Daddy making raindrops.....

Is what I can hear from my husband while giving Robert a bath!  We are now going through the teething stage in earnest. Having had two bottom teeth since he was 5 months the rest have now decided to make an appearance, cue one upset little boy

I am doing a craft fair in Carnousite at the end of November and beginning of December, hope if you are in the area you come along. Although I am not finding it easy to get stuff done, as a little boy keeps coming to join me when I start sewing!

I can now take payments via card over the phone, I have joined Worldpay Zinc. So if you mark your order pay by post, and then call me on either 01382 507703 or 07826583032, remember that I do still work full time but will be home after 6pm Monday to Friday.  At the weekend I will be around most of the time, if I do not answer, just leave a message and I will call you back.

I have been a bit busy on the craft front, my team leader at work left recently and I made the card along with a nappy cake for her.

 

I have also been making crayon rolls again, one for a friend on a facebook group; we had fun with it though.  It was posted to another friend to put in a box of goodies, but the package went missing enroute to this friend.  Several weeks later, I get home to a conversation with hubby (he had posted it through is work mail) when he went in that morning the package was sitting on a bench, it had rolled off the table after being franked and stayed hidden. So off it went to this friend who then had to post it on.  I was in the process of making another one, so used that for Robert’s playgroup coffee morning instead.

 

I am in the process of making more and making more tea towel bags, I have added waterproof lining material to the inside and they look fab.

I have also in the process of making more travels sets, and this time have added waterproof lining to the underside of the changing mat, making it more versatile. I hope in due course to get terry towelling. 

Need to go, son asleep so can do some sewing now!

Kay xx

Where has the summer gone?

Went back to my main job a couple of weeks ago, and what a shock it has been! New routine, getting child to childminder, working and then either having to go and pick him up or go home (very rarely!)

But I have managed to get some crafting in, mainly on the sewing front.

I have made a waterproof bib that has poppers on it! Fed up of only finding bibs that had poppers on it that were not waterproof and got really fed up of having to constantly fix the velcro after Robert kept pulling it off!  At the moment they are out for testing.

At the same time, I found a pattern in Craft Seller for a travel set which consists of a bib, changing mat and bag, all made out of PVC. Found some pretty spotty material in our local Dunelm Mill, along with the white bias binding and made this set.

My friend is currently testing this for me. I later found some nursery PVC in Dunelm Mill which I bought and hope to make another set out of that.

I also went and bought myself a bias binding machine, as I thought it would be good to make my own for projects.

I ended up making Robert some trousers, I found a pattern online and then adapted for my. Originally I was going to use dark blue fabric for the inside but cut it wrong so used some light blue and found it worked better. The alien material I got from Hobbycraft, but unfortunately I cannot get anymore nor can I find it online in metre lengths.

 

Made a couple of crayon rolls using left over alien fabric and the dark blue material.  I had fun trying to figure out the instructions but got there in the end! In this one I sewed ribbon on for tying, but the first one I did, I used button.

 

Slowly getting into a routine, but finding it hard on my health, hopefully my body will adjust itself soon.  Robert is trying to stand and walk rather than crawl, but he is enjoying going to the childminders before going to granny for afternoons. I am enjoying being me again, although it is taking its time!

Bye

Kay

 

May 13

Well that time of year has hit us again - Dundee Food and Flower Festival - the book containing all the categories arrived in the post the other day. One category caught my eye, it involves using plastic carrier bags. So I contacted our local Asda, who kindly gave me some bags. Spent an evening or two cutting the bags into strips, and now have to loop them into a long strip ready for knitting, yes knitting. Once the project has been done I am to give them a picture for them to post up on their board as part of the re-cycling projects.

 Spent ages cutting the bags into strips and then making them into the balls. Knitting is well under way.

I am getting a unit from Storage4crafts. I am getting a bit of a windfall and thought this would tidy up the craft area, aka the dining room.  I have loads of the really useful boxes and this company make storage units that fit these boxes. Just hoping it makes the room tidier.  I just ordered the one meter unit. I also ordered Cropper Hopper ribbon boxes and have managed to store a good majority of the reels in them. I also ordered a metal ring and tag holder and have put a lot of loose ribbons on, need to get more boxes and tags.

*** update - unit here and fitted and it looks fantastic!

Made this beautiful card, from the Party Paws Luxury Card collection. I made this for my mother in law.  I had got the offer from Create and Craft, and then mounted the image onto an 8 x 8 card.  The image is decoupaged. I then used the buttons and paper ribbon from the pack along with gems. 

 

My little boy got christened in the middle of April, it was wet but we still had a fantastic day. My sister in law and her two girls made his cake and it was fantastic.

I go back to work shortly :-( but needs must.

See you all later

Kay xx

March 13

Did it again, have got into the reader’s gallery of Complete Cardmaking magazine, this time with the other entry for the nitwit competition last year. I was experimenting with the paper that I made, and came up with this card, I intend giving this to my mother in law for Mother’s Day. The image is from Angelica and Friends CD by Crafters Companion matted and layered onto black and cream card. It was put onto an 8” by 8” card. I then used red and black ribbon, black flowers with gold brad centre and made a bow. I made cards for Robert’s baptism. I got the CD that came with Complete Cardmaking and got the monkey image, and then matted on to silver card using one of my spellbinders die cuts. Then printed paper and made the you are invited to sign. This was then put onto small scalloped cards. The thank you cards I made from using images from Do Crafts “Woodland Folk” cd. Made everything in their digital designer. It is hard to believe that Robert is just over 3 months old. He is growing so fast, he has started to have bottom teeth but does not seem to be fazed by it, the health visitor is also suggesting that we start to wean him sooner rather than later due to his weight. He has already had two sets of injections and does not seem to be bothered by them. By 4 weeks he was sleeping right through the night and everyone keeps remarking how contented and happy he is. We managed a short trip to Sheffield over Easter to plant a tree in my late mother’s memory and scatter her ashes, he was a great hit with his auntie Jo and granddad John. Monkeys seem to be the theme with Robert, mainly because he act likes one! We have had to move him into his nursery as well as put him in the family cot as he has now outgrown the Moses basket.

My mojo went astray

Well it has been a long time since I last posted, hopefully things will be changing. After the death of my father in law, my mojo went awol, and therefore did not post or do any real crafting from that point. As my pregnancy progressed the sickness and tiredness disappeared after 4 ½ months but then came back along with swollen feet and hands. We took a fortnight off work in October to have a wee break and to visit my mum down in England. We went to York for a week and stayed in the centre of York and did a few sightseeing trips, unfortunely due to swollen feet and ankles I could not walk very far and at 7 months pregnant I got tired very easily. Unfortunely the trip to my mum was not a good one. I got a phone call from my mum’s partner, john on the Thursday of our first week. They had been away on a cruise for a 10 day break and on the last full day mum had not been well. They got back on the Wednesday and by the Thursday they had to call the doctor out, who thought she had a chest infection and was being admitted to hospital for intravenous antibiotics, and this is where she would be when we arrived on the Friday. We went to see her and although she was awake she was not very compis mentis, and could barely hold a conversation with us. On the Saturday she was barely awake. The phone went in the early hours of Sunday morning to say that her condition had detoriated; we then had a meeting with her doctor later that same day. The news was not good. It turns out she had advance lung cancer which had already spread to her liver and they thought it had already entered her brain. They were going to do a second scan on the Monday to confirm. We were told she only had days to live. They then took more blood and by this point a second consultant came along and that was revised to only hours. By teatime she had passed away. As you can image being 7 months pregnant, I was not really in a position to grieve plus I also had to deal with the paperwork and clearing out a house (another story!). Since coming back, I was then preparing for the birth of our child and trying to deal with two deaths in the space of four months. I ended up having a caesarean section on the 31 December and along came our son, Robert David James in honour of his two grandparents and my husband’s middle name. He has brought much joy to the two families and has helped making Christmas and New Year an easier time to bear.

Now, my life is my husband, his family and our son and totally complete. I had surprise in the post just after the new year, I had received my copy of the magazine Complete Cardmaking, in which I had subscription, but not getting to look at it properly did not see that a card I had submitted for a completion had made it into the readers gallery. I had used Nitwits products and had used some items from the Hey cupcake collection and the other items came from one of the Nitwit collections on a Complete Cardmaking CD. Obviously I had not won the completion but was happy on getting a CD called Magical Christmas Moments. A bit late for this Christmas but will be certainly using it for the cards this year.

I also did another couple of cards using the nitwit collections

I did a card for our wedding anniversary using the Docrafts Boofle CD, as my husband had commented that he had like the image of Boofle.

This card I had done for my youngest niece Ellie for her birthday. The image is from Crafts U print, but I mounted it onto white card with Black glitter card with silver peel off and black ribbon, apparently she loved it.

That is all for now, hopefully I will get back to you at the beginning of March. Kay xxx