WOW - How busy has November been?!?! Every day since the 8th November, I have thought I must blog about the Fireworks we went to in Lyme Regis and here we are on 27th! If you know Lyme Regis or familiar with the Film The French Lieutenant's Woman - that was famously filmed on the Cobb in Lyme Regis, you will understand what a brilliant natural backdrop the Cobb and Sea provided for the Fireworks. We stood up in the gardens over looking the beach and the Cobb beyond It was almost like a huge outdoor Theatrical Stage. As with lots of things in life, photos really don't do them justice - and I do not profess to be a 'photographer' so they are literally snaps!

If you remember at the beginning of the year I made it the Year of 'No Shop Brought Cards' see this post here and I have kept to this - well almost! So I've been thinking of what I am going to do for Christmas cards, so many ideas! And I do appreciate that I have so many craft things to choose from :-) I've decided on 2 designs, firstly to cross-stitch directly onto card - I remember at the age of about 5 I was given Card Boards with some colour shoelaces and threaded them round to make a picture - so along the same lines I found a simple stag cross stitch design and made holes into the card, then using Gutermann Top Stitch Thread (definitely 1 of my Top 5 sewing must-haves!) I then cross stitched the design :-) Then I really wanted to utilise some of my hundreds of pieces of scrap fabric I keep in a HUGE bag! And although I did - I used the most tiniest amount for each of the dancing robin cards as you can see - so not really using up much of it!!!

I've also been busy making little Christmas Reindeer Decorations to send in for my boys Christmas Shopping Day at school. The idea being that everyone donates some items, then the children buy presents for all their family on Christmas Shopping Day and the teachers help wrap them and tag them up and the money goes into the PTFA. I know that they struggle for 'Dads' presents so on a recent trip to Bridport I found some Dads Christmas socks and a few 'boys' things to send in too! I wonder if I'll get a Reindeer back! 

I am now off to get on with a Wise-Man costume for my particularly fussy 5-year old  - I had gone ahead and created and stitched a red and yellow ensemble - to be told that Yellow was 'girly' and he wanted blue! He seemed to ignore the fact that it is infact a long 'dress'. I will let the teachers reveal that to him! Off to London this weekend for my 7-year olds birthday - I'm not sure he is going to sleep for the next 2 nights! 

Christmas is coming....Yep just 10 weeks to go!

Yes, Yes, I know its only October and if there is one thing I can't stand it's when shops fill their shelves with Christmas items before I've even considered getting out my winter wollies! I kid you not; our local Tesco had its Christmas chocolate aisle set up before my boys had even gone back to school for the Autumn term - ie IT WAS STILL THE SUMMER HOLIDAYS! However since starting my business I have come to realise that Christmas in the crafting world is a bit of an all year round feast. Ordering Christmas fabric as early as March and planning items for my Christmas Shop during the Summer Holidays. I have to say it is still a bit against my traditional feelings and I missed out on some lovely Christmas basic fabric this year - as I still thought 'No-ones going to be ordering Christmas fabric in June'......but how wrong I was!

Last night my husband and I questioned how long it was till Christmas - I said - its probably about 10 weeks - to which he gasped and said 'Surely not' a quick google search 'How long till Christmas' and yep I was pretty spot on '71 days 4 hours 20 mins 12 seconds!

That said, I guess it is now not too early to start thinking and talking Christmas. I was very excited to receive this week a stunning range of Copenhagen Print Factory Christmas Fabrics - bright and fun they would be great for loads of Christmas projects - they are now sitting very nicely in my EBay shop. You can order the fabric by the Fat Quarter or Fat Eighth in either a bundle or individually: 

Also I managed to get in a last minute order for some Dashwood Studios Christmas Wish Fabric by Lizzie MacKay. I love Dashwoods ethos of using UK only designers. The range is muted tones of the colours of Christmas and the light Teal from their popular Flurry range works brilliantly with it. 

I've also started thinking about my Christmas House Decorations too - specifically for the Christmas Table - So lots of ideas are floating around in my head! I will report back on them soon.

Just before I go and to bring us back to the season we actually in - my boys and I made some Halloween Bunting over the weekend using a pack of my Halloween Felt. Scary but slightly  cute at the same time I think!!

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A Good Evenings work....

Well I had planned not to work on Friday Evening! I am, without a doubt a morning person, and would much prefer getting up with the birds and get some early morning work done - in fact I am not really sure how I came about coming up to my work-room tonight. Thankfully there was nothing urgent I needed to do. However for a little while I have known that my website needs looking at. I did start selling there as well as E-Bay at first, but have just found it too much work to keep both right up to date as I like to keep my stock fresh and keeping up with constantly changing all the shop items, as well as the different shipping methods - just was not working. 

So I have removed my Shop from my website and am for a while going to direct all my customers to my E-Bay Shop. So with the Bee in my Bonnet - off I went and made all the changes tonight! I am pretty pleased and didn't get too fustrated! I've update images and added icons and changed lots of links :-) So really now the website is really just to have a web-presence. You can head over and have a look here if you like! 

I believe I have tested all the links properly but if you notice something awry please let me know - its far too late to be working.....

Now....Strictly, X-Factor or Googlebox!?!?!?! Have a great weekend everyone :-)

Friday Afternoon Crafting...

It's been a super busy week again :-) I just about ticked everything off my to do list other than Augusts' Accounts...Woops! And when I probably should have turned the little time I had to them this afternoon, what do you think I did - a crafty little project of course! 

Using just a Fat Eight of Michael Miller - Embossed Grey Fabric and a metre of ribbon will make up 4 of these super cute hearts :-) Fabric and ribbon can be found over at my E-Bay Shop

Now....Accounts or a cheeky glass of Vino?!?!?!?

A helping hand :-)

I was delighted to see that some extra staff had popped in to help me this morning!

Though I am unsure this motley Lego crew would be very much help! I even found them in the midst of new projects I had set up to photograph for a crafty pack I am working on for Christmas! 

Summers Out....Autumns in!

I hope you all had a good Summer :-) It went 'super-fast' as my 5 year old would say! It was definitely that 'back to school feeling' on Sunday night just gone - but actually in a good way - the boys were looking forward to catching up with their friends (less-so about the work I think!) And it meant I could spend a full week catching up on business things that tend to take a back-seat during the holidays. Things such as stock checking, research, product ideas, accounts (groan!) and of course some well-overdue crafting! My Shop is now stocked with a huge range of Tilda Fabrics and Notions and I have been desperate to get my hands on some it!

I've been watching the squirrels leaping precariously through the trees from my work-room window this week so whilst flicking through my Tilda Books, I knew as soon as I saw him what I wanted to make!

I used a Fat Quarter of Plain Tilda Dolls Fabric Beige, A Fat Eighth of Tilda Kitchen Stripe Pink for the tummy and a Fat Eighth of Martine Warm Grey for his ruffle. You can view my whole Tilda Range here.

Since I last blogged I have also added a full range of Wool Mix Felt to my Shop - a massive 72 colours to choose from and lots of great colour packs to inspire you too, I hope. You can visit my Felt Page on my shop by clicking the below picture:

I will leave you with a Pinterest board I have created with an Autumnal Flavour :-) I am however pleased that the South-West weather is far from Autumnal - long may it continue.

 http://www.pinterest.com/snowflakes2014/autumn-craft-ideas/

Which way will I go today?

I am so lucky where we live to have a whole maze of public footpaths throughout the countryside right on my doorstep. I can literally do different walks everyday, even if I change them just a little bit - or want to avoid a muddly puddle here and there! I love this earlier Summer-time with all the crops looking lush in the fields and the hedgerows full of wild flowers. I've also taken to plotting them on mapmywalk.com - which I do like, only I wish they provided a slightly better scale of map. Anyway a few very quick snaps from my morning walk today.

I have lots of exciting things going on with my little business at the moment and promise to blog about them soon (and I haven't forgotten to show you the project I mentioned a few blogs ago either!)