A Goodbye and a Little Jaunt

 Yesterday Mr Carrad and I went down to Luton for the funeral of a friend of the family.  It was a bit sad, but more of a celebration of Ken's life.  He was 83 and had been very ill for a long time.  He had a good life, was surrounded by loving family at the end and leaves children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to carry on his memory.  What more can anyone ask?

RIP Ken

We stayed over afterwards at a Travelodge near Cambridge and had a meal at the Little Chef,  Their Pesto and Mozarella Burgers are very yummy - sweet potato, soya bean, mozarella and pesto.  Nom Nom Nom.

Mr Sleep, the Travelodge Bear (didn't know he was called that before)

On the way home Mr C took a detour and visited one of his happy places - the Biggest Beer Shop in Europe in Setchley near Kings Lynn.  The photo below is his stash.  The one below that is mine - Elderberry Black Ale - more Nom Nom Nom.



Mr C's beer



Mrs C's beer

We were allowed to make one further stop at Louth so we could have lunch at Mr Chips and visit the antique market.  Now Mr C (Carrad, not Chips) is much of the opinion that browsing time in the Beer Shop is infinity and browsing time in the antique market is as soon as he's fed up, so we weren't too long in there!

It was nice to get home in the end as it never stopped raining and being foggy throughout the two days.  Back to work tomorrow *sigh*

Little Inspirations

It's been so horribly rainy and grey today that I stayed in and made things.  That's my excuse, anyway, for not doing anything important.  I did go out yesterday with Littlelegs to buy tissue paper and other fun things to play with.  We made paper flowers, cards with stickers and scribbles and cheesy caterpillars, worms, spiders and butterflies, as per photo below:

Remember the bundle of charity shop buys a few blogs ago?  I have started reinventing them into unique items.  The plain vases and buttony belt have taken on a new lease of life.  I also used the aforementioned buttons on the stems of the plastic flowers I deconstructed.  I bent the stems into a heart shape and secured with raffia and the buttons.

An old scarf, felted, became two more "Williams" and there is still plenty to make other stuff. 

Plate, £1 and cup, £2 have "kitsched" themselves into a cakestand.  It looks much better in real life as they're both porcelain china.  How much would Kirsty charge for this?

Happy Today!

So much happier today.  Thankfully daughter's illness was a complicated migraine and not a mini-stroke.  She had a lovely relaxing day in bed today and is feeling weak but great.  I can now write a much cheerier blog!

I completed all the pretties for little Jasmine's bedroom, including a nice pillow cushion made from the cut-offs of the curtains and appliquéd butterflies cut from the ends of the bedding.  I photocopied butterflies onto stiff card, cut them out and attached them to a strip of flowery braid to make a cute dangly.  It's a real girly room.

The day before Sunday's drama I had a lovely time in Sheffield.  I found new charity shops and a craft fair as well as visiting the Millennium Gallery

I was pleased to see that the prices and quality of goods at the craft fair were suitably comparable with my own makes (in fact, some of mine are nicer!)

I also made the splendid purchase of a vintage sparkly dress for just £2.  It's too big and glittery for me but I hope there's a profit in it as a sale item.

I had a commission this week as well.  Emma from Cakewalk Vintage had a request from a customer which produced the young lady below.  Her smart, sober 50's suit is offset by a perky pillbox hat and lashings of fab red hair.

Family Comes First

I've been meaning to sit down and do a proper blog now I have my pics of Jasmine's new bedroom and the things I made for it, but the family had a bit of a blow yesterday.

My daughter, Gaenor, was taken to hospital with a possible mini-stroke.  Thankfully she's out today as it appears to have been a complicated migraine, with speech disorder and tingly right hand.  She has to take it easy for a bit and have an MRI as an outpatient.  It was so frightening, especially for Gaenor herself and her husband, who was in pieces as they live for each other.  I had to keep my fears back and look positive, even though I wanted to cry and cry.  Anyway, fingers crossed for a good recovery.

I promise I'll do a real blog with nice pictures as soon as I can x

A Strange Weekend

Indeed it was.  Some sad news and some very happy news.  Just the happy news, anyway - Mr Stork brought my friend a lovely new pink baby, Amelia!  I'm so busy that I'll have to rush out and buy (yes, buy not make!) a present for her and the new big sister.  I'm currently altering bedding and curtains for my granddaughter as she is a big girl now with a big bedroom.  I'm using the cut-offs for butterfly bunting and cushion-making.  Will post pics when I get everything finished.

I had a bit of a mad session in the charity shops this morning as I wanted some items to customise for selling on.  This is the selection (I love the pig cushion!).

Hopefully several of these things will look good repurposed.  Watch this space for the updates.

Pineapple, Flowers, Cat

A rather miscellaneous title, but it covers everything today.  Last week Mr carrad  bought a fresh pineapple which was on its last legs, so I made a pineapple upside down cake.  It was so much yummier than with tinned pineapple and just to make it a bit different I used Starbucks caramel syrup instead of golden syrup and walnuts instead of cherries.  This turned out to be a more grown-up version and was delicious.

I had a bunch of really manky (the only word for it) fake orange roses which either had to go or be recycled.  As you know me, you can guess which.  I also had the heads of a more attractive bunch of fake brown chrysanths, so I swapped them over and they look much nicer.  They now reside on the hearth in the living room.  The cheap fabric roses come apart and look better in kit form and I would be very grateful for any brainwaves as to how to reuse them ...

Yukky roses, nice chrysanth heads

nice chrysanths, yukky rose heads

Display

What to do with yukky rose bits? ...

Finally say hello to Kitty, a little lavender pusscat, made from a pattern by Ros Badger, fabulous maker of crafts and wonderful teacher.  I feel a few more of these coming on as I have a bundle of old teatowels too nice to be used for dusters.

I think the sun would help

It's a depressing old time of year and I notice one of my lovely friends and fellow blogger, bibbitybob, is feeling a bit down.  Lots of her followers have commented on the same thing and I'm rather that way myself.  I think my problem (besides lack of sun and vitamin D) is that yet another year has started and the endless brainwaves of making huge amounts of money and international fame from crafting hasn't happened again.  The Fashionistas did quite well over Christmas but things have gone quiet again.

I made a decision to close my website for now.  While it was lovely to see that people from as far afield as Russia had looked at it I didn't get any sales, or even messages, and it was simply money going out and none coming back in.  I'm satisfied it was the right thing to do and instead I've returned to Etsy so please look up my girls on my shop.


To more positive things I've made another little dress for Jasmine out of scrap fabric and old curtains.  I'll try to get a photo of her wearing it, but she doesn't like her picture taken at the moment as she has a nasty skin infection, probably impetigo, and the poor little soul looks dreadful.  Hopefully she'll be her cute little self again soon.

Bridget the dog was happy to be photographed on our new rug anyway.  Mind you, she was asleep at the time.  She's doing her chameleon impression and trying not to be spotted.

Anyway, as I said I think the sun would help to cheer us all up, so here's a nice picture of it to remind you!