Knowing I'm on the street where you live......

Today is an exciting day as my sister-in-law, brother-in-law and baby nephew have moved into a house on my street!!  We can both stand on our front steps and wave to each other :)  My boys are so excited that their baby cousin is so close by.  They are looking forward to walking home from school and calling in to visit on their way.  Zach has even said that he's going to take care of baby E while Auntie C gets his milk ready :) How cute is that for a 5 yr old!! :)

Thanksgiving!

Happy Turkey Day :)

Can't wait for my Thanksgiving dinner tonight. Yummo!!

Books

I went to the Charity Shop in our town today to look at the books section, as I do everytime I'm in there.  They are 5 for £1 so well worth a look!

I bought a colouring book for Nathaniel - it's actually called Doodle Patterns so rather than having pictures to colour you have patterns.  I love colouring books and think this is quite age appropriate for a 7 year old. Something he can do in Sacrament meeting at church!  I got Zach a book containing 5 Hairy MacLary stories.  We have one book already called 'Hairy MacLary and Zachary Quack (my mum got it for him since his name is Zachary!).  Zach is our little reader.  He loves books and it makes me so happy to see him pulling books off the shelves to sit and read.

I bought myself this book as I might get some good tips and advice from it! I'm going to have a peruse of it later while the kids and David watch 'You've Been Framed'.

I also bought 2 novels.  I don't mind buying used books at all.  But I do prefer then not to be too bashed and worn.  I got two that look like they've not been read, but at the same time have got good recommendations on them.  The first is The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields and the second is The Two Pound Tram by William Newton.  I think I will start with The Two Pound Tram.  I'll let you know how I enjoyed them once I've read them.  Then, since I only read books once, will happily send them on to anyone who may like to read them.  So watch out for a RAK in a little while :)  I really should sort out all my other books.  I have so many - ones I've bought but not got around to reading yet. And others, lots of others, that I've started but not finished.  Why do I do that?? 

And it's good to know that while I'm paying only £1 for a selection of 5 books, I'm doing my little bit to help my local Hospice!

Oh, I was actually frivilous today - because I spent 3.99 to buy the Sew Hip magazine at my local newsagent.  Don't want to even think about the fact that this £4 would have bought me 20 books from the Hospice shop!!

Pictures

Lots of eye candy in this post :)

You really need to click on the pics to see the true colours as the background on this template makes them look very subdued and not at all vivid. Just suggesting :)

This first picture shows a selection of ribbons and trimmings I bought today. Some are from Hobbycraft and others are from Fabworks in Dewsbury.

Here is some Cath Kidston fabric that I bought in another fabric store in Dewsbury.  Full price is £18 a meter but I got it (it's seconds quality) for £1.99 a meter.  I bought 5 meters. Just because.  I also got a couple meters of the same but with spots rather than flowers.  I made some tiny tote bags, with red handles, for little girls.  I sold a couple at school on Wed eve.
I bought this Laura Ashley fabric from Fabworks today.  They sell all their fabric as 'seconds' to cover any possible faults found in the fabric.  It's £5 a meter.  There was a stripe in it that had been overdyed so the man gave me extra to make up for it so I probably ended up with about 1.5 meters.
These are the Laura Ashley bags I made for the craft sale we had at my MIL's last weekend. These were taken at her house. These bags sold out that Friday night. I charged 4.50 each.
These are some larger tote bags I made. I still have a couple of these. I used some Ikea fabic that's a good weight for bags.
Another pics of my bags. The one on the right is also Ikea fabric. I sold one of these and am using one of them myself. I still have more of this fabric to make more with.
Some of the coloured pencil and paper cases. I opened one to show the inside. We still have a few of these left.
Some gorgeous Sarah Smith teatowels. I didn't make these ones but found some at a great price so was still able to sell then at half rrp.  They are just too nice to use though!  And lots of the pins and needles cases. I can't decided whether the heart design or birdy design is my favorite! Again we have lots of these left.
We made some keyrings too. We only made 6 and I think we still have 2 or 3 left.  We only charged a pound each for them.
Another pic of same things.
The pencil/paper cases and also the pencil rolls.  In one of my favorite baskets!
We made some baby taggy blankets but withdrew them from sale because we need to make the tags shorter.  I love, love, love them though!!  The bottom 2 designs are my favorite.  I got the strawberry fabric from a swap and it's so delicious. I used some of it for this as I thought it would be gorgeous!

Oh Well!

The shopping event tonight at school was a waste of time!!  Seriously - it started at 7pm and we could have all packed up by 8 and gone home!  Last year's sale was great  - we all made a decent amount of sales and took a decent amount of money. Not so this year!  And it wasn't just us - everyone else had a disappointing amount of sales.  One lady took £400 last year and £40 this!! Crazy.  We probably took in £30. And that was for 3 of us!!  Oh well.  Looks like a few family and friends and swap partners will be in luck this Christmas :)  The only person who did well at tonight was the woman doing Tarot Card readings and clairvoyant reading!! What's all that about??? They'd rather waste £5 on that than spend it on my beautiful sewing, lol!!

Crafty

Well our Shopping Event on Friday evening and Saturday daytime is over and was a success!  We still have the Shopping Night at school on Wednesday evening to go and more goodies to make before then! Especially tote bags.  On Friday night I sold 6 out of the 9 we made (including all of the ones I made with Laura Ashley fabric).  I took picture so will add them later once I've transfered them to the computer.

Yesterday, we were 'open' for business for 2 hours in the morning and a few hours in the afternoon.  Between sessions, my friend Ann, who was selling her handcrafted jewellery, took me into Dewsbury to show me where the fabric shop was.  I had planned on buying some more fabric to replenish our stock for making more bags.  The shop was fabulous!!  It was a maze of rooms, where all same priced fabric is in its own room. For example, in one room all fabric is £1 a metre, another room £2.99 etc.  I found some simply gorgeous fabric but the highlight of the trip was finding Cath Kidston fabric.  They had two design. One with daisy type flowers and the other spotted.  It's now discontinued on her website.  But did I pay the £18 meter that she charges for her fabric??  No, no. You know me better than that.  I paid an astonishing £1.99 a meter!! Yes, you heard right!  I got 7 meters in total.  Plus lots of other fabric.  I spent a total of £40, but when you consider the CK fabric would normally have cost £126 on its own, I was mighty pleased!  Pictures to follow :)  I'll definitely be back there again.  Plus they have some lovely fabric for curtains so I'll be looking out to get some to make my living room curtains.

A Job!

I got myself a little ol' job!

I'm now a lunchtime supervisor at my kids' school.  It's only 1 hr 15 mins a day, five days a week.  I'll be working with a 5 yr old boy (he's actually in Zac's class) who has autism - supporting him in the lunchroom and in the playground.  It's something to get me back into the classroom at some point!!  And the little bit of extra money will be very welcome.

Oh, and the best bit - I get to wear a tabard, how hilarious is that? lol!!!  

I get to be one of those dinner ladies that Peter Kay makes fun of in his standup comedy - "Get inside, it's spitting!".  If you've never seen Peter Kay, you just don't know what you're missing. Check out youtube or something. I'm sure he's on there!!

Remember.

Remember.

Only one word. But so powerful!

Oh So Busy!

I've been so busy creating 'masterpieces' for the shopping party on Friday and Saturday!  So far we have made 20 pins and needle holders, 6 pencil rolls, 15 pencil and pad holders, 3 baby tag blankets, 3 tote bags.  And there's still more to be done! {sigh}.  And we don't even know if anyone will turn up to buy!  We are also selling Oriflame skincare and cosmetics.  Then next week we have a table at my boys' school shopping evening.  So what we don't sell will be taken there.  And if we manage to sell most of it this weekend, we'll be busy again crafting for the school event!  I hope we actually make some money out of this, lol!  I'll add pictures of more item later!

More crafty bits

We've had a busy couple of weeks, what with Halloween (we had a trunk or treat night at church for the kids which was a huge success!) and also Bonfire Night (held at a church friend's home).

I've also been busy again crafting. We made some Pencil Rolls and holders for pencils and notepads.  I'm going to my MIL's again tomorrow to make more of them!  Our craft event is next week so we are busy getting as much created as possible!  Here's a few pictures of our latest creations.