Getting my groove back.... it must be near Christmas

I lost it there for a while, that need, every day having to make something, anything, as long as I made it with my hands... I have tinkered, its not been a passion more of a habit this past year. BUT... Its back, its been working its way back to me for a few weeks now and finally it 'HIT ME' at Autumn half term.
All those ideas and colours kept popping in my mind, no time, finding time has been difficult of late... but with a week without housework or appointments and the general stress of usual living on hold for a week, well I GOT MY GROOVE BACK.
The ideas flooded my mind so much so I pulled out my note book and drew and made notes of the ideas in my head, ready to put those ideas into reality...
There was a lot of playing, some failures and some successes. Most of all it was fun and made me smile... before I knew it those little piles of goodies started to grow. Little bits of silliness to brighten up a winters day.
I was asked to have a stand at a craft stall, the shock when I realised I had NO stock. To be fair this year, the run up to Christmas and the craft fairs will have to go without my little goodies, too much to juggle, transport, childcare and initial cost of the stand...all obstacles...

BUT its given me a nudge, no its given me a big push... to get my act together and start doing what I like, start making my stock a little healthier than just the odd corsage... yes my GROOVE IS BACK.

Duvet Days....

Duvet days... yes I am all in favour of these, pull the covers over your head and ignore the fact that the world is turning and right outside the very heart of your home life carriers on... whilst you snuggle up and stay in your PJs all day...Yes... of late I have been a typical cancerian and retreated into my shell... is it the month? the grey winter days? is it my mood? is it that I seem to have lost my place in my own world? Possibly a mixture of them all, so when the littlest family member is poorly and he needs to stay at home and be looked after... Well I have peace in my heart and we hunker down for a day of cuddles, crafting and general niceness... Snuggling in our big bed, surrounded by all the things we like to do... quilts for keeping us cosy, teddies for company, books for reading, knitting for Mommy and of course some snacks to keep the hunger at bay...
To be fair eventually you have to get up so after some serious splashing around, its on with a fresh pair of PJs and down to the kitchen...
...various crafty goodness keeps us going for a happy hour or two... new pens in yummy colours, lots pictures to be turned into thank you cards from the children are made, even a little bit of youtube time whilst Mommy sorts out the next project...
A little sewing, bean bags (or in this case, adukie bags) a fun little project that even a five year old can do with supervision... little squares of fabric (any size) a little felt and some Mommy and babe time at the sewing machine...
As the illness seems to be hanging around and we are all generally a little under the weather, lots of healthy food is getting served to keep our vitamin c levels up... which all helps to keep us happy and playful...
Yes a nice day... a much needed day to reconnect with the very core of family life, just moving through the day slowly, peacefully and with love...
Yes I lost my groove and I am indeed working hard to regain it, as I take the odd peek into blogland I see I am not alone, I guess with all the outside influences it is actually a hard month for many, credit crunch, poor weather and coughs and colds... I personally feel I need to really spend some quality time with my babies and I have a half term to look forward to... I am already starting to put the craft box together so we can hunker down and spend quality time just chilling out, lots of outdoor walks, wellies on and of course camera in hand... just a few more days now and this month will be over.  I walked to school in the sunshine yesterday and for the first time in what seems like a life time ago, I felt the warmth from the sun, blueish skies and I heard bird song... not long to go now until the season changes...

Sparkle

Before I type on I wanted to say a heart felt thanks for the beautiful, thoughtful comments and emails about the last post. I Thank You, every comment was so special to me. It is with sadness in our hearts that we have to accept that life now carries on and when children are involved its even more important and to share in the Christmas joy is something that I feel is important. So it finally arrived around here...the Christmas Magic, the tree is up in all its spender, I have a usual tradition of putting on the Christmas music (which I play till all around me scream...NO MORE!!!) I make a pan of Mulled wine and the tree goes up in the evening so that when the children come down on a cold dark morning the house is transformed into a winter wonderland. Oh to see their little faces...well its adorable...
Along with the Christmas Magic comes all that making, I have just about finished all the makes for friends and orders, my poor friends I never know if they think 'Yippee Suzie's being sewing again' or 'Oh no not Suzie's sewing again' So this year I have not made my children's friends much, last year I went into mass production of appliqued T'shirts, I have however made the Mom's a little something. So now I am free to make the nice stuff, the ones without pressure...like the Pokemon Quilt for one of my children and a Moo cow for the other. I also want to make a few other little projects...Christmas mice and I am itching to have ago at fabric apples and pears...don't ask!!! SO Christmas Makes...Glue Gun at the ready and the buttons lay all around. Actually I miss lead you with this picture of my button wreath, I made it last year with a rather odd looking reindeer as its centre!!! But never fear a few more are getting made.
You just can not beat Red Gingham at Christmas, I adore gingham any time but red in December is positively essential around here. SO a few little ornaments that take moments for the tree, pretty effective, especially when the sparkly lights shine on them. Also for those moments when the kids have got 'tinsel fever' and you need to get them to focus...go pick a cookie cutter and make cookies...
Talking of which my older child and I like a bit of cookie making...sorry about the picture my camera is playing up when on close up...Ahhhh Santa PLEASE bring me a new camera...I have been such a good girl!!!!
These cookies are so easy...melted chocolate on baking paper...a big dollop of chocolate and push in a cherry and two silver balls (eatable ones) almonds for ears and curly wurly bits for the antlers...let them cool and there you are...full of sugar and all things unhealthy...YUMMY!!! AHHHHHH the panic is setting in...there are parcels to be wrapped and taken to the post office, gifts to be delivered, get together's to be arranged and cards to be sent out...I have a little help with the hand made cards this year...you all know Monkee Maker and her famous 007, well look what I got...two fab packs...they are adorable, funny and a little naughty...I know who I am sending each one of them to...Thanks Kerry.

So its a busy busy time. We must stop and make time for the people that are important to us, I had the pleasure of catching up with an old friend this last weekend, my knitting partner who moved away in January came over to stay with her gorgeous baby, you know when you have a good friendship when you don't clean up before they arrive...Sorry Caroline...did you really think things would change because you have been away for a year?

I got to see another old friend too...the best man at my Wedding came over and we had dinner with the children...I am also thinking of my friend and her family in Australia, this time last year they came to stay with us for a week, she is now living the dream, travelling, home schooling and many exciting plans for their future...Miss you Kate...Happy Birthday my soul mate all the way over there on other side of the world, if your reading this...Ring me when you can, guess who lost your contact number???

Accepting the change...

Accepting the change...the change of so much in my life, I have found myself reflecting all week. Usually after every holiday I suffer post holiday blues, this time it is so much more, after nearly seven weeks of freedom from time restraints and all the great beach time (despite the weather reducing it somewhat) I am finding it hard to find my rhythm. Add to that the change in my Mothering status with both my children starting school I am really having to work hard at being positive and make myself look for the beauty in the simple things that surround me. I am also admitting to myself (still with great reluctance) that the summer season is drawing to a close and Autumn is starting to show signs of its arrival. Our favourite tree in the garden, the one we sit under in the summer when the sun is to strong for the children's delicate skin, is dropping leaves, the centre of the tree has turned yellow, it is a beautiful happy colour, yet still it pulls at my heart strings...eventually the garden will be covered in leaves and slowly the lushness of it all with fade. Soon, yes soon I am sure I will embrace the season, but just for now I notice the chill in the air, we sit outside less to eat, no knitting has been done in the garden whilst I watch the children play, we plan our days out rather than lazy days around the paddling pool. Reading blogs last year really helped me with this transition of the season, to read the outdoor nature trails, bags made in Autumn shades, children's crafting..painting leaves, acorn hats etc...so soon I will throw myself into it, just let the sun shine a little longer...
The advantage of the breeze is the washing is dry so quickly, as I had bought so much fabric last weekend I washed it all and had it ironed all in two days (see first picture). I went in search of good quality linen I was not disappointed. The plan was to sew some 'lounging around the house trousers'...but I had to have immediate gratification...so I made a row of little 'pull along' ducks. Sadly they did not pull along as they need to be more 3D so I need to work on this design (the basic design was from a book, the name of which I do not have to hand). I packaged them up as gifts and put in a few quilting pins to indicate the use as a pin cushion.
Suddenly there seems to be lots of babies and lots of little gifts needing to be made, and just at the right time my Amazon order arrived and in it was the book 'Simple Gifts to Sew'. Now I have a lot of craft books as most of us do, some are just pretty, some are useful and some are better left in the shop, this book however really caught my imagination, well actually you do not need an imagination except to take the designs a little further to make them more personal. It is clear easy projects, slightly different from the usual pillows and embroidered tea towel, not that there is anything wrong with this, and I have most of the materials already in my sewing room. SO with a free afternoon (very unusual for me) I immediately dipped into my stash...a few hours later many little gifts had been made...my kind of crafting, a little relief from the hours of quilting I have done this summer.
So once the gifts are made I can not wait to get them packaged up and given out. Later in the afternoon I did the dreaded weekly food shop, browsing down the reduced section of all the school stationary and school bags which are now all half price...I came across these little magnets for pence...(34p) Now I like magnets and I get mine usually from a children's resource centre, not cheap either, worth it though as the children make great things with them. SO when I saw these I picked up a few packs, great little stocking fillers (Did I really refer to Christmas then)? All I need to do is remove the magnet itself. Having read through the whole previously mentioned book I really liked the project for fridge magnets for little hands, we use the word magnets on the radiators, obviously when they are not hot! due to the fact that the fridge is set in a cupboard. I have so many piles of oilcloth, as I change our table cloth over every few months, its a big old pine kitchen table, bought from a reclaimer's yard in Oxford, despite lots of cleaning it has lots of groves and ridges from time and use so the oilcloth is a great cover up. I keep them all, but every time I come to redo the table I want something new so I now have a useful project to try out whilst being very environmentally friendly as my older child says 'Mom you have to reuse and recycle'.

With the many changes taking place here at the moment along with it has come some free time. It has been put to great use, for the first time in sooo long I went out for a meal in the evening to a lovely restaurant without the children, if you do not have babes it may sounds silly, those with will know what I mean. I got to wear a silk dress, not something you can do with sticky handed children, shoes that do not need to be flat to enable me to chase after little people, in fact I actually felt quite grown up. To also have some free time in the day, OK I have a house to put back together after its been torn to shreds by numerous children over many years. But I did get time to sew, to read a magazine, to shower without someone wanting me to read to them... Have I convinced you that I am not missing the kids...maybe I am just trying to convince myself!!!
...I miss them with a passion...

Are you really still reading my witter...I thank you:-)

Rainy days!!!

After a week of the most amazing sunshine the weekend arrived...and with it the rain, I awoke in the morning to grey skies and that all to familiar pitter patter on the window. Of course it was the weekend, I should have known. So the plan of a weekend away in the camper was put on hold...again, as I mentioned in my last post we had hoped for it to clear and head off later that day, sadly the rain kept on coming!!! To add to this my youngest had a rather nasty virus. He had a temperature and spent the day curled up on which ever sofa was close to the action. This meant I had some one to one time with my older child, so we got the paints out. Now I have quite a few kits for the children, I buy then when I see them, usually at a cut down price and then squirrel them away until either a rainy day or I discover them and have to use them straight away! Often these are the things I put in the holiday craft box when we go away together. This is one such kit. Painting stones, they are the glass stones used in paper crafts, I remember using them in the late 90s when they first came popular, plain glass, flat bottom curved top, which gives a great magnifying effect.
Between us we made quite a few, all the time we where serenaded by the gentle snoring from the little one curled up on the sofa next to the kitchen table, man did he look sweet!!! So what to do with these little stones, well this was our solution, we made little jewel boxes, We stuck them down with gloppy clear drying glue which oozed out of the side, then sprinkled on little tiny craft beads to add to the jewel effect. Yep I am still crunching these little beads under foot they are about the same size of fine sand!!! Not a great picture, sorry guys!
A very satisfying project with a great end result, I think this always encourages children to do more when they have a practical object at the end of their playing. Although I love nothing more that paper and paint for no other reason than the 'right now'

With my younger one poorly the older one went to bed and the I had a bath with the little one, who suddenly rolled his eyes and went floppy, I managed to get him out of the bath and on to the bed. He fell asleep, whilst slightly alarmed I did not worry. UNTILL...once he had fallen in to a deep sleep his breathing was very irregular, I moved away due to his temperature and his cute little hand brushed across the bare skin of my shoulder. It was stone cold!!! I started to feel that panic feeling which I tried to over come with logic, which worked for about fifteen minutes, then I felt the need to take action. His temperature was through the roof, his hands and toes so cold. I need to point out that I very rarely take my children to the doctor and in fact when my youngest was a new born I did not take him to have his weight checked etc and have no idea what centile line he was on...he was growing and happy..I trusted my maternal instincts I am a believer that today's world actually rocks a mother confidence (I would like to say that my child did have his six week , three month and hearing tests). So this was quite serious for me to worry.

NHS help line was called, I have been a bit cynical of this help line, well I need to take it all back, how lucky we are in this country to have the NHS, they are fantastic, very calming and very thorough. After a very worrying hour, with their advise he did come through his temperature, in fact I watched it go down, I even managed to get him to drink some water. Oh boy! he looked so sad and helpless, lying there, it was like having a little tiny baby again, so vulnerable and yet as I watched his little body was fighting like made to rid itself of this nasty virus. How are amazing our children are, in the morning he awoke and got out of bed, woke up his brother and started running around. We have so much to learn from our children. I am keeping alert as I am sure he will dip at some stage through the day, the medicine is near him, but he is off enjoying the day. As for me...well I am tied and frazzled, but the important thing is we are over the worse. So we might not have got our weekend away, funny how these things go, how frantic would it have been if we had gone away and he had been so poorly.

So on that note I am off to enjoy the day, the rain has stopped and the sun is peeping through the clouds...the garden is calling...

Photos...1) the work table 2)the finished stones 3)the end result 4)my current WIP 5)making me happy, two different charity shops in two days resulting in two matching goodies, I am so loving this mug:0)

Scary thought...the latest news about foot and mouth, it is such a worry, our British country side suffered so much last time in so many ways.