I know it's not Wednesday!

Here I am trying to break the habit of only posting on Wedensdays!
As a lot of you will know last week was half term so not only did I have my two boys in the house I also had a 13 year old French boy staying too. I was exhausted after cooking breakfasts, lunches and dinners for a week! Boy they went through a lot of grub!
Thibaut went back on Saturday and I was finally able to do a few more bits for my craft fair on Saturday, I made some simple sewn note books and some quick tags. In the evening we treated ourselves to a curry and it was lovely.

Sunday morning broke bright and early and I packed up my wares and drove to a little town called Hassocks. I went to a girls' grammar school and a lot of the girls lived in Hassocks and the surrounding villages and used to come to school by train. For some reason most of my friends came from Hassocks and so I spent a lot of time there so it was nice to return, didn't see anyone I knew though!

My Bunting

                                                             Note Books and Tags
The fair was a bit of a let down and I only sold £6.50 worth of stock and I had to pay £6.00 for the table, luckily I was selling some bags for my friend and she'd givven me half the table cost.
It wasn't all bad though as I made two new contacts, one lady says she'll be able to sell the bags at her regular weekly market and she also offered me work sewing bunting for her! She was impressed with my neat stitching, can you hear that Miss Rundle? She was my Home Economics teacher and boy did I struggle with my tabbard!
The other contact was a lady from Ringmer who is interested in sharing the cost of a table with me at some more craft fairs in the summer. One is at a local village called Findon and they have an annual sheep fair, which I've never been to, so that should be fun. The other is a summer fair in Steyning, hopefully these will be more profitable.
I returned home to the lovely smell of my husband cooking dinner but the added bonus was he made a spare for the freezer, he was then given time off for good behaviour and went to the pub to watch the football. Well at least if you're going to lose a match it's great that you can set a record. I'll leave you to work out which match I'm referring to.
Whilst the boys were out with their friend I made this cake for my aunt to take to work. It's the first time I've made a square sponge cake but she needed a cake to feed fifteen people.

A night in front of the telly followed the delicious shepherd's pie.
This week will bring a craft day on QVC, my dad coming for tea and a Stamppin' Up demonstrator coming to show me her wares. Shall we place bets on how much I'll spend?
Thanks for stopping by

WOYWW #141

I really must get out of the habit of only posting once a week, it's very naughty.
I've had a bit of a week and I'll get into that further on in the post but for now here is my neglected craft desk or as it is more commonly known, the dining table

We have the usual suspects on there today; my laptop and my phone, they are always on! We also have a lovely bouquet of roses and carnations with a rather random banana type leaf! Bought for me by my husband for Valentine's day, he also left me this which I found when I came into the kitchen

Such an old romantic!
Well, to catch up on my week; on Thursday we went to my son's school for the very important options evening when we could talk to the teachers individually. I normally teach on a Thursday evening from 6.30 so I put back the time to 7pm thinking that would be fine. Well of course it would have been fine if all of the teachers and parents kept to schedule, but that never happens. It was getting a bit stressy and I knew we wouldn't get to see all the teachers we wanted to see before I had to leave. Whilst we were waiting to see George's science teacher he had an absence which is like a mini fit. Luckily it didn't turn into a major fit and we were able to get him out of the school with the minimum amount of fuss. My husband asked me to cancel my class completely as he had to collect out other son from football training and didn't want George left alone.
Luckily I did as not long after we got home George had a full blown fit which is always very traumatic, especially for my youngest son as he gets very scared. He was amazing this time looking for the medication and phoning for his Dad. The main problem now is that my son is over 5ft 7 and when he comes out of a fit and decides he needs to go to the bathroom it is very difficult for me to stop him, even though he cannot walk properly and has no control over his limbs! After a while we got him to bed and he was soon sleeping peacefully, which is more than can be said for me. I seem to get more and more upset after his fits these days and break down in tears. I just can't get the awful images of him fitting out of my mind.
Anyway, enough of this gloom. George had Friday off school so he got an early start to half term and on Saturday he went into Brighton with his best friend and her Mum and he had a lovely day shopping. My youngest son went to his 'girlfriend's' house to deliver her Valentine's present and spent the afternoon there. Me? Well I spent the whole day cleaning as we had a French student coming that evening!
On Sunday my husband took the boys, including the French one, fishing. It was blooming freezing on the pier (apparently!) but Michael managed to catch this

Quite impressive for an 11 year old, especially when he was the only person on the pier to catch anything that day!
As for crafting this week? Not a lot! I've been struggling with making my first ATC for a swap group I've joined. After three abortive attempts I finally made one I'm happy with

This will be sent to a lady called Jenne and I can't wait to see what I get over the next year.
I've also been struggling with my photo assignments this week which involve taps, fireworks,bridges and darkness!
Well if you're all still awake why not pop over to Julia's blog and find some more exciting workspaces and hopefully happier weeks
Thanks for stopping by

Wednesday again! WOYWW 140

Has it been a week already?
This morning I decided to take my picture first thing, before I had a chance to titify my table, so to speak.

So, (must stop using so at the beginning of my sentences!) what can we see here? Centre stage, a lovely bottle of red which my husband and I drank whilst playing Scrabble and eating home made curry, at the front are my children's lunch boxes, in the silver foil are freshly cooked sausage rolls and, if they're lucky, they are still warm at break! In front of Michael's lunch box is my trusty dictionary which we use to check dodgy words in the Scrabble quests and on top of that is yet another permission slip or Michael to play football. You may also spot a tin of Brasso, something about polishing his tackle(?) and some doilies. To the right of the bottle of wine is a pile of papers which miraculously turned into this:

This card is for a challenge set by Krsty Wiseman on the QVC craft presenters Facebook page.

Well, what else have I been doing? Taking photos of forks and faces, making cards,cakes and jam!
I also never got round to telling you all about my fun trip to QVC last week, oh well you'll just have to suffer looking through some photos instead!

I won't bore you any longer with catching up with my week as I'm sure you have a gazzillion desks to look at on Julia's blog I'm just about to check them out too.
Happy WOYWW

WOYWW #139

Over the weeks I've had people commenting that my workspace is very neat and tidy so this week I thought I'd post a picture of where I am currently storing my craft supplies. Now this is a bit of a movable feast depending on the time of year. In my house I have a spare room which I use to sleep in because of my husband's terrible snoring! During the peak summer months it is filled with foreign visitors, I teach English as a foreign language, and the rest of the year it is a general dumping ground! So my craft storage gets moved around and fills any spare space. It is currently in an alcove in the front room:

What do we have? At the front is my sewing machine, which I talked about last week, to the right of the machine is a knitted bag which I bought in a charity shop for £1.50, It needed a bit of attention but it is now as good as new. At the back is my set of storage drawers which used to be more than enough, however we now have the overflow boxes! In front of the drawers is one such overflow box, it is awaiting sorting. In front of that is a brown paper carrier bag filled with stuff I no longer use and I am in the process of swapping on a Facebook page, if that fails I will take it with me to the craft fair I'm doing later this month. On top of the drawers are my ribbons in their special antique box, they are always tidy because I love them the best! Next to the ribbons are pizza boxes filled with 12x12 papers, I have sorted them all out and am waiting until I have enough money to buy some proper storage for them. What you can't see is a huge box which I bought from TK Max in which I store my card blanks and envelopes.
Lisa Jane decided to share her drawers with us today so if it's good enough for her it's good enough for me!

Rubber Stamp Drawer

Overflow Ribbon Drawer

Glitter and Ink Pad Drawer

Toppers and Doily Drawer

Well enough of me and my half sorted drawers, why don't you show me yours? Hop over to Julia's page have a look at some others and put yours on there too! Wednesdays are such fun.
If any of you are still awake, I'll post tomorrow about my exciting trip to London mixing with the stars!
Thanks for stopping by
Jakix

Getting Older

Wednesday evening found me sitting in a school hall listening to a deputy head teacher explaining the options process to me. Now to start with, she looked about 25, far too young to be a head teacher and after sitting listening to her for half an hour I didn't know anymore than when I arrived! Mainly because I'd read all the bumpf the school had sent home with my son on Thursday! I still remember my options process and the resentment and anger I felt towards my school for not letting me choose 'my' options, rather they told me what I was going to take. I have always thought that it is important to study a language to at least GCSE level, not because I think we need it to communicate with but more that it shows employers that you have the capacity to think in a different way 'outside the box' as it were. If you study languages, you have to think differently, construct sentences in different ways than we do in English, you can also see patterns, similarities and differences. Anyway, I have now changed my mind as I don't want my son to feel that he only took French or German because I insisted that he did, I don't want him to get to my age and still feel cheated that he couldn't choose 'his' options. He wants to do triple science, which is a tough choice, history, music and he then has one left to choose and I am leaving that totally up to him. A big part of me hopes that he chooses photography so that we can practise together. (ever the control freak!)
Before we went to the school I shoved this in the oven:

It was blooming lovely! I don't usually take pictures of my dinner but couldn't resist this as it looked like something from a recipe book. The reason I needed an easy dinner was that I'd spent the day sewing bunting and cushions and cutting out interwoven hearts. Well to be strictly truthful Siriorn made the cushion and worked out how to do the hearts as I couldn't fathom it out. She is a genius! She was making a cushion cover and sewed the zip in and then decided, that because the material was so pretty, she didn't want the stitches to be seen. So she spent the next hour and a half making some complicated design to hide the stitching, the finished cushion is just so lovely but there is no way I can charge enough for it to cover the hours it took!




This is the fancy hidden zip!





I've messed up here by trying to be clever and adding a caption!!

On Thursday morning another of my 'old' friends came for coffee so that we could discuss the idea of a party. What we finally decided, I think, was that we would just recreate all of those Friday and Saturday nights we used to have. You know the thing, meet at 8 o'clock in Shades, have a drink there, then go to The Druids Head and just carry on having a drink in each pub until you get to the late night bar and finally end up in The Pink Coconut!
Happy days indeed. The thing was we don't remember spending much money, mainly  because we got a few under our belts before we left home, we were also rather good at getting people to buy us drinks. I also remember walking home at two in the morning rather than getting a taxi! Yes, the streets of Brighton were safe then for a young girl to walk home alone, slightly intoxicated and fear free. Thinking back I don't think they really were but we just did it!
I will find some more eighties photos just to give you all a laugh!
I'm typing this listening to Andy Murray in the faint hope that he may win.
Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by.



WOYWW #138

It's that time again when we get to be nosey, how my Nan would have loved this! She used to sit in her chair by the window and watch the goings on of Barnet Way. Years later when she was in a nursing home I moved into her flat with my partner and we lived very happily there for several years. It was lovely having my boys in my Nan's flat, walking the same streets I used to walk to school. I love the connections to the past we can have through objects. What's this got to do with WOYWW? Well, I'll show you:

Today I will be making bunting using my Nan's sewing machine. My Mum gave it to me just over a year ago along with her sewing box(more of an ice cream tub to be honest) I love that when I am sewing I am using something that my lovely Nan used. One thing to get straight though, the sewing machine was Nanny Battes' and the flat was Nanny Shaw's! Nanny Shaw used to knit, not something I ever got into, I tried once but I wasn't very good.
My friend Siriorn is coming later on to do some sewing with me. She is amazing! She has made loads of bags using the washable vinyl with funky patterns on. They are in the style of Cath Kidston, she saw them in the shop and took one look at the price tag and thought, 'I could make those', so she did! Hopefully if we have enough stuff by 19th February I will be doing a craft sale, if not it'll be in March.
Another thing I have to do today is make a first birthday card for my great-nephew, Corbin. He is American so I wanted a British theme, unfortunately the stamps I've ordered from America (ironic the fabby British style stamps are American) haven't arrived yet so my plans have changed to an animal theme. A few years ago I bought some CDs from Kirsty Wiseman and to be honest I haven't really used them that much as I much prefer creating something myself. However, they are useful when you are stuck! It also led to me forming a friendship with Kirsty, so all is not lost. She has just launched a new digi stamp range called Ingalilly which are quite sweet.



  This card was designed and made by Kirsty, not me!! Just so as you know, she has signed it in the corner!
Check out her blog or website for more inspiration.
Well this won't get anything done will it? Enjoy your table hopping, I'm going to try and 'visit' at least ten today!
Thanks for stopping by.

Not A Good Start

Tuesdays are one of my least favourite days for some reason and it didn't help this morning when the car wouldn't start. I don't mind walking my son to school but this morning it was raining, icy rain and when I got home I thought my ears would fall off!
So, yesterday I didn't post any pictures of the cards I made on Sunday so here they are:

I used stamps by Marion Emberson, I love the simplicity of her designs. You can buy them from her web site Sugar and spice I also used some of my new memento ink pads which I bought in a QVC clearance show, naughty I know. The ribbon was previously wrapped around my lovely tulips! The twine is from The Ribbon Reel although I must confess I received this as a present!   
I love using little jars as storage:

 

All I needed was a little piece of pink twine to finish off this card:

It's a Valentine's card for my husband, that way I get to keep all the lovely buttons!

Well I hope your Tuesday got off to a better start than mine. I'm off to get ready for work and then to sit on the sofa and watch a new sewing programme on QVC. I really should get a job with them, all this promoting I do for them!