Less Painful Memories

I've been reading a lot of other peoples blogs recently as part of the swapbot blog swaps that I've been doing.  I came across Mimi's blog, The Happy Honeybee and I read about her love of Christmas ornaments, and how a whole box got broken in a house move.  It reminded me of my latest Christmas and the sadness I felt when something similar happened to me.  I've not shared it before, because I was truly devastated, but there's a slightly more happy ending to my story now.  

I'd been making myself a collection of pottery snowmen - painted by me at the local pottery painting shop.  I put them in pride of place, on my mantel - they looked so lovely.  Every year, instead of a card, Ian draws me a nice christmassy scene - this years one seemed to make the perfect backdrop for my snowmen so I placed it behind them on the mantel.  

We had all my family over for christmas this year, and we cooked the bird on our barbecue outside to free up space in the oven for all the trimmings.  As Ian opened the door to outside, a gust of wind caught the backdrop picture, and it fell forward.  All the snowmen were pushed onto the fireplace, smashing into many pieces.  It was a real snowman massacre.  

What made it worse, was that I knew there weren't anymore of the big snowmen left at the pottery shop - their supplier had stopped selling them.  I couldn't replace them and I was heartbroken.  My first christmas in my new home was effectively ruined, but I had a good cry and got on with it as best I could.  Ian tried to superglue as much as he could back together - but there were so many missing shards and it just wasn't the same.  What made it worse was that it was my own stupidity that caused it - it was the hardest lesson to learn. 

Anyway, I did promise you all a happy ending so here it is.  I searched the internet high and low and found a supplier of the pottery snowmen.  I now have 11 unpainted ones sat in my library and 1 that we painted earlier this year to check that it would fire correctly in the kiln at the pottery shop.  So although I killed lots of snowmen that Christmas, I can get back my collection and be more careful with them in future. Oh, and the cute little rudolph on the end of the first picture survived (he fell on the carpet) so I guess that's happy too!

Work In Progress - Octopus

This is a picture of one of the octopuses I started making last year - I've got two on the go, one pink, one purple.  I was making them to give to my nieces for Christmas, but didn't finish them on time. I really should finish these off as they're so close to being done, all they need doing is their eyes, adding sequins and beads to their legs and then sewing all the legs on.  Hopefully this will shame me into doing it and I can give them as this years Christmas presents!

Weekend of Fun (But no crafting)

Just thought I'd check in and let you know why I've been gone for over a week.  My mum, sister and two lovely nieces came to stay this weekend, so I was preoccupied with tidying my house and then having fun.  We spent the day on the Isle of Wight in the glorious sunshine (I got a little burnt) and I got to make some sandcastles so I thought I'd share them as they're the closest to crafting I've gotten recently!

We also went to see our first 3D movie - Toy Story 3.  I really enjoyed the film, but didn't think the 3D really added much (although it was worth it just to see my niece reaching out trying to grab things from the screen).  If you've not been to see it, I highly recommend it.  

Talking of tidying my house, I've just discovered the following website which tries to create new cleaning habits one step at a time, so we'll see whether that makes a difference.  

Recent SwapBot Swap

My latest swap on SwapBot was called "I'm a Blogger, Follow Me" and as part of that, I've read 10 really interesting blogs.

For great illustrations and thrifty finds, go here.

For a great owl ball puzzle tutorial go here and check out her other great posts too.

Carly has the right approach to blogging - outlined in her post here - I think I can learn a lot from her.

I'll mention this blog here too - but it fits much better on my food blog so I'll add it on over there too!

For great card designs, go here.

If you can read dutch, or appreciate pretty pictures, go here - not all posts in dutch.

For art, poetry, and some great tutorials, go here.

If you're in need of a vacation and want to be made jealous, go here.

For postcards of places around the world, go here.

For craft, and some life lessons, go here.

Gaining readers

It's nice to have a record of all the things I've created, but it's even nicer having people to chat to about works in progress, or future ideas, or just getting feedback on what I've created.  I've been worrying recently about how to get more people reading my blog, and I spotted the perfect opportunity on SwapBot - a swap of blog URLs and a promise to read the other persons blog.  Not only does this get some people looking at my blog, but I get to take a look at all the interesting things on their blogs. 

So, if you've wandered along here as a result of this swap, I welcome you, and thank you for taking the time to visit me.  And if you're not here because of that, I still welcome you - every visitor means a lot to me, please leave a message and say hi!

Birds!

Recently stuffie making hasn't been top of my to do list but I do have some pictures to share from a swap I did a little while back. For Christmas I received a sewing calendar, which outlines a crafty task to do every 3 days or so. In this, I spotted a cute owl egg cozy and decided to adapt the pattern to make a stuffie. The swap requirements were to make two stuffies, one big and one little, similar to my panda swap previously. Here are my finished owls, I really struggled giving them away so I definitely need to make my own ones at some point. Notice the sparkly felt round the eyes, which I found in hobbycraft - I think it adds a little twinkle to the eyes!

In return, I received my best package to date, it was wrapped using cute Sellotape and contained several small bits along with a set of purple penguins which I absolutely love. The stitching is so neat,.  The sender was worried about them looking more like parrots, but she really captured the penguin look.

 

Blogging More

I'd really like to get into blogging more often, but sometimes I fall behind and then just don't come back because I know I have a back log. So, I'm here, promising to put together one big post of all the things I've done that are crafty since the last time I posted to get it all out of the way and feel better. That way, I can post little and often from then on and I hope to finish some of my many works in progress. And now that I've promised that, I'll be more likely to do it!