WOYWW

Wednesday again, where does the time go?
Desk first:

On my table today we have a small selection of the million Christmas cakes I have to finish, these have been marzipanned and will be iced today and tomorrow, plus I have two more to marzipan. There are a couple of Christmas CDs, you can't Christmas craft without the appropriate music. There's a Mr Ripley book to go back to the library, this one didn't grip me as much as The Talented Mr Ripley. There are two almost finished Christmas trees and a pack of ten thank you cards. Then there's a brown paper bag and a cardboard box containing who knows what?
Would you like to see what's under my table?

My poor rabbit has got cabin fever she's been in the hutch so long so I thought I'd bring her in for a hop. She's doing a lot better than the guinea pig, he died on Tuesday :-( He was almost seven which is ancient in guinea pig terms. RIP Shaggy, reunited with Scooby Doo at last.

This morning was absolutely freezing but it did provide an amazing sky for us to look at whilst my 12 year old scraped the cars!

Time to go mix up a pile of royal icing.
Hop over to Julia's blog to see a wide selection of festive surfaces.

WOYWW and The Woman Who Saved Christmas

Here we are again!

Today I will mainly be making bunting and tending to a child with tonsilitis! I sold all my Christmas bunting at the weekend and urgently need to make more.

I survived the madness of last week's back to back activities. 

So the day went something like this:
07.55 leave home with son number one.
07.56 go completely round the roundabout to return home to collect his bacon roll
08.20 leave home with son number two
08.20.30 re-enter home to collect bacon roll to replace cheese and chutney roll he was attempting to eat (my lunch)
08.25 leave child number two at school after giving him the usual lecture starting with 'When I was your age....'
09.20 leave home for Hove
14.08 leave home after charity fair and head for Surrey
15.10 arrive at Busbridge school for card making class
17.00 set up stall for craft fair
18.00 Sit down (finally) for a meal at Prezzo in Godalming
20.00 Watch (or listen to) my first ever orchestral performance staring my son by another mother (I was there when he was conceived)
00.30 Go to bed
11.30 Arrive at school for craft fair
16.00 Arrive home with the new title of 'The Woman who Saved Christmas'


This is me at the charity coffee morning in Hove. I shizz you not the house was like something from Hollywood Housewives

Right, enough of me hop over to Julia's blog to see what everybody else is up to

And if you want a laugh have a look at this blog it's called Anti Elf on the Shelf and I am one of the contributors.

WOYWW

First of all, thank you so much for your birthday wishes and I'm very sorry I didn't get round to visiting any of you last week. My bad!

I have to get straight into it this week as I am completely manic with preparing for:

• Friday 10-2 Charity Craft Fair in Hove
• Friday 3-4.30 card making class for THIRTY children 50 miles away
• Saturday 12-2.30 Busbridge School Christmas fair

Then the following Saturday I have another fair then that's it for fairs. Then I only have to make:

• 6 mtrs of bunting
• 7 ribbon trees
• 9 Christmas cakes
• a lampshade

And anything else I've forgotten!

Terrible photo as I took it on auto for speed. On the right is my to do list. In the centre my trusty ATG plus some very narrow DST. Towards the back are ten thank you cards I made last night using my 'swoop' technique. And then right at the back is my box of fabric with a cushion I made yesterday plus some bunting which requires some attention! The combination on 1940s crepe and too narrow bias binding was fatal.
So far this week I've made:

• 10 jars of cranberry and apple chutney
• 10 Christmas cards
• 10 thank you cards
• 15 metres of bunting
• 1 cushion
• 24 advent houses

Somebody remind me to start preparing for Christmas in January next year!

 Ten Christmas cards in the making

 Twenty Four Advent Houses waiting to be filled

Cranberry and Apple Chutney (yummy with Brie)

Right, got to dash as I'm teaching in 13 minutes!

Jump over to Julia's blog and have another peep into the mad world of crafters.

WOYWW

Julia is going to love this week's post as I don't have time to write, just a photo!

Today is my first day in my fifties!!

To take a look at some more traditional craft tables go over to Julia's blog and have a nose

Cheerio, got to dash my husband's taking me out to lunch to the pub we had our first date in!

Well It's Here

Well it's here, my last day in my forties! What do I do tomorrow? Change the blog title? Retire from blogging? Add a subtitle? Or just carry on regardless?

I think I'll do the latter.

So it's been quite a year and quite a decade really. This time last year I was going to spend the evening in London and wake up on my birthday in the big smoke. As for the decade? Well, traumatic would be one word to sum it up really.

What has this year brought? 

• Lots of fun on the internet with my 'cyber' friends. 
• The opera at Glyndebourne with a 14 year old boy. 
• Fund raising the only way I know, making cakes. 
• Strange birds in my tree.
• Sending Christmas trees in the post and getting a discussion about it started on radio 2!
• Going to Wigan for the first time in my life
• My oldest friend emigrating to the other side of the world
• Vintage craft fairs
• Visiting relatives from America
• Peacemaking between my mother and Godmother (praise be that's sorted)

I'll leave the bad and sad things which have happened as I try to always be positive.
Right that's it, I'm off to enjoy my last day in my forties.
Fifty? BRING IT ON!

WOYWW

Well here we are again at Wednesday. Do you know what today marks? It is my last 7 days in my forties! Yes this time next week my WOYWW will be covered in gifts, cards, cakes and, well who knows?
Here is my WIP this week:

At the front are three recipes for plum chutney, I will do an amalgam of the three, in other words whichever ingredients I have/don't have! Resting on one recipe is a little red frog which came from a Christmas cracker on Sunday. At the back are the latest ribbon trees which I have made and to the left is a scrap of paper with some very tempting details of a holiday to Malta!
I have had a lovely week with a craft fair on Saturday and my niece, her husband and their son coming for dinner on Sunday. It was bitter sweet as they flew back to San Diego on Monday and we don't know when we will see them again. There were a few tears and a lot of hugs.
I am so busy between now and December the first that I have written a list with something to do on every day!
I'll leave you with a few photos and urge you to take a look around the world via Julia's Blog

             Another party shot, guess which one is me!

A selection of cards and tags

                      Bunting and lavender bags

  My two boys and Corbin, my great nephew. Great? He was awesome

Have a great WOYWW

WOYWW

Here we are again, I've been missing for a couple of weeks and this week's desk isn't crafty but it will be later!

So, at the front we have a cake box containing half of a huge cake which my M-I-L made for my joint birthday party on Saturday. The other half is at my brother's. In the middle is half a bag of goldfish crackers and at the back is a box of toys.
Explanations required?
On Saturday I had a party with my brother, he was 40 last week and I will be 50 in two weeks. My niece, her husband and her little boy came over for the event, hence the goldfish crackers. Yesterday I spent the day with them in Brighton and then they came back to mine for toad in the hole. Although my niece is American and has lived in the states for all but six weeks of her life, she absolutely loves English food and I have to cook all of her favourites whilst she is here.
The box of toys was half of the mess that Corbin and my two boys made while they were here. It was so lovely to see my boys actually playing with real toys rather than their IPhones!
My lovely niece came bearing gifts for us all including a DCWV paper pad for me and these little beauties

Just in case you are wondering, it is a FOUR pound jar of peanut butter and it is amazing on crumpets

OK, I have to go now but don't forget to pop by Julia's blog to travel around the world being nosy.
I'll leave you with a rather amusing shot of me at my party. I believe it was rather late on during my dancing hours!