Wow we are in 2012!

I can't believe another year has gone past, time really does seem to be speeding up and I can't find the pause button!


We had a lovely Christmas full of love, laughter and creating things.  I must confess to not being a lover of Christmas, I usually find the run up to it rather stressful and I get annoyed about the commercialism of it all.  I am not particularly religious but I really do think that Christmas should be about the meaning of Christmas and not about buying huge mounds of food, buying hundreds of pounds of stuff that people may not want and buying a new sofa (what is it with all those sofa adverts?)  :-)  There is so much pressure when you turn the radio on, the tv on or even via schools to spend spend spend - why?

With this in mind I tried to avoid the shops at all costs this year.  This meant making more items or buying from artists who put love into creating what they sell.  I didn't get away with buying all presents this way however :-(   Eldest Sweetpea wanted a TV which we all clubbed together to buy him (although he doesn't watch it as much as I thought as he says he gets lonely otherwise - that solved my worry about him hiding away in his room :-)), middle Sweetpea wanted a Hamster (she cried when she realised what was hidden under a blanket as I had insisted no more animals in the house) and Little Sweetpea wanted a scooter (so now I only see her in a blur scooting past me most of the day).  Also for my music loving Dad my sister and I got him a deck which you transfer your vinyls onto your pc - I am sure he will have hours of fun with that (he has hundreds of vinyls).  Unfortunately all of these items are beyond my creative skills :-(

I did however manage to make a few things shown below:

From this felted wool jumper ...

I created a purse/make up bag for my Sis, she loves anything with a tash on so I added that on it for her :-)

This was quite hard to create being my first attempt at making anything with a zip and also the wool for very thick so I couldn't manage to line it.  I filled it with some orange hairclips that she 'liked' on my facebook page and a pair of turquoise earrings made by Red Bird Jewellery.

For my Mum I made a linen lavender pillow for her bed:

It obviously had to have the 'I love you this much' tag added to it as that saying comes from her :-)

I backed it with Amy Butler fabric.  I also had some earings made especially for her by Red Bird Jewellery following a conversation I had with Mum re some earings she saw that she liked last year - she couldn't find those particular earings again so I had them made for her instead :-)  ohh and I found her some wine glass holders that you can pop into the grass so your glass doesn't get knocked over - perfect for our Friday afternoon wines with the children running around us :-)

I will share our (I got the children involved too) other creations with you in my next post as the children are now calling me :-)  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and I would like to wish you all a very happy, healthy 2012. 

Take care
Zoe
xxx