New year, new crafts!

Hello everyone, hope you all had lovely Christmasses! We had a lovely time spent with family surrounded by twinkly things and wrapping paper and generally eating and drinking a lot (far too much in fact, I need a detox!!)

I was so pleased to receive these lovely books I had been eyeing these on the shelves for ages. Kirstie's Homemade Home is full of lovely pictures and great ideas... the Nigella and Jamie books have so many fab recipes to try (a lot of them knock the detox idea on the head though hehe).

So another year has passed and a new one on the horizon…

There is something nice about starting a new year I think, almost like starting a fresh page (sort of), and a good opportunity to make plans and look forward to exciting new opportunities…

One of the items on my 'things to do' list... learning how to crochet! I have been knitting since I was little after being taught by my lovely Nan, however crochet is one of those things that has always baffled me a bit..

After spotting this magazine in Tesco on Tuesday, I got very excited as it comes with a colourful collection of yarns and also a couple of crochet hooks.

Here is my first attempt… ok, it does leave a lot to be desired and to be honest I am not even sure if I am doing it right but on the positive side at least it looks sort of like it could be crochet….

I am attempting to make this adorable little chick egg cosy, so sweet!

There are also some other lovely patterns in the magazine...

Like this beautiful crochet hook holder...

How cute is this little doggie/fox creature? I love him! Almost my sole reason for wanting to learn how to crochet!

My Christmas pressie WHSmith vouchers are going to be spent on Stitch 'n Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker by Debbie Stoller. I have the knitting version of this book is very good and explains things brilliantly.

Also spotted this book by Martha Stewart which has lots of sewing and fabric craft projects, and will also be bought on the voucher (huge thanks to my lovely Grandma-in-law!)

Wishing you all a wonderful and happy 2011

Sarah

xx

Making a snowman and a felt Christmas pudding

Hello! I hope that everyone is having a lovely weekend. There are lots of lovely snowy pics here in blogland it's been great to look at them all. We were very excited yesterday when it started snowing heavily here is London, so on our way to the shops we walked through the park to make the most of it!

I wasn't bargaining on being covered in snow after the first 10 mins due to snowballs being thrown at me by my lovely other half (I did get him back a bit hehe), but after that was all finished with we decided to make a snowman. His face is made entirely out of money! (That was all we had to hand at the time and a few of them were pound coins so we had to take them off before we left him with only his 2p eyes and nose)

Rolling the body is not a quick operation we noticed, it took ages!!

I love the way everything looks as if it is dusted in icing sugar...

Here is another little felt tree decoration that I made last night, think I am slightly addicted to making these things, I would highly recommend this to all as a therapeautic Christmassy exercise! Great for using up smaller pieces of felt and spare buttons, I have hand sewn it together using running stitch along the bottom of the icing, and blanket stitch around the edging. Also lots of stuffing in it to make it a nice round Christmas pudding.

Hope you are all keeping warm and safe in the snow.

Sarah

x

A bit of Christmas baking and trying to get organised...

Hello all! I hope that you had good weekends. It has been so nice to have today off work (although it's disappearing alarmingly quickly), and I have trying to fill in the precious time with doing a bit of baking and trying to get organised.

Due to my tendancy to be rather forgetful, I have decided that I need to be a lot more organised and pour more of my efforts into getting things done.
So, I have begun by throwing some money at the problem! Well, it's a step in the right direction.

Here are the little things that I have bought, my goodness has it made me feel a lot better, isn't it funny what a bit of retail therapy can do?

Some little Cath Kidston notebooks/journals (one for handbag/one for bedside table/one for... well, just a spare one)

A Cath Kidston 2011 diary...

I love this diary, it has a little plastic zipper pocket at the back to hold little notes/receipts/prescriptions etc

Ok, this is a bit of an extravegance because there are plenty of bic biros floating around our house, but I couldn't resist this Emma Bridgewater pen which provides a constant reminder to make lists!

And a cute little Emma Bridgewater concertina file decorated with beautiful red hearts.

This is a picture from my Nigella Christmas book, where there is a lovely recipe for some Christmas Chocolate biscuits.

Very easy to make you just throw it all together, and add some sprinkles on top after baking them in the oven for 15 mins.

I can't stop looking at the adorable candy cane glass in this picture!! Not sure where you can get these? I am completely in love with it!

Here are the ones that I made yesterday, although they do not look quite as nice as Nigella's they are rather moreish. Also, Nigella used green red and white 'Christmas sprinkles' which can be bought from Jane Asher online but I could only find the standard hundreds and thousands in Sainsburys.

I don't normally get carried away with Christmas card paintings, but thought these cards that I bought over the weekend were so intricate and atmospheric that I wanted to share them with you. Almost wish I could be transported into the beautiful cozy Christmas scenes....

A sweet little traditional shopping scene....

How cozy is that little house...?!

Almost tempted to frame them!

Have a lovely rest of the day everyone

Sarah

x

Icicles, mittens and stockings

Hello! I hope that everyone is keeping warm and wrapped up in the cold. All the snow is gone here (well, there are a few little patches of it here and there), but we had quite a lot of it which was lovely. And the icicles in our garden have gone too, I think they were the best bit!
These ones were forming by our back door along the clematis that we have growing along the fence....

I've been making a few more little felt decorations for the tree, they are great way to use up all those little odd pieces of ribbon, fabric and sparkely things that are stashed away.

Here is the mitton and the stocking that I made using a blanket stitch to sew them together...

And here is Bruce the (Blue Spruce) Christmas tree - finally brought in from the garden last weekend. I'm quite pleased that he is still green but he has a bit of needle droppage bless him which I am hoping a few glugs of water will help with. Looks lovely and Christmassy with the lights on, we went for the traditional multi-coloured fairy lights (absolute bargin from Argos - 80 lights for about five pounds!)

Have a wonderful weekend!

Sarah

x