I’m not feeling full of sunshine at the moment so imagine my surprise and delight to receive this award from Tracy at Fatcat Felt, it’s brightened up my day. The sunshine award is awarded to bloggers whose positivity & creativity inspires others in the blog world.

The rules for accepting the sunshine award are: (although you should feel free to ignore these rules and just enjoy the award!)

• - put the logo on your blog or within your post
• - pass the award onto 12 bloggers
• - link the nominees within your post
• - let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog
• - share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award

my 10 nominees (I’ve already ignored one rule) are: Abigail Thomas Betz White Nicola Brown
Felt Alive Felt by Zed Hawthorntime Lorraine Rigby SewMamaSew Tastykaeru Wildly Woolly

When I went to bed last night it was snowing, at 2.30am it was snowing, and it’s snowing heavily now. We’ve had an extra three inches so we’ll be off sledging and snowman building shortly. It looked so lovely by street light that I went out early and took some photos in the dark.

I thought mine would be the first footprints in the snow but as you can see, the cats have been there before me. The presents are finally wrapped with some of the dried orange slices and leaves on them. Don’t they look pretty. We’ve made our own crackers. Loo roll interiors, clean jokes, newspaper hats and gifts that will be useful rather than landfill fodder.

The final picture is a selection of the paper snowflakes we’ve been creating. The intention is to make them into a snowflake mobile of which I may be able to show you a picture later. The last thing to do (bread and veg shopping already done) is to make a lemon drizzle cake for pudding tomorrow. Merry Christmas all.

It’s nearly a week since my daughter and I went to the wreath gathering to make our Christmas decorations. In addition to the ones I made there, which I’ve only photographed today, I’ve gone mad and made some more. It’s become quite compulsive and it was really hard to stop and go start making tea. Here are the ones I made last week.

The one on the left shows three of them on the runner I made today. I thought the large red flowers looked good with the red glass candlesticks and best of all, the fabric was leftover from an item I made as a Christmas present, but that has to stay secret for now. The ones below were made by my daughter.

Not content with eight decorations I made one for the mantelpiece and three more for the porch.

/div

I was taking a look around Artfire this morning (online marketplace for handmade goodies) and came across these two bag makers Joyce Pleasant and Janine King. What struck me about both of these was the lovely fabrics they’ve used.

Janine makes some really useful bags, often padded, for the transportation of all kinds of technology. The camera bags really took my eye, they’re so much nicer than the plain black ones. I’m just not sure my husband would be keen. Maybe when I get my own camera …

I may be busy but at least there’s never a dull moment.  After weeks of not finding the time, I have at last finished all my commissions which is a lovely feeling as I was beginning to fret about them. Yesterday I was teaching the Textile Art Pool to make seamless handbags. They’re a nice group of ladies who made me very welcome, provied a great lunch and made some lovely bags.

Tomorrow is the start of the  Knitting & Stitching Show at Harrogate where I and others will be at the International Feltmakers stand (A110) in Hall A to talk about and demonstrate feltmaking. I’ll be there on Thursday and Friday mornings so if you’re around do stop by and say hello. The stand will feature 25 of the mini dresses made by regional members and there’ll be clothing items for sale. For the first time the show will feature a swishing salon. Swishing is the free exchange of good quality clothes and accessories and you can find out more about it from the show link above.

On Saturday I’ll be teaching felt making in Kirby Lonsdale on behalf of Sedbergh Community Development Council. They also run courses in Kendal and Sedbergh and you can see the full list of what’s available on their website. Next week I hope to get some playtime as I fancy doing some more work with dyes.

For the felting and other crafting addicts out there I’d like to bring a new site to your attention. I found feltingcraftgossip which has links to lots of great sites, tutorials and competitions.

There are sections for other crafts such as crochet, glass art and recycled crafts. Something for everyone. Take a look and let me know what took your eye.

On Saturday afternoon I left myself a little short of time to make a grim reaper cloak for my daughter to go and demand sweets with menaces. Otherwise known as trick or treating. In one hour I made a full length cloak with hood, no pattern,no previous experience. It’s not haute couture but it looked most effective, especially when you think it’s black and she’d be wearing it in the dark. My husband did a sterling job on the scythe as well. It was a really simple outfit with a big impact. No need for face paint or fangs. She wore black trousers, her school shoes and my fleece. Cheap as well as effective as the fabric was on sale at £1 per yard and the scythe was made from a bamboo garden stick and cardboard.

It was important that her face couldn’t be seen and we pondered how the hood could be made to stand away from and conceal her face. Then my daughter had a brainwave, use a baseball cap and the peak would keep the hood in shape. It worked a treat.

When she returned it was with the largest stash of sweets I’ve ever seen anywhere that isn’t a sweet shop! Some people had made up little bags for the children and some had even given money. It made our offering to the local kids look mean. And yet, is it right that they be given so much? I really don’t think it is. The main fun is in carving the pumpkin, dressing up and having fun with your friends. Not collecting such vast amounts of sweets and chocolate. My daughter doesn’t eat a lot of sweets, I bet there’s lots left at Christmas.

I have two pleas. Firstly for the kids and adult chaperones. Please only visit houses where a halloween light is shown. Masked figures on mass, in the dark, can be intimidating. Secondly – please only give a small treat, the kids really don’t need more. I really am turning into a grumpy old woman aren’t I?

As I finished that bag earlier in the week it inspired me to get on and do something else which I’ve been putting off or ages – make a draught excluder. Every time I feed the cats I notice how cold it is near the back door and think I must make a draught excluder. Then I go off and do something else.

I had a look around the internet at patterns for excluders in the shape of dogs and snales and then thought what am I doing? I don’t want an animal shape! So I went a found a piece of fabric from my stash and made a cylinder. Then I realised it needed stuffing, what to use? I was pleased with my next idea which was to stuff it with some fleece which I’ve had for 3 years (another project!!!) which used it up and has left me room to buy more The whole thing only took me 15 minutes why did I put it off for so long?

I’ve just come across this blog which I thought I’d share with you. There are tons of ideas for creating your own wrapping and packaging. Not only does it explain branding but there are loads of links to other sites with tutorials on making your own tags and padded bags being but two.

Worth a read I thought and now I have to go away and think how to be more creative with my own packaging. I’ve been considering whether to add gift wrapping as a separate paid for service to my shop. Any views on this and packaging in general? How would you like your goods to be packaged?

I’ve just come across this website and thought I’d share it with you. As a Yorkshire lass the blogs on using up scraps really appeal to me. I can never throw anything away and now there are more ideas for me to use bits up.