Autumn Leaf Swap

Autumn seems a distant memory since we've been having this cold spell but look at the wonderful goodies that I got from my swap partner Joy from JoyKnittJoy sells Phoenix Cards so I wasn't surprised to find my gifts wrapped in beautiful papers and a card with a fabulous sewing design.

Inside was a stunning spiral scarf and beanie hat which are snuggly soft and a lovely autumnal coppery shade.
Some awesome autumnal fabric from Joy's stash and

finally I found this delicious (too good to eat ! mmm!! opps it's already gone!!!) white handbag design chocolate.

Here's a picture of Rachel modelling (stealing) my lovely scarf and hat - I have to say this girl can wear hats - whatever shape or style - whereas I seem to resemble Ermentrude the cow!!!! Which is why there is a picture of Rachel wearing the hat and not me!!!

Thank you to Giddy Stuff for organizing this swap and to Joy for being an excellent swap partner!!!! oh by the way Joy yours will be in the post tomorrow!!!!

Baby it's cold INSIDE!!!!

That's right folks we have no heating!!!!!!

I've been pestering Paul to light the fire in the living room for ages but we were a little concerned as Tompom is into everything and it would mean being extra extra vigilant with him, but yesterday he relented and we lit the fire and it was all lovely and cosy and then.......

the heating went off, first of all I didn't pay much attention as the thermostat is in the living room and the heating goes off if we light a fire but then when we turned up the thermostat and let the fire die down the heating still didn't kick in.....by this time is was late in the evening so I just turned on the bed warmers filled up hot water bottles and toddled off to bed to keep warm.

Today we have spent most of the morning on the phone talking to electrical engineers  about the boiler and apparently it's the pump that's gone and they can't come till tomorrow, so its been lots of layers today with  electric heaters, which some members of the family have hogged more than others!!!!

Fingers crossed we will be nice and cosy and warm come Wednesday afternoon as this cold weather is playing havoc with Paul's arthritis which is being made doubly worse because its so cold indoors too!!!!

Folksy Christmas Swap

Hi everyone I don't know about you but I'm busy busy busy at the moment, what with crafting for swaps, Christmas shopping and everything else us ladies have to fit into the day time is short and Christmas is rapidly getting closer!!!! I'm not in panic mode yet but give me a few weeks......
Talking of swaps I recently ventured onto the Folksy forums, I do find they move rather fast but I did find a post all about saving on the cost of Christmas by swapping!!! Well the lovely Nicola from Off The Hook contacted me asking if I could make a pink fairy apron for a 2 year old, so I popped over to her shop and took a peek and in exchange for an apron I received three gorgeous make up remover pads, a beautiful purple cross bookmark and Nicola even added as an extra a red Gecko bookmark which as it happens is now my favourite. All of these items are beautifully made and are going to make wonderful presents, so thank you Nicola.

Here's the apron that I made, I took this photograph before I added some pink glitter ric rac to the front and poppers to the neck strap so that it was adjustable. I hope Nicola likes it.......

This is a great way to keep the cost of Christmas down so if anyone else fancies swapping then just let me know or pop along to the forum post on Folksy.

Autumn Swap Goodies!!! Look what I got......

I recently took part in a lovely Autumn themed swap and I was partnered with the lovely Justine over at Down to Earth with a Bump!!! (Fab title for a blog don't you think?) well Justine and I spent a little time getting to know each other better, finding out what we like and don't like (I seem to like it all!!!)

Justine was more organised than me when it came to sending off her parcel and I was trying to be extremely good as not to open it before I had sent off mine but it was half term and the kids were off so I didn't quite get my parcel off before Halloween and Justine hinted that I might want to open the parcel as there were a couple of Halloween goodies in there and they might not keep until next year!!! I didn't need telling twice and I ripped open the package and found these colourful tissue wrapped bundles.....

Firstly there was this gorgeous knitted scarf just right now that the weather has changed...now Justine was a bit worried about her craftiness but she shouldn't worry at all as the scarf is beautifully made and is just my colours.

Secondly we have the Halloweeny goodies - some halloween table confetti and some colour changing sherbet dips - needless to say the kids grabbed these and went off to find out if they could change the colour of their tongues!!!

After opening this next bundle I felt really bad as I hadn't put any chocolate into my parcel to Justine and she had put in a Divine bar of chocolate and boy oh boy it was Divine too!!! (Note to self - always add a chocolate bar or seven to your swaps!!!)
The Burts Bee's lip balm I had to hide from Rachel, but she did manage to get the pink lip balm I received in a previous swap - its amazing what constant whining can get you!!!

Now I do try and keep share all my swap goodies so the porridge oat bar was given to Paul and the Notebook Queen (aka Rachel) got the Notebook. I beginning to notice a pattern emerging here - Rachel does pretty well out of these swaps!!!

In the last bundle was a pretty Vintage Egg Cosy - which is far too pretty to go on my egg in the mornings and will be added to my collection of displayed swap goodies in either the porch or my workshop, and also some pretty Cath Kidston tissues again far to pretty for blowing my great big hooter into...... 

Here is a picture of all my lovely Autumn Swap goodies together before they were grabbed and squirrelled away.

 

I love swapping and am always amazed at the wonderful gifts that I have received so thank you Justine for been a brilliant swap partner and you can read about what Justine thought of my parcel (yes I did manage to send it of eventually!!) here.

Brown Stuff!!!

Yesterday I spent the afternoon in the freezing cold (brrr!!!) watching Jack play tag rugby for school. I had several layers on and it was still freezing, at least it wasn't raining though. The rain started on Monday and only stopped a few minutes before the tournament started. The kids looked absolutely frozen and added to that the pitch was a quagmire!!! Needless to say I had to take three very muddy and cold boys back to school!!! I did feel a bit bad as I was standing on the sidelines shouting encouraging words, as their hands and legs had turned that blue orange colour when they get sooo cold!!!
This morning I have very muddy kit to wash and Jack has the pleasant job of cleaning brown stuff off his boots!!!

Tompom also has a lovely new word that he uses at every given opportunity - can you guess what it is? -  Yes that's right is POO!

When someone does something he doesn't like they are POO!!

If you tell him off it's POO!!

And this morning Rachel tried to get him to say lovely instead of POO!! and now we have LOVELY POO!!

Right that's enough about the brown stuff for today I'm taking Tompom to toddler group (where hopefully he won't say POO too often) and then once he's asleep this afternoon I going to do some serious sewing!!!!

Misi Secret Swap?????

I recently took part in a Secret Swap over at Misi and here's what I received -
a scrumptious cupcake

and a beautiful turquoise scarf and flower brooch

 I'm still not entirely sure who my secret swapper was but I think I'm on the right track.....

So thank your secret swapper and thank you to Hennie for organizing...she's very good you know she's already got us all signed up for a Christmas swap!!!!

Here's what I sent to Debbs (Panic Tuesday on Misi) Snow Queen here in blogland....
Now I knew that Debbs had a love of trees and I've been itching to have another go at applique so this seemed like the ideal project, most of the bag is made from recycled fabrics and the green velvet is extra soft.....might have to make another one for me!!!!

A quick Halloween update!!!

Another week has flown by and we have had our fair share of the lurgies, but we are all on the road to recovery now...here's just a quick update of our Halloween...

Sunday night saw me, Rachel and Jack head off up into Danbury to meet some friends to go Trick or Treating... when we arrived it turned out that a few of the Dads were taking the kids round which meant that I could have a cup of tea and a chat with one of the mum's and enjoy handing out sweets to the trick or treaters that knocked on her door...(where we live there are only a few houses so we don't get any trick or treaters so this was a real novelty for me!!) We also popped over to see one of the neighbours who has one of these in their garden

 It was lovely and cosy and reminded me of our trip to Lapland to see Father Christmas a few years ago!!!

After the kids had returned with their bags full of treats we headed off into the nearby woods for a very spooky walk!!! it was pitch black and with only a few torches and lanterns definitely a little scary.....one of the dad's was hiding in the woods and we keep hearing lots of noises and there was a awful lot of screaming going on, eventually he managed to find us and scare the kids half to death (and the mums too!!!) then it was back home to see what goodies could be polished off before bedtime!!!!!

All in all a fab Halloween....