Lulled...

I always think that I can tell what type of day it is going to be if we can get ready for school and be at school with no arguing.

Yesterday was a nightmare. Sunday night I had had about three hours sleep due to Lou waking up and coming to see me about 4 times then my charming dh deciding that 4 am was a good time to come to bed. Yes, he is still alive but living very much on borrowed time, saved only by going food shopping on Sunday and putting a load of washing in the machine yesterday. Anyway by 3pm, I couldn't make my mind up if the ear ache, sore throat, bad stomach, cracking headache and overall dizziness were due to sheer exhaustion or swine flu or something equally bad so I was in bed by 8pm, hoping for the former.

This morning I was up at 7 with J. He was happy and we had a lovely breakfast chatting together then he helped me unload the dishwasher whilst telling me what he wanted for tea, what he was going to do at school. Perfect. We woke Lou up and all got ready for school. The day was going well. We got out of the house with no shouting and early. The sun was shining. Woo. Then Lucy ran down the road. Stopped about an inch away from the road and pulled faces at a man in his BMW. Hmm. Said man waves his fist at me while Lou cheerfully smiles at him and skips towards me.

We walked to school, Lucys wrist firmly in my hand as she would not hold my hand and I didn't fancy another leap at the road. At school we deposited J, went outside and I promptly skidded over in some mud outside the door. In front of other Mums. Keep smiling, don't let the buggers get you down, that's the motto isn't it?

After dropping Lou off at pre-school, I start off home, marching along, now with no kamakaze children, attempting to throw themselves off the kerb, navigating around the mums with prams, grateful that I didn't have to play that game anymore. Then I fell off the kerb. Into the path of another bloke in a BMW. More shouting and general agressiveness ensues, like I meant to fall off the kerb. Please, give me a break!

Trying to make a quick getaway, pretend that I didn't launch myself into the road, not unlike my 4yr old minutes earlier, my flip flop breaks so that the bit that goes between your toes is no longer attatched to the shoe so after skooting around the pram mums, I now have to half limp, half shuffle up the road, trying to walk faster than them, not looking like a drunk. Which I am not but really, if I was, something gin-like would be looking like a good idea when I got home.

Tomorrow has to be better, right?

We have a winner!

Thanks to some heavy publicity from, I think, a certain lovely lady north of the border who makes the most beautiful babies, we have reached 108 members on my Facebook page so I now have a shiny, easy to remember URL, www.facebook.com/nicsknots and it means giveaway time.

I asked J to choose a number between 1 and 108 after we had eaten our 'there is no food in the cupboards because Mummy is refusing to go shopping today so we will eat random stuff found around the fridge and garden' tea. He chose 99 so the 99th person on my members list won.

Not having done a give-away before and due to my 'God, maybe no-one likes my stuff' paranoia today, instead of offering the winner a bag that she may hate, I have given her £5 off in my Folksy shop and free postage. That means she could have a free 'Lucy' bag like the lovely cupcakes from this morning.

Keep joining and keep a look out in my group. I have been thinking up other fun things for there too.

It's all about the cupcakes!

There seems to be a cupcake trend all over the place at the moment. Here at Nicsknots, I have been eyeing up cupcake fabric for a few months now, then not buying but then, within the space of a week, a couple of my wonderful customers all ganged up on me and asked for customs with cupcakes, forcing me to buy some material...it's such a shame ;)

These are a couple of drawstring bags I made earlier in the week. My customer wanted one but I made one in either fabric so that she could choose which colour she liked, thinking I'd keep the one she didn't want put the other in the shop but she couldn't decide which she liked so she had both. I'll be getting some more of this fabric in the week and will have some of these in the shop soon.


The next bag is made with some ace pink cup cake material. Perfect for the little girl in your life....

I do have some of these left. You can buy them from Folksy and Misi.


Have you noticed the widget in the sidebar over there for my Nicsknots Facebook page? At the moment, it has a stupidly long url, impossible to remember, but if I want a nice and easy to remember address, I need 100 fans. I have 92 so if you fancy keeping up-to-date with Nicsknots via Facebook and another chance of winning a Nicsknots bag, join now!! Once I reach 100 fans I will give a bag away. Maybe even a cupcake one :)

The sun is shining here, after monsoon week, so I am going to go and make the most of the good weather and tackle the jungle that is my garden at the moment. Enjoy the weekend!

'Busy doing nothing'

# We're busy doing nothing, working all day through,
we're trying to find lots of things not to do.
We're busy going nowhere, isn't it such a crime ?
we'd like to be unhappy but we never do have the time #

Not me, I hasten to add, I have been really busy this week but my darling husband started his summer holidays on Monday. He is a college lecturer so he now enjoys a 6 week holiday with a week somewhere in the middle of that 'working from home'.

I can safely say, he is enjoying himself, busy doing nothing. Since Saturday he has read all of the Harry Potter books, broken and mended his computer, stayed up till stupid o'clock watching rubbish films....you get the idea.

I think there must be a high divorce or at least arguement rate for people married to teachers and lecturers. For 10 months of the year we don't see them then for 2 months in the summer, they are here. All. Day. Long. And don't forget, because they are on holiday, they can't help around the house or do any of the jobs they have been promising to do since their last holidays.

I thought we had stooped to an all-time low on Tuesday when I asked if he would make lunch while I was working. Anyone would think I had asked for him to make an a la carte meal when I asked if I could have coleslaw on my sandwich which arrived without a plate but yesterday he went climbing in the morning while I took J and L to school and got on with work. At lunch I went to take some cards to a friend then two different meetings at school for J and L before picking them up and coming home. At tea, I was asked where I had 'swanned off to' for the afternoon!! Oh how I laughed. Its a good job I have a good sense of humour and endless patience.

Sense of humour was also needed when I went to get Js passport photo taken. Remember the windy seats that they used to have in the booths? Well they don't have them now. They have a bench then the camera is supposed to be moveable so that even if you are little, the photo will be ok. Well lets look at the evidence shall we?


Yes, its quite tricky to get a 5yr old to sit still, look at the camera, not smile or any of the other things that mean that the photo will be regected by the wonders that are the Passport Office at the same time as fielding the 4yr old sister who wants to know what is happening in the booth so climbs in and sits on the floor while the photo is being taken. Next stop the photo shop to get some better pics....


Better. Not good. This was the best of 6 that were taken. Lets hope that they don't come back with something wrong with them. I might loose my patience if they do!

On Saturday J was 6. He had a great weekend. On Sunday he went bowling with his little friends from school. Here he is with Lou before we went.



Right, I'd better go and get Looby while M kills things on his computer.....

Love, light and peas...

That is the name of the shop that is currently the VIP on the Coriandr Express. What a great name!

Love, light and peas is actually a 22yr old called Lottie who lives in South Wales. Lottie has CFS so spends her days knitting and playing with reclaimed materials.

I love the stationary in Lotties shop. She uses recycled paper from all sort of things from old exam papers to Spanish text books. Go and take a look....

Bloggers block..

Sorry, I left you on Monday with a giveaway, have had loads of new and old people commenting on the blog then I disappeared. I've got a severe case of bloggers block at the moment. There is loads I want to blog about but I am short on time then when I have the time, I can't think of what to say!!

So I thought I might tell you part of the reason I asked people what they would do if they won my bag in the giveaway below, ease myself back into the blogging lark gently.

See, here is the thing, I *know* these bags are ace for loads of things as well as for keeping your knitting in, in fact I'll be honest, these days I rarely have time for knitting, but I think others might need to be shown how ace they are for other things so I took a few pics of a bag I made for my little sis today.

She is going on holiday soon so she needs ......

...a pretty bag full of

travel sized bath stuff. Loads of room inside for all the things for holiday time then when she gets home, it would make an ace make-up bag.

So, now you know, you don't need to be a knitter to need a drawstring bag ;)

July Stone Soup giveaway....

Remember a few months ago when I posted about joining in The Stone Soup Challenge, hosted byLaura Bray? Well I have found some lovely people through the challenge and have bought some great things from fellow artisans.

This month I am hosting the monthly give-away. I am offering this drawstring bag in my strictly limited edition print.



All you have to do is comment on this post, telling me what you would use this bag for if you won it. I will draw the winner at random on 31st July.



If you want a second chance to enter the contest, go to one of my shops then come back and tell me which thing is your fav. Good luck everyone :D

Catching up...

I'm really sorry, I am getting behind on the old Coriandr Express again. When I signed up for it, I didn't realise how hard it would be to keep blogging about all the different shops and also blog inbetween so that my own blog wasn't lost in the deluge of funky shops I was showing you. In an attempt to catch up, I am going to do a quick post about the three shops that I have missed in the last week and a half and hope I can keep up from now on.

Last Monday was the turn of Snapdragon Beads. It is run by Alice who says that she is the Imelda Marcos of beads and after making and selling jewellery for 14 yrs, I'm guessing that must be right.

Alice makes pendants, earrings, brooches and hair clips and the attention to detail in her pieces really makes them something very special.



To read more about Alice and Snapdragon beads, go to her blog.

Next up on the VIP Express was Frutejuce. FruteJuce is an eclectic mix of all sorts of things, made by the talented Alison.

Living in a home where her parents never bought anything until they had tried to make it first seems to have rubbed off on her as her shop is full of all sorts, from T-shirts and babies onesies to magnets and bags. I love the felt fridge magnets.



Alison also has a blog, find her here...

Now onto this week and the featured seller yesterday was the lovely CeeGeeJewelllery . In honour of her ride on the Coriandr Express, Ceegee is offering 10% off her shop until the end of the week so go on over and see what she has for you....