Cath Kidston

I just want to share what I got in the post this morning. SEW by Cath Kidston, the book has over 40 projects with patterns, templates,instructions and a free gift. A shoulder bag kit, my friend Tracy has one and we going to sew our projects together at some point. The book is available at www.amazon.co. uk and cost £6.99, that is a bargain as it costs alot more in the shops.

I am looking forward to doing some of the projects for Christmas Gifts and for my self.

I have more projects on the go than I know what to do with. Some paper crafts, scrap-booking,cross stitch and quilting.

Craft Room

I was just blog hopping today and found this site,http://paisleypassions.blogspot.com/2011/03/craft-room.html

You should see her craft room. Apparently is was untidy so there are photos of that, then there are photos of the room all cleaned up, and ohhhhhhh and ahhhh, the room is a crafters delight.

My craft supplies are all over the place, it gets to be a pain to keep unpacking and putting away all the time. O well one day I hope to have a craft room.

Leaders Weekend Away

On the right hand of the photo is where our bedroom was, which a partly converted out building linked to the main house.

A lot of us had birthdays recently there was chocolate birthday cake for tea on Friday night.

Leaders Weekend Away

At the weekend my husband and I went away to a leaders retreat with out church. We stayed in a lovely place called the Mill House in Norfolk somewhere. We went Friday to Sunday morning,the picture below is our bedroom,There were lots of rooms in this place, which was great as there were 12 of us all together.

Below is some of the grounds with geese and swans.

Here is a few of the mill, it is not longer used, the owner is in his 80s and no longer able to do the up keep of the mill. The whiter part of the picture is a newer house where I believe the owner lives.

Another view of the mill.

This is the old house, it is long rather than wide. The owner was born in this house, inside there are photos of him as young lad, and other family members in the hay day of this mill.

Gifts for Christmas/ Market Bags

Remember my last post, the one with the Christmas Bag. Wellllllllllllll I have made 2 more. I had this floral fabric upstairs and I bought some lining fabric to match. This time I strengthened the bottom of the bag with some iron on facing.

The second bag I decided to make an embellishment, a yo yo ring from the lining fabric, and I covered an old button with the floral fabric.

Doing some sewing has got me looking for a new sewing machine as mine is old and cranky, a little like me at times. I have been looking for patterns for the next challenge. I have found some free ones on the web, just gotta pick one. See you later folks

New challenge out at Christmas Sewing, you can find the link on my side bar. I will looking in my books and magazine's for something to sew on a cushion. See you all later.

Market Bag

Here is a bag that I made today, it is part of a challenge that I found over at http://nothinsayslovin.blogspot.com/ . The challenge is to make something for Christmas, here is the link http://sewnwithgrace.blogspot.com/. The challenge is on the 3rd Monday of each month, I believe the next one is this Monday. There are no instructions on how to make the bag, you have to google market bag patterns.

So here is my first try. I had this Christmas fabric in my box of fabrics, and I just about had enough to make one. The instructions I found requires 1 yard of print and 1 yard of plain fabric, with that you can make 2 bags. I have some more fabric but just need to buy some liner to match.
This fabric was great as it did not have a right way design and it had a patchwork feel to it.
The bottom is not reinforced but the instructions said you could use interfacing to strengthen it.

As I was pleased of how the bag turned out I will have to make some more.

Chantelle

Joan's cousin

Joan

There was one from Angela, but for some reason the picture did not show up on my camera.

Next month Chantelle will be showing us how to do a scrapbook using toilet rolls tubes.

Notice Board

In our craft group we were taught by Joan to make this notice board. It was fairly easy, this would make a nice gift for someone. Mine did get to be someone's birthday gift.

Supplies used;

Hard board, pattern paper, card stock,cork tile, notepad, pen, sticky notes, drawing pins and a calender. We had our own choice of embellishments.

Eunice

Maria

Tracy

More pics to follow.

Cupcake

Well it was one of my sons birthday, so for a cake I got the giant cupcake from JML at Asda. I tried one of the recipes from the book, the cake itself was not great, so we only ate half of it. Well it was the first time I used it.

Inside you can mould it so that you can fill it with a filling. We chose chocolate.

Outside was sprinkled with sprinkles. As you can see the size of the standard cupcake case to the giant cake.

Diamond Folds Cards

I got the idea for these cards from one of the card makeing magazines. The two smaller ones are from the mag. and the larger one is an experiment that I did. I taght the girls at Crafty Women how to make these, the ladies did there own embellishment, they all looked good. February is a busy month for birthdays for me, there is also a baby on the way in church. I think I have another 2 or 3 cards to make, doing the male cards for me is difficult.

Tomorrow is crafting in Brandon, we shan't be doing any projects just our own thing. I hope to get some much needed scrapbook pages done.

Random pictures of December

Well unfortunately we did not get the camera out for Christmas, we were having such a good time that we forgot, so I have put a few up to view.

Here is a picture I took testing out my new camera, it was taken when we got the first freeze.

One of my sons wanted to get our dog Lily under the Christmas tree, wished we thought to dress her up in her Christmas outfit, will have to wait until next year.
My disaster wreath, it was meant to hang outside but fell and broke, so I brought it inside, then a maggot popped out so it went in the bin, next Christmas I hope to do a better job.

I like to wish everyone a Happy New Year, and thank you for following by blog.

Getting ready for Christmas

Here is my Husband Julio checking the first tree he saw, " that looks good", so we purchased the first tree we came upon, I think Julio was too cold to look around, now if the boy's were with us it would have been a full investigation for the right tree, we opted for a smaller tree this year we like to get the Norwegian spruce as it has long needles that don't stick you when you decorate. We usually go for a 6ft but we was not sure if a 6ft would fit in the car. Maybe next year boy's.

Here is our tree going through the netting funnel, we like to buy our tree from Elveden, nice and fresh, there are little shops for gifts and a food hall for local produce, I got me some chutney for the cold meats.

So here is our tree resting before decorating, Julio trimmed the trunk like you do for flowers, we let it rest for 2 days that way the branches could settle down. We had to put the tree on a platform as it was a bit short.

Here is this years new decoration, I like the little Nativity on the C, at the top of each letter sits a tea light candle. We also bought some new candle holders and the Yankee Candle Home Jar.

There ya go all done up and lighted with my Thomas Kinkade village underneath, still looking for a train to go around the tree, but not TK one. We did not put all our ornaments on just some of the nicer ones.

I think I should have took a close up of some of the ornaments. Maybe on the next post. See you all later.

CD Calender

This is for my friend Debbie, you will have to google to find a supplier in the States, or ask local craft store, they are clear cases but not the ones you use for your music, some business use them for advertisements on tables. You have to work out the measurements as different suppliers have different sizes. These can be used for all occasions when you want a mini book.

Wedding

Dawn does not care for the traditional cake so it cupcakes with one small tradition cake.

This is Dawn and Richmond with their four dogs, one of the dogs is white.

After the meal was really good, we made the trip back home it only took us 2 hours and ten minutes. The wedding was held at a hotel in nice surroundings, some of the guest stayed there over night or nearby hotels.

My Little Sister got Married

So after going to the Christmas market on Friday we then had to head out early on saturday towards Nottingham for my sister wedding, here she is with her husband Richmond, Best Man and my oldest niece Katy.

All three sister together as you can see we had a very cold winter wedding but it looked fantastic.

Here is Julio and I before the wedding started.

Julio and Reuben

Myself and Reuben

Christmas Market in Bury St Edmunds

The day after Thanksgiving we spent the day with Alex ( Bible student) and the Vigori's, we all headed into town for the annual Christmas market that has been running for 7 yrs now. We bought a few present and sampled some of the food on offer, for the first time I had mulled wine and roast chestnuts, not to be repeated, the best was funnel cake that you can get in the USA. In the evening it was back to my place for hot soup, hot chocolate and leftover turkey.

In this picture is me, and Reese.

Reese buying a silver bracelet for herself.

All the traders had to dress up in Victorian costume, which really added to the atmosphere.

Alex, bible student from Uganda, this was Alex last weekend with us before flying back home as he had been here for a year, so he got to celebrate last Christmas with us, and the rest of the yearly celebrations through the year, he is very much missed by all.

Another trader, this year we had wooden huts set up in the new shopping centre.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2010, here we are at the Vigori's house, the house was packed, and the feast was huge, we all had a good time, the bible students joined us also.

We formed a long line to the kitchen, and there was enough for leftovers the next day. yum