Snow Snow Snow!

We were all so very excited this morning to get out and about in the fabulous snow that fell last night while the children were sleeping!

Apart from not noticing the smudge on my camera lens (most annoying) I managed to get some nice photos of the snow.

We are hoping that tomorrow there will be enough snow to make a snowman for the garden.

One more fair to go!

Today is my last fair before Christmas! Am then going to make time to finalise my website and get stock built up ready to go live with it.

Have really enjoyed these last few months and with a lot of help from my husband have managed to juggle 3 children with it all. I am however really looking forward to Christmas and no sewing for a week or so.

This evening is the Northchurch Baptist church Christmas fair and the children are coming too as it promises to be a fun evening for the family. I do however need to go and finish some more little nurses aprons and hair bands as they sold out at Wednesdays fair.

Dinosaurs Rock

Have just finished the appliqués for two little boys draw string bags, one with Stegosaurus and one with T-Rex! Think I may have to make one for Finlay maybe a Triceratops? Its amazing how having children teaches you all the dinosaur names you thought you had long forgotten.

Cute Aprons

Saturday was a apron day! An apron is a much needed accessory in our house with my two daughters always being up on a stools helping in the kitchen. It seemed only right that Grace should then get her choice of apron from the ones I made yesterday.

The Cookie Recipe

I think sometimes you come across a recipe that you just know is going to be passed around and cooked hundreds of times and this cookie recipe is certainly worth its weight. Not only is it supper easy to make but you can pretty much throw anything at it and it seems to work!

So here is my recipe for Cranberry and white chocolate chip cookies.

Ingredients

215g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

115g soft butter

125g light brown sugar

50g caster sugar

1 egg

100g dried cranberries

200g white chocolate chopped into chunks

Set the oven to 190 c /375 f/ gas mark 5

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and mix it all together till it forms a dough by hand this takes a bit of work but in my fabulous Kitchen Aid it takes seconds!

Place little rounds of the dough onto a baking tray lined with grease proof paper (you should get 18 cookies from the mix)

Cook in the oven for 10 mins or until they are just beginning to colour at the edges. ( you still want them to be soft as they will firm up when they cool)

Let them sit on the tray when you take them out the oven for 5 mins then transfer to a cooling tray.

And there you have it! I have tried lots of combinations of these cookies and Milk chocolate and hazelnut work really well too as does a bar or Cadbury's Bornville Chocolate Orange chopped into chunks!

A weekend of sewing is needed!

Have had a very uncreative week with virtually no sewing! I have however been on a bit of a cookie baking frenzy with the girls that really needs to stop as its me that ends up eating them!!! So this weekend I need to get back on track with my sewing as I have another Christmas fayre coming up on the 9th December and move on and away from the oh so nice cranberry and white chocolate cookies Mmm.

Time for bed

Well its time to catch some shut eye before tomorrows More than a mama fayre.

Its been a busy week what with last Fridays fair at Victoria School and now this one, I'm really looking forward to the weekend, I will try really hard to resist the temptation to make anything all weekend.

Little handbags

Bags galore! Had a bit of a bag spree this evening and made 3 lovely little bags in the softest cord fabric. Perfect for just about anything a little girl may want to carry about

I think my favourite though has to be the "Lucy Goosey" bag.

Your invitation

Its official your invited to come and join us for a Christmasy evening of shopping in Berkhamsted. Have glass of mulled wine listen to some music and be pampered. We have put together a line up of stalls that will offer gifts galore to add sparkle under any tree this festive season!

Rocky Rooster products

Rocky the Rooster has made it onto a large tea cosy to keep your pot hot!

home to roost dolls bed. This little bed comes complete with 2 pillows for your favourite little doll to get a good nights sleep!

Rocky the Rooster

Its been a busy weekend, my 4 year old had a friend over for a sleepover although not much sleep was had and I cracked on with some sewing for the next "Bumps babes and beyond" fair on Friday this week. However in the midst of all of this I did manage to come up with a new character to adorn some products and am happy to share with you the lovely 'Rocky the rooster' Rocky is a very busy rooster who spends his days dashing around!

Aprons for little angles!

Had a go tonight at making some little aprons and although I discovered just how difficult it is to sew on bias binding (gave up in the end) I think generally they were a success. Will have a go at some full size ones next.

Finlay has a new gorgeous blanket

Some time ago after Finlay had arrived I saw a baby blanket that was really beautiful but sadly had a beautifully large price tag to go with it!

I couldn't justify spending such a large sum on a baby blanket but I did decide I would look out for some nice fabrics and make one myself so today I made his blanket and I love it! It was certainly worth shopping around for the fabrics as its exactly as I wanted it to be. Lottie also had a test run of the new blanket and seemed to approve.

Finlay made it to the table

Well it is official my little boy is growing up!

He is still only 5 months but we started weaning him last week and it seems to be a big step in the grown up direction. We even got Lottie's old chair that attaches to the table out of the attic so he can join us at the dinner table. The girls of course think this is just the best thing ever and are already arming him with bad habits like banging your cup on the table and generally throwing things around. I think even more so than I did before that someone should produce oil cloth wallpaper for dinning rooms!

(Note Grace is grabbing his hand its not that he has a strange extra finger that goes in the wrong direction)

Lucy the Goose

Am really enjoying my sewing at the moment and have finally got to grips with how to make a drawstring bag. Just need to work out how to make nice neat French seams now and I shall be extremely happy with myself.

This week has seen the creation of Lucy Goosey which Grace and Lottie both want (may have to make another) and some other cute little Purses.

We also picked up a beautiful vintage dolls bed in the local charity shop that is just awaiting some lovely handmade bed linen to do it justice and of course I shall post it when its complete!

Buttons, school kit bags and handbags

Have a had a lovely sewing frenzy and have some cute buttons, a handbag and some PE kit bags in the making. Decided to make kit bags that were all different so that the child knows which bag is theirs by the design and with no two bags the same teachers should be able to find the right bag.

Just need to think of some more lovely designs but am thinking boats, cars, aeroplanes, hearts, geese, birds and cats would make nice additions.

Exhibit number one from my new sewing machine!

As you may have guessed from the title I have a new sewing machine as my old one spluttered its last stitches at the weekend. It was the most basic of basic machines so when my new computerised machine arrived this afternoon there was great excitement!

So as soon as the children were in bed I prioritised making something over all my other tasks and after a lot of swearing at this and that I finally produced something! It still needs a red button to finish it but all in all it was a fun little project.

Lau Lau the golden apple snail!

Just as the title suggests we have a new addition to our fish tank!

After a conversation with a friend on friday who told me about Golden apple snail, my husband trooped out with the children on Saturday and duly purchased one. I have to say I was a little sceptical about its ability to clean the tank but oh how wrong I was it, its fantastic!

The girls have spent most of this morning drawing pictures of the snail who has now been joined by some rather unhealthy looking plants and a lump of cucumber. (the snail will apparently munch away on this if is gets bored of eating algae)

Ok I am off to have a go at doing some freehand embroidery on the machine of some snails after reading the beautiful book that Poppy Treffrey has just written I feel inspired to give it a go.

Keep a look out for snail pictures to follow x

London Bus & The Queens Guards

Its been a lovely weekend and a visit from Granny and Grandad to make it extra special!Grace and Lottie managed to stay asleep till 6am before they wanted to wake Granny and Grandad up, goodness knows what time they shall want to be up this Christmas!

As the weather has turned colder Finlay's newly acquired hat bought from the gorgeous stealing candy http://www.stealingcandy.co.uk/has both come in use and inspired me along with a card that I bought months ago (I don't seem to be able to part with it) the two items seem to have a similar lovely childish feel about them. So today I set to and had a go at a "Queens Guard". Not sure where he is heading, either into a picture frame or maybe onto a bag and he could do with some tweaking but he seems to have a worthy character so he may well get some friends to join him!

Numbers on the stairs and Finlay the dog.

This week has also seen the return of the numbers to our staircase. As Lottie our 2 year old is getting to grips with counting we thought we would help her out a little or at least get her past 1, 2, 3!

With so many things to do over the next few weeks to get sorted for the up and coming Fayre's making a dog for Finlay was really not high up on the list of priorities yet sometimes you just need to ignore the lists and have a bit of fun! So last night when my 3 beautiful children were finely off to sleep I had a go at making the Cath Kidston dog. Not something I would ever mass produce as I have neither the patience nor the skills however as a one off he was fun to make and is now hanging next to Finlay's cot.

Bitsy Birds

Well our lovely new Cath Kidston book arrived this week called "Sew" filled with lovely sewing projects that I know my daughters will love and I am sure I can find something that even Finlay may like!

So this Sunday afternoon we set to and made a couple of birds from the book that my eldest daughter Grace has named "Bitsy's"

I am sure that the Bitsy'swill be joined over the next few days by some more friends to keep them company, we may even attempt a dog!

More Hairbands

Am really pleased to have more hairbands available especially with the Victoria School Christmas shopping evening coming up! At the bargain price of £2.95 a hairband I suspect there success will continue.

I have now promised to make some up in red dot fabric to go with one of the other local school uniforms. They really are a great way to keep hair out of eyes and as you can label them with your child's name it means you are guaranteed to get it back at the end of a school day unlike all those missing hair clips we have lost over the last 6 months!

Photo's Photo's Photo's

Am sure I shall be adding yet more images soon but its getting late now and I have the first of our More than a Mama December fayre meetings tomorrow so best get some shut eye!

I could go on and on with the photos but wanted to include one of my bandanna bibs as they to are proving to be very popular.
And of course what better place to stash all these yummy goodies than a Isla B Baby changing bag, its amazing what you can fit into one of these little changing mat bags.

Can not wait to see some of these pretty fabrics made up into products!

My lovely hair bands have sold out until next week. They have been really popular so I am making them in some of the new fabrics that have arrived.

Thought I would start with the lovely Meg the Peg in all her colourful outfits, she is such fun to make I think I could get a little carried away!

Well as the title suggests I Have spent some of today taking photo's of my stock, it seems no matter how many I take I sit down and discover I haven't taken one of the item I need! Still have to start somewhere If I am going to put my sales skills into practice.

More photos from the Harpenden Fayre

Princess beds and Fabrics

Burp cloths and Bandana bibs

Changing mat's and Handmade wrapped soaps

More Princess beds with peg dolls

Meg the peg and re-usable wipes

More Meg the pegs!