November DI Craft Swap Part 1

There will be a few catch up posts over the next few weeks, I thought about leaving them and just starting afresh but I've received some lovely things and want to share them all with you.

November's theme was Woodland and my parcel came from Anna over at teawithmissbeatrix.com

She really looked into my need for things to be useful and she did a wonderful job.

 Firstly the box everything came in was lovely (and you can never have too many boxes to put things in!)

I got a lovely postcard from Anna herself and some lovely Beatrix Potter postcards which I think I might frame, they go lovely with our little Victorian house!

Inside the box were lots of lovely things!

These lovely leaves are now hanging by my fireplace

I adore the pegs, red an white polka dots are my favourite pattern, I'm looking forward to the weather getting better so I can hang my washing out with them.

A fox rubber (which was really hard to take a photo of!)

A hedgehog button that Anna made

And then there was this...

Anna crocheted me a lanyard, and I was so happy because I have to wear a lanyard to work and now I have a lovely crochet one rather than a plain boring black one. When I wore it to work I got loads of compliments on it and a lot of people asked if I had made it, I took great pleasure in saying it was a gift.

Every month I take part I am overwhelmed by the talent and generosity of the people involved. As always a big Thank you to Hannah for organising everything! What would we do without you?

This will probably be my last post before Christmas, I'm spending tomorrow morning with my mum and sister to do our annual tradition of watching "Its a wonderful life" in our pyjamas before coming home and watching "The nightmare before Christmas" with Dave while eating obscene amounts of cheese!

I hope you all have a lovely Christmas and wish you all a fantastic New Year

xx

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Christmas is getting closer! Less than 10 days away and I'm already wishing I could stall time because there seems so much to do. This will be mine and Dave's second Christmas in our house. Its the horrible truth that once you leave home for good Christmas is not the same. Last year was the first year my sister woke up on Christmas morning without me, I think that was the hardest part for me. It was odd having no one tell me to go to bed early on Christmas eve. No matter how old we were we were always sent to bed early on Christmas eve because my mum would wrap everything for our stockings. She made me and Dave stockings last year but warned it would be the last time. This year me and Dave are doing each others. He said he didn't realise that everything that goes in the stocking has to be wrapped up (obviously it does or you'd see everything straight away), and I have always to have a tangerine at the bottom of the stocking.

As it is my favourite time of year I thought I would share some photos of how my Christmas is shaping up.

Christmas trees are an important part of Christmas for a lot of people. In my family its tradition to go to Wheelock farm and pick out a tree. Last year Dave suggested we get an artificial tree and I threw a tantrum! They don't smell like a tree its not the same!

Here's a picture of my sister holding up a tree for inspection at the farm, she always seems to pick the ones we get. All except the year I brought my friend Liza home from Uni to help pick out the tree. It didn't even last until New Years eve, my dad got so sick of needles falling off every time someone went within a foot of the tree he took it down early.

And here it is all decorated, I have nothing to do with tree decorating. Once me and Katie got to the age where tree decorating got tedious, my mum would take a day off work and decorate it while we were at school and it would all be lit up when we got home. Now Dave does it while I give constructive criticism from my seat on the sofa.

For the last 2 years I have bought some tree decorations while at the farm, there are some lovely bits that are a really reasonable price. Last year I got these 2 stars (please ignore the photo bombing penguin)

Then this year I picked up a couple of these.i thought they were quite unusual and almost Great Gatsby-ish (loved loved loved the film!)

Also as the nightmare before Christmas is my favourite film (I own a 3D version of it and get very excited every time it snows in the film) last year we bought the set of nightmare before Christmas ornaments. They actually change every year so its nice to have the 2013 collection for the year we moved in together

I have started wrapping presents, I have a bit of a ribbon addiction, I put it on all the presents that I wrap! this one is for my mum, and in case she's reading this.

Mum the photo makes the box look bigger than it is.

Also as its Christmas, there has to be Christmas candles! Dave bought me a new one yesterday and it smells amazing. Its from the Glade Christmas collection; its roasted chestnuts and macaroons

Which leads me nicely onto my last few photos - Christmas isn't Christmas without baked goods!

I absolutely love Lebkuchen. These traditional German biscuits just taste like Christmas, I have been informed by Dave that there is a good selection of different ones in Tesco at the minute, I think they're getting more popular

And here is my contribution to Christmas baking, iced sugar cookies

I hope everyone is having a lovely time preparing for Christmas, and if I don't post again before, Merry Christmas to you all, I wish you all the best for 2015 x

(And here's a picture of Norris the elephant with Santa just to finish)

Blog Pondering

I've been very lax with my blogging lately. I have had some genuine reasons; being in hospital for a week threw almost all parts of my life out of balance. Even small insignificant things like having to throw away lots of food that didn't get eaten because I wasn't there to cook and Dave was at the hospital with me until late in the evenings so wasn't eating properly, washing backed up, crafting came to a grinding halt while I was there and my blog was the furthest thing from my mind.

Over the last two years I have gotten sicker and sicker and I feel like things are slipping through my fingers. The once meticulously organised me has slowly descended into chaos.

 I hate it.

I feel like I have so little control over my life at the minute. Tomorrow I may wake up and feel only slightly nauseous and be able to have breakfast or I might spend the majority of my morning dry heaving in the bathroom. I might be in minimal pain meaning that my painkillers will do their job, or I may be in crippling agony that no amount of pills will touch.

No matter how I feel I will try to push past it and go to work for the few hours I can manage; I've had the comments from my colleagues, about how lucky I am to finish early every day, to not have to come in before midday. 

It makes me feel like screaming.

I would gladly let them take my place. No. I don't mean that, I wouldn't wish this existence on anyone. That's what it feels like, not a life just existing. I'm now getting to the point where I'm starting to have to seriously consider the fact that I may not get better. Ever. If that's the case then something has to change because I can't carry on like this. 

Which brings me back to my blog (its been a bit long winded). I have to seriously think about whether I want to continue, my blog deserves a lot more care and attention than I've been giving it. I'm not under any illusions that there are loads of people out there who will be reading it, but its still a thing, a project I've been working on, and it deserves the same attention as any project. 

I've given it a lot of thought, and I'm not willing to give up on this just yet. The craft blogging community is large and so welcoming. It's something that I am proud to be part of it. I have met some wonderful people, and I have enjoyed sharing my crafting. So I vow to me much more organised; it may not kick in until the new year but I promise I will.

I'm also hoping to be much more organised with the rest of my life...I'll keep you posted on that one

Have a wonderful weekend xx