er, I think is to say, hello I’m here, actually it is not as long as I thought since I last posted, oh well, it feels like a loooooong time!

and whoooooo, well that is all about these,

and these,

what do you think?? John designed these for me to use, and maybe to sell as well if there is a demand for them. We will be working on new designs within this range, so we will have a selection to use together! All very very exciting!

Hopefully I will make something with these soon, working on new stuff at the moment, going slowly, but at least my sewing machine seems to be behaving itself a bit better!

Lots going on at my ‘farm’ job, and I’m proud to present my new blog, Laverstoke Farm a couple of posts so far, and that will be building all the time, hopefully you will get to learn more about the whole farm, field to fork, and all of that business!
Please leave a comment on there, trying to drum up some people on there, so when we have some exciting promotions and giveaways(!) you will know all about it!

more blogging soon, and maybe this time I won’t feel like I have been away for so long!

weird, two blogs I follow, greenolive and Domesticali have both written posts today about what makes them happy, well this makes me happy,

more beads from Kate! They are so tactile, just so lovely to have round your neck : )

so what else, well I’m not going to get into a list, I could be here for hours! But I would say the following going on the past few days,
listening to Spoons new album
cutting out little leaves from linen and some of my favourite fabric
and
watching The Wire, just finished Season 3, watched the first of Season 4 tonight

a few things, oh and something to make me happy next week, the last season of Lost starts!!!!!

I cannot photograph anything red with my existing camera, so I have to rely on John to photograph everything red for me! Like this,

So I’m saving my pennies up for a new camera, the one I have is four years old, and I seem to be using it less and less because it can’t do what I now need it to, another reason for a lack of new photos!

Maybe if people bought some stuff from my not on the high street shop, or my Etsy shop that would help! Sorry that was so blatant, what do you expect : ) !!

proper post, well when I say proper I mean lovely things for me to use!

some of my my favourite fabric and some lovely mother of pearls buttons, very happy : )

Away for a few days, so hopefully a nice post on Monday or Tuesday, and I hope by then the rest of the snow will be gone!

this week has been quiet on here, and the snow again has made the world outside quiet, but lots going on : )

Some of it is positive, but some is much more difficult, I think I have mentioned in the recent past that we have not got Edward into our secondary school of choice, what is more difficult for him/us is that he really needs to be a special needs secondary school and that there are so few really good ones in our area.
So we are now going to have to appeal which is not something I’m looking forward to, but it has to be done, because Edward deserves the best we can get for him.

So over the next few months they may be quiet periods on here, and not much new sewing, but I will be busy! I’m also organising two Handm@de fairs in Winchester, one in July, one in November. I’m also some new stuff at work which potentially involves me writing another blog, but I’ll let you know more about that when it all goes live!

So more soon, hopefully some nice new exciting stuff!

too hard? Am I, I’m not sure, you know when you really like something yourself, but you get vibes from people that actually it isn’t what people either want or expect, what do you do??

There is a larger clearer photo of them both of my flickr stream, here.

So I’m not sure where next with these, I guess the three I have made I will list on Etsy and see what happens, unless any of you have some ideas/feedback on them, they are made from black suede and stuffed with my handmade felt. They are very tactile and measure 6.5cm across.

I think what I’m trying to find is something to run along side my corsages, which I love making and are very popular, but you can’t just stand still. I need to get more things made and available to buy, before I start thinking about all the other things I need to do!

it is very bright today, the sky is blue, cloud free, and the sun is beating down on the snow surrounding us, but not unfortunately making much impact, simply because it is so blooming cold!

So we have the potential for the boys still to be home on Monday and maybe even Tuesday looking at the forecast for the next few days, they are getting fed up and so am I! We had to take them into work yesterday, which was ok, but not something I have a desire to repeat : (

But enough of the moaning! Onto far more important things : ) My birthday giveaway, and just before that another pressie I received,

This was made for me by my very talented sister-in-law Kate, who makes her own lampwork beads. I had mentioned that I wanted another focal bead, and that I liked silver core beads but didn’t like to wear bracelets that much, and I got this beautiful necklace.
It is so perfect, it is really tactile, so have a look at her shop, it really is full of lovely things, though I don’t know how much she is getting done in her garden shed at the moment!

Ok, no longer shall I make you wait, I used the random number generator to get the number……………… 20! Which is Laura! So thank you all so much for entering, always lovely to get so many comments, and on my birthday : ) Maybe I’ll have another birthday later in the year!

Good grief, it looks set in now,

we potentially have this until after the weekend : ( Sorry but snow is not for me, not when everything comes to a halt which it does in this country.
This morning I had to walk to the nearest village, about 2 miles away, which would be better if it wasn’t so up and down, but I had to go and get cat food, so the trip back was less fun!

But now back in the warm and dry, and it is indeed my birthday, now I mentioned a giveaway, and that what is happening! Now I have not taken photos, sorry, but the giveaway will include one of my linen bags, a corsage, some buttons and maybe a bit of choccie!!!

So all you have to do is leave a comment on this post to be in with a chance! It will close tomorrow at midnight! So make sure you place a comment by midnight GMT 7th January.

And if it is snowing where you are, I hope you are in the warm and dry too!

ps here is the snowman the men of the house have made : )

… birthday tomorrow

the photo is from the snow before Christmas taken by my lovely husband, more to see here.

But we already have thick snow outside and we could have 30cms by tomorrow morning! which as I have mentioned is my birthday, whooo!

And to celebrate it, and because I failed to do any giveaways over Christmas, I will tomorrow be doing a giveaway tomorrow, so keep your eyes peeled by the birthday post!

…but with a twist, I guess!

Onto that in a minute, but firstly stuff about the shops I run online : )

Etsy has been wonderful for me, I have sent my items all over the world, to places I can only dream of going, and to have a little piece of me in these places fills me full of joy! However there are limits to the power of Etsy, especially in this country, I want to sell more items here, and if many people haven’t heard of Etsy, even fewer have heard of Folksy : (
But now I have my Not on the High Street shop which has opened up some new opportunities, including a slightly different way of selling my items.

In the past I have made bags of my choice/design, then listed them on Etsy, and hope they sell, for some this has been great, other bags not so good! So with NOTHS (sorry I simply cannot write it full length again!) I will be making bags to order, and with customers able to have bags with their choices of base fabric, and the colour of the embroidered pattern, here is an example,

It is this design, but now on denim, and I think it works really well! So what I will be offering for this design is three or four different base colours with the same number of different colour choices for the berries, does that make sense?

Some colours will be limited, as I will not always be able to source some of the linens, but I want to give some more choice and also potentially some level of personalisation as an optional extra.

I’m still going to use Etsy, but I will be selling on there my one-off pieces, as I’m not going to stop doing what I like as well! I’m going to use Folksy I think as my shop for selling old lines/seconds if that makes sense. That way I can hopefully keep my head sorted for all the designing and making I love to do!

Any feedback would be much appreciated : )