at the printer

This last couple of weeks I've been working on some cards which I am getting professionally printed (in big quantities!). They went off to the printer today and hopefully they should arrive within the next week - very exciting. Do you want to see?
The day job is manic at the moment - some very long days being spent in the office right now. I'd much rather be out spending time in the sunshine, the green house or sewing - roll on the weekend. I'm glad the days are long though - we had an amazing sunset last night - this was taken at about 9.30:
I'm also tweeting. Much to my own disgust, I have succumbed to twitter! I like it for the fact that I can just write a few words each day when I don't have the time or energy to blog. If you want to follow me you can find me via the link in the sidebar.

I'm off to water my plants, the poor things are really parched.

weekend fun

Why do weekends just seem to zoom by? I suppose one of the benefits of this is that I do always try to make the most of the time - a nice mixture of time spent with my family and crafting and pottering in the garden was what happened this weekend.
I went to LEGOland on Saturday with my sis/bro in law and my nephews. If you've never been, it is a nice day out - especially for kids and the landscaped grounds are lovely - needless to say a nice day was had by one and all. One of the attractions I like most is miniland - lots of different countries made from lego bricks. This is London (click on pic for supersize version):Today I've been sewing up some softies, making some cards, and pottering about in the greenhouse. Today I picked a cucumber, a couple of radishes and a strawberry from the greenhouse, so me and Mr Monda shared a bizarre and rather nouvelle cuisine style lunch of a radish each mixed with some chopped cucumber followed by half a strawberry - we really know how to live in this household!
I'll leave you with a question. Pear or Kiwi? :o)

blue and green

Thanks for all the well wishing comments from my last post - I'm just feeling a little run down right now. Down but certainly not out.

I'm just popping in quickly today - I'm busy beavering away on various things at the moment as well as preparing for handm@de Winchester in a couple of weeks. Spinning many a plate seems par for the course of late.
I made this brooch when I wanted to take a break from making jumper kitties. I've been wanting to make some new brooches for a while, something a bit more summery, and less felty. I've used some fabric strips - denim from a pair of old jeans, a napkin I purchased from Laura Ashley in the sale and a couple of vintage buttons from my stash.

This is a sneak peek of another little project I'm working on:Without even realising - both my pics in this post are blue and green. How nice that I co-ordinate without even realising I'm doing it.

I seem to have lost all sense of priority with my making at the moment and I don't know why this is - perhaps I just like making things difficult for myself? Perhaps this is a mid year crisis? Perhaps I should stop procrastinating and do some making.

it's oh so quiet

So I've been a little quiet around these parts lately. A lot is occupying my thoughts and world right now but it's not really stuff I feel I have the energy to write about, partly because I'm feeling a little run down and lack lustre. It's a small miracle that this is happening at the moment:Back soon, hopefully with more oomph and pizazz.

a good cause treasury

One of my chicks has been included in an Etsy treasury with a good cause theme. A little non profit organisation called Little Hen Rescue in the UK are aiming to rehome 11,000 ex-battery hens by 29th June.
If you can't rehome a hen, you can sponsor one, knit a jacket for one of the poor birds who has lost her feather due to stress, anxiety and ill treatment as a battery bird, or you could volunteer your time to rescue hensCheck the Little Hen Rescue website for more details. Also Annette Tait sums it up quite nicely in her blog post here.
Thanks to Pey for featuring me in the treasury and for highlighting such a good cause.

writing a recipe - for a monster

It is June already. Crazy.
I have a craft fair coming up in just over a months time, and apart from papping my pants about how little I have made recently (I need to remedy this with immediate effect) I have been testing out some ideas for packaging my softies. This is one of the labels for the back of the packaging:I've also been beavering away on some more greetings cards - this time using coloured cards that come with co-ordinating spotty envelopes - very sweet. The cards have a slightly shiny surface which is a little tricky to draw on as the pen glides much more easily when drawing. I do like the effect though and have enjoyed making this last batch. They have all been photographed in readiness for the shopI'm also really enjoying my garden and greenhouse - I'm a bit surprised at myself actually about how much I am enjoying it all. The first thing I do when I get home from work is to go and have a look at what is bigger than it was yesterday. I'm pleased to report that is is all coming along nicely - the slugs have gone on a teletext holiday which is great - I wish they had taken the flies with them too however. The first thing to fruit is my strawberries and it won't be long before they are ready to eat. mmmmm strawberries.

The papered parlour

I was reading daily candy this week, and found out about a brand spanking new craft venue in London which I wanted to share - its called The Papered Parlour
This is what they say about themselves:

The Papered Parlour, a new independent craft venue for London.
Tucked down an alley in the heart of Clapham, our space is decked out as a parlour - a home from home where we run craft classes, host performances and put on exhibitions.
Inhabited by artists, designers, musicians and theatre practitioners, we also have an onsite cafe, an artist’s studio and a beautiful gallery space available for parties and hires.

and if this isn't enough to whet your appetite, just take a look at the pics of the venue and try telling me you don't love it.

all pics are courtesy of Claire at the papered parlour. Thanks Claire :o)

and there was sun sun sun

The bank holiday weekend has been spent in a way which all long weekends should - lovely long sunny days doing pleasurable things. Nothing ground breaking here (unless you can count gardening !) - the simple pleasures of time spent with family and friends, stress free pottering, barbecuing, a spot of gardening, a little bit of creativity, a cheeky shandy or two, and a general feeling of well being. nice.

I've done a spot of recycling too - this necklace got broken at the weekend - not bad thing because it was cheap and I wasn't that keen of the yellow metal used to link the beads, so I took the opportunity to make something new out of something oldAll that was required was some waxed string from the local craft shop (£1), a few buttons from my stash and a little bit of time, et voilà!
I have lots and lots of beads left over so I'm off to the garden to make a few more in different coloursI'm also loving this tune at the moment, and I like the birds in the video too

paper bunting

I've been through my paper stash and picked out lots of papers I have never used, or been able to find a good use for - you know the ones included in the paper packs you bought because you liked 1 or 2 of the papers in them, and then you end up with another 12 which you are not that keen on. I've used them in this paper bunting - and amazingly they seem to have transformed into something a whole lot prettier:This was a very lazy bunting mind you, I just used a ball of string I found in the drawer and a roll of double sided sticky tape - very blue peter-esque. The bunting is for an indoor tea party and I think it does the job quite nicely.

In other news, the slugs have been having a party of their own in my greenhouse, and have demolished my cucumber plant. I am not defeated though - I have banished all slugs, bought copper tape for my grow bags and pots, and have planted some more cucumber seeds - fingers crossed that this will do the trick.

I'm hooked!

On Friday, I went to an 'introduction to crochet' class, along with my sister at John Lewis in Kingston, which was run by a rowan consultant called Lesley. I was quite prepared to come away from this and still not know how to crochet, however I am pleased to say that after a 4 hour intense session, I can now crochet! (and so can my sis). Our hands ached at the end of the session, probably because we were not very relaxed - finding the correct positions for our hands took a while.
I'm probably getting a bit ahead of myself now by saying I can crochet, as you can see from the pic above, I can double and triple in a straight line (don't look too closely), and I can just about interpret a pattern. We were given a 10% off rowan voucher for the day, and remarkably I didn't buy any wool or cotton, however I have my eye on this book on amazon:I did however have some happy time browsing the haberdashery dept, and bought some fabrics and notions to feed my stash - mostly from the bargain bin - great :o)
I can't imagine why crocheting has eluded me for such a long time, but I'm happy to have this new skill. Ripple blanket here I come!

how does your garden grow?

The first thing I do when I get in from work is go to my little greenhouse to check on progress.
Some of the things I've planted were from seed, others were from small plants - a combination of being too late to grow from seed and too impatient. I'm pleased to see that some of the things have started to grow - with gusto! All the tomatoes are growing well, the strawberries are flowering, the peas are reaching for the sky, the radishes and rocket seeds are really sprouting up, and my flamingo tree is starting to look very pretty in pale cream, pink, and green - it's all very satisfying to seeMy 2nd birthday giveaway was drawn in a lazy fashion using a random number generator:no.5 was paper-and-string! Sarah, I'll pop the cards in to the post to you tomorrow.
This is what you'll be getting:
Thanks to everyone who left a comment - especially the delurkers.
I did manage to get a few designs into my folksy shop too, and I do mail internationally if any of you folks outside of the UK are feeling flush :o)

I am 2

it's true, doesn't time just fly - 2 whole years of my virtual life, here in blogland.
This is the first time in my life that I have actually kept any sort of diary for such a long period of time. There is much about the goings on in my life which I don't write in my blog - I think it's important to keep a little bit of yourself just for yourself. That said, there is much more I wish I had documented here - it's great to look back and see forgotten pictures, or favourite recipes, or lost memories, or to read how I may have been feeling at a particular point in my life.
Note to self: write more, and take the camera out with you more often.

May I take this opportunity to pause for a small moment and thank everyone who takes the time to pop by and leave me a comment. I've met some lovely, friendly, kind, generous, funny and inspirational people since starting my blog and long may I hope that continues.
It's been some time since I gave something back, so it seems a good time to do so. If you'd like to own a couple of my new cards (similar to those in the mosaic below) then please just leave me a comment below. I will draw the lucky recipient at random on Wednesday 13th May (probably some time in the evening)

getting my hands dirty

After a weekend spent getting my hands dirty (it took ages to get the dirt out of my nails), Monday was spent in the happy, compost free surroundings of my work room making mess of an altogether papery kind. The fruits of these labours - some more cards. I'll make a few more this week and then get them into my shops. Some are missing a theme though - should they be birthday, thanks, general greetings? What say you?

Dig in

Before going off to the garden centre today, i thought I'd at least do a bit of research on sowing and growing, and found this excellent BBC website called 'dig in'. Well, it is quite basic, but it suits me just fine - and I think the animations are fab.
I also think Sara Cox is very funny, and she makes me feel like less of a fogie for having my little greenhouse (which was erected yesterday by Mr Monda) and growing some veggies, fruits and herbs.

green fingers?

I am a very amateur gardener - fumbling my way through my garden experiences with no real idea if I do the right things. I prune stuff with gusto, pull off dead leaves, and dead head flowers, but I'm not really green fingered. I'm hoping this will magically change though when I erect my latest purchase this coming weekend:I'm not ready for a grown up's greenhouse yet, so I thought this was a good starting point. I'm scarily excited about growing some veg and herbs in here. I got it from here if you are interested.
I'm mostly wanting to grow tomatoes - a few different varieties, as they are just my favourite thing to eat. Is this normal behaviour for a 33 year old person I wonder?