101 and 32

101 is the number of posts on my blog and 32 is the number of me!

Firstly to the 100th post freebie.
Once again in a non technical fashion - the draw took place this morning and the winner is Lina! Congrats Lina - egg cosy's will be on their way to Canada very soon. Lina as I already have your address, there's no need to send it again.

Now to other things. Finally I can reveal a little of my valentines swap - which will be on its way to Heleen in the Netherlands at the end of this week. I can't show you more yet because I don't want to spoil it
Lastly, today is my Birthday. I'm having a tea party (along with my nephews) I hope the cupcakes I am about to make will look like these lovely specimens from crumbs and doilies I may post a picture of them later/tomorrow if they are worth a photograph!

Have a nice day!

Eggselent!

Groan. Bad title I know.
Still, something much better is this, it's my 100th Blog post! and to celebrate I have made this egg cosy prototype (one of many more to come) to give away as a freebie. Now one egg cosy is nice but surely 4 would be better, so I have selected fabrics and felts for 4 egg cosy's and will make 4 for the freebie (they will all be different)


If you'd like to win this freebie, then please leave me a comment in this post between now and Sunday at 9am when I will draw the winner.

For Lucy Locket - Sunday is also my Birthday.

the fabric

the fabric stash has arrived (imagine drooling in a Homer Simpson style - this is me right now)I need an early night so I won't be doing anything with this today, maybe tomorrow after I have finished making pancakes - because tomorrow is pancake day (shrove tuesday). I'm not a religious person but I do like an excuse (and a day) to eat pancakes!

Note - pancake image comes from google images - my cooker top is much cleaner that this :o)

monsters in love

I've been busily sewing away on some monsters over the last day or two.
Firstly, the monsters in love - Clarice and Clement (Isosceles monsters). They come as a pair - with a felt love heart to prove that love is in the airand then Zeb, who is a Zesty little fella and one of my fave monsters I've made actually. I chose the colours for him because we were told we would get snow (it was a lie) and also I noticed the other day that the trees have started to bud too

I've had one of those weekends where I've had too many ideas for my head to cope with. I need to write everything down or I won't be able to sleep again tonight.
I've ordered a stash of new fabric which will hopefully arrive tomorrow and then I can get cracking on some of these ideas of mine (when I'm not at work of course).

I also wanted to mention a fab website I found. It's called much ado books and they make fab journals/sketchbooks out of old book covers (books that are too old to salvage)
Nice!

the birds and the apple tree

It's been a lovely sunny (if a bit chilly) day here today (where was that snow???). This meant that I could take some photos of 'the birds and the apple tree' and pop it in my shop
Proof of the sunny day meant that I was able to take one the the nicest photos ever (I think). This is Stevie in shadow on the wall:
I'm in full sewing swing and have 3 monsters on the go, so I'm off back to my desk to carry on sewing.

Happy February btw :o)

oh my goodness

tomorrow is February! How quickly did January happen? but it's not all bad because I like February as a time of year. I'm more winter than summer really, although I have to say, today it is absolutely freezing.
I drove to work in winds that made the car wobble, then I heard the rain lashing on the windows at work, and now it's just freezing cold. I heard a little rumour that we might have some snow - that would be most exciting, especially as I'm not at work tomorrow :O) Also in February it is my birthday - I'll be just a bit older and 31 and not as old as 33 (so just whisper the number that comes in between).

I wasn't really at home yesterday so couldn't take a pic of my finished fabric collage, however I cunningly instructed Mr Monda to take some pictures for me. He kindly also photoshopped off the glare from the glass too. Bonus! I'm really pleased with the finished version - I'm usually self critical but had nothing to say to myself about this, so I take that as a good sign.


For Lina, Yes I will pop this is my shop - will probably do it tomorrow afternoon as long as I can get enough light to take some good pictures of the various elements of it tomorrow.

apple tree

this evening I put the finishing touches to my fabric collage - the backing is on, and it's in a frame ready for photographing tomorrow when we have some decent light.
In the meantime, the last sneak preview before the big reveal:

shameless self promotion alert!

These 3 didn't go to the shop at work. They're on etsy now if you want to purchase...

It's all about the cards

making cards can sometimes be a bit of a chore. I find I have to be in the mood for a good card making session and today I wasn't in the mood but progressed nonetheless, as the people who requested customised cards from me are expecting them tomorrow, and valentines day will also have been and gone if i didn't at least make some valentines cards today. This is one of the reasons why it would be nice to be a designer sometimes (and not a designer maker). I like the designing bit, but it's the making bit that is so time consuming.
The light was a bit crappy so I haven't taken many pics of my efforts but I will scan a few cards this week and pop them on etsy
Whilst I was in Windsor at the weekend I specifically wanted to look in the charity shops for bargain fabric/old curtains etc which I could use in some of my projects. Windsor has plenty of charity shops, but seemingly the charity shops there are a bit supreme compared to some, and I think anything looking like a decent bargain had been well and truly snapped before I got there.

For Lucy Locket, here is a pic of my wagamama - it's not the best pic because it was taken on my phone (and it does look a bit like worms!)
This was a tasty vegetarian noodle dish (which I did eat with chopsticks) and I felt like it was as much as I could do to manage the walk back to the car after eating it all!

monkey music

we've been looking for a new stereo/hifi for a while now. We wanted one that we could plug our i-pods into as well as play CD's and listen to the radio, and finally today we found the perfect specimen so promptly purchased it.
Our backs were only turned for a second when this happened:now you can't really blame him (he's called buttons btw - a monkee maker creation) because on closer inspection he is listening to something pretty cool:
Thank goodness it's Friday today. It's been quite an exhausting week at work this week, and I'm looking forward to not having to get up early tomorrow.

I must make a start on a few things this weekend. I need to get cracking with the valentines swap, start a birthday present for my mum, finish some cards which are mid way through progress, and start a stack of new ones - valentines and birthdays and a couple of requests for personalised ones for work colleagues, and if i can fit it in, I'm also going to Windsor to see the queen to browse the shops and eat a tasty wagamama

book envy anyone?

Today, I finally received 2 books which were supposed to be christmas presents but they fell off father Christmas's sleigh. They arrived just as I was leaving for work so I stashed them away in my work bag and had a quick peek at them during my break today. I'll be engrossed in them most the evening I'm sure.

This is one of the finished cards I have been making: I still have a fair few on the go which I also wanted to finish tonight but its already late so maybe they will have to wait until tomorrow.

I also just have to mention one of the kindest and nicest blog buddies I know.
I put in an order at the weekend with paper and string for some new felt and some other bits and bobs. They arrived very promptly yesterday, in lovely packaging (as per usual), along with a surprise gift for me of a little pile of linen. It always overwhelms me when people are so generous like this, especially when they are blog buddies you've never met before. So a public mention of gratitude is fitting I think - thanks Sarah :o)

Wednesday = Torchwood. Did anyone else find Torchwood a bit too far fetched and overly indulgent last week?

Question: Why are you looking so sad?

Answer: Because everyone is leaving :o(
Here are a stack of sad 'things' I have made for cards. We have quite a lot of people leaving us at work at the moment - one of the perils of seasonal working. This is a stack of toppers (not quite finished though) for leaving cards I am making for my card shop at work (card shop sounds a bit fancy doesn't it. My card shop is a little basket on my desk!)

still a WIP

I had half a day off work yesterday with the intention of working on my latest fabric collage piece but as we all know things don't always go according to plan - I ended up reading and sleeping.

I have made a bit more progress on the fabric collage though, here are a few pics:

today is a good day

This is a rare non craft related blog post today.

Last night I had a really good sleep - well at least 6 hours which is much better than what was becoming the pattern of not dropping off the sleep until 3am and having to get up for work just a few hours later. Maybe the Nytol herbal sleeping tablets are actually working.

So, I was feeling in a pretty good mood today on arrival at work. I then had one of those days where everything goes to crap. I managed the crap, stressful as it was, and was glad when I could come home.

Before Christmas Mr Monda took redundancy from his job and has been at home since the start of January. We're not really worried about him being at home because he is a talented designer and he will be snapped up soon enough but he's in a position where he can be choosy about what he goes for next. Anyway, the thing that is nice for me is that he is actually at home when I get in from work (which never ever happened when he had a job - he often didn't get home till 7.30 most evenings). Today he was waiting with a gift for me of a pair of new shoes - which he paid for and which I had wanted for a while. Nice.Stevie promptly took up residence in the shoe box where she has been for the last few hours:they are puma shoes - and it actually looks like I have bought a baby puma

Today is also good because the long awaited new series of torchwood starts tonight.
If you miss it, you can catch it on BBCiplayer which is really fab. I love all this new technology, especially when it means you can watch television shows on your computer.

BBC have also been running a series called Elephant Diaries. It's about elephants that have been orphaned, mainly because poachers have killed their parents (for ivory). The orphaned elephants are looked after until they are old enough to be put back into the wild. It's heart wrenching and heart warming at the same time. If you missed it you can catch it again on iplayer here (each show is about 25 mins).

Now to answer a few questions from comments on my last blog post:
dottydesigns, I bought my linen on etsy from Namolio
Picciolo - thanks for de-lurking :o) As you have probably seen, a much better sleep last night, so I would recommend Nytol Herbal (I never got around to the hot chocolate as we ran out of milk!) and also a good book might help too. I'm currently enjoying this one

insomnia

as faithless once said 'I can't get no sleep' (are you singing that now too?)
I've had quite a few nights of late where I have been unable to sleep until around 3am despite desperately wanting to sleep. I'm definitely an 8 hours a night girl and I really can't seem to do this right now. I've tried listening to music, reading, listening to the dulcet tones of Paul Mckenna, sleeping in the spare room, sleeping on the sofa, rubbing badger sleep balm onto all available pulse points and countless other known remedies. Tonight I'm going to try hot chocolate and herbal remedy sleeping tablets (and a read thrown in for good measure).

I've decided not to do any sewing tonight as it seems to stimulate my brain and I go to bed with a head bursting full of ideas.
I made a start on this yesterday. I find it really hard to photograph red without it looking totally shocking so apologies for the pic. This WIP is my next mini picture: