Butterfly Placemats, Two orders and Heavy Going Grizzly

Been really busy this week. Firstly, I made some butterfly place mats for our garden table.  Our place mats were the first time I had attempted to make some but we were all pretty pleased with them, especially following uploading them onto my Facebook page I received an order for a set of 4.  I also had a best teacher order to complete, this time in
 pink.

The completed table

Placemats made up for a following order

Best Teacher Cushion

I also found time this week to continue with my current WIP, Heavy Going Grizzly.  He is slowly coming along.  Hopefully next week there will be more of him to see, however I have now put my name down for 2 craft stalls in June so I need to start stitching other things to continue building my stock up so I can see him taking a back seat again for a while.

He's getting bigger.

Etsy, Folksy, More Stitching, Visiting Felbrigg Hall and finally I will be able to stitch outside

I have a shopping problem, and I don't mean me spending money for once.  After doing a couple of pop up shops I have decided to bite the bullet and open an online shop either on Etsy or Folksy but am deliberating on whether I should do one, the other or both. I have been trawling the net looking at various forums looking at what other people recommended.  My main quandary is, should I open a shop on both sites or just concentrate on one?   Any suggestions or comments will be appreciated.

At the minute I have been busy cross stitching an order for a teacher cushion and have stitched 'Think Big, Dream Bigger' ready to turn into a cushion for sale with loads more planned.  I am also continuing on Heavy Going Grizzly in between to fill the space on the wall at the top of the stairs.  This week will also see our table and chairs arrive for our garden which is looking a lot better and I have some really lovely material to use to make place-mats, so this week the sewing machine is also going to be busy.

All ready to be transformed into a cushion.

Heavy Going Grizzly

Butterfly material which will become our place-mats.

During the long weekend, we went to Felbrigg Hall here in the East of England and had a great day out.  I loved the tapestries they had on show there.  The work put into them and especially the age of them it was surprising how close I was allowed to go.

The front of Felbrigg Hall built around 1620.

Considering the age, the colours are still vibrant.

Close up of the bottom left hand corner of the dog.

Not able to go too close to this one

Or this one, but it has aged well.

Also amazing was the wallpaper in the Chinese room, hand painted and shipped from China in 1771.  There were 4 panels which were repeated however I was only able to take photos of 3 panels as the other panels were covered with various pieces of furniture.

All the photos were taken on my mobile phone as I had forgotten my camera so I was really pleased with how they came out.

This coming weekend will see us finally getting the table and chairs for the garden and I am looking forward to that as when its sunny stitching outside will be my main objective instead of indoors.  I am really pleased with how it turned out, thanks to Steve's hard work and our planters have arrived and are filled with plants and we have butterfly solar lights on the back fence.  

One Planter sorted out

BBQ Area almost done.  Just need to paint the wall. 

Planter 2 

And the grass is coming really well now.

We can pretty soon all sit outside with the music on and enjoy the fruits of our  Steve's labour.  However, looking back over this blog post, like the plants we now have in our garden cross stitch and tapestry are the fruits of our labour.   We spent time nurturing a stitching passion onto a plain piece of aida or linen and by putting the work into it we gain something well worthwhile at the end.

Creating with Polymer Clay, Best Teacher Cushion and Tackling our Garden Part 1

Crafting is taking over in the Wilson household.  Victoria is starting out with polymer clay to make things to sell to her friends.  Its certainly busy in my kitchen at the minute where she has set up 'base camp' and has been busy making a pen, a rainbow cake, a candy wrapper and small pieces of chocolate that do look edible.  Already she has been taking orders off her friends at school.

I did start last week being able to sit outside in the sunshine and start stitching Teacher Cushions to sell for the end of the school year.  I decided on doing crayons and designed 2 templates.  I tend to use Jane Greenoff's cross stitch designer and find its easy to use once I have drawn a rough piece on graph paper.  It could be seen as long winded but I find using the programme helps me to find the centre for stitching and I can then keep it on my laptop and change things about once I have designed any pictures.  

After a week off and on, hence the late post I finally completed my 'prototype' to advertise for sale along with advertising for cushion orders. I think it's something different from chocolates and flowers etc. 

The main reason this was so long in the making, usually I can get a cushion, even a large one made up within 4 days was that the weather here in Lowestoft has been so lovely and warm I started stitching outside......the same time as my husband started doing a radical garden makeover.  When I say radical.....I mean radical.  He started, I assisted and together we have seen our new garden start to evolve.

This was our garden, however minus the shed which our next door neighbour purchased off us.

Where my husband is standing all the slabs were dug up and a new path laid....on day one and two.

Day 3 and 4 found us purchasing rolls of turf for £0.50 per roll and some great animal stepping stones.

Our animal stepping stones

And lay a new step at the gate and make a little area with some miniature trees with a solar powered water feature.  Our son was roped into tidying up the fence.

Before

After

Now at the end of the garden

With our solar powered fairy water feature

The garden so far, the grass is beginning to improve and its looking fresher, brighter, larger and a lot better.

 

Today Steve tackled the new bbq area, and where the slabs are some planters are arriving to add a bit of colour into the garden.  It is beginning to look a lot better but we still have some more bits to do and items to get....but its a BIG improvement.  We've managed to get some bargains and reuse some of the things that were already in the garden. such as the bricks.  But I may be able to get some more stitching done.  

After this big blog showing our hard work so far combining it with stitching, thanks for looking and any comments are really appreciated.

Happy Mother's Day, Decluttering

Happy Mother's Day, although officially over here in England our celebrations were back in March.  Unfortunately, even with loads of hints my family did not take me up on this special day again.  However my daughter wrote me a poem last year and thought I would share it.

So to all you mothers, step-mothers, grandmothers even foster-mothers, Happy Mother's Day you're all great!!!

Since my return from America, the new tax year is upon me and I needed to do a stock take on what materials I had, however being so busy toward the end of the last tax year and then flying out of England I was faced with this at the beginning of the week.

Complete mess

Tidy and hopefully for good.

Where do I start?

Sorted!!!

The whole process took me a few days and was so tedious but worth it.  I even managed to sort out my cupboard which is full of material.  Like my step-daughter I am always buying new material in the hope that I find something to use it on and then think its too nice to cut up.   Does anybody else think like that?

Finally our anniversary Rhododendron bush has now started to flower, I love the bright colours.  We got it given to us for our first wedding anniversary and this year, in July we will be celebrating our 14th Wedding Anniversary.  For us it finally spring has sprung and whilst I am not a gardener as such, our tubs have been filled with plants, will have to see if my 'gardening' skills are as good as my stitching skills.