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!