How much mess can one crafter make?

In my case, an awful lot! When I was making the two pillows and the tags, I must have turned my craft room upside down somehow. I can't believe the state it is in. Especially my lace boxes. For the pillows, I needed to find exactly the right lace of course, and I searched through the drawers and boxes for hours. I love fondling my antique and vintage laces. I love studying all their intricate details, and I get so terribly carried away. Hours pass and then I find myself surrounded by piles of possibles, piles of oh so delicious but not suitable lace, and big tangles of the prettiest pieces. How did that happen?

When I tried to look for a few little pieces yesterday for another project, I realised that I needed to do something to get those lacy tangles sorted. Lightbulb moment! What about all those dolly pegs I bought ages ago for a specific project which now I can't even remember? They looked very new though, so I soaked them in coffee for a goodly while. Much better. I have only done a fraction of the laces, but it is a good start I think -



I'll have to go shopping tomorrow for a few more. The amount I would need to do all the laces, well, lets just say I'd need a rather large shopping trolley.

However, I get bored with too much of the same thing. So this is what happened next. My darling No. 3 son wanted to know what I would like for Mothering Sunday, and we wombled off into town yesterday afternoon. I knew I wanted something crafty, which he thought was rather silly, but he ended up buying me a much wanted precision craft knife ( notice the pretty pink handle! ) and a corner punch which I had coveted for a long time. Woohoo!


He wouldn't let me have them until today, and some of you will know that I am not the most patient person in the world, but this was worth waiting for. Because I had already thought of a jolly good use for the corner punch. I could use it to pretty up some plain tags and use those for winding the wider laces onto!

And thats what I did earlier today, with a big grin on my face. I have only done a few so far, but the France/Italy rugby match is sooooooooooo exciting, I have to watch, can't prettify. Here are the few I have done so far -


It really doesn't take very long to make the tags look pretty. Punch out the corner, age the tags with a couple of brown inks, add a teeny scrap of old paper, and thats it really, get winding!

TODAY IS THE LAST DAY FOR ENTERING THE GIVEAWAY. I'LL BE CLOSING IT TONIGHT AT 10PM AND DRAW THE WINNER TOMORROW MORNING. A HUGE THANK YOU TO ALL WHO HAVE ENTERED SO FAR AND GOOD LUCK!

I finished it!

I know, I was supposed to have finished it days ago, but life gets in the way of things occasionally. Quite often, actually. Like sudden lightbulb moments when some other crafty stuff just has to be done right away, or the many wonderful blogs one just has to read, people one just has to chat with on msn, and especially doggie love. Poppy is feeling sorry for herself and needs mega cuddles.

You remember this post, when I just couldn't decide which lavender pillow to make? And in the end I decided to make both, with a few adjustments after the helpful comments I received. I made the second design first and showed it here.

And I have finally finished the second one. I changed thing around a little bit, hopefully for the better, but kept it all nice and symmetrical. That does please my pair-loving heart, lol. Now I just have to decide which one I am going to keep and which one I am going to send to my mum.


I am so glad I got both finished now, I can put my sewing machine away again for a bit, and carry on with my lovely Manos del Uruguay wrap, which has been sadly neglected the last couple of weeks.

THE 100TH FOLLOWER GIVEAWAY IS STILL OPEN UNTIL SUNDAY EVENING. DON'T FORGET TO ENTER!

Could this be Spring?

The last few days we have been blessed with lovely sunshine, blue skies with a few fluffy clouds and the first hints of Spring. It is still really cold, but I don't mind that at all, I can wrap up warm. But it has been so much more fun going out for walks with Hector. Poor Poppiegirl is still not allowed to run off the lead, and Hector is such a tease when we take them out together. So with a heavy heart we have decided to leave her at home when we walk in the Firehills. She is having her stitches taken out on Friday, so hopefully by the weekend she will be allowed to run again.

Hector just loves his walks and he is such a very well behaved boy these days, even the hundreds and hundreds of sheep in the fields don't wind him up too much, he goes to the fence and looks at them but thats all, no barking or chasing, phew.

I'll just show you a few pics of Monday's walk -


The bluebells are finally pushing through -

The gorse bushes, with which the Firehills are covered for miles, are starting show off their bright yellow flowers -

Tiny little buds are appearing -


Big, fat, woolly sheep -

Nothing much is happening in the garden yet, but I did find a couple of very brave little plants -


And now I am off to finally finish the second lavender cushion. Boy, I don't know where the hours and days disappear to.

Catch up with you all later, xx

I do like the postman

Well, perhaps not the postman himself, but the lovely things he brings me. I have been so very lucky lately. Remember the two lovely giveaways I won recently? There was that incredibly detailed collage from the vivacious titbelsoeur, which you can see here. And then the wonderful tags and the kit from Dianne Knott, which you can admire on my post here. And today another package arrived for me. I had won another giveaway from the very generous Carol from the Queenbeealteredneeds blog. I was totally intrigued by her giveaway, because I had never even heard of tintypes before. I won these amazing tiny little photographs on tin, and three teeny weeny little watchmaker's bottles. One of them still has a tiny little part in it.

Just look at these tiny little treasures -


I forgot to take a picture of them with something to compare these tiny things to, so that you could get an idea of their actual size. So I have borrowed the photo from Carol's blog -


I want to use these for something special for the cottage in France, no idea yet what. Or rather, too many ideas, lol. I just haven't decided on one thing yet.

I was going to write about our lovely walk in the Firehills as well, but I am yawning my head off and I think I'll have an early night tonight. I'll post the pics from the Firehills tomorrow.

QUICK REMINDER, DON'T FORGET TO ENTER THE LALALAND GIVEAWAY! CLOSING ON SUNDAY!


xx

A little bit of crafting on a Sunday afternoon

I hope you are having as beautiful a day as we are having here in Sussex. The sky is the most amazing blue, the sun feels quite warm on the skin, and people are smiling! We wombled around a boot fair first thing this morning, and even though it was still mightily cold, people were happy and chatty, what a wonderful change!

I got itchy fingers this afternoon though, I wanted to make a few more tags. I had such fun! DH and DS No.3 had taken the dogs out for a walk in the Firehills ( 20 mins ) and their usual Sunday cheesy chips lunch in the pub ( at least an hour, lol, more often 2 ), so it was lovely and peaceful.

Here they are -





I was also hoping to finally get started on the second lavender pillow, you know the one with my mum's photograph on the red stripe French ticking background. But as son No. 2 and family are coming over a bit later, thats not going to happen today. Ah well, tomorrow is another day, and these things shouldn't be rushed anyway. Darn, for some reason a German saying just popped into my mind, something my grandmother always said to me -

Morgen, morgen, nur nicht heute
Sagen alle faulen Leute

which mean something like
tomorrow, tommorrow, just not today
is what all lazy people say.

My grandmother is obviously still looking down on me and telling me off, lol.

Well, I had better get on with things then, hadn't I? Signing off on this gorgeous day with Spring hugs and kisses all round,

Lizxxx

I can breathe again, and a big thank you to a lovely person

The last few days have been very stressful. My oldest son is buying his first property, a 2bedroom flat. He is in a short chain, being a first time buyer, and his vendor is buying an empty property. All sounds rather good, yes? Thats until the ridiculous English property buying laws kick in. You can make an offer, the offer gets accepted, you can spend thousands on solicitors' fees, search fees, mortgage offer fees etc, but it doesn't commit people to anything at all. On Wednesday late afternoon, my son's vendor was told that if she didn't exchange contracts with her vendor by today 4pm, they would pull out as they had a higher offer from a cash buyer. My son's vendor would have lost her new flat and we both would have lost a heck of a lot of money in fees, if that had happened. So our solicitors and my son's vendor's solicitors were madly trying to get everything sorted within a day and a half. I guess the other people, the vendor's vendor, were banking on the fact that it was a ridiculously short deadline, and that we couldn't do it. I don't swear often in public, but such rotten behaviour, sheer greed and total lack of any regard for other people makes me very very angry. They are scum in my eyes ( they are solicitors themselves, btw, ) and I so wish I knew who they were, I'd tell them to their face what I think of them. The lady my son is buying his flat from is such a dear thing, in her 60s with a 92 year old mum whom she looks after, and those moneygrabbing sods were going to do that to her. But, we did it, our solicitors managed to get hold of everything they needed with couriers etc involved, and contracts were finally exchanged at 3pm this afternoon. I CAN BREATHE AGAIN!!! Rant over, lol. I am just so relieved that it is all going ahead now. Completion ( handing over of the money/keys ) is on the 19th March, my birthday!!! Can't be bad, lol.

And now for something completely different. I have been very lucky lately to win two fabulous giveaways . One I have already shown you in a previous post. And the second one I am about to show you now. A couple of days ago, my very eagerly awaited package from the incredibly talented Diane Knott arrived. She designs the most fabulous fabrics, which are sold all over the world. But thats not all by a long shot, she is the one who inspired me the most to try my hand at making tags. Hers are absolutely gorgeous, just go and check them out on her blog here. I'll betcha, you will be reading her blog for hours.

And what did I find in the package? THREE of her tags, I was so thrilled. You should have seen the grin on my face. If only I could make tags like that, sigh. Have a look at my three little treasures, aren't they just fantastic?

I want them on display all the time, so I am going to use one of the wooden plaques, which I found at the church jumble sale not long ago, to hang them on. After I have prettified the plaque, of course.

She also send me a very special "Tag-Velopes" Kit, so that I could make my own. She included so many wonderful bits and pieces, and I am going to have so much fun with those -


Thank you so much, Diane, it was such a lovely surprise.

I haven't done any crafting the last couple days, Poppie's op, son's property buying, it all got in the way of being creative. But now that I can breathe again, I'll do better!

Toodles! xxx

I'll have to disappoint you........ but I do have a surprise!

I didn't manage to make the second pillow today! Our darling Poppie girl had to go in for her operation today, you know, THAT operation, and I was way too nervous to do any decent sewing. We took Hector out to the Firehills twice for long walks just to keep ourselves occupied and from worrying too much. We were told to phone at 1pm to find out about the op, and were really relieved to learn that everything went really well and that she was being a really good girl. We were allowed to take her home at 3.30 and I am so glad to have her back with us. I know its not a huge operation, but you just never know. I'd probably worry about a broken nail, lol. So, the second pillow will have to wait til tomorrow.

BUT.................. its not all disappointing news, because I did say that I had a little surprise for you today, and of course, thats one thing I can't keep from you. I know I'd go nuts if I was waiting to hear about an exciting little surprise and then didn't find out about it for ages. So, here is the story -

A few days ago, I logged on to blogger first thing in the morning and was totally amazed to see that there were 100 followers! ONE HUNDRED! Now for me that was a giant milestone. When I started this blog last year, errmm, in May I think, it was just meant as a joke, because my dear friends JJ and Joy and myself were calling ourselves Lalalanders United, as the three of us were seemingly permanent residents in lalaland, lol. I had soooooooooooo much with the blog though, and somehow it grew, and people kept reading it and beautiful friendships were formed. It has become part of my daily life somehow, to catch up with friends all over the world, to share news and projects, to get inspiration from so many talented people out there.

I was really excited about the 100 followers, and wanted to do something to celebrate straight away, but I couldn't quite believe that the magical number would actually stay that high. After all, people come and go. So I waited, and instead of the numbers going down again, they went up, and now I feel almost safe to have a

100th FOLLOWER GIVEAWAY!! Woohooo, yay, hurrah, yippeeeeee!

Now, what am I going to give away to one of you? Well, it seems that people quite like the idea of the lavender pillows I am currently making. How about one of those as a gift? You could email me a photo of someone/something you would like on the pillow, I'd print it onto fabric and make something similar to this


with it. Just for you. It will probably be a similar to this one as well, approx 25cm square-ish.

I also want to include a few other bits and pieces.What? Well, that depends on who wins, because I really want to the winner to be happy. So, if you are into paper collages, I'll include paper bits, ephemera, photos etc. If you like laces and buttons, well, there may be a little lace bundle and a bag of buttons waiting to find a new home. Embroidery? Threads and patterns, perhaps? Vintage fabrics? A little stack could be yours. Is beading/jewellery making your thing? I may have, ahem, a few beads, which I would love to share with you. The winner can tell me what makes their heart beat faster, and I'll try my best to get it right.

If you would like to be in with a chance to win this giveaway, then

LEAVE A COMMENT ON THIS POST

If you feel like spreading the word, then you could copy the giveaway button in my sidebar and put it on your blog. Of course, you get a SECOND ENTRY for doing that. Just leave me a second comment telling me that you have done so.

I'll leave this giveaway open until Sunday the 14th, and will announce the winner on the 15th.

Well, that all folks, I gotta go and cuddle my Poppiegirl, she needs lots of love at the moment.

xxx

What would I do without you?

You have been great, I was so pleased that so many of you took the trouble to help me with my dilemma. There were some excellent suggestions how to improve it as well, thank you so much for those. Well, so whats the outcome of it all? Which one did I decide on? Lolol, after all that, I decided to make both!!! One for my mummy and one for myself, and my mum can chose which one she would like. There were just as many people for the first one as for the second one, so it seemed the only sensible thing to do.

It was yet another beautiful day today, so my DH and I had a lovely womble through Hastings Old Town for a few hours. But I was determined to get one of the lavender pillows finished today. After all, I couldn't keep you in suspense any longer now, could I? Not after all your help. I chose to do the second design first, not because I prefer that one, but because it was still all laid out on the table, lol.

I should know better than to take photos in the evenings, sigh. Flash washes out the lace completely, and normal light bulbs make it all look orangy, like in the first photo. The others I took under a daylight lamp, which I use for cross stitch and crocheting etc.

Here it is then, a couple of firsts, lol, first printing on fabric, first fabric collage -





The weather forecast is not brilliant for tomorrow, so perhaps I'll give myself a kick up the butt and make the second one. Fingers crossed!

Oh, and I should have something to tell you all tomorrow as well, could even be a little bit exciting...........

xxx