MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Hello, just to wish everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR whatever you are doing! Here's to an even more creative 2010 everyone! :0)

Christmas Cooking

Hi all, I took some time in between sewing to make up my Mincemeat!




It's this recipe, which is a good old Delia one, so I am hoping it should taste good. She has two recipes on her website and this is the cranberry one. It was all mixed in a bowl, then put in the oven on a low temperature and it made the whole house smell of Christmas!

O Christmas Tree!

I have so many little off-cuts of fabric left over that this weekend I thought I would put them to good use and make a little patchwork Christmas Tree! It's been decorated with cream ric-rac braid and green buttons from my vast collection. It just needs a little star or ribbon bow at the top. I have so many ideas for some more; I'd love to make a lace one with mother of pearl buttons, sort of vintage style.

After making the tree, I was doodling a star with a Teddy Bear in it. I wanted to make a decoration to go on a Christmas tree that could be personalised.



This is it made in felt.



Another doodle with a little girl's face.



Almost done, just needs blanket stitching all the way round the edges.

Celebrations

Hi all, sorry I have not posted since last month! It has been so hectic lately. Orders galore, Christmas nativity plays and celebrations. Everyone has been poorly with something and amongst it all Little one celebrated her 3rd birthday. She has been really unwell so it great that, come the day she was well enough to celebrate. She had a party at playgroup for which I made some fairy cakes, complete with sparkly pink sprinkles and chocolate chips.

Much easier than a big cake!

On her actual birthday, the local town had the annual Christmas parade and she got to dress up as a Christmas pudding!

It was a cold day but stayed dry. There were some great costumes. I loved these children dressed as pillar boxes
and the others as 'When Santa stuck up the Chimney'!

Everyone had worked so hard to make all the costumes it was a relief that it wasn't spoilt in the rain.

Must just tell you about the gorgeous birthday present we bought Little one. It's a mini kitchen from ebay from this seller, I was so impressed with it, it's wooden and painted but so well made. It does come flat packed, so needs a while to put together. But it's so cute and a great price too. A must for all budding mini cooks!

Red and White

As the weather was so bad, I thought I'd spend all day Sunday catching up with sewing orders for Christmas Garlands and buntings. This is what my table looked like..............



.........and today I've been making swing tags to use for orders. Some of the things I've bought on Etsy and Folksy have been so beautifully presented that I thought I would give my packaging a re-vamp!


I thought some mini paper bunting would look so cute




The swing tags are made from card onto which I printed 'A big thank you from Little Cherubs' all down the page. This was cut into rectangles and then I machined some red and white gingham onto the back. Had a bit of a struggle with the hole punch, it's not too keen on punching holes in fabric! Then I strung them with hessian string.

I bought a set of tiny rubber stamps the other day, so thought these would be perfect for stamping on the back of the labels

...........and here are some red and white heart doorhangers I've been working on.

Colourful Christmas

Busy, busy, busy! Yesterday I spent all day photographing and listing items. Why does it take so long?! There's all the arranging things to be photographed, finding a suitable background, then re-arranging because little one has picked it up to say 'Ooh mummy! It's lovely!' Yes I know but please put it back exactly where you found it! I was so exhausted by the end of it and had a headache from staring at my computer screen. I have done a few things on Folksy, but didn't even start on Etsy! So my Etsy shop is another days work. Anyway, one of the items I listed on Folksy was a set of little Christmas Trees,


I noticed a lot of colourfully decorated Christmas Trees in the shops lately. Mainly white trees with bright decorations, so I thought I'd give those colours a go. I love they way they have turned out. So different.

This set is a more traditional colour, I was going for a sort of vintage look

Christmas is coming!

Hopefully it's not too early for you, but I have been working on my Christmas Buntings and Decorations, which I have been wanting to post about for a while, but haven't as I didn't want to seem too early with it all! But it is such a creative time of year I need to get making. I just love making decorations, food and presents for people. Besides we have all had horrible colds lately and need something to cheer us up!

I made this one yesterday,



I decided to handsew the letters on, normally I machine them but I think this works quite well



I LOVE using Gingham, it has such a lovely, homely, cottagey feel to it!

and here's a collage of items I made last year which I will be doing again this year.



Doesn't it make you feel all festive?!

Halloween

B O O ! Here's my Halloween bunting!




Great for anyone having a Halloween party!

...down in the garden I have been harvesting my squash. These are so easy to grow and great if you have children as they grow so quickly they won't get bored with them! You can buy many different varieties of squash seed, but I just saved seeds from some organic squash we had bought to eat and then sowed them in pots in April/May.
Once they were sturdy enough we planted them out and they just took over! They scramble quite far, but if space is limited I think you could probably train them up some trellis. In fact I might try that next year. Although you have to protect them form slugs and snails when they are small plants, once established as strong healthy plants, they didn't really have any problems.
We have eaten them roasted with just butter and a few spices; cumin, cinnamon and chilli powder. They also make delicious soup. A real taste of Autumn!

Autumn in the Garden

We went for a lovely walk around a local Country Park on Saturday and the sun was out all the time, very warm and bright. When we came home, I had a look around the garden to see what is still growing. The Borlotti Beans I grew this year are getting a bit straggly now, although it still looks pretty when you see a bean in amongst the leaves...



My olive tree has a few olives...




Down in the Greenhouse, there are Green Peppers and tiny Aubergines. These should have been sown a lot earlier as they won't have enough warmth and sun to grow now. But they do look so cute!

Hobby Horsing Around!

We have two little visitors this week........




My Little Girl has been invited to a Birthday Party on Saturday and it is fancy dress, so I have been busy making a costume this week. I decided on a Cowgirl theme, thinking that there are going to be dozens of fairies and princesses there. So I set to work on the outfit and suddenly had a brainwave, what about a Hobby Horse! I sketched out a pattern and just kind of made it up as I went along, adding buttons, ribbons and felt flowers.


The first was a traditonal brown horse colour with a bit of red and pink, then I thought what a great present it would make for the little girl who's party it is! So I just went a bit wild with the colours on that one........pink, green and turquoise!

Almost Autumn

Hi folks! Sorry it has been such a long time since I have posted. The main reason is that I have been up to my eyes in bunting orders of all shapes, colours and sizes. Also had a nasty cold that has been going around and my little girl has started Playgroup and dance classes (she absolutely loves both!) So it's been a bit crazy here lately.

I had to make two more Betsy Bunnies.......




.......and some gorgeous little Heart Doorhangers to clients own design which I think look great!





Just went out to take a look at the garden, there are so many wonderful colours at this time of year. I love it when all the leaves start to fall and you get those amazing shades of reds, browns and orange. We have had some lovely sunny days but I think wet and windy weather is forecast, so it will soon really feel like Autumn.

Crochet Beanies

Hi! I've been become addicted to crochet again and have made some more cute beanies! They look so cheerful and bright.
They are now listed in my Folksy shop.



Not much happening in the garden as it has been so wet and windy.

But the sun has come out today and I found these little baby carrots that I grew in a container. I'm not sure whether they will grow much bigger so I'm going to eat them before the pests do!

Play Doh Inspired Crochet

My daughter loves Play Doh. It's one of her favourite toys. When I bought some new colours for her the other day, I thought how gorgeous they would be for some bright and cheerful crochet! So I found as similar colours in wool as I could get and I've been busy with my crochet hook making these little flowers which will become corsages




and be used to decorate little beanie hats! I have made my own crochet beanie pattern, so as soon as I have made all the sizes I can, I will start listing them in my Etsy and Folksy shops.



Then I saw this gorgeous wool.
It's so lovely, it made me think of Autumn and the colder weather on it's way. I made a couple of flowers and I'm going to put wooden buttons on the brown one and Mother of Pearl on the natural colour flower.

PYO and Jam

Hope you all had a good bank holiday weekend. We went to a PYO farm on Saturday. Resulting in huge bag of apples, damsons and plums; one bruised face from falling bramley and one large bite from flying insect! Still, it was great fun!
Got up early yesterday and made the damsons into some jam, delicious!



Last week I had to start picking my tomatoes. The warm and humid weather this summer has meant they have succumbed to blight. It was quite depressing pulling up all the plants; remembering how exciting it was planting them all out as little seedlings. But I will salvage what I can, I've put them on the window sill with a couple of bananas (it's supposed to help ripen them) and I'll use the rest for chutney. Yes another batch of Green Tomato Chutney! Seems the last three years have proved very difficult for my tomatoes.


My Mum has some glass Kilner jars and we bought some new lids for them from ebay so I'm going to have a go at bottling some of the red tomatoes and some fuits. Have to read up on it first but will post soon on how I get on.

Reasons to be cheerful!

1. It's Bank Holiday Weekend and it's not raining!

2. My cucumbers are still growing!

3. I've just bought some new wool!

First go at quilting!

I was trying to tidy my (extremely) cluttered sewing room the other day and found many half started projects. Seems to be a theme with me, I get really excited about doing something, start a new project, then it either doesn't go to plan or I don't get it finished quickly and it's stuffed into a bag and gets lost in the sewing room! So as I was sifting through these various bags and I found a half started quilt. I had made some squares and started putting it together and (as usual) I had got distracted by something else. So I pulled it out, did a bit more to it and here it is; I have to say it is really my first attempt at quilting, so some of it is a bit wobbly! I still need to bind it, but I'm pleased with how it looks so far.

It's not very big, so I'm going to use it on little one's bed as a sort of throw. I have just backed it with cream fleece instead of the usual way of wadding and fabric backing. I know that's not how your supposed to do it, but I just wanted it to be really soft on one side so she can cuddle it! It's supposed to be little houses, cats, butterflies and dresses. All her favourite things! I still have to add the eyes to the cats and butterflies, but you can kind of see the idea, I hope!


Also started to sort out my fabric stash. Honestly, I am a nightmare when it comes to buying fabric! I cannot resist it. Especially florals. Found a lot of Cath Kidston squares that I had bought on Ebay, now I would love to make a big quilt or throw out of these, but that would be such a big project! I might do a few cushions first to practice on.