Happy Christmas!
We are all very excited here, I’ve got the folks coming to stay, fighting their way down several motorways and counties! So we are busy cooking and baking lots of nice treats
Have a wonderful Christmas
Love Jane xx
We’ve had snow, we’ve had snow, we’ve had snow!
I know its causing travel chaos for thousands of people, but for us, here in South Wales it has been almost cruel hearing from framily members up North about the amount of snow, their school closures and seeing the pictures on the news. We’ve had nothing, the odd frost covering, it has been bitingly cold and slightly icy but no snow!
Wa-hey, we woke up on Friday to a glorious covering of a whacking great inch, yes, a whole inch!! So I was a bit naughty and kept the boys off school for their last day (it was only a toy day), we wrapped up and went to the park.
Its amazing what you can do with an inch of snow
and with a bit of persistance look what we made!
Who needs feet and feet of snow eh!
A Christmas Wreath
The boys went out and got our tree on Saturday and it really is the best one yet! I had to trim it slightly at the bottom, which left me with some cuttings – Icouldn’t throw them away could I? So, one metal coat hanger later, a bit of wire and some beads and hey presto
a wreath!
I just used 4″ strips of wire to bind the cuttings to the coathanger that I pulled into a circle shape. I went round a few times to make it look fuller, then used these beads on wire that were off a gorgeously wrapped pressie a few years ago. Then suspended a tree decoration from the top and hey presto – a wreath! I’ve never made one before or even bought one so I don’t know how long it will last, but we love it and it makes you smile when ever you come home and thats not a bad thing is it?!
Also Claire of les bijoux de Claire blog finally recieved her Christmas decoration swap and loves it! I was starting to worry as it took so long to arrive but arrive it has!
It is a shocking photo, it was so dark here last week, but you get the jist.. she loves purple so I crocheted a star and sewed some gorgeous little beads along the edge to give it a shimmer when it twists on the tree. She is mad into jewellery making too and loves turquoise like me so I put in some fab glass turquoise beads and a bit of choccie to keep her warm up in the snow bounds of Sheffield!
First two parcels posted!
I said I had been crocheting like crazy for, among other things for the Christmas ornament swap and the secret santa over on crafteroo. The ornament swap is done, sent but not yet recieved, hopefully due to the immense amount of snow the receivee has had recently and not because its lost in the post!
My swapee was the lovely Claire of lesbijouxdeclaire, she makes some gorgeous jewellery, especially her wire work.
She sent me some gorgeous fimo decorations, I said I like traditional Christmas decorations and the whole Scandianavian type feel too. I think she ticked every box!
Aren’t they gorgeous, I love the detail and they are so fine too
No pics of what I sent yet then, but I can tease my secret santa though!!
20% sale in both my shops!
I’ve decided to close my shops in the new year when the listings run out. I really want to concentrate on creating individual, creative …. things and I find that hard with maintaining the shops as I feel I should always be making bits to sell, which are inevitably more practical due to what sells and the cost of actually making them. Also if I’m honest, for me, that also takes the enjoyment out of it a bit. So after a lot of thinking I’ve come to the conclusion to put them on hold for the time being. So, the sale…
I’m going for the whole clean sweep, a fresh start and in order to get organised I’m having a sale! Over in my folksy shop I have taken the 20% off all prices already, so for example these gorgeous fingerless gloves that are perfect for driving and shopping as you don’t have to take them off were £15 and are now
and are now £12.00. And this gorgeously soft neckwarmer is also down to £12.00!
In my etsy shop you have to use the code ilovexmas to get the 20% off.
So this wonderful wrap was £31 and will now be £24.80
and this gorgeous clutch as featured on the etsy front page, was £18 and is now £14.40!
So if you haven’t bought all your Christmas presents why not grab yourself a bargain, happy Christmas folks!
More stash busting!
Remember this photo from a couple of months ago when I was sorting through all my scraps?
I sorted them into piles, one of cottons and one of colours that went and one of ones that didn’t. Well, I’ve made a gorgeously soft hot water bottle out of the cottons, what do you think?
I really like the uniformity of the grey circles and I do like pink and grey together, very pretty!
And out of most of the rest I started a load of granny squares, as really some of the reminents were hardly enough for a round. The aim was a cushion cover, but an idea has started developing for a bag. I know, I know, another bag, but really – its going to be gorgeous isn’t it!
I love making these and can envisage a glorious blanket however I am running out of scraps now, typical, so the idea will wait till I have gathered more scraps! It is perfect for keeping my latest crochet project (or one of them!) in and both created from scraps, recycling at its best!
Christmas Advent Calender
Its finished, its hanging and its being slowly emptyed! I am really pleased with this, I wanted something quite substantial that we could bring out every year, and it is made from favourite bits of mine that I’ve wanted to use for ages.
I cant wait to get the other Christmas decorations around this and get the tree up!
While looking for some old photos the other day I found the ones I took of the bracelets I made for this months issue of Beads and Beyond.
They are really simple to make, I just crocheted the bands in various simple patterns and pva’d them on a coke can and they retain their shape. One thing I have noticed, everything I seem to make generally has a ‘vintage’ feel and its not intentional. I think I need to ‘modernise’ my work a bit, yes, thats the next task!
For some reason this photo keeps switching position, sorry for the sore necks!
