the end of the year again! Seems to come round quicker every time now, not sure if that is good, bad, or doesn’t really matter!

Looking back at what I wrote this time last year, it does seem that I had two main things, the boys and their education, and getting my Etsy shop to work and continue to sell.

Well the boys, Edward seems quite settled, I don’t know if he is learning enough, but he is making progress, especially with his handwriting, this time last year it was very hard to read and now he is quite confident in it. We have chosen a secondary school for him, and I guess in the Spring term we will find out if that is all ok, fingers crossed!

William, well, I don’t think it could get any worse that the first half of this year, so I hope that we continue the good progress that has been made over the last term, he settles back into full time school well and fingers crossed. Also reading last year the whole poo thing was there, well it still is, and I think once he is settled back at school I really need to get him referred back to the hospital : ( Lets hope that is one thing we could sort out this year!

William gave me this the other day,

How sweet is that! But what I want to know is, what do butterflies smell of?!

Onto Etsy, and Folksy I guess as well!

By this time last year I had sold 81 items on Etsy and I wanted to sell 200 by now, well I have and just beaten it to the point of 217 sales, I had a really slow period in the shop in the first part of the Autumn, and I think this sort of knocked my confidence a little, but now I know that I will sell my work if I have confidence in them : )
I had also aimed for 500 hearts, well I passed that about half way through the year, I now have 1119!! So that has been good : )
I need to get on the front page and just seen a bit more on there.

On Folksy well I have not put in enough effort, and so I have only sold 2 things on there, but considering the lack of me actually doing anything with it, I think that is pretty good!

So selling online, well I would like to hit 350 to 400 sales over both of the shops this year, and to get to the point of keeping the shops stocked with at least 5 different types of items at all times. I also want to start to have more themes running, in the past that has worked really well, so I would like to do some more of that.

Some of the things I’m most pleased with that I have made this year for the shops,

I also have had a quite successful year with Craft fairs and doing my first attempt at teaching! There will be more about both of these very soon : )

Other things, well, Baggy being shot was probably the worst thing of the whole year, and the feeling I had when I first found him I never want to revisit, but, he is now tip-top and better than we could have ever imagined! So a big thank you to everyone at Mildmay Veterinary Centre who saved his life and mended him!

What else, off the top of my head, not sure, probably loads of stuff, but I would like to say a bit thank you to everyone who visits this blog, reading your comments really makes everything so much better, and is so helpful, I can’t actually explain how much it means to me : )
When everything happened with Baggy you all helped us, it made such a huge difference and I thank every single one of you for being there!

I hope this coming year I can keep everything going and make it a much better year, and I hope you can all come along for the ride too!

I’ll leave you with this,

some of the fabric John got me for Christmas, lovely, very nice indeed, hope this will be appearing soon in a new ‘thing’!

Happy New Year!!!

is it still December?! It seems to be going on forever, I think in a way it is these three days between the end of the weekend and then New Years, they are sort of non-entity days!

However I have something to show you! And tomorrow I will tell you about my pressies and other more Christmas sort of stuff!

I have made quite a few pressies for people this year, maybe too many, some of the others I have made more than one, as they will be going into the shop eventually.

This one, these two should I say, well they are going to lead to some more, as I’m working on new ideas, and ‘ranges’ : )

and then a ‘matching’ partner,

with detailing on the reverse of the cushion,

I’m really pleased with these, and I hope to making some more to go in the shop, and maybe coasters and place mats based on this design too, what do you think?

Happy Christmas!!

a tiny bit from the tree as decorated by the boys!

I hope it’s been a warm one wherever you are!

See you all soon!

today, the shortest day of the year, and William has been reminding us constantly!

I have sold another two corsages on Etsy which is great, and has made me realise that corsages are for life, not just for Christmas!
I have in the past only tended to make them in the lead up to the festive season, but I’m now beginning to work out that people like to wear them all year round, and maybe I could have paler ones for the the springtime.

So that is one thing, another is that we have finally got the tree down from the top of the garden, well John lugged it down, not me!
So after lunch I start the ‘excitement’ of doing the decorations, can you hear the delight in my voice : (

But far more exciting than that is this,

I’m making up some things as presents, and at the same time making up the same bags, but with different linings and designs, what do you think?
I have wanted to do this for ages, but never got round to it, I’m really quite pleased with it.
While I was sewing I was also listening to TMS, which was great. I love sewing while listening to cricket, they go so well together, and this morning we did quite well with some fantastic batting from Pietersen and Flintoff, a real shame they both lost their wickets before the end of play : (

Anyway, the holidays have started, and the peace and joy is so overwhelming………….

it is too early! couldn’t sleep well, so here I am to announce the winner!!!

The winner is number 21, which is Marie!!!

Thanks to everyone who entered the draw, I would like to continue doing something like this, or maybe some swaps, but we will have to see : )

A bigger and more visual post later I hope!

but only eight corsages!

just done a quick update to the shop with these eight corsages! Phew, I wanted to get them in their before it was simply too late.

At least our post office appears to have calmed down, it had gone quite barmy, made worse by the old dears queuing up to to buy a book of stamps, when they could do that in the main shop, argghhhhhh!

**** For the giveaway, please leave your comments in the ‘17′ post, it will make it easier and I won’t miss anyone : ) ****

I can’t think of anything witty to tie in with the number 17, oh well, I shall be boring instead : )

Today was Williams last day before Christmas, Edward has two more, at least it is that way round, the moods from William would have been unbearable if it hadn’t!

This morning I made some mince pies,

As you can see, perfectly yummy! If you do want the recipe, the one for making the mincemeat is here, and the idiot proof guide to making the pies is here!

And here we are at the last giveaway/freebie before Christmas!!!

So if you are in the UK please leave a comment if you would love to win a lovely felt corsage : )

I will close this offer at midnight tomorrow night! Good luck!!

as I will be busy this evening making corsages and mince pies I thought I would blog before the school run!

I have lots of things to make as Christmas presents, this is an example of where I am with this,

Not all of these will be turned into presents, some will be to go into the shop, but the problems is the current state, just cut fabric, urghhhh!

Of course as these will be presents I won’t be able to show those ones off, maybe the others, hmm, they may have to wait too!
Off to collect children, and then make pastry, cook tea, make corsages, and then mince pies, is that enough for today, or should I throw something else in as well?!

well there has been a little update to the shop : )

yep, these were recently re-discovered as I mentioned in a recent post, and it would have been sad to put them away again. I didn’t like them on the A4 sheets I had mounted them on, and I had these frames, so that was it, sorted!!

There are three of them, all similar but different, and for UK buyers I’m running a special offer on them until the 18th! If you are in the UK I will reimburse your postage, so they will be sent to you for FREE!!!

Oh yes, free, indeed!

Er, anything else, well yes, I need a new Steering Rack Gater, and two new front tyres, yay!
(so buy, buy ,buy!!)

I know there was one earlier, but I did say I would do another, and this one is short and sweet too!

I wanted to explain about the ‘Twisted Karaoke’ thing I went to last night.

Now you all know what normal Karaoke is? You know, you stand in from of a screen of some size and type, and sing the words on the screen along to the backing track, simple, yes?

Now, that also keeps you in time, prompts you as such, makes it quite easy, also it you can hear the music, but more importantly, you can hear yourself.

Right, ‘Twisted Karaoke’ well…..

remove the screen with the words on, and replace that with an A4 sheet of paper with the lyrics printed on
remove the prompting
remove the ability to hear yourself
stand in front of a drumset, guitar, bass and keyboards all being played really really well!

Oh yes, ‘Twisted Karaoke’ is singing karaoke with a live band! And last night I witnessed friends singing and looked scared to death, and to cap it off I witnessed husbands of friends dressed up as the village people doing ‘YMCA’!!!!!

It was entertaining in the style of car crash tv, and maybe if I had not been as sober as a judge I might have joined in : ) But maybe that will be the next time!!!

A proper post with visuals tomorrow, I hope : )