Happy Christmas and Archie in the snow

Those of you who have been following a little while may remember that I'm a great advocate of the 'buy yourself presents' way of doing things - that way you get things you are truly happy with.

I've been trying hard to support other craftspeople and artists by buying from Folksy this year, even though I still haven't quite managed to set up a shop of my own, so was delighted to find these beautiful Christmas Robins from the Linen Cat shop - and I ordered a set for a friend. Well, when they came I just hated to part with them, such lovely deep rich colours and so cheerful, so I sent them off and then promptly ordered some more just for me. They came so quickly and were beautifully wrapped with great details on the labels and packaging, and this morning I hung them up on my garland.

I finally got round to putting a few decorations on our tree too, but Archie was un-decorating it as fast as I was getting them on, thinking it was a great game. In the end I had to leave a lot of bare branches at the bottom of the tree with things hanging further up. We also had to move a couple of bags of presents which had been lovingly wrapped by my friends in lovely rustly tissue paper, There are few things more attractive to a cat than rustly paper AND a bag to stuff his head in, so my presents are now ontop of the wardrobe - in fact there's not very much we've left under the tree at all.

Archie is loving the snow - it seems to be making him a bit skippy and mad, and he's been staying out for ages despite cold toes! Here he is nearly up to his knees:
And here he is all black, skipping about in the white snow, just like a young cat should. He starts tentatively for a little while then pounces on it before trotting off!



I hope all of you have a very Happy Christmas and are able to enjoy some rest and time for yourselves. We are struggling as my mum is deteriorating drastically each day mentally, so it's very tough, but we will make the best of everything and spend some time with good friends and family, and I'm finding that being with my boys is so helpful as I can think about my life going forward despite all the difficulties.
Thank you for all your friendship and support this last year which has meant so much to me.

Cheerful birds

It is incredibly dreary and cold here, the rain has come yet the slush is still resolutely staying in the garden!
So onto more cheerful things, I thought I would show you another present I bought for myself (a highly recommended practice as you always get something you like).
As I said in one of my earlier posts, I've been very drawn to bird designs recently, and came across these lovely things from ISAK recently,

I ended up looking at the website every week until I decided I had to have them. Our kitchen cupboards are painted in a duck-egg greeny-blue sort of colour, and we have wooden worksurface, so they go really well in here. The cup lids are unfinished oak although I oiled them as it said you could, which darkened them a shade.
My husband arrived home to find me arranging the new cups and admired them before asking 'And what are you going to keep in them?'. Surely this is not the point. You buy the lovely things then afterwards a use suggests itself to you, or not, but either way you have cheerful birds.

Bird on a hill

This is my latest present to myself. He is from my friend Charlotte's new range, I went to see her at her gallery yesterday and I had to have him and bring him home with me to sit on my kitchen windowsill! His similar friends haven't quite made it yet into the online shop, but I'm sure in time they will. I've really become drawn to little birds recently and am on the look-out for lovely unusual birdy things, so he was perfect.

It's been a very busy week, I've had to make felt in the evenings when the light has been so bad it was impossible to get any decent pictures. Also my trusty camera has been exhausted by me constantly taking photos of things, and will no longer reliably focus. I'm just investigating which camera to get next, hopefully one which can take better close-ups of the felt - it seems remarkably hard to show what the colour and texture is really like, I'm always disappointed by the shots I get compared to how vibrant and rich the pieces are in real life.

But I have had a small production line of lavender bags going, all cut out now but still a few to assemble and stitch:

- each day I plan to finish them all in the evenings while having a nice cup of tea, but my peaceful evening hasn't arrived yet.....