It's Mrs Woo's fault! ; )

Mrs Woo has got me all Christmassy thinking because of this post! I promised myself I would get all the toddler group things ready, all my halloween things ready and all of the small person's birthday things out of the way before I let myself get sucked into the wonderful swirl of Christmas (mainly 'cos once I'm there, there's no getting me back!) But, I gave in. I've made some xmas crochet bows and have started sketching out other things I really want to make. Must. Stop. Now. Or everything between now and December 1st will be lost!

Talking about Christmas though, how many of you have started xmas shopping/crafting/planning? I always start the shopping very early because of Alexandra' s birthday being the end of November and needing to be organised, but I try not to start crafting xmassy things until I'm all sorted with everything else. I'm actually starting to get nervous that I'll be asked to do costumes for the nursery again (I don't mind, but it completely takes over!).

Right. Pirates? Yes I did get my pirate craft fix last week. I finished most of the eye patches for the goody bags that the kids coming to Alex's party will get. I got as far as I could with the elastic I had. The last few shouldn't take too long once I've restocked my supplies.

These are for the girls. The purple spot ones are backed with plain pink and the pink spot ones are backed with plain purple. The red one on it's own is for the birthday girl.

These are for the boys, but aren't finished. You can see the backing colour for each behind.

Also my Nan (who by the way is amazing) found some pale blue and pale pink fabric with small white dots. Just what I wanted for the bunting! Yay! And she didn't even know I was looking for any! There isn't a whole lot of it, so I will probably use plain fabric on the other side of the flags to help it stretch a bit further. The invites still aren't finished, but that's due to lack of ink in the printer. I promise I will show you when I'm done though.

Because of international talk like a pirate day, scarecrows at toddler group got bumped to this week (below is the small persons from today. Recognise the dungaree fabric, Heather? and I have plenty left for other ideas that are brewing) and we decorated simple felt eye patches instead. Alex made one for herself and one for Daddy. After all what use is it being a pirate if you can't take your Daddy with you on the high seas?

And so to bows. The pile of rainbow bows can now have the clips added because they arrived in the post today! Yay! So that will be the large and medium bows, but I still need to get some blank slides for the smaller ones, which I think I'll sell in pairs. Before I made the Christmas bows I was being good and getting some halloweeny things done and made some halloween bows. I need to make an extra one for the small person though as she wants to wear one at Mickey Mouse's Halloween.

Halloween bows

My quiet evening project (after the small person has gone to bed).

Looks like the medium size hot pink bow has gone. (This is my little sister btw)

The black and white toddler group photographs were gorgeous as always. I've ordered 5, but if I were richer I could have quite easily ordered all 8 (yes 8!). Orders went in today, so we should have them back in a couple of weeks.

Mr Bogert is off galavanting in Kansas City with his boss and another colleague. They're at a user group (I think) from yesterday until Sunday. He's actually visiting Hallmark cards today. That I would find interesting. I'm hoping he gives me a full run down and not the usual "nothing much happened" or "I can't really remember".

While he's away I'm having a good old fashioned girly sleepover (based in my living room!) with a bunch of old school friends. Really looking forward to a good old catch up. Now we're all "grown ups" (or pretending to be) we don't have as much free time to see each other what with kids, jobs, houses, and partners, and we're all a bit more scattered. I think this will be the first time this particular group of friends have all been in the same place at the same time for over a year. Also, big point of the night is we're getting chinese take away. Yummy! I love chinese food.

They'll all just be leaving as Mr Bogert returns, then we're off to see Mickey the next day! Can anybody say busy?

Avast!

I missed international talk like a pirate day :( How did I not notice this!

And so today all my crafting shall be associated with the small person's birthday party (which isn't until December) so that I can relive what I missed on Saturday. Good plan. So far today I have worked out the wording for the invites, which as you may remember, I had made a start on.

Ahoy shipmate --------------!
Ye be invited t’ Captain Alexandra’s 4th birthday bash!
We be in need of shipmates t‘ swab the deck, so come
dressed in your best pirate finery. (fancy dress)

We set sail on
Saturday 5th December 11am
so chart yer’ course for
This Place
and join us fer some fun, games and grub.

Wave yer’ flag if ye be attendin’, if not ye’ll have t’ walk the plank!

What do you think? It's not so piratey people wont have a clue what I'm on about, is it?

Next I'm going to turn my attention to some goody bag bits I'd cut out ages ago and not got any further with. I really want to make the bunting, but I'm having huge difficulties finding the fabrics I want. You know when you have an idea in mind and no other thing will do? Well at the moment my creative side is refusing to compromise, which is anoying my organised side that just wants everything to be done and ready so we can get back to christmas planning. They may have a fight.

In other news. I have been so busy! Getting back into the term time swing is hard. Late library books have been returned, many buses have been caught, toddler group has been busy with a severe shortage on volunteers last week, and then I've been trying to sort out the house which is still an awful mess although we've been living here a year now (wow that went fast!) the problem being we still have a severe lack of storage space because we can only do a bit at a time. We're getting there though. Our aim is to have the kitchen properly finished (oh alright, mostly?) by christmas so we can function a bit easier.

Mr bogert is due to go on a business trip next week and when he returns on the Sunday we'll be packing the car for our holiday the next day! Very excited! We're going to Eurodisney for Mickey's not so spooky Halloween party :D

Mr Bogert had his first camera club evening last Monday night, which I completely forgot to mention! It went really well and we had quite a good turn out. Hopefully everyone enjoyed it as much as me and they'll all return next month (which he already has planned out. Isn't he clever :D) I really need to work on my editing skills. They are NOT good. Mr Bogert.........?

Photos from camera club of our lovely model, Lisa

The last bit of activity I think I need to mention is results from the wedding fair. Mr bogert has had a call from one of the 4 brides we thought were most interested and she's arranged a face to face meeting for this Thursday. Fingers crossed this is going to be a booking. We also took a trip over to Derby way to take some photographs for one of the cake ladies who were at the fair. Her cakes are so yummy! (She gave us some samples to try) and they look really good too. She's having her website re-designed so wanted new photographs for it. Hope she's happy with them, but her cakes really do speak for themselves. It was lovely chatting to her and her daughter too.

Mr Bogert thought these were real! Isn't she talented!

She got it!

My secret gift (that I couldn't keep completely secret, terrible aren't I?) reached it's destination, so I can show you now :)

Pin cushion

Back detail

This little card and pin cushion made it all the way from my house to Mrs Woo's (AKA Felicia) to celebrate her visa (finally) being approved.

Yay for you Mrs Woo! Why not pop over and see her lovely crafty blog and say hi :)

Lots to show

I've just listed these bags in my folksy shop (which I think I'm getting the hang of!) and hasn't my little model done a lovely job!

Happy Birthday to my Grandad for yesterday. 84 years young. Alexandra decided she was "the birthday giver" and took great pride in handing over our handmade cards and she sang happy birthday :)

I'm still loving making these. Every single one of this rainbow of bows is destined for a hair band/clip/barrette. I just need to order some blanks. I made the large size originally, but I've experimented and now have 3 sizes.

The small person's hand painted mug from the coutry show arrived! Yay! I love it, but alas, I can't keep it. It's destined for Alexandra's Nanny's birthday present. Good job I've booked the same company to come into toddler group in October then, isn't it?

This is Nanny, so I've been told.

This is the sunshine with legs standing in the mud :D

This is my latest play around with crochet. I went into work early (4:30am) on Saturday and then they had me covering the special delivery cages (not nearly as cage like as it sounds) where you get a mad flurry of activity, then it all goes quiet. Thank god I always have a bit of crochet in my bag. So this is the result of a dull lull. I'm super proud of my bobbles, can you tell?

Sunday we were at Rob's first wedding fair. Here I am looking all smart and serious on Rob's stand :D It was a small fair in Coalville, but it was nice, nothing went wrong, we met some lovely people from the other stands, and there was interest in Rob's work. We remember from when we were planning our wedding, we never booked anything there and then at a fair, we went for ideas, information and to bring it away to discuss and decide together at home. With that in mind, we weren't really expecting any actual bookings on the day. I fact, speaking to everyone, only the suit hire guy and chair cover lady got actual solid bookings on the day (3 for the suits and 1 for the chair covers). Fingers crossed we were liked enough to get some enquiries or bookings. There were 4 brides that we thought were very interested for next year.

And finally, meet Winnie and Wilbur. These are both hand appliqued felt just a bit smaller than the size of a saucer. I had to do something halloweeny :)

So I've been quiet but very busy. We have the car back and it's working lovely now. Lets hope it stays that way for many more miles. At toddler group today we had the black and white photographer in. I love her pictures of the kids. I always buy the ones of Alex because they're always so nice and natural. (She just told me today that I get 50% off for being the organiser! Bargain!) She doesn't pose the kids, she just snaps candids whilst they play. We get the proofs back next week. Excited already!

Better late than never

Here's the good luck card that the computer just didn't want me to show you yesterday:)




Have you ever had one of those days (weeks, months, years) where everything just goes so horribly against you, you want to cry? We've just had one of those. We must have THE worst luck ever :(


Mr Bogert hasn't been graduated that many years, so we're still overcoming the student debts (including his overdraft) which also means we have completely demolished any savings we ever had. We were however trundling along nicely, until the bank decided to reduce his overdraft limit without any notice, so that not only left us very short on cash (and several things had to go unpaid), they also wanted to charge us (and they have), then as these things are never lone incidents, he got caught doing 5 miles per hour over the speed limit and fined £60 (yes, his fault, but in his defence, it was down hill), then our rent (we have a shared ownership house so pay part rent and have part mortgage) was put up by £120 per year, then yesterday the car coughed, splutered and refused to move. The garage has said today that it's going to cost just under £1000 to fix :( Has to be done because he needs it to get to work and there's no way we can afford a new car :(


As there's very little I can do about any of these things (my mother in law is helping us out for the time being so it wont result in anything as drastic as being thrown out on the street!)) apart from feeling a bit down and like we're always clawing to get to normality, all I can think of is Disney. Stupid I know. 2 things spring to mind. Meet the Robinsons and their "keep moving forward" and Finding Nemo and "Just keep swimming". That's what we shall have to do.


I'm being optimistic that the wedding fair is going to bring us some luck (and business) on Sunday. One good thing to come out of this is I have finally set up my own Folksy shop. Something I'm a little excited about, and something I'm also slightly terrified by. You know when you get that little voice in your head say "what if I'm not good enough"? Yeah. I got that one. I've wanted to do it for a while, but had plenty of reasons to hold myself back (being a big scaredy cat being the main one), but this has kind of pushed me with the "well it can't hurt" mantra going in my head. So far, I've only got to listing the 4 cards shown in the last 2 posts, but hopefully this weekend, I can list some of those many bags I've been making for no reason. Let's just hope.....


Nothing else can go wrong, right? And we're due some good fortune surely?

More cards

I've had a really dull day today. Much housework, lunch making, washing, clothing selecting, bed changing and school bag finding took place. Very uneventful. I couldn't even go anywhere because I was waiting in for a delivery for Mr Bogert which didn't come until late afternoon. Not that I had plans for a trip out mind you, but it's always nice to have the option.

Mr Bogert however had loads of fun. The car is broken. Again. It's always our car. So a work from home day for him tomorrow, car going into the garage, and a friend loaning him his car just to get the small person to her first day back at pre school. Fantastic :(

Anyway, my fun bit of the day was when I got to chill with a bit of card making. Here are the fruits of my labour (you may recognise the house one. I liked it so much, I made it again.) there are 2 of each design.

There is actually a fourth design, a Good Luck card, but as my computer now seems to have decided it doesn't want to play anymore I'll have to try and show you that one tomorrow.

Shhhh....

Who am I kidding? I've never been good with surprises. I used to sneak into mum and dad's room and search for the christmas presents when I was a kid, then put them back and try and act surprised when on christmas morning. In my defence, I was aided by my little brother who's always been a bad seed ;)

I've been crafting, it's only a small thing but I'm not supposed to show you until they (the intended recipient) has seen it, but a sneaky peek maybe? Just like christmas?

OK. That's all folks. Can't show you any more, you'll have to wait a few days.

It was our first day back to toddler group today. The day started as well as I expected it to. The alarm went off, I got up started getting ready, sorted out the small person, gathered my things and even had time to rearrange our studio apartment with some new book shelves. That's when I realised we don't have a studio apartment and I'd carried on dreaming though the alarm. Cue headless Vicky running around the house asking Alexandra why her tights still aren't on and where on earth did I put the house keys. Nothing like a gentle lull back into your routine.

Anyway things actually improved once I got there. We were ready on time, some mum's actually remembered we were back today (the first few weeks back are always slow as everyone gets back into the swing) and the book man turned up as planned (even though I'd forgotten we'd planned it!). I have the toddler group craft planned out up until Christmas and goes a little like this:

15/09 - Photographer is taking b+w kids photos

22/09 - Scarecrow collage/lollipop stick character

29/09 - Sock puppets

06/10 - I'm away, so thought it would be best to leave the craft for that week.

13/10 - Pretty Pottery (I've just arranged today) company that we saw at the coutry festival.

20/10 - Halloween craft (not 100% which idea I'm going to use for this)

27/10 - HALF TERM

03/11 - Firework craft (Toilet roll middle rockets)

10/11 - Poppies for remembrance

17/11 - Again, I might not be there, so I've left this week free

24/11 - Christmas tree decorations (for the church's xmas tree festival and to take home)

01/12 - Sponge printing your own wrapping paper and making cards for xmas

08/12 - Tissue paper xmas wreath

END OF TERM

I'll post pics as we go through. I'm really looking forward to the pottery painting though! Most of the mum's were talking about using them as xmas presents.

So, we survived the return to toddler group, now I just need to get through the first few days of Alex returning to pre school!

The rest of today, I've been mounting Mr Bogert's latest wedding prints in an album for this Sunday's wedding fair. I really hope he gets some interest at this show. So much time and effort (and a bit of cash) has been put into preparing for it, and, although I know I'm biased, his work is really good, and he seems to get better every time. Fingers crossed for him.

I failed

I failed in my attempt to get the scrapbook finished before my friends got married this last Friday. I tried really hard, but it just wasn't going to happen. It shall have to be given after the honeymoon. Not quite the same, but better late than never. I hope.

Apologies I disappeared for about a week, but I was trying to get the book ready, things for toddler group and nursery (we go back to both this week) and obviously wedding cards and outfits etc and time just slipped away from me.

The wedding was lovely. They had fish and chips for the evening meal, lottery tickets for their favours (we didn't win :C) and a jukebox for the evening entertainment. I really enjoyed myself. Great time catching up with friends, nice venue and both bride and groom scrubbed up well ;D

Mr Bogert was an usher, so I didn't see that much of him. He was off and about being social. The small person was only invited to the evening, which worked out nicely (apart from the bit where she found the bridesmaid's thank you gift and smashed it on the floor. Oh the joys of being an apologetic parent). I've been trying to learn how to use the non "numpty" settings on our camera (as Mr Bogert calls them) and didn't do too badly.

So here we go. Introducing Mr & Mrs Weller.....

The ushers, groom and best man. (There's Mr Bogert on the left)

The other newlyweds, The Monty's

Congratulations guys :)

Since I last posted, we've also been to see Spider's Web at the local theatre. I really enjoyed it. We don't get to go to the theatre much (usually just panto once a year, and that's hardly the same). It was opening night, we went early enough to have a drink frist, but then only about 2 minutes into the first scene, the house lights came back on. It was confusing, we wondered if someone was going to make an entrance through the seats, but no. Then the guy who was actually in charge of the show came on and explained they were going to have to stop because an alarm had gone off. We all had to stay seated with the actors on stage. It must have been really awkward for them just sitting up there with all these grinning faces staring back at them! Finally they decided to carry on with the lights still up whilst the fire service reset the system. Then once that was all sorted, we had an intermission that wasn't an intermission. The curtain came down, the house lights came up and we all walked out, went to the loo (as you do) and got a drink, only to be called straight back in again. The actors were already part way thorugh the next scene when we found our seats! Oh well. I still enjoyed it. The cast were very good.

I've also been helping Rob get ready for next Sunday, when he has his first wedding fair for the photography. Nearly don'e, just waiting fro prints and things to come through from being ordered. Next Monday is also his first photography club meeting. He's got it all sorted, I just need to go and be tea lady (and hopefully get chance to join in!).

And on a crafty note, here's some pics of some pages completed so far in the scrapbook. Hopefully it'll get finished soon, I have a feeling getting back into our term time routine is gonna take me a few weeks though. It kind of crept up on me. I knew it was coming, and then I turned around and it was right in front of me!