Crochet crochet crochet!

Hi all, it seems I have a bug......a crochet bug lol!  I can't stop! I have completed squares, a baby hat, a tiara and I'm now making some granny squares for a table runner.  I love the lacy look the versatility and the speed of which something can be made.  Knitting is lovely and you can make some gorgeous items but it seems to take forever to me.  I will continue to knit inbetween crochet projects though so don't worry I haven't given up on it altogether!  I will post some photos of my completed makes soon.

On a different subject I am getting into the swing of making stock for my Farm House Designs business.  I'm hoping to be ready to do craft stalls from September onwards.  I have at least 2 big events planned for next year - details to follow when everything has been finaslised :-)

Quinn seems to have a wheat sensitivity so I am trying my best to substitute things in his diet so he can still enjoy eating with us without the horrible fall-out in his nappy.  I have made some nice wheat and gluten free bread and today with the children's help some wheat-free brownies and cookies will be produced!  I'm also going to make some pastry and make a pumpkin pie!  Lots of yummies!!!

I hear thunder and I have washing on the line so will go before the storm hits and I have to rescue it all in the pouring rain.
Bye for now!

Have you missed me?

Hi everyone!!!  Sorry I've been absent from blogging for a while but I have been going through some not very nice personal stuff which included both my husband and I losing our jobs, battling severe depression (from before the job loss).
On the positive side I am trying to start my own business from hope selling handmade cards and invitations (made to order mostly) and hair accessories :-) It is called Farm House Designs and at the moment I only have a facebook page www.facebook.com/fhdesigns2013 which shows some of my work so far.  I am busy trying to build up my stock of ribbons as well as my stock of alligator clip bows, snap clip bows, bobbles/pony holders, hairbands etc.  Constantly learning new techniques and developing new ideas too.  Would like to have a lot more products eventually but right now I cannot afford a huge outlay to get ALL of the bits I need!  I would like to make dummy/pacifier clips, toy/drink cup leashes, bag charms......  I have a very LONG list lol!!!

Father's Day!
So it was Father's Day last Sunday.  I hope everyone had a lovely day.  Dave had a bacon and cheese sandwich in bed with a coffee.  The children got him a hamper/basket of american candy which included his favourite - Runts!!!  The hamper came from Lisa's Sweets Galore www.facebook.com/lisas.galore  this lovely lady sells all sorts of sweets and arranges them in lovely baskets, glasses and sweet trees too!!  Party bags are not a problem and favours for weddings etc.  Her trees are a great idea for table centrepieces at parties or receptions!  This is the one we got for Dave:

It has Runts, lemonheads, nerds, laffy taffy among others!

We also got a bit creative and I have to admit that I saw this idea on another blog - http://www.sugarbeecrafts.com/2010/06/fathers-day-shirt.html  Sugar Bee Crafts is a lovely lady with amazing ideas!!!  She embroidered the logo on the front but as I can't do that I just used fabric paint for all of it!  I have to admit I was worried that the writing would look awful but I don't think I did too bad a job.  What do you think?

Not too shabby eh?  For a first go at it anyway :-)

He loved it needless to say so the effort was at least appreciated.  Had the parents over for lunch then a quiet evening.  All over for another year!

I will try to update on my crafting journey - i have knitting and crochet to share with you all too!  Too much to talk about in one blog!

Signing off for tonight

Claire
xxx

I have re-discovered my love of cardmaking!

I have loved spending time with my 3 children over the Easter Holidays - even if they have driven me slightly more crazy and added a few more grey hairs!  But the best thing about this last fortnight has been my friend.  Not only has she been her usual great self, but she has given me my confidence in my cardmaking skills back and my mojo has returned!  It has been lost somewhere for the last 3 and a half or so years and I'm happy to say that my kitchen table is covered with most of my stash.  I have a very large table and 2/3 of it iss covered! I have re-discovered things that I didn't know I had which is great as it's like the thrill of going shopping for more stuff but without spending money lol!  I have churned out a few cards (one of which has been posted before I took a photo :-( ) which has suprised me and delighted my husband.  He has been trying to suggest to me over the last few months that maybe I should start up again, but I just haven't had any enthusiasm to do it.  Probably down to my depression.   So if you are reading this:

THANK YOU J!!!!

You have helped me more than you know.  Love you loads xxx

And now to the gallery of my (latest) cards:

Badger decoupage

Pyramage

collection

Born to shop die-cut sticker

Foiled/Dufex decoupage

Foiled/Dufex decoupage

Twisted Pyramage

Twisted Pyramage card standing up

Decoupage wine bottle etc

Pyramage (don't know why it uploaded this way!)

   I have also made quite a few toppers for cards over the last 2 weeks, and a congratulations card for my cousin on the birth of her baby boy on Friday early morning. I forgot to take a photo before I posted it unfortunately, but I was very proud of it! I am currently working on some waterfall cards and hoping to get some of my better cards (not all of my cards are pictured here!) into a shop for sale.  Here's hoping!  I also made my own wedding and evening invitations and save the date cards last year.  There are some photos of these in the wedding photo folder on my facebook profile, I'll try to remember to blog about them sometime.....

Anyway, hope these have been interesting to you and if you want to leave any comments, please do so.  Constructive criticism is welcome but nasty comments are not!

Thanks for reading!

Claire

x

T-Shirt art!

I saw a pin on Pinterest a couple of weeks ago about how someone had used sports shirts/jerseys and covered canvas frames with them to decorate a wall in her son's room.  It'll be on one of my boards somewhere I forget probably great ideas one - Anyhoo there is a t-shirt of Zacks that I just couldn't bear to get rid of that he got when we went to Disneyland Paris in 2007 and one of Anya's that she loves that doesn't fit her anymore either with Rapunzel from the Disney film Tangled on it.  I've been wanting to do something with them for ages and I had an AHA! moment when in The Works shop the other weekend.  Bought a pack of 4 of these canvas frames for £3.99 I think and was determined to try and do as this other mum had.  We already had a staple gun and some staples hidden away in one of the sheds (I sent Dave on a mission) so I was all set.  Well what with all of the illness last week I didn't get chance to do it but 2 nights ago I FINALLY sat down with everything and had a go. 
THE KIDS LOVE THEM!!!!!  They and Dave were a bit skeptical to begin with but when they were finished agreed that it was a great idea.

close-up

she wanted to cover her face!

can't believe he fitted into that t-shirt once!

So the photos above show what I did.  I know there's a big space at the bottom of Zack's one but that's because the motif was at the top of the t-shirt nearer to the neck-line.  Rapunzel covered the whole t-shirt so looks much better.  At least they get to keep them now and they will be on the wall and out of the way!

What a half term!!!

I hate this but I've got to do it:
O - M - G!!!!
Was that half term?  What happened? Where'd it go? Who stole it from me?  I'll tell you WHAT stole it from this family and that was a nasty sickness bug.  Saturday and Sunday nice start to the week but then came Monday......Dave in and out of the bathroom ALL DAY!  Quinn seems to be off colour and off food with not very nice nappies but otherwise ok.  Then Tuesday comes along and Dave feels crappy but not actually sick or anything, baby Q still off food a bit and nappies were horrible, I was a little off colour and a few more trips to the toilet that I would've liked but not sick.  Anya and Zack perfectly fine so far......
Uh oh!  Hear Anya crying at about 4am Wednesday, Dave goes to investigate as I think she has just wet the bed (only her 5th dry night so expecting some accidents) and I hear him react in the wrong way to a wet bed....not angry or anything just a lot more concern in his voice (can't hear exactly what is being said, just the tone) so I get up to investigate too and was faced with a little girl insisting that it was "just an accident" covered head to toe in puke and all over her bed too bless her!  I'm not great with vomit but I jump in to help, taking Anya to the bathroom to bathe her and wash her hair etc while Dave strips the bed, assesses the cuddlies for splatter and takes all downstairs to wash.  Little Q woke up a bit with all the commotion (A was whimpering a bit as I washed and dried her) but settled again ok and Z was dead to the world as usual.  Clean bed, clean Anya job done.
Working Wednesday so knackered when we get up, get kiddies sorted and on the road.  Zack then says he's not feeling well.  Here we go, I thought but all he had all day was eggy burps!  We're supposed to be having the step-kids tomorrow and I begin to panic!  We can't let them down again, in the past SOMETHING has always happened to stop us having them over.  We decide to go ahead unless we are up to our knees in vomit, or something close. 
So Mel brings the children over Thursday pm as discussed and they settle down.  Dave gets the beds sorted, we have tea, all 5 (Q being too young) watch a DVD then bed.  All going very well.....
Friday goes well, shopping, cooking, computers, TV etc.  Take-away Pizza for tea with ice-cream then popcorn and movie night - heaven for them!  Anya and Jack go to bed and the oldest 3 pick another movie to settle and watch.  they go up and all is great until......
Jack pukes all over himself and the sleepingbag and air-bed!!  ANOTHER bath and bed change (complete bed in this case!) and the poor little thing had to sleep downstairs as when he moved he puked!
Jack not well all day saturday, Mum and Dad visited, cakes baked in afternoon, THEN Rose gets sick after tea with Holly shortly after!  Worried now as Holly is diabetic - I mean SERIOUSLY diabetic with a pump etc - so needed to make sure all was ok.  Rose was being a trooper taking care of herself mostly bless her and sleeping on the sofa (where she was when she first fell ill), Holly had Anya's room to herself because as soon as she was ill we took Anya to our room.  What a night!
So long story short: the only people who weren't vomiting in our house last week was Zack and me!  So glad I have my Scentsy warmers to take away the smells :-)  FML!  Please can I have a better easter break?

I actually have a blister!

A blister on my hand from overuse of scissors!  They have comfy rubber-type handles too and are very sharp so aren't difficult to use.  Will have to give it a rest for now, let my hand heal a bit before cutting more material up.
My lovely friend brought up a bagful of goodies for me this weekend.  There's a couple of shirts that I can make dresses for Anya from, some jeans that I can use to make a rug/mat for the entranceway as it will be hard-wearing and some other bits that I can incorporate into other projects.  There was also a little bag hidden amongst this bounty and when Anya and I opened it the squeals of delight could be heard in Downham I'm sure!  Ribbons!!!  Lots and lots of loverly ribbons!!!!!  Shiny and glittery and all sorts of colours and lengths - I am so going to enjoy finding uses for them!  Anya immediately put some round her head and in her hair!  So thank you Jo, you really made our day and as promised I will keep you posted on the progress of any project I use the items in.  I am slowly gathering the bits and pieces that I need.  I need to get some trim for the top and bottoms of the shirt/dresses and some edging and elastic for the shoulder straps.  I think that's it.  Then got to spend some time cutting the shirts up (I'll probably tackle both at the same time) and reassembling them, measuring the squirming 3 year old, trying to get time to sew it all back together without going wrong!!!  It'll be a challenge but I WILL get them done though maybe not for a few weeks yet. 
Got a busy few weeks coming up.  Zack's birthday in 2 1/2 weeks and party too.  Got his birthday cake and some smaller cakes to make and ice for that not to mention the party food and party bags!  The there's his present which I haven't even thought about yet! 
I'm hoping to make a Lego figure head for his main cake and some smaller cakes in the shape of little bricks.  NO CUPCAKES!!! Not for a lego party.  Love cupcakes but I don't think they'll fit in very well.....
It hasn't been very nice at home today as Dave has had a nasty bug so has spent his time either sleeping or in the bathroom!!!  Quinn has had a bit of a bug too as he's had diarrhoea today and been off his food a bit for the past couple of days. Anya has been her usual energetic self so been trying to keep her entertained as well as look after Dave and Quinn.  Zachary has been out on his bicycle most of the day in the nice weather so out of the way of all the germs!  Not pleasant but comes with the territory.
Oh well I hope they're better tomorrow and none of the rest of us come down with it.  Dave wants to go to Barry L Hawkins auction viewing tomorrow afternoon but if he's anything like he is today, he won't make it out the front door!

Ouch!

My right hand is sore from cutting material up :-(  Right at the base of my thumb.  And I have a LOT more to do!  It will be really worth it in the end though.  I now have a HUGE crochet hook so I'll be able to start my rug as soon as I have all the preparation done.  The t-shirts are for a standard type rag rug so I will be going from having hardly any rugs in the house to rug overload!
Anyway the experimental slow cooked breakfast turned out ok.....not a resounding success but not a complete failure either.  It could do with some fine-tuning for my family's particular tastes but I quite liked it.  It was a lovely smell of apples and cinnamon to come downstairs to.  Even Zack had 2 helpings so it couldn't have been THAT bad!!!  Anya refuses to eat anything but chocolate porridge (porridge with a bit of cocoa powder/drinking chocolate in) so was unimpressed, Dave said it was missing something but it was nice anyway.  Oh well, I'm sure the more I make it, the more I'll put my individual twist on it.  It probably didn't help that I couldn't find any ground flaxseed for it as stated in the recipe.  I added extra oats to help soak up the liquids which helped a bit but I'm not sure what the ground flaxseed adds to it?  I've never used it and don't really know what it is!  Answers on a postcard.....
Dave is still working on his project, disappears into the garden room occassionally for an hour or so.....
Haven't done any more knitting recently, bought a row counter to help so I don't have to keep going back and counting rows - it drove me mad!  Just couldn't remember how many I'd done and forgot to write it down somewhere! 
I tried one of these home-made recipes for Mod Podge yesterday.  Looked ok.  Decided to brighten up a flower pot with Anya's help.  Had some crepe paper laying about from Xmas so thought we could cover the pot with it.  Had yellow, purple and blue.  It seems to have worked.  The podge went on ok (maybe get one of those sponge brushes though for future) and did another coat after first one dried.  Looks ok kinds of "old-paint" look.  The terracotta shows through the paper a bit but I like it and so does Anya so that's what matters!  We're going to plant some flower seeds in it :-)  I'll put a picture on later.  Got to go out and meet mum for lunch now or we'll be late!!!