Blizzards outside ...sunshine inside!!

Aw...so touched this is my first blog award, only be rambling for a couple of weeks now so I'm dead chuft.

The Sunshine Award is is to awarded for inspiring positivity and creativity within the blogging world, and also to spread the love by having the nominee list their own choices for an award.

Sunshine Award Rules

To accept the award:

Place this award on your blog or in a post

Pass the award on to 12 bloggers

Link the nominiees within the post

Let the nominiees know they have received the award by commenting on their blog

Share the love and link to the person from whom you received the award.

Big hugs to pussygalore and to fleurs-de-perles and also to cinnamon jewellery who passed this sunshine on to me - much needed today as another day of snow, but it's the wet stuff - not the snowman building kind :-(

So here's the happy people I'd like to pass this award onto, and bring a smile to you cute wee faces x

* hathorsbath 
* cherrytree  
* patchworkbutterflys
* nataliebwilson
* estherharriet
* settersdelight
* Linziloop
* wrappedupwithstring
* cjjewellery  
* eclectic-creations
* lynwood crafts
* two hippos

Sorry if anyone is offended by me only passing on 12 and not 36...I spend far too much time on the laptop which means even less time creating at the moment.    Note to self GET OFF THE COMPUTER!!

Folksy Friday

Thank crunchie it's Friday...YIPEE, now I need a drum roll please...... here is my folksy friday...ta da!!

Being my first ever picks I'd thought I'd go with the theme of FIRST, so having typed it into the search engine here is the cream of the crop...

Funky Ladybug 1st Birthday Card by Ditzy Creations

Framed Prayer - new baby, christening of first holy communion by Evie George

Knitted first birthday cupcake by Nikki's Knits

Pink first cushion / pillow by Karen Hilton Designs

and last but by no means least... collage first kiss vintage style canvas by Pavlova

Looking forward to seeing everyone elses folksy friday too...
let me know if you do a folksy friday and I'll add you to my blog list.

Have a fan-dabby-dosy weekend x

p.s. thank you for my sunshine awards pussy galore & fleurs de perles,

my list is in the making, more later...

Roses are rust, violets are dead, don't give me flowers or I will behead !

With valetine's day a distant memory the flowers I received are fading fast now...so my brain flashed a fab idea of ' I know I'll press the remaining little beauties'.  So here they are (were) in all there glory ...

Dancing with glee around the house, thinking of my brilliant-ness (is that a word?)...I found my flower press. This is the same press I've had since I was 6 years old, so that makes the flower press em..well..okay, I'm giving away my age here...28 eeeek !!! I'm sure my age doesn't count if I don't say it out loud, hmm I wonder when one can 'officially' start counting backwards? Anyone know?  If my two children have anything to do with it though they'd correct me if I lied (mummy's don't lie) bent the truth about my age, okay hands up I admit it - I'm 34 - going on 24 I like to think.  Infact my youngest said to me the other day "Mum, your not like the other mums"..."you look like a teenager" Not quite sure what a five year old means by this but hell I'll take it as a compliment.  Back to the flower press...

In all it's 1980's glory...I haven't used it for ages, I'd  found it in my mums loft, after pinging of the wing nuts, I peeled the paper apart to find that it wasn't empty - aah now vague memories of trying to press a single rose came flooding back.  So I had used it a few months ago, maybe last summer?, goodness knows...the paper is all stuck together, the flower has gone mouldy, and the paper is prity much useless, or over-used, which ever way you look at it.

Now I'm no expert on squashing the living day-lights out of defenceless flowers, did I have it in too long?...Most probably, should I have at least renewed the 28 year old paper? Highly likely...am I rubbish at flower pressing? Most definitely!!

And here is my poor fusty rose, no longer the vibrant red it once was, alas it's turned a rust colour, with hairs growing out of the mouldy bits.  Now my question is what, if anything, can i do with it? Only composting springs to mind.  So if any of you lovely crafty people out there know how I can preserve my current bouquet...I'd really, REALLY, REALLY appreciate your wisdom...X

All the two's

22/02 already...my how the days are passing quick!  Pity the weekends are even quicker, I tried very hard to chill out this weekend and to stay away from my cosy corner but it's SO difficult, I was itching to get a small handbag finished, I like to only make two of something - keeps the uniqueness and makes items all the more special i think. 

On saturday morning I had a trip to the post office, sending a purchase to a lovely customer, I took great pleasure wrapping it up, having discovered a great blog by PussyGalore, I'm thinking more about how my sales arrive, not that i would ever wrap an item in kitchen roll, yes- this really has happened to someone, no joke!! go visit PussyGalore's website and you'll see what I'm talking about. 

I've made new swing tags, using the reverse side of my business cards, and my card can be 'popped' back out again - simples.

In the evening Mr World took me out for a drive, nice to get out of the house for a while - I forget that there's a beautiful world right on my doorstop...I was so busy blethering away and looking out the window I'd forgotten to take pictures and then the sun began to fall behind the mountains - whoops! stop the car! My blog, my blog...I've got to take pictures (thank goodness Mr World is very understanding to my whimsical moments, and laughs along with me - although that's what he says, I'm sure it's AT ME)  We found ourselves looking over the cromarty firth, snowy mountains in the distance and oil rigs in the foreground, getting cleaned up and fixed before sailing off around the world again.

And so back to Monday...to me Monday is cleaning out the fridge day, writing my menu for the week (grocery shopping tomorrow) and checking the calender for any up and coming birthdays.  None this week, phew - no pressure to make a quick gift,  still finishing off my daughter's friends gift - here's a sneak peak.

So guys enjoy your Monday, whatever you do - do it with a smile x

Sunnyside up! No, not the eggs...

Okay so my title may seem a little confusing at the moment...  The kids have had a few days off school and returned today...which means I can grab a couple of peaceful hours to catch up with neglected 'to do' lists.

In between pancake day (hilariously disasterous - see mystery blob below), sleep-overs and generaly running riot - the kids that is, not me, I did manage to come up with some new ideas for my cards...in fact I went to sleep thinking about it and woke up saying 'yip I got it'.  Now this never usually happens to me, so I was very grateful that my brain seems to be in good working order, after all it is getting rather old (now all I'm waiting for is the 'wise' bit to kick in!).

I set to work, as soon as I could, translating my thoughts onto paper...and was rather pleased with my results.  It was after reading discussions on folksy about USP (thats unique selling point to you and me) that made me re-think what I was creating, hmm...I don't have a brand, a logo, something you could instantly recognise that was mine, so I'll be trying out different techniques over the next few weeks and finger crossed I'll come up with something that speaks, no, sings to me.

My frustration this week has been photographs, when there's no sun and the house lights are just too harsh I felt very let down that I couldn't do my new cards justice, and then I remembered I read a section on haptree's blog entitled photo tips.  It is full of tips about getting the best out of natural light as well as photo editing.   I had great fun playing around with the different techniques and certainly learnt a few things along the way, and just as I was about to begin editing again today - well I didn't have to, why you may ask? when I had such fun? well because the sun eventually came out - hence sunnyside up - hooray!

Busy week sewing

It's been a busy old week for me, i had birthday cards to make and handbags to sew.  I seem to have an endless list of orders at the moment but i'm certainly not complaining!!  I do thrive on being kept busy.

This is a custom bag in the making, using new material...I'm not really one for black, I try to avoid it at all costs, especially in the clothes department, although one does have a LBD of course.  My customer asked for black and white - i hope she likes it, I think it's turned out rather well.  Sadly I don't have any more photos of it - I was so excited packaging the bag that I'd forgotten - whoops - won't be doing that again, lesson learnt.

Little Miss World had out-grown her favourite pink denim skirt and to say she was sad about this was an understatement.  I only notice the other day when she put it on...hmm it looked more like a belt!! I must be getting old LOL.

I let her loose on an old pair of jeans, kindly donated by Mr World, cutting out squares and so with a few stitches and some pretty pink gingham everyone was happy again in Marice's World.

Leaf prints

I've had a limited amount of this gorgeous leaf print fabric for a few months now, in black, red and duck egg blue.

So recently, after almost resigning it to the 'too nice to use' pile (yes i know that sounds ridiculous) I made some new bags with them.

Red is my favourite colour, but this time I think the blue one is nicest...i especially like the lining.

Anyone for tea? This was part of my nana's tea set, tea always tastes better in a 'real' cup don't you think?

My little corner...

Well I thought the best place to start would be to show you my cosy corner under the stairs, and not a cobweb in sight!!.

I love sitting here, it's in the centre of my home...i can work happily away till all hours.  Mostly I create personalised cards for friends and family but since I got my new sewing machine, i'm having loads of fun creating.