Here it is! Here is my stash! It’s not a huge stash but there’s a good amount of fabric there that needs to be used. I set a couple of fabric related goals for the year; to use my stash and to think carefully about the fabrics that are suitable for certain garments.
Continue reading ➞ Stash Busting
The office for our apartments closed for Christmas. Of course, my #stitchingsanta present was delivered on the final day they were open…when I was out and I didn’t get back in time to pick it up before they closed! 😦 I was sad because I knew we were going away the morning after Christmas so I wouldn’t be able to open it until we got back on the 29th!!! Can you guess what I did first when we got back from Vegas?? I OPENED IT OF COURSE!!
Now my stitching santa was lovely Abi over at The Freckled Fashionista! Abi did sooooo well putting the gifts together and I absolutely LOVE everything! Thank you so much Abi!
I did have a sneaky suspicion that Abi was my santa. She posted a blog post with some presents wrapped with doggy paper and some English themed fabric. Well, I have a dog, I lived in England and I now live in the US so I thought that it may be for me and it was! I was so pleased when I opened the parcel because everything was wrapped up brilliantly – the wrapping paper was gorgeous!
Continue reading ➞ Thank You Stitching Santa!
It’s gone! Sent! Complete! I really love putting parcels like these together as I find it a good challenge to make the most of the budget and to make some stash busting gifts.
The week before last, I set about with the handmade extras to my gifts. I didn’t choose anything too big or fancy as I wanted my gifts to be useful to the recipient.
I’m actually thinking of doing more detailed posts about these gifts at the beginning of next year. Even though I already used tutorials that were available online, I changed things slightly to suit my sewing style and patience!
First up, I’ve made a set of 4 quilted mug rugs/ coasters. I’ve included a couple of tea bags with this gift as a little extra too. I don’t know about anyone else, but I seem to use & have coasters all around the apartment so I think that these are quite a useful gift.
Continue reading ➞ #stitchingsanta update
Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series where you post 7 photos from your week. Sometimes things happen in our lives that aren’t worth a full blog post but are worth sharing, so here is the blog series to do just that! Just write your own blog post, share your own set of photos and use the #sundaysevens tag. The Pinterest board is here…. feel free to share it! Grab the picture below for your blog and link it back to me 🙂
Here are my Sunday Sevens 😀
1. We are trying to eat better. We haven’t cut all traces of fat out of our meals because I like to have a balanced diet. But we have cut crisps (chips!) and candy out almost completely, and we are trying cook meals from scratch rather than use processed meal sauces and mixes. Here is Adam with his homemade chipotle beef burgers…they were delicious!
Continue reading ➞ Sunday Sevens #22
This year our Christmas will be like no other. For the first time in 26 years, I won’t be having Christmas in the UK. Our parents and my brother are coming to visit us for 3 weeks and we are having Christmas in our little apartment. Yes, that is 7 of us in our 1 bed apartment for Christmas dinner. We only have 2 bar stools but have managed to borrow a table to seat 6, so one of us will have to perch on a corner!
Over the years we have collected decorations that are special to us. However, we didn’t bring anything Christmassy over to the US with us. We managed to get a bargain of a Christmas tree from Target; a pre-lit 6ft tree for $15. We also bought a packet of plain baubles as I am a little against glitter (it just gets everywhere!) and some candy canes. When we first arrived in the US, we had a trip to New Orleans and we bought 2 metal skull decorations from a quaint little store. These were added to our little for their first Christmas.
Continue reading ➞ Our Little Christmas
Last year, I pinned many handmade Christmas ideas on Pinterest but didn’t quite have the time to make ANY of them.
Well, that has definitely changed this year! Over the last couple of weeks, I have finished a few handmade christmas projects. I am very eager to share them with you and hope to show many more over the coming weeks. However, I think we will all have a few post-Christmas posts scheduled to show the gifts that we can’t show before Christmas…just incase any surprises are revealed!
The first project started quite a few weeks ago and has taken me a lot of time of on/off crocheting! These little crochet Christmas sets for Santa & Rudolph are from the Molly Makes Handmade Christmas book.
I am still new to crochet but found these instructions easy to follow, and I’m very pleased with how they have turned out! A couple of these sets have gone to the UK for Christmas presents, and we have kept one too!
Continue reading ➞ Starting A Handmade Christmas
threads + bobbins 