buy handmade!

i was just mooching about on flickr minding my own business when i found this gorgeous and totally appropriate doll made by imagingermonkey http://www.imagingermonkey.blogspot.com/
i say totally appropriate because it was my bestest friends baby daughters first birthday a couple of days later and her extremely cute little girl is called "Holly" as was said dolly!
and it has no buttons or bits baby Holly will chew off - yeah!! Well i HAD to buy her, didn't i?


i think she got here just in time - you can see in these photo's she arrived to beautiful sunshine - yeah it's cold but if you look on her creators blog they had SNOW i'm pretty jealous actually we don't get snow maybe 'cause of the salt air?


it was lovely to see one of gingermonkeys creations in the flesh/fabric!
the whole family loved her
especially my son who said "oooohh she is really coot if you bought me one of dem it would sleep in my bed"
hmmmmm d'ya think that's a subtle hint?
anyhow i'd highly recommend one of these cute dollies
BUY HANDMADE
it feels good!

we make folksy angels christmas competition

*EDITED*

i entered the folksy angels christmas decoration competition - the brief was to make a decoration from recycled items or items from your craft stash - no buying new supplies!

here's my entry - as usual i worked right up to the deadline and submitted my entry only to find the deadline had been extended! So my photo ain't great as i had to photograph in artificial light - bah!

i choose this photo as my entry as a especially liked the view of the chaos which is my craft table behind her!!!

i made my angel with help from my sizzix machine - she is made of totally recycled papers - her body is from a dried dog food bag - her wings from a foil crisp packet,newspaper and vintage sheet music - her dress is from vintage sheet music and her hair is from a page from a vintage bible - her halo is made of copper wire rescued from my jewellery making stash, oh and some glitter an inevitable store cupboard need with toddler crafts!

please go and check out the other twenty-four entries and vote for you favourite here http://blog.folksy.com/2008/12/2/vote-for-t-angels now!

voting ends tomorrow - i think!

*****VOTING FINISHED - IF ANYONE DID READ THIS AND VOTED FOR ME THANK-YOU!

I DID QUITE WELL REALLY - I ONLY GOT 15 VOTES BUT BY MY WORKING OUT THAT MEANS I CAME 5th WITH ABOUT 6% OF THE VOTES!

THE WINNER - NIFTY KNITS WON BY A MILE - WELL DONE NIFTY KNITS!!! *****

i especially love these

nice cup of tea?

last night i made this felt brooch for my Auntie Jane's birthday - she is a tea addict!

i was completely inspired by cute designs

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5387167

http://cutedesigns.blogspot.com/

who makes super cute felt brooches and crochet creatures.

photo in natural light

photo in artificial light

look at these nice buttons - i found them in the ELC for 80p !!

some new girls

this set is little, she stands at just under 3"

unusual colouring and pattern too.

They will live in my new cabinet.

don't know what's up with blogger but it has refused to let me tidy up this post - grrrr

"bUtToN wEeK"

it been declared "button week" over on button floozies were i also blog - here's my latest post

http://buttonfloozies.blogspot.com/2008/11/brilliant-handmade-buttons-for-button.html

featuring some gorgeous handmade buttons like these!

go take a look!

- GIVEAWAY - GIVEAWAY - GIVEAWAY -

Suzanne over at CHICKADEE CARDS is having a giveaway on her blog - she makes really gorgeous intricately beaded jewellery , beautiful cards and jewellery rolls - please go and check out her lovely blog and enter the draw to win a gorgeous prize!

here is my favourite piece - hands off!

http://chickadeecards.blogspot.com/

etsy treasury

oooohhh look the lovely pennydog put me in her etsy treasury!!! thank you so much pennydog http://pennydog.wordpress.com/ xxxxxxx



://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=20893

and then incywincy featured my button tree on her blog here

http://incywincytogs.blogspot.com/2008/11/treasury-and-more-buttons.html

i feel famous today ! thanks girls.

christmas button tree

Last week i made this button tree - i'm sooooooooo pleased with it!
and just in case you didn't know - you can click on any of my photo's to see them BIGGER!!!

vintage button tree in mother-of-pearl button snow

vintage button tree - wooden spool tree - thimble tree & knitting nancy!

as it has many of my favourite buttons on i have only pinned them on with pearl-headed pins - so it can be dismantled after christmas.

{Incywincy says they look like fairy lights!}


It is made with a styrofoam cone shape re-cycled from a previous decoration i made years ago, i wrapped a piece of black felt{which was being thrown out by a friend of MIL's} around it and pinned this in place , then i covered the shape with a layer of green buttons with a few red ones and then started layering it up with lots of floral buttons and the three bakelite swallows and four gorgeous "bambi" buttons - i mainly stuck to green, red & black buttons but i can see me repeating this idea in candy colours for easter and i think it would look great as a hallow'een tree in purple, orange, green & black colourway too.

{This project is made with completely re-cycled supples the only thing i bought new were the pins and i'd bought them to go in the cupcake pincushion and had only used a few.}

unfortunately the photo's aren't as good as i'd of liked because the light quality has been awfull lately it's either been grey and overcast or the sunshine has been pouring through the window bleaching all the colours out!! I'm thinking about going on a basic photography course as i'd love to improve my photo's , i really need to force myself out of the house in the winter though as it's so nice and cosy indoors.

i went shopping today and went to the shop i used to work at {for sixteen years} http://www.bluegallery.co.uk/ and bought more styrofoam shapes - i might actually run out of suitable coloured buttons - i feel eBay calling!!! I was supposed to be making a start on christmas shopping today but was pretty much unsuccessful - if i only had to buy for little kids i'd do fine there are so many nice toys and books and clothes - grown ups are really hard to buy for especially MEN.

right i'm off to put more photo's on flickr, then an early-ish night as i'm working tomorrow - that's two days this week - i'm out of practice and will be exhausted by tea-time!!