My Busy Craft Life

Hello everyone for the very last time in 2014! The year is nearing the end, so I wanted to take a moment to reflect on last year. Alright, I admit it, I totally saw this theme popping up in blogland and thought I'd do the same. I'm not sure how everyone else made their top 10 list, but somehow blogger doesn't have an app for that so I actually took all the posts that I've written and sorted them based on the amount of views they've received. Some surprises there! For example, my office chair was not even in the list! I really wanted to give it an honourable mention though :) The side view picture was actually much better in hindsight but this one will just have to do. And now, without further ado, let's have a look at the 10 most popular posts in 2014. Ready? #10 on the list is: Mary Berry's Double Crust Apple Pie I'll definitely be making this again this year, it's really easy to make and so good. #9 on the list is: Gl...

Hi all, Yes yes Christmas has come and gone and I'm still blogging about it! But now I can finally show you the scarves I made for my sister and my niece! I've only recently started knitting things properly so when these came out really nice I was so proud :) I got this wool at one of the shows (one in blue for my sister and one in purple/maroon for my niece as she is a little like me and would love it) and the pattern it came with looked fairly easy. NOT! I think I made this scarf about 5 times before I actually gave up on the pattern. There had to be another option! So after yet another few tries, I was about ready to throw this in the corner yet again, when I thought of something that one of the ladies in my sewing group said once about a simple stitch which was just k1p1 (You know who you are G). So I thought I'd try that and voila, all was solved Check this out, it came out so well! It was simple and has a gorgeous result. I'm very proud of this :) T...

Hi all! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with lots of friends, family, and food. And presents. :)   As you know, I made a new advent calendar this year and the pouches were big enough to add a decent gift rather than one tiny (and tbh quite crappy) chocolate. As promised, I made a list of what kind of presents you can add to your advent calendar without having to spend too much money but still have some good quality chocolates and present come Advent time. So in line with the shopping craze of Boxing Day which I carefully avoid, here is my list.  General gifts, to be shared between the bf and myself: Green & Blacks organic chocolates, a pack of 8 with each one a different flavour (£2 for 8) Kinder Chocolate bar, pack of 8 bars, split up into 2x 2 bars each (£1 for 8) Haribo mini bags, used as emergency really as they fold great (£1 for 10 bags) Ferrero Rocher chocolates, one chocolate as a time (£1 for 4) Gifts for the bf: Mini screwdriver...

Merry Christmas everyone! A day late but no matter, I had other stuff to finish yesterday so here are a few shots of our evening: Our lovely Christmas tree, I even got some new ornaments this year! Cards are made and sent...  (my first year of making cards, I was quite impressed! I hope the recipients were also) ...and dinner is being made. (yes I look a bit like a 50s housewife here LOL) Time to enjoy a wonderful Christmas with food, presents, and games. Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I have to admit, I am backdating this post... I had it all prepared and I was way too busy to actually post this... sorry! So for the final few advent entries, we had the below loot: The bf had a whistling key finder (yes this was the same one as in week 2, but this was in case he lost the other one, get it? hihi), a Ferrero Rocher chocolate (clearly not pictured as already eaten) and a sweatband where he can stash his tube card when he goes running. My loot for the last few entries was: mini bar of Green & Blacks organic white chocolate, mini bag of Haribo sours (also already fnished), and a mini jar of blue edible glitter. I'm really quite pleased with the results for this year. On my part it was quite perfect, for the bf I need to plan a bit further ahead next year as finding stuff that cheap and small yet still great turned out to be a bit of a challenge. I will be posting a complete list of where I got what to give you some idea...

Hello everyone! It's been a while since I had a Tourist Tuesday, but the past few weeks have been busy. And what better post to write at the moment than a Christmas Tourist Tuesday? :) Over the past few weeks I've been dragging the bf along to many Christmas events and markets, not all of which he appreciated. Woops... but most were fun for him too so I'm sure it was fine. I took a ton of pictures and because I do want to show you the best ones but I only have time for one post (Christmas Eve is tomorrow after all!), I made some collages. Just click on the picture if you want to see it bigger. Are you ready? Let's go on a Christmas tour of London! In early December I had to into Waterstones to buy some gifts, and suddenly this lovely group started singing carols! It was charming :)  And on the way out, I even spotted the Snowman! Yes and he Snow Dog but I grew up with only the Snowman so I was well chuffed when I got to take a piccie with him :) Am so sendin...

Hello again everyone! OMG there is no end to Christmas events this year! Whenever I think I'm finally done, there is more... Yesterday, I ran the Greenwich Park Christmas 5K & 10K. Well, clearly I only ran one of them but I was there... ...and in style! I used the shorter wig to run in and it was perfect, it didn't even move. Definitely going to keep that idea for any other race where I need a wig :) For those of you who don't live in London or don't know quite what the layout of the city is, I live in the West. Greenwich is in the South East. The race started at 10am, meaning I had to be there at around 8.30/9. It was about 90 mins to get there... Well, getting to Greenwich is about an hour but you also have to get to the starting point which wasn't exactly next to the station. So by the time I got there I already felt like I'd done the race LOL. I was really nervous about this race as I managed to really hurt my knee last time and I wasn...

Hello again :) It hasnt been a week since the last 'Loot' post, but that one was written waaay late... So this week I wanted to be a bit more on time, especially as it's Christmas in a few days already! :) This week, the bf got: Green & Black mini chocolate bar (sea salt), I couldn't find the wrapper so it's not in the piccie but instead I photographer the highlighter tabs from last week. He also got a wooden puzzle, a garlic peeler (that's the blue thing), a pair of Superman socks (much more appreciated than Homer ones), some Haribo sweets (obviously not pictures), and some hand sanitizer. Hey it's hard to buy presents for guys that fit into an advent calendar! There is one more but he hasn't opened today's one yet so it will be on the next list. My loot this week was: mini jar of silver edible glitter, a strawberry huller, Green & Black's mini chocolate bar (butterscotch), mini gingerbread man cookie cutter, toothpaste easy...

Hi everyone! I'm finally on holidays!!! I'm so happy :) I did a LOT of overtime in the past weeks just to get ready for the end of the year and now I can thoroughly enjoy my time off without any stress *bliss* A few months back, I entered into the The Hand Stitched Christmas Decoration Swap over at Paper & String. It was great fun! I had these ornament kits still that I've been wanting to make for a while and this was the perfect opportunity. We had until 2 September to send in the ornaments, and we'd get the new ones back in October. So a very early start for the holidays this year ;) In true style, they were purple of course. They were lovely and sparkly. The only thing I regret is not adding a proper ribbon to them. I never add ribbon to my ornaments in my trees, I used invisible string instead, so it didn't even occur to me to use ribbon. Doh! I really hope that the people who received them liked them! These are the ornaments I got in return. ...

Hi again all! I declared last Sunday Christmas cookie day. It's been ages since I made proper cookies and what better season for it? I couldn't do it next weekend as I've got a 10K scheduled so I'm going to be like way tired probably (or in pain but I sure hope not!). So right after our yoga session I got started and spent the next 6 hours making cookies.  One of the girls at work is allergic to gluten and every time I bake something she can't have any so this time I was going to make something for her too :) And I did it in style! I had my Christmas hat, my Christmas apron, some Christmas music and a ton of sprinkles... ...and this is the end result! The round ones on the top are gluten-free chocolate sugar cookies, the others are normal sugar cookies. I love the tree especially, and the stocking. I'm quite pleased with the results, and I hope work will be too!

Hello again :) The second week has already passed already so here is the second update on the loot from the advent calendar :)   The bf got some more Green & Blacks chocolate, some Kinder chocolate, a mini bag of Haribo Christmas sweets, a balloon propeller, a pair the Homer Simpson socks, some highlighter tabs, and a tiny tool to fix glasses which I'm sure will come in super handy. I didnt write down when he got what but this will give you some idea. My look this week was strangely no chocolate at all, three mini cookie cutters (the last one wasnt in the picture), mini jar of green edible glitter, a hair clip, sewing machine needles, and some arrow tabs. Not bad for week 2! I'll keep you posted on the rest :)

Hi everyone! Oh my it's been a busy weekend! On Saturday I had quite a few events lined up. We had yoga in the afternoon, followed by the annual Christmas Zumba session. And then I also had to dash off to the LOTNA Christmas party! But I made it all in the end :) Here is our group picture of the Christmas Zumba session. It was great fun, although my knee hasn't quite recovered from last week's run so at the end I was in pain and a little grumpy.  This time I'd brought my camera and I really tried to get a decent piccie of the whole outfit, but the fan was next to the tree so all I ended up with was this Marilyn Monroe shot LOL The selfie worked a little better :) The hair was great! The sparkly Santa hat was too small to fit over the wig even though it's a tiny wig, but I had some fabric leftover from when I bought the wrong amount of fabric for the skirt so I used it as a headband and it worked like a charm! Am so using this for my running event n...