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Last week was a very busy one for our postman. I felt very much loved too :)

Firstly I got a patchwork farm baby sampler kit which I won in a Cross Stitcher Freebie, which is a Bothy Threads kit. Now I just need somebody to get pregnant so that I can stitch it up for them :)

Then I got a couple of ATC's through with goodies. These were from the ATC exchange group I joined on facebook. I was quite surprised to receive four ATC in one week! The first was this lovely card of a tree, with a stripey backing paper and some little die-cut images.

The second was a themed card, for the winter theme of the exchange group. This came as a snowman!

A forwarded ATC was also included (I had not realised that sometimes you would forward a card sent to you by somebody else).

Then I received a wildlife themed card, with a church topper gift and the last one I received was a pretty art deco card, again with a forwarded ATC also.

Then I got another package that I was not expecting. This was the Josephine kit from dimensions, again from a Cross Stitcher competition. This was one of three that I entered, with the Bothy Threads kit being a second. Not bad considering I have not won any competitions since moving into the house over a year ago, so this was very exciting!!

Now to go and do some Spanish revision!

Hugz Tinz

Card fun

Urgh I hate working weekends. It is hard enough getting all my crafting done, without all my time being taken up with the swear word!!! lol. However, it did mean that I visited a pet shop I have not visited for a while and they had the spitting image of Billie boy.

As we wanted to get him a friend this was fantastic!!

Since I have last been on I have done a little of my fish tank, and also made up the body of my knitted hippo. I will upload the next Hippo photograph once he is fully completed though. Here is a picture of the fish tank at 30 hours.

It is difficult to see the progress due to the most recent stitching having been ecru, so not standing out very well from the aida.

I have also been making some ATC's for the exchange group. There were 3 birthdays this month and so I have made 3 ATC's to send out on Monday - with birthday cards and gifts. The first of these is 'Snowflake Kisses' due to a suggested theme of winter.

This one was on iridescent purple card, with green snowflake backing paper - paper mania - and with snowflake sequins scattered on the acking paper. The title is from a Me to You outline sticker sheet.

The second ATC is 'On the Farm'.

I have had some piggy felt stickers for a while. They were given to me as a gift when I was doing my Honours Research Project, which was on pigs. I stuck this pig onto a stripey pink card, with a pink glitter outline sticker of a cake and a glitter papermania ribbon added underneath.

The final ATC is 'Floral Flourish' which was done on a patterned silver card.

This is a simple ATC which uses stamps that were a free gift and matches the birthday card that will be sent with it. This ATC will be submitted for the CRAFT colour challenge. The flower stamp was inked in black and stamped straight onto the card twice. These were then coloured using promarkers. Two flourishes from the same stamp pack were then also inked in black papermania ink and added below the flowers.

The matching card uses the same flowers stamped onto cream card and coloured in promarkers before being cut-out and stuck onto a white card blank.

A rosette was made from blue ribbon and added between the two stamped and coloured flowers. Stems were drawn in grey promarker and then leaves cut out of Forever Friends 'Forever Love' paper. A blue ribbon from my stash was added underneath the flowers in a staggered line and flowers drawn down the left side. An outline sticker sentiment was added next to these after being coloured using The Original Peel-Off's markers. This card will be entered into the passionforpromarkers ribbon and CRAFT colour and countryview monochrome challenges.

More cards

RIP Nutsy. I came home from work last night to find my old man mouse in a very bad way. He had fallen off his train and had been unable to get himself back up. Seeing him like this helped me to make the decision to let him go to be with his best pal, who crossed over the rainbow bridge a few months before Christmas. Hopefully he is now able to climb anything he puts his mind to once again!

I realised that I had missed a birthday in the ATC group that I joined, so I decided to make the final ATC to send this month and a birthday card to go with it.

It is a honey and hugs birthday decoupage, with some Anita's peel-offs added around the edges. The matching ATC is also farm themed with a little piggy enjoying a birthday meal.

I have received another two ATC's over the last couple of days. I think I will have to make a few to send out next month! This now takes my total received ATC count up to 4! As I have just started a 'crafting techniques' group (and still have my 'monthly craft challenges' group) on facebook I am sure I will have plenty more opportunities to come up with new ideas for ATC.

As the OH is away for the evening I think I am going to go and run myself a nice relaxing bath and do some more of my Fish stitching - assuming I can stay awake after my bath lol.

Speak soon

Hugz Tinz

Knitting and more fun

Well I didn't get much done over the weekend, besides having a pajama day on Saturday! I did clean the carpets though - including the stairs one (which is still a horrible pink colour grr). I have got a carrier bag of bits to take to the charity shop too :).

My little Ren decided that we were going to have great fun whilst I was cleaning them out!

I hadn't even gotten her out of her cage when she decided to throw herself onto the floor - making me really work to try and find her. She especially liked running behind the bedside table and the tallboy as I couldn't manage to get into the little gaps! The others decided to gang up on me and run their balls under my feet lol.

I did manage to get my Hippo knit finished and even made the head up - just to connect the body and limbs and then he will be up and about.

As you can see from the picture I did have a bit of an issue with the nose. I am not certain how I managed to do it, but I inverted the stitches for the centre of the nose. My story is that it was done on purpose to give my hippo a unique effect. Do you think everybody will believe me?

Furthermore, my 'In the Pink' Round Robin group is now ready to start sending their Round Robins out. I cannot wait to see what designs everybody comes up with. Hopefully, this will be another successful Round Robin and everybody's pieces will return home to them! I do love joining in Round Robins and exchanges - it gives me a chance to do something that I would not normally do for myself. I will get a photograph of my recently returned Halloween Round Robin from last year to show everybody.

Hugz Tinz

WEEKEND!!!

The weekend is here and the weather is wet, as usual. I guess I will not be doing any work down on the allotment today. However I do have a pile of stuff to go through and decide what to keep and what to donate to a charity shop. I may also plant some grape hyacinth seeds and maybe some leeks.

I am also going to spend the day doing some knitting I think - hopefully finish the pieces of my hippo off so that I can start making it up. The mice will also be cleaned and weighed as is the usual routine for a Saturday - but I am in my pajamas and not planning on having to change out of them at all today!!

My large cross stitch project of the moment is of a tropical fish tank. The estimate time to complete this project is 120 hours.  This is what it currently looks like at 29hrs.

I was stitching on this piece last night with my little boy Tawny playing out - along with the two older boys, although I have to keep Casper away - and he climbed onto my frame. He then realised he could get onto the bedside table, where he found himself a biscuit. He then walked around to the other side of the table, at which point I hear a slight thump as he manages to fall off the table onto the floor!!!  Only Tawny could manage something like that! Rascal!

Hugz Tinz

Monochrome and Halloween

I am currently finding it very difficult to put down the book that I am currently reading. It is called 'Handle with Care' by Jodi Picoult and is a very good book. I always find her books are a good read, or even good to listen to in the car on my long journey to and from work. However, I can only manage to read one every so often as they are very deep. I do like to read the typical teen fiction stuff and medical crime stories too.

I managed to get one of my Halloween pillows made up last night. I did stitch six of them before Halloween but was struggling to decide how to make them up, and then to find the right fabric. So I finally decided that two of them would be made into pillows (I only have enough of the fabric for two). This is the first one:

The second will come once I decide which design to make up next.

I also created a couple of ATC's for the facebook group that I am a member of. I made these a few days ago, but have only just gotten round to placing them on my computer, and also I have only just created my blog. So here they are and I am hoping they do qualify for countryview monochrome challenge.

I used papermania papers, mirror card and a stamp that I got free with a magazine at some point. I then added papermania adhesive pearls and a silver outline sticker to finish.

Hugz Tinz

Work, work and more work

After working late yesterday I did not get on to post a blog. Unfortunately we are still a little behind at work and so I may need to work overtime again :(

I am contemplating what seeds I need to plant out by the end of the month, and what needs to wait. I also need to allocate space for everything I grow as I have not been confirmed a new allotment plot yet. I must remember to bring it up again otherwise I might miss out and I do not have enough room on my current plot for everything I have got planned to try this year.

However, I did manage to get time to make a male themed birthday card using a bear as the focal image for the crafty cardmakers challenge and also for the Monochromatic challenge from countryviewchallenges.

The bear is a Wellington topper which has been mounted on papermania velum. I got a few eyelet setters from my mum when she got a cropadile from her mum and decided to try using them with the square eyelets on the corners of the velum. However, the back of these squares does not seem to have worked properly, and the paint has peeled slightly :(  I then found a ribbon in my stash that matched the colours and was masculine looking and stuck gold 'Happy Birthday' stickers along it before sticking it below the image, and adding a bow to the ribbon.

Ginger and Promarker Challenge

Hello sunshine - yes sunshine, although the rain has come back this evening.

I had a nasty surprise when I went up to give my mice some of my homemade Parsnip and Walnut cake. When I put my hand in certain mice will usually come and see what I am doing, have a nibble and a sniff and generally be nosy. However, yesterday Ginger (my largest girlie mouse, weighing in at 58g when weighed on Saturday) - name said with a soft G - did not come to say hello. Upon further investigation I found her in her bed, looking rather flat and lifeless. I have absolutely no idea what happened to her as she was fine and healthy when I weighed them all on the Saturday!!

As for crafting I did manage to get some more knitting done on my Hippo last night, and so he now has two feet and an arm to go with his head, nose and body. Just one more arm and two ears to go before I can start putting him together :)

I also managed to make my entry for the passion for Promarkers challenge of Clean and Simple http://promarkerchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/. Ok I know it is a bit late, but I had already stamped the image and I wanted to use it before it got lost in the piles of crafting supplies.

I took a basic what card blank and using a versacolour inkpad made a circle of silver. After colouring the present stamp I stuck it on top of this silver circle. I then added a Papermania ribbon across the bottom of the card with a couple of accents above, and an Anita's outline sentiment. Do let me know what you think (assuming I manage to link this correctly!)

After a long day at work it is now time to get some tea, cuddle a cat and do some cleaning. Then I might just sit a read a book!

Hugz Tinz

Newbie

Well here I go into the world of blogging! I thought this would be a useful way to keep a track of my WIP, whilst keeping you all up to date on the managerie here, and how the allotment progresses throughout the year.

So far it has been a very wet year, so not much work has been done on the allotment. However, due to there being some sunshine yesterday (unexpected I know) I managed to get the last of the beetroot and scorzenera out of the ground and prepare the bed for Spring. This took much longer tan was expected due to the encroachment of grass onto the bed, which then had to be removed before I could turn the soil and add the compost. My arms are exceedingly sore today :)

This weekend has involved putting all the Christmas boxes back into the attic and re-sorting out the living room and kitchen, now that the boxes are out of the way. This does however make the rooms look a little bare! I am sure I will get used to having a little more space before too long. Now just to vac the carpet, whilst showering Chucky of course (my parrot), but need to wait until Billie (the little Rosella) has taken himself home, as he doesn't really like the vaccuum when he is playing out.

Whilst I was cleaning my mice out yesterday, I discovered that I have a little adventurer. While I clean their cage I have them sat on my shoulders, and suddenly I heard a scratching at the curtains behind my back. Well when I turned to see what was making the noise little Pico was halfway up the curtain, soon to be sitting on top of the curtain pole!

It was only last week that this same little madame, whilst playing out on the covered sofa bed, managed to get herself down onto the floor and started hiding behind the furniture! Unfortunately this was just as I was about to go out and so it was a mad rush to find where she had hidden herself and get her back into her cage, so that I could get to my appointment on time :)

Now for the crafting. At the moment I have a large cross stitch of a tropical fish tank, as well as a slightly smaller cat on a branch, to complete. I am knitting a Hippo, having just finished a Tortoise (my first knitted project) and have joined an ATC group. I also run two groups on facebook - a monthly craft challenge group (which involves having a theme for the month, which everybody adheres to in their crafting and uploads pictures) and a Round Robin group (cross stitch that involves several people stitching on each others work to create a multi-stitched piece of several different designs).

Here is my Tortoise, of whom I am very impressed as a first knit (although he did take me about 6 months).

Well I will be back as often as I can. Hope you enjoy reading my blog :)