Playing catch up

Looks like I logged back onto Blogger at the right time - Lori's blog hop reveal!! If you've never seen the annual blog hop, just click here and prepare to lose a few hours trawling through. Good news though, it has been limited to 200 participants this year, so you should only lose half a day. Here's a peek of one of the pieces Lori made:

It's amazing to look through and see what people make from components they are sent, and looks like a lot of fun. I know what I'll be doing once I have made my imprint on the blogosphere this evening.

It's been a long and complicated couple of months, not an awful lot of beadery has gone on, but I have dabbled a little and finally tackled working with some polymer clay. I've really enjoyed the little bits that I have done so I can safely say that it's something I look forward to working with more. I spent a week off work, signed off by the doctor for stress, and did lots of baking - I have found that my signature dish is triple chocolate brownie, and there's nothing that chills me out more than baking them. Sadly I didn't do as much beading as I had hoped but I have started a 100% from scratch necklace, here's a sneaky preview:

It will be complemented by two handmade round polymer clay beads, the chain is going to be netted in light green frosted beads and I plan to make a polymer clay toggle clasp with leaves on to match it. This will be my very first piece where all components are completely my own, and it's quite exciting for me.

In other news, we've settled into our home and are well and truly mortgaged up, next on the list of expenses is a new car as ours is still consistently dying - if any of you know what might be draining a car battery please feel free to chip in! We're thinking we need to check if any earth cables aren't connecting properly as it's had a new battery, new glow plugs and temperature sensor on the water coolant (or something like that??) but still the battery will die after sitting for a length of time... Oh well, looking at getting a 2-3 year old car on finance so we'll see what happens in Summer.

I'm off to look at the beautiful beaded items that Lori's soup-ers have created! See you there.

Christmas Cheer!

Merry Christmas everyone, I hope you have all had a fantastic and festive day - I've had a great time, and seen plenty of family, it's been lovely catching up. As I may have mentioned, my beloved hubby made me a stocking of beautiful beady goodness. Just in case you'd like a bit of an eyeful, here follow the full stash :)

I also got a lovely surprise in getting Laura McCabe's Embellished Beadweaving book from my sister! The paper was off this little beauty faster than you can say THANK YOU SO MUCH! Now I just need to find more time in the day to be able to do more beading... Any tips would be greatly appreciated. 

So how did you celebrate your Christmas Day?

Christmas Eve, Eve!

We had our Secret Santa at work today. I got THE BEST present - a fantastic-ly awesome woolly bear hat and a box of Quality Street. Love my secret santa - honestly though, still not sure who it is, but I will be wearing this hat until my head just boils over :)

All Christmas wrapping is now finished, I had a last minute dash to Paperchase (swit-swoo!) to get a couple of boxes for the last bits, but now it's all done, and tomorrow we can bring on the festive cheer because Christmas starts on Christmas eve for me and DH.

Tomorrow we are off to see DH's mum and family, Saturday is my family and Sunday is DH's dad/auntie's etc - Woop for busy family holidays. Just hope everyone's as happy with their gifts as I am with my secret santa :D On another note, it also means only 2 days 'til I get to open my beady secret santa gift - EXCITED! All will be revealed on Christmas Day don't you worry :)

Just noticed I'm very 'on' the smiley faces tonight. To be honest, I'm quite looking forward to Christmas this year and it's brilliant. I'm afraid due to all of the excitement recently I've not made any new beady type things, but my friend did like the beaded ornament that I sneakily attached to her secret santa gift... It's our little secret! Ooh AND I got to use one of my new MOO business cards for it's intended purpose of being an earring card, it looks fab, even though I say so myself - will post a pic when it's been opened and you can let me know what you think (professionally speaking...)

Hope you're all having fun getting ready for Christmas!

LittleTreats BUYS...

A VW Golf! At last! I'm so ecstatic, although aside from collecting it on Saturday, I won't be driving it until the end of the month. But it's ours, deposit paid!

So in celebration, here are all things motor-y :) take a look

VW Camper Cushion by Blue Stripes - might have to get one for the new car :P

VW Camper Wine Glass by Rose Petal - I LOVE this, and, because they are hand painted, they can be made 100% personalised! 

Framed VW Badge by Framedup - to remind you how much you love your Dubber, or just in case a little ratbag steals yours? ;)

Silver cufflinks featuring vintage die cast micro machine cars by O'blue - These were too cute not to feature (I love miniatures, they always look so cute!)

F1 racing fan meerkat by Niftyknits - and where would we be without a driving fan meerkat? Adorable, and all meerkats are hand-knitted with their own little personality :)

Happy crafting!

Let's get organised!

I have just fallen in love with lampwork - these little piggies I found in my stocking are the most adorable little creatures! I can see these being used many times :o)

So I thought I'd share my Christmas joys, and here are just a few of the things that Santa brought me.
As you can see, I've just about got around to labelling up 4 drawers of my new storage unit (isn't she a beauty) and I'm waiting for my 2 shipments of Christmas-money-bought beads before I finish organising - I can be a bit fussy about how things are stored! I just love the glass heart, it will make a lovely focal piece on a simple necklace, and the snowmen will be making a necklace and matching earrings :) for my own personal enjoyment when the snow returns in February (probably!)

You may notice a bit of a theme... Purple, and hearts, my Santa knows me so very well :) Now just to get myself some proper beading wire, and I can get threading! Tigertail is fine for now, but I don't think it's going to take me too far, can anyone suggest what to use?! I can't wait to make myself a beautiful bright bracelet out of these wooden hearts!


All that's left to do is to wait for my beadsdirect and e-beads orders to be delivered and I'm away! Oh, and find some time of course...