst I was on this lovely blog, I spied this very lovely  giveaway and I do love a nice giveaway!

a week of .....

..... craft loveliness :-)

well, you know what it's like, I've spent a fortune over the past few weeks on things that I really didn't need ..... but, of course, had to have.  I've been beavering away in my craft room making stuff to sell so that I can (begin to) justify the amount of money that I've spent. 

I'm particularly pleased with these:

I made the pattern for these"magazine files" so that they would hold 2 spiral bound notebooks.  I recovered the notebooks by unwinding the sprial using the original cover as a template to make new ones.

I used by craftrobo to cut the cupcakes which I bought a while ago from one of my favourite sites, MyScrapchick.  I've had several sets from here and have been really pleased with them, I should use my craftrobo more but we have an on off relationship .....

I'm in the middle of making some gift bags, rather lazy of me but I bought a set of Paper Purses from K&Company and have been pressing them out and making them up:

And I got carried away with making laminated bookmarks:

Lots of shopping on the interweb means lots of good post days .... have a look at these buttons, all ready to be sorted into colour order to join the jars on my windowsill:

I've got four craft fairs and a house party lined up for the next month .... so much to make, so little time ;-)

show me your .....

..... craft space.

I've been really busy overhauling my craft room and, apart from a new desk, it's finally done.  I thought I'd share some photos with you and that it would be lovely to see where you do all  your craft too .... so, why not do a blog posting  or even just upload some photos and show us yours?  Just leave a comment, point us in the right direction and we can all go and have a look!!

Anyway ... here is mine:

Yeah, I know, far too much stuff but admit it, you're just as bad!  Let's just hope the weight of all that crafty loveliness doesn't pull the shelves off the wall!

Cubby hole shelves, full of useful goodies.  I lined the back with Rose Garden paper from Papermania and I'm rather pleased with how they turned out.  My rather poor collection of Copic pens is underneath (note to self  "buy more").

A nice new home for my punchies .....

..... and a whole printer's tray to fill .....

I've had these letters for ages .....

..... and these, can't think why I didn't think of putting them there before!

Neat eh?  And, I think, worth the three weeks that it has taken ..... it's been such hard work and pretty much everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.  But I'm looking forward to many crafty hours in here and my fingers are just itching to start.

Now, let's see yours!

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! :-)

yucky ......

check out these legs!! .... this is how Jack Devin looked when he came back from playing rugby today - he actually had tide marks where his socks ended,the weather was atrocious and he came home all cold and wet .... but I think he had a good time (surely nobody can get that muddy and not have had fun!)

On a much less muddy subject, I've had another great week full of making and shopping for shiny things! I made a bracelet for my dear ebay friend The Paper Fairy, she wanted it to match her engagement ring. I really did enjoy making it and was especially pleased that she is happy with it.


I've listed some new things in my MISI shop - I need to spend a little less time on there chatting in the forums and a little bit more time making things! Anyway, I managed to make some Easter bracelets using the last of the lovely coloured pearls I bought from Artymiss:


Sticking with the Easter theme, I also made a mini bag book. Small but perfectly formed, these measure just 9cm square but are absolutely packed with tags, and buttons and flowers - all the things that I love. This book is so jam packed with stuff that there is no chance of it ever closing properly!!

I also made a "Book of Me" which I think would make a great present for a special girl. Mini bag books re great to make as they are a lot quicker to make and I enjoy the challenge of fitting everything in.