On learning to admit defeat...

Remember this post? In case you can't be bothered to click back and read, its the one about me spending my Friday night sticking labels to my business cards so that they would be ready to send off for goodie bags for the Handm@de Cambridge craft fayre and be posted last Monday. Well I stuck and I posted and all was ok in the world, a great big *thing* was crossed off my list and I even felt smug when I saw others panicing about getting theirs in on time.

That was last week. Now I am sulking somewhat because good old Royal Fail seem to have lost my parcel and it hasn't made its way to Handm@de headquarters at the lovely TwinklySpangles house. The parcel that contained business cards with vouchers and bags.

Last night I got a message telling me to officially start panicing because Twinklyspanglekate hadn't got my parcel. I went into my usual blind panic, trying to work out how I was going to get business cards printed out and with Kate for Thursday (deadline day) as well as make bags. I looked at on-line places for an hour or so, faffed around trying to make a card I was happy with then spent another hour trying to work out how to make one on Word, thinking it would be fine, I could print them out myself. You know, after a trip to Staples or somewhere for business card templatey things and new ink and if I found a spare day while I was there, that would be handy too.

In the end I went to bed before I injured myself or someone else. This morning I got up, feeling all motivated and ready to face Challenge Nic. I even stripped my bed and put all the bedding in the washer, I was *that* on the ball and organised. I had both children out of the door with no shouting, we walked to school, all holding hands, looking like the model family. I managed to say bye in record time and power walked home by 915.

I then pondered my challenge again and my attempts at homemade business cards from last night. Shite. I'd rather not get a card like that. In fact, I decided, if I did get a card like that, as well as all of the amazing other things from other crafters, I would deifinitly not be going to my website so I made the rather amazing decision, for about the second time in my working life and decided that it just wasn't possible. Did I mention that I only had 2 and a half hours to do all of thise before picking Lou up from preschool, feeding her lunch, taking her to Yogabugs, watching her perform amazing contortionist acts for an hour, taking her home, letting her and my then waiting-in-her-car-outside-my-house-Aunt into my house, running to meet Jack from school (don't worry, he doesn't walk home on his own, a friend walks him half way on a Tuesday) then having tea and cake with Aunt and children. So yeah. Prehaps that wasn't possible today.

Strange though. Once I had decided that I couldn't perform time travel and stopping of the clock, I did manage to get lots done today. Like these three bags finished, photos taken, edited and listed on Folksy....




And a pair of curtains altered for my sisters friend tonight. I am a bit worried that she has given me the wrong measurement though...33 inches is a lot to take off a curtain!

And just for something completely different...my seeds are growing nicely now that I have a greenhouse in a greenhouse. Here are my tomatoes....yes, that is a lot of plants, we like tomotoes ;) The Black Russian are the ones that are growing the best. They are the purple ones. Purple tomatoes!!

What Nic did...

I've had another busy week with orders for shops and customs. Normally when I am busy doing this kind of thing, I forget to take pictures of the things I have been sewing so I have nothing to show for my busy week. This week, however, I did remember before I sent one parcel off!

I now have two Sanderson prints in at the moment, from reclaimed curtains. All brand new, never been sold fabric, destined for I'm not sure where until I claimed them :) With them being curtain material and Sanderson, they are really hardwearing fabrics and will be ideal for needle rolls and project bags which is a good job since that it was they are for.

Here are four of them before they were sent on their way to Preston to a new store, just about to open..


The smaller ones are dpn or crochet rolls, the larger are rolls for all manner of needle, hook, you name it. Here are the smaller ones in more detail.


This was my favourite until I had finished the pinky one below.....

I added some new bits to my website last week so you can now find out who is stocking my bags and rolls by clicking on the stockists tab.

It's the simple things

I love the things that little children say when they are beginning to start talking and the mispronunciations of words.

For ages, Lou has insisted on calling Chris Evans, Chris Heavens. I'm sure he'd be really chuffed that she has elevated him to such a high place ;)

Jack has recently decided that onions in a jar of vinegar are now known as prickled onions. Why? Because they prickle your throat as you eat them, of course!

We were doing some weeding in the garden on Saturday and Lou was talking about where things went and what we used things for when she announced that 'The little greenhouse is for growing plants in and the big greenhouse is for taking pictures, isn't it Mummy?'
I couldn't help laughing and told her that really they were both for growing things in and asked if she could remember picking tomatoes and cucumbers out of the big greenhouse last summer. She could but then got all concerned and asked where we were going to take photos of bags when we put plants in there in the summer.

I don't know, Lou, I'm a little concerned about that one as well but I'm sure we'll find somewhere.

Its only Friday again!!

These weeks are going by so fast at the moment. Thankfully, I seem to have managed to cross a number of things off my 'to-do' list this week. I was even feeling all smug while sitting at swimming lessons this afternoon, thinking about what I had achieved. That was until new things entered my head and I managed to fill my diary's 'notes' section up for next week with new things to add to The List.

The one thing I *must* do tonight though is this


That would be a pile of business cards that I had printed out a few months ago for the Handm@de Cambridge goody bags. Organised. Good. Only I thought I was being clever only putting my Folksy shop address on it then. Over the last month or so I have decided that I really wanted my own website on there so instead of doing something about it, I have been sulking and being annoyed with myself about being stupid. sulking always helps, I find.

Another reason why I don't want people only going to my Folksy shop is that there is no way of tracking how many visits the cards attract whereas every other site, I have google analytics on so I get a rough idea. I realised this when I was looking at my analytics account today.

Anyway, I kicked myself up the arse and decided that I had to sort them out so went to get some labels and printed my website on them so tonight I need to stick labels on my business cards.

Hmm, how many cards did I get printed? A couple of hours-worth of sticking I think. Better get sticking then....

Ooh and thanks for the comments, especially about the handles. I have the same problems as Halfanacre. Sometimes I think thick straps, sometimes skinny so I think I'll have a play around.

Did I mention that I have a few creme eggs left to help with the label sticking. Hehehe

Easter photo fun

Yesterday I finally sat down to sew some bags with some lovely Japanese material that I bought last month. It has been looking at me, begging to be sewn up for weeks but I have been working on orders and been too busy to do it but yesterday, I had the time.

While I was finishing them off I thought it would be a bit of fun to get some props to take photos of the bags, make it all look a bit more Eastery. I also thought it might be something that Lou would enjoy doing; she has been a grump for the last week or so and I can't work out if she is coming down with something or just plain grumpy so I thought I'd pick her up from pre-school and go to the shops to get bits and pieces then spend some time taking pics.

Here is what we came up with.....

This was my main plan, I wanted an egg with a silly face on it with its woolly hat on and the chick BUT I like to live on the edge, that egg was raw, full of runny stuff, Lou was a bit too keen on cuddling the egg....'its cute Mummy, look at its face and its little hat....' and the egg wouldn't sit still even after Lou had stopped kicking the table (imagine my calm, earth mother, zen-like sense of humour) so we very quickly dispensed with the egg. Well, I did and I sent Lou out of the way of my sewing if she insisted on cuddling the damn egg ;)

So next we have this....

Still fairly cute with the little chick?

I quite like this one. Creme eggs...yum!!

but my fav is this....look at the little chick 'Help, I'm stuck in here, I might drown in creme egg goo'

I made these with thicker handles. I can't decide if I like them better than the normal ones I make on the 'Lucy' bags. What do you think; thick or thin, which is best?

They are up for sale on MISI and Folksy now.

My weekend :)

We had sun! Can you believe it? This winter has felt like it would never end. So damp and dark and urgh.

The weekend started off well. Lou and I went to her friends house to play on Friday afternoon and came home to find that my lovely friend had been round and left us brownies at the back door. Don't you love friends like that ;) We had to eat them quickly because Lous teddy quite fancied some of them...
On Saturday morning, Jack and I went into the greenhouse to put some new lining paper up in my make-shift studio so that I could take new photos of a few things. Always wanting to carry the heavy things and be helpful, here is the little man with his giant roll of paper..

We sorted the greenhouse out and took photos then I went to town to get some bits and bobs. Before I left I had had a fairly lively discussion, some may say argument, with dh because he had decided that what he needed to do this weekend was put the mast up on his sailing dinghy and ignore all of the jobs around the house that needed doing.

Imagine my delight when I got home an hour or so later to find the ladders against the side of the house (so that he could go and have a look at the roof and see why we have damp in our bedroom) and the smell of paint (he had painted the back door frame that has been waiting for nearly 6months now to be painted.

Hmm. Well he found no reason for the damp on the roof. He had painted but had then leant on the frame with his jumper to leave this delightful mess...

In places it is so thick that two days later now, it is still too wet to sand the mess down. There are drips and see the wall? Yep well now that is a lovely shade of white. And the door from closing the door after having painted the frame.

The best is yet to come though, see this....


That is a part of a shelf unit that he painted. On the floor. Next to a pile of leaves. In the wind. He used to be good at DIY. Annoyed does not come close since this has also been erected in my back garden....


So now I still have a house that has a million jobs needing to be done and a boat all ready in case of flood or something.

Today I have finally finished a custom order for the lovely Wyndwitch. Two 'ladybird lover' Lucy bags and a dinosaur PE bag.

Its all about the tears!

What is wrong with me? I was never an emotional person, I would pretend to cry at films that people thought I should be sad about. I'll admit that once I got pregnant with J, I did seem to find my tears though but this week, I kid you not, I have spent a fair lot of it in tears. Its Comic Releif on Friday. I should maybe watch it in the bath, I'll have filled it with tears by the end of the show!

Last night for example, I was sewing and watching TV, a normal habit of mine. Mr Nicsknots can't understand how I can hear it with the sewing machine making all that noise (which is why he has to have the TV on full blast and tut at me when I am sewing and he wants to watch something) but I can and I was, until 9pm, BBC1, Mistresses. OMG! I had to stop sewing for fear of sewing my finger to a bag, I couldn't see for tears. First I was crying because Siobhan and her hubby have finally had sex then because Katie told Dan that she didn't want to be with him, then because she did, then its because Trudys fiances wife can't remember her daughter, then because Jessicas husbands horrid PA turned up, then because he was being so lovely to Jessica, then.....actually I've forgotten and you don't care but you get the picture?

This afternoon I have just been watching the lunchtime news while eating my lunch and I was crying on my ham and tomato sandwich because an ex manager of Woolworths had opened a new store called Wellworths where the old store had been. Its getting stupid. This needs to stop.

Oh yeah and it was parents morning today so of course I was almost in tears while Js teacher told me what a lovely little boy her is.

Amidst all of this crying I had two comments yesterday about how I have lost weight. No blooming wonder, you cry two buckets of tears a day, that's got to help your weightloss ;)

My blog is a little pictureless at the moment, I will rectify this with a pretty, sparkly pink 'Tinkerbell' drawstring bag to cheer us all up....or maybe make us cry because it's just sooo beautiful....see, stupid!! Stop. It. Now!

Back out of self enforced hiding....

On Friday, Niftyknits did a lovely feature of Nicsknots on her blog here. I would have told you earlier but after a trip to the Drs on Friday afternoon and the wonderful painkillers that I was given, it is fair to say that most of this weekend has been spent in a drug enduced haze where I have been feeling ill, drunk and generally grumpy so sorry Nifty that I didn't pimp your blog on Friday but I will ask all of my readers to get their clicky fingers over there now to read the goings-on in Meerkat manor ;)

So yes, not a lot of useful things happened this weekend but my shoulder is no longer all tingly so I am hoping I am on the mend. I am a little worried though, I started some serious spring cleaning this morning. If anything stood still for more than 2 seceonds, it was consigned to the bin, I have empty kitchen cupboards, enough infact, to now be able to fit a dishwasher in my life, woohooo!! Tonight the darling Mr Nicsknots has moved the fridge and freezer for me to discover 11 cds, 3 pegs, 2 pencils, a packet of sweet pea seeds that I have been looking for for the past month so all have been removed, the floor mopped and appliances moved back. Maybe some clean-freak vibes were forced into me when stupidwoman crashed into my car on Wednesday.

Look here....

Look at this blog post.....
...my Lucy bag on the UKhandmade blog. They are right, it does make a great pressie for a little girl and I'm not biased at all ;)

That really made me smile this evening. It's been a stressful few days. Someone kindly drove into the side of me when I was driving my Gran home from knitting, has damaged my car and we think is uninsured so now I have a broken car to have mended and a poorly shoulder so thank you for the blog mention.

It's just another manic (MISI) Monday :)

I guess I am a bit of a virtual shopping centre (what do you call Etsy, Folksy and MISI?) tart. I have shops on all three and am actually toying with the idea of Artfire too but not sure if I have the time at the moment.

Anyway, today I am raving about MISI. Emma, the woman who runs it is really friendly and helpful and seems to be constantly upgrading the site and making it better. I was listing something new today ( this rainbow heart bag, if you must know ), and there were some many new features there that weren't there last week. Things that are really making the site a pleasure to use. I really hope it goes well for Emma and all of the people who are selling with her.

In honour of Misi, I am doing a quick pick of things I love today, on MISI. These are all things that are keeping my very tired eyes open and making me smile on a very sunny but cold day....

This 'Single Poppy' by Photos by Ben, is simple but lovely.

This 'Bakewell Tart' is making me feel even hungrier than I was earlier! It's nearly Mothers Day, isn't it ;) Also MiSI has a wish-list facility so you can fav all of the things you want then send the list to your little darlings!!

And lastly, this lovely mohair bear.