What did we do today?

Well I got taken out for lunch by my beautiful small people courtesy of my mother. Mum sent money up to the girls to take us all out for lunch as an Easter treat so that was nice. :)
Craftwise...well what else do I ever talk about?
Today was another knit day.
Wee one has been invited to a party on Saturday and as funds are low and I have no time to go shopping (which involves a 24 mile round trip to get to any half decent shops) so I went through my stast and found some fancy yarn and thought hmmmm I know I'll knit a bag. So this is what I did this afternoon.

Just a simple wee bag with a hello kitty button to close it up. I'm putting lots of sweeties inside. Big one assures me this is a great present so I guess I need to stop worrying that it's no enough, a handmade bag would be expensive in a posh shop no? LOL

This evening I knitted my first ever baby hat. I was watching the Paul O'Grady show last night while cooking a meal for the smalls and he was doing an appeal on behalf of Save The Children for baby hats. Apparently 2 million children die from pnuemonia a year and the simple act of putting a hat on a newborn can help prevent them getting hypothermia which can result in pnuemonia.
This is it....

It's a lovely gold coloured wool that doesn't really show up so well in the photo. They ask that no all-white hats are made as white is a symbol of death in a number of cultures in Africa and Asia. Seems like a great reason to sort out my random wee balls of wool. ;)

Craftster wise I received the most wonderful package from CayceeMae yesterday.
My very own Sally doll, I think the smalls were hoping I was going to hand her over but no way she's proudly sat on my bed. She's a poppet minus the ears, I'm so excited I've been lusting after a poppet for ages.

I also received this beautiful pencil box


And look who were hiding inside...

Beetlejuice and Lydia.

I wish my package to Caycee would hurry already and arrive with her, if it's lost in the post I'll cry. :(

Got to get my Gnome swap in the post this weekend. Work on another birthday present as wee one has been invited to yet another party and get the other ***** done for my UK instant swap partner, oh and crack open the freezer paper and paints ;)

Easter holidays are great.

This weekend we had our friend and her two boys stay with us so that was fun. And it snowed so they got to see some proper white stuff, they live down in Dublin so I think the climate difference helped LOL
Crafting wise I've been pretty busy (when I could be) knitting up a storm. I've been trying to get our nephew's presents sorted, plut the extras for his sister.
We've also been given our swap partners for the UK and ROI Instant Swap. My partner looks great and I've been going through her questionaire and wist seeing what I can conjure up for her. The send outs are 1st April so there's no time to sit on my hands so to speak :) I have got half of one of the items I'm making her finished today. I'm speaking in code because I know she said she wouldn't peek but I don't want to spoil the surprise and she might want to venture over here to see what kind of things I like.

Face painting ruins your hands

Good job I'm not one of those ladies who lives for her manicures LOL After work today I spent 2 hours painting small peoples faces. A few of my friends (with younger sprogs than mine) are currently trying to raise funds to have a new play park built in the village so there are lots of fund raising events. Today's was an Easter Extravaganza there was an Easter Egg Hunt, stalls, an Easter Bonnet Competition and face painting. Hence how I spent 2 hours shut in a room with a constant stream of small people wanted to be made into spiderman, a butterfly, a scarey lion, a pig, an Easter bunny....on and on. :D I'd actually forgotten how much I enjoy face painting, I used to do it all the time when wee one was younger. Yes I was the mad mother that everyone invited 'oh and could you bring your face paints?' to get togethers and fund raisers. Oh yeah that's still me!

Good news my friend is arriving tomorrow for her visit with us. She phoned me from Edinburgh this evening while out on a single malt trail with her pal, thankfully they decided to ring me before they'd had too many. :) So that will be me offline for a couple of days while I entertain Thank gawd I made myself do an emergency tidy up yesterday, I even scrubbed the bathroom tonight.

Bad news the weather is horrible, blowing a gale, freezing cold and snowing on and off sideways and this weekend there will be 4 bored children in one house. If I survive I'll see you after the weekend.

Ouch

I don't know which part of body hurts more but I'm currently thinking it's my feet. I worked today and on arriving home I didn't stop and finally sat down at around 10.30pm If you bear in mind I work in a pub that's pretty much a good 14 hours on my feet today :( The house is in utter chaos and today I just decided to give it a quick tidy, We had the plumbers in all of last week and the beginning of this week so me and the smalls are living in a bit of a building site, the old gas fire and boiler were taken out of the living room so now I have most of the plaster missing off that wall and a huge gaping hole (it now looks a tadge prettier with my mirror and lots of candles in front of it) the downstairs loo has tiles missing off the floor and a huge strip of concrete where they had to dig a hole to channel the piping through for the new boiler, cupboards had to be taken out of the utility room to accomodate the new boiler so all the stuff that was in them is everywhere else :( the water tanks were taken out of my bedroom so you can imagine the chaos in there...need I go on? Oh yeah I forgot to mention him indoors took down a wall in the kitchen while he was home too! See told ya chaos. So as I was hoping to have a friend come stay this weekend (don't know if that's still happening cos I've not heard a thing) I thought I'd better at least clear out all the stuff that's been thrown into the spare room. So once I'd done that and cooked the smalls tea I thought I'd give the oven a quick clean, then I tried to rearrange the living room (see mirror and candles) by putting the furniture in positions where I wasn't nearly breaking my neck everytime I needed to switch the lamp on. Then I thought well as I'm doing 3 loads of washing I'll give the utility room a quick tidy, it now looks like a different room but gawd we have a serious amount of plastic bags :( quite depressing actually especially as I'm trying really hard not to bring more of the buggers into the house. So tired but at least if my friend does arrive this weekend it may look awful to her but I'll know it looks a whole lot better.
Now for the aching other bits of my body... I suddenly remembered yesterday that it is our youngest nephews birthday soon and as finances are a tadge low (see plumbers) I thought I'd craft him up a storm for his 1st birthday. So yesterday I knitted him a stuffie octopus and an octopus bathmitt, then I thought oh I can't leave his big sister out so I started knitting a bathmitt for her too. I'm also on the hunt for some cool stencils for a couple of shirts for him. My wrists and finger joints are sore today. Am I moaning too much? Sorry. On another note it started snowing this evening, yes we're forcast for snow for the Easter holidays. :/
I'm going to bed now I'm working all day again tomorrow then I've got a face painting gig after work till 8pm and then I have to come home and do battle with my bathrooms. ;)

Two out of three ain't bad

That is today two of the three packages I send out were received. Woohoo!
My partner Dorareever recedved all her Octopus/Squid goodies and loves them all. As usual I went a bit overboard with the amount I sent. For now here's the two t shirts I made her...can't seem to locate my pictures of everything just now :(



Ok I've searched everywhere and it would seem in my rush to get the parcel out I forgot to take pics or they've been eaten by the camera goblin. So I've 'borrowed' my partner's picture of the group shot. ;)

I sent her two stencilled shirts, 6 hand drawn note cards, a shrinky necklace of robotic squid, a knitted stuffi, a knitted bath mitt, and a shower scrub thing that I bought.

And my Panda partner, Panda (yep that's her sig) received. Yaaay!
And she seems pretty pleased with her stuff. :D


I sent her a half stencilled/half hand painted scarf, a wee crochet panda that is the first toy I've ever crochetted and yes I know it looks like it LOL I also sent some hand drawn cards, 2 pairs of panda earrings, a wee panda wallet to keep all her panda trinkets in, a t shirt for her grandson, a panda dishcloth that I worked out the chart for myself on and a pair of panda knickers that I couldn't resist getting for her when I was away for the weekend with big one.
This is the handpainted bit of the scarf

And this is my wee crochet panda :D


Now if my Tim Burton parcel arrives tomorrow I'll be thrilled.

My knuckes are sore

from me biting down on them waiting and waiting for my swap packages to arrive at their destinations. Does the whole international postal system slow down on purpose just for me? I sent my Tim Burton Swap stuff ages ago but then I haven't received my partner's package either :( Oh postie postie don't be slow.
On a plus point I did receive my Octopus goodies today. :D
I received these two little cuties that are filled with lavendar and cinnamon and smell divine.

As I have two dogs my partner thought I needed something feline in my life so I am now the proud owner of an Octopussy potholder.


Ahd finally this amazing bag that I can't wait to show off.


On the crafting side of things I've been pretty busy with swap stuff and of course I can't share any of that until my partners have received but I can share some baby vests that I've been working on for some friends.




Oh and one last picture.... I bought some canvas' ages ago from the £1 shop and after the Buy Nothing Swap inspiring me to have a clear out of my craft supplies that seem to be overtaking the whole house I thought we could use the canvas' to do a family portrait. So we drew names out of a bag (couldn't find a hat quick enough) and him indoors painted big one, big one painted wee one, wee one painted me and I painted him indoors. And a very pleasant sunday afternoon we had. These are our masterpieces. :D

Another share in the Royal Mail

Well that's my Octopus/Squid package handed over to the post office today. I enjoyed making the things for this swap as I got to stretch my ablities and I learnt a couple of new tricks, knitting I-cords being one. So easy really you'd think I would have attempted it before but hey at least I've cracked it now ;)
So now I only have the one swap left to finish off (The Gnome Swap) and I am technically already over the requirements of what to send...pretty normal for me really. I guess I should get it all packed up and sent off before I end up with a parcel that will cost me a small fortune to send. The send out date isn't until the end of the month but if I send now then my partner won't have to wait till the middle of April to get it all. Hmmm.

I can now show you the lovely things I received from Krandui in the Panda Swap. I was in a three way swap, Krandui sent to me, I'm sending to Panda and Panda is sending to Krandui. So these are the lovelies I received...


A lovely painted picture of a panda, an origami panda, a panda coloured necklace, some gorgeous wee panda magnets, some panda stickers, a wee handbag sized calendar, a panda coloured button and an owl charm and the cutest wee panda purse.


I also received this little lot of goodies from a personal swap with CraftADDChick, a gorgeous book full of animals...great for stencils, a crochet snail, some cute wee cross stitch kits for big one (who had cross stitch an owl for CraftADDChick) and lots and lots of kool aid. I really must learn to make this stuff to drink it one of these days.

Check out this fantastic snail. I have now christened him Brian as he reminds me of the Magic Roundabout from when I was wee.

While I in a picture sharing mood I've just realised that I never posted the stuff I sent to Kookaloo in our Buy Nothing Swap.


I know I get crazy swap anxiety but I really do love these swaps :D

Phew

that was a fun weekend but man I'm exhausted. This weekend I took big one away for a mother and daughter only weekend. We booked into the hotel on friday night after I finished work and she finished her dance class, we stayed up far too late eating pizza and watching dvds. Saturday we took off to the shops, not one of my favourite hobbies but this weekend was for us to celebrate her 13th birthday (which was last month but Dad was working away so we had to wait for him to come home again to watch wee one) Saturday night was another late one doing face packs and manicures and watching yet more dvds :D Add to the fact that I've gone back to my crappy sleeping routines I'm feeling pretty tired but it was all worth it. It was so nice getting some full on time with big one, she's growing up so fast and now that she's a teenager I guess it won't be long before the last thing she'll want to do is go out with Mum. No actually scrap that if it's shopping I'll probably still have my uses LMAO

Today I finished off my Panda swap and got it off in the post. I hope 'Panda' who I'm sending to likes it all. So this evening I was going to finish up my Octopus stuff as that's got to be in the post for the 12th but after spending time on the phone with my Mother and trying not to bite my tongue off (the tablets the Dr put me on seem to be making that a bit easier, well I didn't feel the need to scratch my own eyes out anyway) I took myself off to the other room and did something for my gnome swap. How can you be sad when you're looking at Gnomes? You can't ;)

Tomorrow it's octopus/squid day ;)

Busy half a day.

Spent most of this morning in my lovely cozy bed, well it was snowing and him indoors was busy bashing down part of the kitchen wall so as I wasn't feeling so great I considered a few extra hours in my bed not such a bad thing. Anyway when I finally dragged myself out from under the duvet and into the shower I thought I better get some serious crafting done. So today I have stencilled - SWAP PARTNERS LOOK AWAY RIGHT NOW! - 2 shirts for my ***** swap and a scarf and a shirt for my ***** swap acutally I stencilled part of the scarf and hand painted the other part. That turned out so well and I'm super happy with it. Kookie was the first person I hand painted a scarf for and she seemed pretty pleased with it so this embouldered me to give it another go. :D

Ok where did February go?

Boy that month flew past! Well I've been busy crafting my little socks off. I signed up for 4 swaps remember. Well i sent out the Tim Burton stuff this morning, the box has been packed up since saturday but I couldn't get to the post office on saturday and of course it's not open on a sunday so today it was. I've just a couple of things to finish up for my Octopus swap and that can get in the post hopefully before the end of the week. Unfortunately I've yet to hear back from my partner about her t shirt size :(
That just leaves the panda and gnome swaps to sort out. Please someone remind me NOT to sign up to so many swaps at the same time. Actually it's not my fault that all these great swaps turned up at the same time :D
Right better go get some sleep, not had much this last weekend too many nights outs and too much alcohol. Bad me. :p