And the award goes to.....

.....after much deliberation, cogitation and head-scratching my five winners are:


1. Sal of Sal'sSnippets.


2. Julia of Miss Frugality


3. Sara at The Fabric of Meditation


4. Sarah at allabouteden


5. Beth at Felting in Fibrespace


Sorry to those of you who I didn't pick. There are just too many damn fine blogs out there to choose from but at the current rate I'll get another award soon as can share the love with some more of you - lol.

Had a bit of a rejig of the blog today. I spent so long faffing about on Meez again today that I thought the fruits of my labours should be more visible and not lurking at the bottom of my blog where noone will see it. Hump Day??? If you don't know what this is click on the linkie-poo. It's something that I first heard back in the olden days. Before I discovered Radio 2 but when Radio 1 had lost the plot I endured the crackly, non-stereoness of Virgin Radio for a while, and Russ and Jono used to talk about it on their brekkie show. Chris Evans must have picked it up from there and now he marks the day on his drive-time show. Cheers everyone.

I have also added another banner on that side of the blog - the S.O.P.H.I.E. banner. This relates to the murder of Sophie Lancaster, the girl who was stamped and kicked to death while trying to protect her beaten up boyfriend, just for being a Goth. For some reason this story has really upset me, whether it's the fact that I used to dress that way or whether it's just the sheer mindless thuggery I don't know. It just really horrifies me that this kind of thing can happen in this day and age. Much as I love this country it grieves me that an element society has so little respect for human life. How can anyone be so evil and narrow-minded? OK - rant over. Just didn't want this to pass by without comment.

On a lighter note, I have been on another little shopping expedition today. Kiddie has been to the cathedral to see the Duke of Gloucester today. In case you didn't know what he looks like here he is.

He seemes a nice enough chap but not very 'royal looking'. He came down the steps and nobody was sure which one was him. We all had balloons which we released when given the nod (not that I'm too sure about this as an idea - what about when they come back down? Litter, wildlife injury...). Then the kiddies all trotted back to school in time for lunch.

And tomorrow they have to do it all over again. They are at the cathedral for the Ascension Day service. Apparently children from most of the city schools will form a huge circle around the cathedral and do a Mexican Wave.... Anyhoo, to get to the point, she asked if she could have a new school dress with a bow at the back for tomorrow. Hence the shoppping trip. (How much do I waffle?!)

So I trundled over to Tamworth to the big Woolies there. And it's closing down!!! How dare they!! Nobody asked me!! On Saturday they will shut for good!! On the plus side their lease has been bought by M&S next door and they are expanding. Hooray! A nice big Marks. On the negative side, Woolies had no school dresses left so I pootled over to Sainsbury's and managed to get her two from there, but not before filling a basket with bargains I didn't really need but couldn't not buy! Here is just a selection...

Fimo craft sets for about £2.50 each. The jewellery one has the findings in it as well. Fab prezzies to stash away.

A rainbow of tissue paper for 93p. You can never have too much tissue paper and simplesparrow - a new blog I've found - made these fab tissue flowers which I want to have a go at with kiddie. Admittedly sparrow used recycled tissue but never mind. On another new blog (new to me that is) Flossie teacakes made these great butterflies with her two 'smallies'. Sometimes kids' projects are really rubbishy but these two are lovely.

Pretty ribbon. OK it's not anything very special but for 93p you can't say no can you?

And these were the bargain of the day. Little buzzing presents or cakes with a candle - you know where you pull a cord and they vibrate - well they were 1p each. Yes I did say 1p - one new penny. Some of them no longer buzz but for a penny I can chop off the cord and still use them for something.

After that I headed for Sainsbury's where I managed to find the dresses plus a new bra (woop woop!!) and a pair of cropped jeans for £8.00. That's totally put the kiss of death on the weather for the weekend - Sorry!!

When I finally got back hime MIL had collected kiddie from school and they had departed for the wilds of Leicestershire. But they had left me this touching note on the hall floor so I couldn't miss it!!

To translate, one of the cats had thrown up on the hall carpet and 'X' marks the spot. Still, at least they had cleaned it up for me. I do love our cats **grinding and gnashing teeth** no really.

I do really hope the weather is OK at the weekend as it's the Upton Folk Festival this weekend. Evie and her friends are dancing on the Saturday this year - Irish dancing, that is. I know many people think it would be their idea of Hell but it's a fab day with all styles of music and dancing - folk, Morris, clog, Irish and last year BELLY dancing!!! Yay! Click on the links to see last years photos. Sadly it doesn't look like they (Barefoot Bellydance) will be appearing this year but we'll have to wait and see.

I was seriously tempted by the idea of Morris dancing after last year. We have a few good ladies sides in and around Lichfield but then I suddenly thought of belly dancing and that was it. Hopefully we should be shimmying at one or two of the festivals and things around Lichfield during the summer. I may let you know...

I've done no crafting today at all. How bad am I? And I could be doing stuff now but instead I'm sitting here typing away and listening to Mr Harding. Tomorrow won't be much more productive either as I'm in work. Interim assessment time already and the girls are panicking slightly. Only four weeks left 'til they finish their final projects and have their end of course assessment. Ahh I remember it well. Tomorrow it's give-them-a-rocket-and-try-to-get-them-motivated-day. Last push before the end. Think I need one of those myself. OK enough. I'll go and do something now.

Another Award!!!!

Wow!! Can you believe it!! I have just been reading all the updates from the World of Blogdom courtesy of Bloglines, as always saving my fave's 'til last. Just as I was coming to the end of Carina's third postette my name leapt out of the page. She has very kindly bestowed upon me the Arte y Pico Award (and she still doesn't know that I gave her the E for Excellent award either - hehe).

The rules read:
1) Pick 5 blogs who deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material and who also contribute to the blogging community no matter what language.
2) Each award must have the name of the author and also a link to their blog.
3) Each award winner must show the award and put the name and the link to the blog that has given her or him the award.
4) The award winner and the one who has given the prize must show the link of the “Arte y pico“ blog so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5) Show these rules.

Oh my goodness. I've now got to choose 5 of my 'bestest blogs', having just chosen 5 for my 'E for Excellent' award. Hmm... I'm not going to rush this. I shall peruse and cogitate and post my recipients tomorrow. Bribery and inducements are most welcome (hehehe).

Cooking with kiddie

Well here it is - the first batch of gingerbread men or rather Moomins made with my new cutters. There are Moomintrolls, Snufkins and Hattifatteners, and very tasty they are too. I just wish you could taste and smell blogs as well as read them.

The chef and her assistant (me) used a recipe from good old Good Housekeeping which we trot out every Christmas and make loads of Christmas trees, men, ladies and hearts. Some actually make it as far as our Christmas tree hung on a ribbon.

Evie decided she wanted 'the works' on her batch so out came the icing and hundreds and thousands. Her biccies all ended up with multi-coloured eyes and mouths. E-numbers rule!!!

Someone on the forum asked about resin today which reminded me about my past projects at college and Uni. In my Foundation course final project I used resin and I said I'd put the photos on Flickr. Unfortunately they've gone AWOL but here are some piccies of my HND final show instead, til I find the resin hearts.

The ceramic pieces on the floor around the trunk are also part of my installation, It was all to do with memories of childhood. There were loads of tiny ceramic shoes looking like they'd been unpacked from a trunk in the attic, some of them were broken. These were to represent my memories of my childhood - faded and fragmented.

The bigger, bolder fabric shoes and the HUGE baby dress were my memories of Evie's childhood - much more vivid as they are so recent.

Dress-making has never been my forte but I had to give it a go for this. I used one of Evie's baby dresses and scaled it up, creating a paper pattern. I screen printed all the fabrics myself using her birth certificate, ankle ID tags and other paperwork from her birth. I then smocked the bodice by hand. The back is fastened by four huge buttons which I made out of Fimo, as are the shoes.

I made the shoes in a similar way, taking a pair of booties to pieces and enlarging and altering the pattern to a really big scale. They also fasten with big Fimo buttons.

I do love these shoes and have made them in a range of sizes as prezzies. This is one more little design idea I have up my sleeve which I really want to start producing. One felt one is currently lurking around my work room at the mo. I will finish it soon and post a pic to see what you all think.

Hmm.... I've started to ramble now cuz I've got one ear on Holby City and half a brain on this.

And now it's time for Waking the Dead so I'm going to finish.

Tomorrow I'm going to Lichfield Cathedral to wave at the Duke of Gloucester with Evie's class. Does anybody who he is or what he looks like? I must go and Google him so I wave at the right person. Don't want to flap my flag at a bodyguard or, even worse, a tramp!! hehehe

I'm Back!!!!

WOW!! I'm going to go away for a few days again!! Look what I'd received when I logged on today... aren't I a lucky girl? In fact I seem to have been awarded this by three lovely peeps - incywincy, jennyflower and tiptop. How greedy is that?! Seriously - I'm so chuffed. Thank you all and everyone else for reading my waffle. :0)

I believe in turn I now have to pass this award onto my 5 fave blogs - how hard is that going to be?! Right, here we go..

1. Beautiful Things - my own private 'soap' or that's how it feels, reading the next instalment in the house move (and being a nosey sod looking at the photos :0D hehe). Any room with Barbie pink wall has got to be alright in my book!!

2. What Katie Did - the first blog I ever read and still one of my favourites. Currently we are on an Inter-rail trip around Europe but Katie's work 'shed' is to die for. Her felt and knitted goodies are gorgeous.

3. RicRac - Jodie's blog is 'like a box a choclets - ya never know what your gonna git'. OK so my Forrest Gump impression wasn't great, but it's true. There's always something fab and exciting on RicRac. When my Bloglines alarm goes "ping" this is one of the names I'm really glad to see come up.

4. Carina's Craftblog (aka Wardi) - this is sunshine in a blog. Carina's blog is always so colourful and happy. The clever girlie has also got through to the final 5 in the Softies Awards - Embroidered to Death category with her Happyscape. Click on the link to take part in the voting.

And after much deliberation, the coveted 5th spot goes to....

5. vicious chicken - must be THE funniest blog I've ever read. The everyday story of Little Rosie Probert, Shifter and the 'munkeh' army. Fantastic!

To those who I didn't pick - sorry. It was really hard. In fact it has taken me 3/4 of an hour just to go through and pick and I'm still not sure now.

Onto other stuff (quickly cuz it's 11.30 and I'm a tired bunny). We didn't get back til 11.45 last night and after 4 hours+ driving I was more than ready for beddy.

Anyhoo, had a fab weekend, although the weather wasn't quite as great as I had hoped. Saturday was lovely. In the afternoon we went into Totnes. Yay!!! One day I will live there. We walked in through the back of the market and I could've kicked myself as I had no cash on me (no surprise there then!!). There were many and various bargains to be had and I missed out on most of them. Huge baskets of ribbons at 50p a bundle. Fabrics oddments at £1 a throw. Grrrr! >:0( By the time cash had been procured everyone was packing up. The African drumming, chanting and dancing chilled me out a bit tho' so I wasn't too sad.

After that we trotted merrily round the corner to have a sneaky peak in This 'n' That, Gazebo and Hulabaloo. Unfortunately you really can't do shopping in Totnes properly with three fractious kids in tow, so we sold them!! No, not really. But our retail therapy was severely curtailed. Ah well. Next time the daddys can babysit while we indulge.

I did buy one small item which the Moomin fans amongst you will appreciate...

As Rolf would say,'Can you tell what it is yet?'...

(What is it with rubbish impressions tonight? Sorry.) I was going to use this item to make something and post photos of that something but I had to go into work after all today so I didn't get chance. It is....

a set of Moomin Gingerbread Cutters!! Yay!! Gingerbread Hattifatteners. Can't wait! There's also a Moomintroll and a Snufkin. I will endeavour to make some tomorrow and post a piccie.

Nearly forgot my two little bargains from the hospice shop in Brixham. These babies were 50p each. Not bad eh?

Oh-oh. I'm really running out of steam now.....

I'm so glad incy liked her giveaway prezzie. My extra little surprise was a Mini Silly with a hanging loop. I just had this idea to reduce the pattern and see what happened. I made two of them - well while you're making one you may as well make another. Here's a picture of the one I kept. Do you like her hair? It's that fab wool I bought last week. hehe I love her.

OK I give up now. I must go to beddy-byes. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow.

Give a tree a new gnome...

Mugshot first off. Here is one of my Christmas mugs that I love so much they have come into everyday use. They are HUGE and really chunky. Perfect for hot chocolate with 'the works' on top - marshmallows, cream, grated chocolate.... Oooh feel those calories.... I bought a pair of these from TK Maxx a couple of years ago. Just hope they don't break cuz I won't be able to replace them.

My mug I would love to own is a bit of a cheat really. It's a textile piece by artist Priscilla Jones and is actually a stack of espresso cups, but they're nearly mugs, aren't they? I love the colours in this piece and the delicacy of her work is gorgeous. She has done other kinds of 3D vessels too, including a fab teapot. Check her out.

So now my camera battery is finally charged I can take some pictures of my lovely mail this morning. (Evie discovered the video facility on my camera last night and proceeded to use up the whole SD card and run the battery flat filming....? the cats playing with a new toy?!* Kids!!! I ask you.....) My lovely postman brought me my parcel of goodies from paper-and-string. Yippeeeeeee!

Look at all that loveliness. A happy tree plus his own gnomey disguise, a roll of funky tape and a shade card of all of the gorgeous felt colours that Sarah has to offer. Even the little note card has a hand-stitched felt topper on it.
My mistake yesterday - I didn't order two trees; just the one but isn't he cute?

Guess who...? hehehe
I love him. He just needs a name......... Hmm.....

I've been a good girlie today and finished off incy's giveaway package. That's just about to go to the Post Office. I made a little extra surprise for her which I'm very excited about, but I can't show you until she's had her parcel. You'll just have to wait until Monday.

"What no blog all weekend?" I hear you cry. Well no. I'm off to (hopefully) sunny Devon for the weekend so I shall have to resist until I get back. Have a great weekend, whatever you get up to.

Byeeeeeeeee.

Meez

hehehe Have just got back from belly dancing class and jellybelly-jellybrain has sent me the most fantastic link in a PM. The results are at the foot of my blog. Go and have a play on Meez.com yourself. It's fab!!!! Thanks so much JBJB.

Chums.

So here is my mug of the day. This is one that I own. It's a Charlie and Lola one, well actually Lola and Lotta her best friend. My sister bought this for me for my birthday/Christmas (sorry I'm rubbish and can't remember which). I love Charlie and Lola it's just a shame that the mug is kid-sized and not big enough for me to drink out of. I like my tea and coffee to come in a bucket!!!

Following my Moomin mugshot yesterday, it seems that there is a secret gang of Moomin fans out there. Paper-and-string and I'm a Ginger Monkey are both fans. Check out Ginger's post today - from the postman, that is.. And Katy is my swap partner for the doll swap. Hmm....

For all those Moomin enthusiasts out there, here is a little treat for you. (click on the link)

Ooh - I ordered some goodies from paper-and-string, tho' not through etsy. I visited her own website and ordered....

Yay!!! Not one but two happy trees and a gnomey disguise. Can't wait for that delivery to arrive. hehehe

This is yesterday's blog post from U-handblog (yet another blog I subscribe to). It really made me laugh cuz it is SOOOO true. Have a read and see what you think...

In between the downpours today I managed to get into Lichfield to do some shopping. I bought some mousey-brown wool for incywincy's doll. (It's what she asked for - her description not mine.) I also bought this ball of fab funky coloured wool for which I have many plans....

Isn't it great?! The colour combo is just perfect.

I also bought some delica beads for my brooches. The reproduction isn't great but there is a packet of candy pink and two shades of coral-y colours. I love them 'cause they are so small and the matte colours are fab. I could have spent a fortune in there today but I'm saving my pennies for Devon.

Quite by coincidence one of my fave bloggers - Sal - did a post about Totnes yesterday. It's one of the places I would love to live if I had the choice. I shall be going there at the weekend, to watch big one nephew do his canoeing lesson, if not to shop.

I've had quite a productive day so far. I've actually finished incy's giveaway doll and shall do my best to get it in the post tomorrow. Tick. I've sorted out nephew's birthday present ready for the weekend. Tick. I've bought more bits and done some drawings for new brooches. Tick. I've bought kiddie a new school cardi. Tick. And I've seriously begun to think about ideas for another project.

One of my fellow CF members - Kipper - has sent those who wanted one a sample of his little wooden boxes. Here are a couple of pics of said box. Cute isn't it?

He has asked us to decorate, alter, embellish and generally make gorgeous one of his boxes in our own style. We just have to photograph the process and email the results to him together with instructions. He can then include our ideas in his customer newsletters to help promote his products. The best bit is... we get to keep the boxes afterwards. I have so many ideas I just can't decide which one to go for. Keep watching for further developments.

Whilst on the subject of CF friends I must just include a lovely portrait that incywincy made of me today.....

What a pal!! hehehe And this is the woman I'm going to be working with..... Just you wait.....

Mugshot

OK. I'm sorry. I confess I cheated a bit on this one today. None of the above belong to me but I love 'em all. The Moomins are just fantastic. I remeber coming across the paperbacks by accident about 12 years ago. Before they ever appeared on telly over here. The names alone are just fabulous. My fave was always the Fillyjonk, but there's also Sniff, Snufkin, Mymble, Little Mi, The Groke and, of course, the Hattifatteners.

There's just something about Scandinavian humour... My photography tutor at college was Norweigian and she was fab but insane (in a good way). hehe

Tomorrow I will get my camera out and photograph my own mug. Promise.

Good post. Bad poster.

Oh I'm just useless!!! I've forgotten to put a title on the last two blog posts and have broken the CF again. Really sorry Mr Media. I'm on my last warning so I really, really must remember.

Oh well.... On a happier note I had some fab post this morning. Three parcels to be exact. OK so it's quite obvious what one of them is... While I can't live the reality (yet), I can read the magazine and dream of living by the sea. I shall also be living there temporarily, for the weekend at any rate, as we're going to see my sis this weekend. Yippee!!

The other two are a bit more mysterious. One of my parcels of felt that I won on eBay had already arrived, so what else was I waiting for?.....

Ah ha! Three fat quarters of fabric. Also an eBay win. They are for a project I am planning but it's a secret. I will post hints and snippets as I go, but you will have to wait and see the finished result.

And the other parcel?

It's from my blog buddy Wardi (Carina). She was offering these off-cuts of felt the other day so I snapped them up. I don't yet know what for but they will adorn some dolly or other shortly, I'm sure. As a surprise she also sent me some of the actual cut-out shapes too, and the postcard is one of her illustrations. Ooh I do love it when it's not all DL manilla envelopes that come through the letterbox. Thanks so much you lovely lady. Take a lookie at her blog and her etsy shop. She has some gorgeous, happy-making stuff. You look at it and can't help but smile.

Ooh. Some fab news to tell. I will soon be appearing on a new website, courtesy of incywincy. She is having a revamp of her website and wants to sell my felt/silk brooches. Woo hoo! I have been looking through my stash of silk ribbon this afternoon and I have loads of ideas for designs. Can't wait to get started.

Hope you've had a Happy St George's Day. Off to MiL's for dinner, hence the quickie.

St George's Day

Happy St George's Day.

See you for tea and cakes at 4pm.

4 new little Silly Girls & 1 great BIG one!!!

new sillies
Originally uploaded by ethel and edna

Well here at last (hopefully) are the 4 new girls. They are relaxing in the sun on our front garden bench. Think the one with the white hair looks a bit shifty. :0)
Further to my last post, I have realised that we haven't been hacked or infected with a virus. One of the suggestions from Blogger to help the photo upload problem, was to delete all cookies! This included ALL remembered IDs, passwords, etc. Now hands up - who was shouting that at their computer as they were reading?! hehe I'm just not cut out for this computer lark, am I?

Techno-Strife Rant.

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Flippin' technology!!!!!!

Flippin' computers!!!!!!!

**stamps feet**

**has a mega massive tantrum**

And rest......

Sorry about that but I've just had the most fruitless half hour. It all starting when I tried to upload my latest pics here. Blogger sent me a rude message and refused to do it. So I left in a huff to watch 'Waking the Dead'.

Came back and had another go at 10pm thinking it would all be fine. But no! Same error message coming up, so I went to Blogger Help Group and found that lots of poor Bloggers have been having the same trouble for the last day or two. I reported the fault like they asked and then thought,

"Hmm. I'll be a clever little Blogger. I'll upload the pics to Flickr and then blog 'em from there."

Ha! Fat chance! I tried to log into Flickr and it's forgotten my 'remembered' ID, and can I remember my Yahoo account details? Can I heck-as-like! So, I followed the security steps to recall my forgotten password and it wouldn't agree with the personal details I gave it. It was arguing with me about my date of birth!!!! I ask you? Who knows that best - me or flippin' Yahoo?!!!

Sorry - must remember to breathe. Calm......

So I gave that up as a bad job and decided to just come and make a post without photos. To just have a little rant to get it off my chest. And flippin' Blogger has also decided NOT to 'remember' me. Luckily we were able to agree my username and password so here I am.

And now I've run out of steam and need a little lie down.

Seriously though, it has made me slightly paranoid. I'm wondering who has hacked into our computer and is planting viruses and trojan horses, trying to unearth all our deepest secrets and steal our identities and our millions (haha). Do you think I took 'Swordfish' too much to heart the other night? :0)

OK. Let's get onto more serious things. Tomorrow I am going to make my first purchase on etsy. What am I going to buy?... At least one of these little beauties from Paper and String. I did consider NOT putting a link so that noone else could get there first. They are SOOOO fab!
Form an orderly queue behind me if you want one. :0)

Right. I'm off to try and enter negotiations with Flickr/Yahoo to see if they'll let me back into their gang. Maybe if I talk nicely to them.....

Mugshot.

Last week Carina (who's blog I love) decided to kick off with a little meme type thing. Every day we have to post a picture of a mug in our possession and a mug we would love to own.




I forgot yesterday - oops! - so here are two day's worth in one go.

This is my first-one-of-the-day-coffee mug. Nice and strong and one sugar, thanks.




This is an Emma Bridgewater I Love... mug. I used to have a Beetle which I sadly sold just after Evie was born, and I've missed it ever since :0(. Maybe one day I'll get another but in the meantime I would love this mug as a stop gap (even tho' my bug was bright green).



This is the mug I've just had a cuppa in with my lunch. It actually belongs to OH. He is addicted to Walnut Whips and this mug came with a WW Easter egg last year. (Lunch was a ham buttie if anyone's interested :0)...)

hehehe Just found this while Googling mugs. I love Dr Suess books and so does Evie. The drawings are just great as well as the stories. The best stories are the Sneetches and Daisy-Head Maizy, but we also love the foot book. We both know it off by heart. Altogether now,

"Left foot, right foot, left foot, right.
Feet in the day. Feet in the night......"

The best man for a job is......

OK, so you all remember that back in the mists of time we swapped our bedroom round with kiddie. And that this meant we have had to buy new wardrobes and drawers for ourselves. Well thus far OH and I have made each item as a team effort. I have opened the packages, checked the contents then told OH which parts he needs and handed him the screws, etc. This has worked fine for a triple wardrobe and two bedside chests of drawers. However......

.......last night I was ironing (are you listening swirly!! hehe) while OH decided to tackle the 5 drawers chest. Well I don't want to be smug or anything but....

Can you spot the deliberate mistake? :0) Oh how we laughed......
He is now trying to wriggle out of this by saying that he was distracted - he was watching the film 'Swordfish' at the same time (and Halle Berry got her chest out a couple of times). Hmm... Nope sorry.

I haven't got an awful lot to report to day as I have been at work. The girls got a nasty wake-up call this morning when they realised that they only have four weeks left until their final BIG assessment. Its always a last-minute panic to get work finished in time, but I think this year it's going to be frantic to say the least.

I'm going to finish my four Silly Girls so that tomorrow I can concentrate on badge-making.

Short but sweet - like lemon meringue pie ;0)

'Want to come and play at mine?'

Do you know the poem Warning by Jenny Joseph? It's the one that starts,



"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple..."



Well this poem was the inspiration behind a doll I made for my mum for Mother's Day a couple of years ago. The doll's called Jenny - what originality of thought!!! I followed the poem as closely as possible but with one or two amendments to make her personal to mum. Rather than 'satin sandals' I gave Jenny brightly coloured, patterned wellies as mum loves jazzy wellies and has several pairs for walking the dogs in. The black tights are because at the time mum used to wear black opaque tights all the time. And the hat was meant to be one of those inca-style woolly hats with the tassels cuz she wanted one of them.



Since then I have made several more for mum's friends when they've hit BIG birthdays, altho' not as detailed as mum's. I just thought I'd post some pictures of her to show that it's not all belly dancing. :0)





Aren't kids toys these days fab?! We have just swapped bedrooms with kiddie as you know, and while I've been getting her new room straight I've been looking at some of her stuff. I know a lot of it is merchandising for films and TV but even so, the detail is fab. I wish I was a kid again.



Having said this, sometimes older stuff is better. A couple of years ago we decided to get Evie a Barbie house for Christmas. But, when we started looking, the actual Barbie stuff just didn't seem as good as the Sindy equivalent I used to play with as a child. Everything was moulded in plastic. There weren't proper sheets and pillows on the beds and it was ALL Barbie pink!! So, I hit ebay with a vengeance and bought Sindy stuff instead. The next few photos will appeal more to the girlie girls amongst you. A definite trip down Memory Lane.



On the roof terrace - fame comes to the house as The Sugababes are visiting Barbie.



The dining room and lounge where Sharpay and Troy from High School Musical are chillin' out.



The sumptuous boudoir with four-poster bed.

Me and daddy bought the house and a couple of rooms of furniture, then other family members paid for another room or two each.

We have some brill, if rather blurred, photos of me, mum and sis playing with the house on Christmas Day. The urge to push Evie out of the way so we could play was strong! Oooh cruel mummy!! Bet you wish you could come and play now, don't you? hehehe

So the other thing I mentioned last night was a competition. While lurking in Blogdom a couple of days ago I found this link. Basically your need to design a pair of baby booties using Michael Miller fabrics through Craftzine. The prize is a Singer sewing machine. I confess I haven't read any further than that yet as I've got a couple of other things to sort out first but it looks great.

It's awful to realise how 'out of it' I am with regards to patchwork, etc. I had never heard of Michael Miller until I saw this contest, but searching for him on eBay quickly showed me what I've been missing. Yummy!!

One of the 'other things' I'm sorting out is the doll swap I'm taking part in. Meecrafty drew the swap partners names last night and I am paired up with I'm a Ginger Monkey. How fab! Her dolls are lovely. Take a look at her blog and Flickr pages. However, the pressure is on now to make something for her that will be as good. I have a month to design, make and despatch the dolly. My thinking cap is very firmly on my head!!