Happy New Year–2014!

Happy New Year everyone!

Did you all have a good Christmas break?  Ours was hectic and fun!

We travelled up to Northampton for a wedding the weekend before which definitely put us in the festive mood.  It was such a beautiful venue filled with twinkling lights you couldn’t help but feel romantically Christmassy.  This is the venue…

…just fantastic.

Then Christmas and my little man’s 2nd birthday (where on earth has the time gone?!) spent in my family home in Wales. Loads of food/drink, bundles of presents, board games and telly…a lovely time to get together.

Here are some Christmas presents that were hand made by me this year… they were all received well, and it gave me a sense of achievement to watch people unwrap their homemade goodies.

- a memo board for my mum

- a desk buddy for my sisters crafting room so that she can put her scissors etc. in.  He turned out okay but I would make some changes in future designs.

- Peg bag for my sister in law (sorry for the poor photo’s)

- Tree decorations for my friend and my cousin’s boys

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a lovely time spent with family, but also a nice return to normality for us coming home after over a week away.  The familiarity of your own bed and sofa is second to none, and living out of a suitcase really is tedious!

I’ve taken down the Christmas decorations, something I always am keen to do, and the house has a new sense of space.  Already we are embracing some new adventures for the year ahead. I feel full of inspiration at the moment. Small DIY projects have already been ticked off the list, and some bigger projects on the horizon.

So I wonder what 2014 will hold in store for us?! Do you have any resolutions?  Mine are:

1) As an extension of last years resolution, is to reduce the amount of time spent travelling, and invest my time into enjoying my family.  Funny sort of resolution really, as you think that would come naturally, but I often feel the pressure to be so many places for so many people, that sometimes time spent simply with my family can become neglected.

2) Exercise more.  I’ve already signed up to a “Return to Netball” programme, and hopefully I’ll get my running shoes back on when the weather warms a little.

3) Consider selling some small crafty bits.

4) Continue being a wicked mum/wife! (Ha ha…okay, no one’s given me that title…but I’ll take it!)

Right time to get my crafting house in order!

Love from me and my little man x

Aberystwyth (my home town)…just a week before the devastation of the recent storms… x

Better late than never…

Advent came a little late in this household.  My husband and I had our chocolate advents (a yearly provision from my in-laws) ready to go, but I had plans to make my little mans’ advent…but the plan came the day before the 1st of December, so I was definitely against myself in time.

I wanted to do a fabric hanging advent calendar with pockets that I would be able to fill with all sorts of things as he gets older. There are so many gorgeous, fun and funky Christmas fabrics online, but time and money was against me.

So remember this friendly cat looking after his Christmas Pud… He was the start.  I found the fabric in my local craft shop and I thought he was fun and Christmassy enough to pass muster on my son’s home made advent.

In the same shop I found a nice snowflake ivory fabric to be the base, with a red marble dot fabric for the pockets.

 

I sewed the top/bottom strips on first.  I then cut out and sewed the pockets in place, over sewing the tops to define the pockets.

Felt numbers were so tedious to cut out, but they were easier than hand sewing numbers in place.  I then put buttons in place to mark the “holes” in the numbers.

I backed the advent with plain calico fabric, and inserted a small baton to give rigidity to help it hang properly.

I wish I could photograph things properly…I swear things look much better in real life!

I have filled it with gold coins and a secret goodies hidden here and there.  My little man enjoys putting his hand in the pocket to pull out a treat…but I think he’ll understand it more next year (especially as we can start from Day 1 and I can put some thought into what to fill it with!)

It was a festive project…and now I know how to make one…I want to make another!

I hope you are enjoying your advent calendars on the countdown to Christmas!

Love from me and my little man x

Festive Fun!

I have found a moment to sit down and put my feet up.  The Christmas tree is twinkling, winter sunshine is streaming through the window and I have a cup of tea by my side.  The house smells divine as I found a last miniature candle in my cupboard which I’d been saving and forgotten about.  It’s my absolute favourite Yankee Candle “Christmas Cookie”.  My large ones burnt down so soon I’m going to have to fork out for  a new replacement one.

So we’ve been doing all sorts of Christmas crafting the last few weeks.  The house has looked like a bomb has gone off, a glitter bomb to be precise!  We are finding shiny sparkly bits on most surfaces, in most of our food, and it has spread into almost every room! 

There are a few crafting bits that are for other people, so we won’t mention those here yet.  We can mention a few though…

Salt Dough – We tried to make salt dough when I was with my sister last year but they didn’t work.  I think we blamed her oven at the time, but the microwave recipe was a disaster too.  I think this put me off having another go, but as an impromptu activity with my boy, I thought I’d try again.  I used this recipe this time (1 cup of flour, 1 cup of salt, 1/2 cup of water – baked at 100^oC for 2 hours or so).  My little man loved emptying the cups into the bowl, and armed with wooden spoons we mixed and mixed until we could get our hands in to squidge it altogether.  A fantastic sensory experience for little ones – although he pulled the funniest face when he tried to eat some! 

We had a little problem with the dough…when rolled out and cut when I attempted to lift onto the tray they all broke, so we had to do them thicker.  Maybe next time I’ll cut them out onto greaseproof so that they are easier to remove.  We cut out a lot of shapes…

They had to have quite a while in the oven to dry out as they were so thick.  I think thinner ones would look nicer.

Another day we spent painting some of them.  Someone likes to mix the colours to make a browney/green gloop…I won’t tell you who that is!

I then decorated a few further…

They really need to be varnished to seal them properly…but I think I will scrap these ones and make some new ones next year.  I started to lose patience with them as I wasn’t really in the mood for painting them.  I have hung a few in the tree…

Snowman – I felt we needed a few more home made items to brighten up our Christmas displays.  So we made our Snowman!  There was a lot of glueing and fluffing…but slowly our Snowman came to life!  I love this one…it was fun to make.

Craft Room – I forgot to blog about my lovely home made birthday present made by my friend.  She has made me a lovely sign for my craft room.  She felted it by hand and I think it it is one of the best presents I’ve had!

How cool is that eh!!!?!!!

I’ve got a little sneak peek for you too… This fellow has been used in something I am soon to reveal!

Hope you are all getting festive!!!!

Love from me and my little man x

Deck the Halls

It’s DECEMBER!!!!

That definitely gives us the go ahead for putting up the Christmas Tree!

We had help this year from my fab friend, although our approach to tree decorating is quite different.  Hers motto is “less is more” with a strategic placement approach.  Mine is a more whack it all on approach!  Together we’ve created a monster….

Note my little mans home made stocking hanging on the wall waiting to be filled.

Now our Angel is not in the middle for a reason…my little man felt something else had to go up there too…

…his stripey elephant!

We’ve had an amazingly festive weekend.  A visit to Beaulieu Village Christmas Evening which was brimming with people, twinkling in fairy lights, and full of yummy food and drink.  The air was awash with smells of chestnuts, mulled wine, and hot chocolatey goodness!

My little man loved dancing to this music wagon, and he would’ve been quite happy to stay there all night for sure.

 

 

 

 

A merry evening indeed. 

We have also done a lot of crafting this weekend and making presents.  Here’s my pal working away…(we set up in the lounge for warmth)…

We’ve both achieved a lot this weekend with presents ready to post out.  I’m itching to show you them all, but I’ll keep my lips zipped tight in order to keep the surprises under lock and key!

More things soon!…I  truly love this time of year.

Love from me and my little man x

Family Time

We’ve had a lovely family weekend.  We celebrated our 5th Wedding anniversary, so it was nice to stay local.

I treated my boys to a breakfast of pancakes and maple syrup which went down quickly.  I’ve never (shock horror) made pancakes before, and I’m pleased to say they turned out well…I even flipped them successfully which my little boy thought was splendid fun.  (Somebody else’s “flipping technique” was not so  flipping good…cue pancakes all over the table!).

We went for a lovely walk in the forest…

We spotted lots of acorns and mushrooms.  We rustled around in the dry leaves.  We said hello to lots of dogs.  I’m surprised at just how far his little legs can carry him! He is a strong walker (…and a strong whinger when he’s had enough!).

My little man also got his first party invite from one of his nursery friends who was turning 3! It was for a couple of hours at a local village hall and it was nice to meet some of the other parents and children properly.  There was a bouncy castle, balloons, and lots of toys to play with.  It was nice to sit and watch them enjoying together.  They all sat alongside each other to eat party food and sing happy birthday.  I was surprised to see how well they all behaved.  The water pistol that was in his party bag has already been put to good use…he loves shooting his mummy and daddy with it and having a good old belly laugh when he succeeds!

It was fancy dress, and I wasn’t sure I could pass him off as a vampire again so I went to find him an outfit.  I don’t really think he’s interested in dressing up yet, but thought we’d make an effort.  I went for a costume that had a zip up front, very similar to a coat, as I thought we’d fool him into thinking it was a new coat!

On the day he had to be woken from his nap so he was already Grumpy…and then came…The Owl!  He’s so going to hate me when he’s older. But it’s a mums rite of passage eh?!He doesn’t look very happy in this picture on the way to the party…I was just chuckling at how cute he was! Okay so it stayed on for maybe 5minutes after we arrived at the party, but then I used bribery the next day to get some more photo’s…and it stayed on longer the second time around!

He’s showing you the impressive wing span!

He even kept it on to do some puzzles!

It was a nice party, and it gave me some motivation to throw our little man a party in the new year to celebrate his birthday and get his friends together.

We’ve also done quite a bit of Christmas crafting this weekend, of which I will show you in due course.  I am starting to feel decidedly festive as the weather is getting dry and crisp and cold!

We’ve got lots of fun things planned ahead for this weekend, so I shall keep you updated with our adventures!

Hope you are all getting out and about at my most favourite time of year.

Love from me and my little man x

ONE YEAR!!!!

My blog page has been going for ONE year! 

Do you remember when I set up camp here? It seems like only yesterday.

I’ve made a few things over the last year: Bibs, Bag Holders, Bunting, Memo Boards, Christmas Decorations, Willies, Wooden Signs, Grave Markers, Team Flag, Passport Holders, Kindle Covers, Pictures, Easter Decorations, Mixer Covers, Bookmarks, A Quilt, Peg Bags, Teddy Bears….

That’s quite a lot. I am pleased with my accomplishments.

Hopefully some more for this next coming year.

Thanks for sticking with me and reading my blog.

Love from me and my little man x

Wellies and Willies….

We went for a lovely walk last weekend for a bit of fresh air.  We are so lucky to live with the New Forest on our doorstep and lovely countryside just a 5minute walk from our house. 

We came across a few creatures and critters… some big and some small…

Blue skies and countryside.  I love that crispy fresh biting air, when it’s cold, but the sun shines warming you through. 

On a slightly different note, this weekend I’ve been on a hen do of one of my lovely Uni friends.  We went to Milton Keynes for an afternoon of sledging and an evening of 80s fancy dress partying!  Sledging was hilariously good fun requiring quite a lot of energy to run back up the slopes.  The little kids made it look effortless. I felt like I was a snow queen…but had more style than speed. Actually it was less style and less speed! There were a few collisions, none were life threatening thankfully!

So after an afternoon of extreme sledging, out came the heels and legwarmers, the back combing and hair spray and we were ready to Parrrrtay!  Here I am in my 80s gear.

There had to be a surprise appearance from someone else for this hen do…remember my post here…it was the tales of an adventurous lone willy crafted by yours truly.  Well, true to form, I was obliged to get crafting again…

This time I chose to crochet this Willy…tediously amusing.  Here he is…a slightly bigger, fluffier version than before…

This is when he was presented to the bride to be…he stayed cosy there all night!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a fabulously fun weekend, and I feel I need a weekend to recover!  I have one of my Uni friends left to get married next year, so I’ll have to start pondering my next version! Hmmm……

Love from me and my little man x