CONGRATS !!!!

Ok, firstly, I'd like to thank each and everyone of you that took the time to leave a comment on my blog, on my PIF thread and all the others, it's good to know someone is out there reading my waffle.

So, onto business, the winner of my Pay It Forward is, big drum roll please.....................................

JOSIE at Sykes Silly Site

However, as I enjoyed your comments so much, I've also got a couple of small runner up prizes which go to...............................................

Jennie at Falling Down the Rabbit Hole

and

Vicky at Anglesey Allsorts

So would you email me your postal details please ladies and I will post your goodies out after the Easter break. Congratulations.

An Award, A Prize and Gardening Oh My !!!!

Blimey, what an exciting time I'm having, first of all I was given an Art Y Pico award by Chrissy at Chrissy Maries Card Craft http://chrissymaries.blogspot.com/- thanks for that, brilliant. I love blogging and I'm just grateful if you read and hopefully enjoy my waffle so anything extra is the icing on the cake.

So, to paraphrase the info on Chrissys blog - hope you don't mind hun......

The definition of "Arte y Pico" (Art & More) is an award that is given to bloggers who share their art and creativity making their contribution to the blogger world.

Now I have to :

1)Pass it on to 5 more bloggers who deserve this award for creativity, design and interesting materials as well as their contribution to blogland.

2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3) Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

4) Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of "Arte y Pico" blog , so everyone will know the origin of this award.

5) To show these rules.

And my award winners are.....

Jennie at Falling Down the Rabbithole

Elfie & Me

Blissed Out

Angelsey Allsorts

Natalies World of Sparkling Unique Cards

Phew as ever, could have chosed loads more, click on my blogs link on the right, and take a look they are all fantastic.

Now, more excitement, I received a lovely pink package in the post today.

It was a parcel from Vanessa at Just Original containing the fab Robin Hood peg doll kit that I won in her recent competition. I now have one excited young Twiglet who can't wait to make it and I promise to blog the finished Robin !
Now this was fantastic enough but there was also a parcel of goodies that I decided to claim for myself, a stunning button heart, a beautiful lavendar filled butterfly and a cute little flower pin. Thank you SO much Vanessa you are very generous and talented. I also loved your Juicy Lucy card, I LOVE Juicy Lucy :)Well after all this excitement I decided to make the most of a lovely Spring afternoon so we got planting assisted by my lovely Mum, Grandma Twiggy! I've been pretty lax this year, my greenhouse still hasn't been cleaned out since last year and there is vegetation of some kind growing on its concrete floor, wonder if I'll be able to harvest anything edible from it? My plant pots haven't been cleaned and I'm missing one panel (vast improvement on last year when every single plastic panel blew out over Winter - it's very windy up here). Oh the shame........
This year we've gone for tomatoes (Twiglets favourite) cucumbers, courgettes, peppers, mixed salad, chives, beetroot, peas and a few poppies and Canterbury Bells. Phew.

Here's just some of our handywork, Twiglet really got involved planting the seeds and using one of his little tipper trucks to cover them with soil. It's great that he's old enough to take an interest this year, last Spring I spent most of my time requesting that he didn't eat the soil :)

Well I think that's everything for now. If you haven't got your post on my Pay It Forward thread, I'll be drawing a name out of Twiglets flat cap - I kid you not, he looks so cute in it - at 8.30pm on Friday, so there is still time. Good luck.

Spring is Sprung & A Belated Happy St Patricks Day!

To get you in the mood for Spring look at our garden, ooh I love this time of year daffodils, fluffy white lambs, blackbirds nesting in the hedges, fantastic.

Ohhh I'm blogging crazy today. First of all as promised a pic from our magical Day Out With Thomas. Recognise the man in the top hat?

By the way Happy St Patricks Day to all you gorgeous Irish lovelies out there. Boy I love Ireland, we usually go to South West Cork or Connemara for our jolly hols and we LOVE it, beautiful scenery, beautiful people. We both agree as soon as we drive off the ferry we seem to just RELAX - pure Irish magic. So hope you enjoyed the day whether or not you're celebrating today or you did your celebrating on Saturday.

Now onto some crafty stuff, I've just finished a taggie blanket for my friends little boy. It's his christening in April and I wanted to make him something he would use and he loves taggies so hope he likes it.
I made this little ducky for my little ducky, hope he likes it. I've ordered some green and yellow felt from Ebay so think I might make a little bag for Easter goodies.

Today we went a visiting to see friends, drop off Easter eggs etc and look what me and Twiglet made.Phew, I think that's it. Thanks for all your sweet comments on my blog you lovely people. Don't forget to keep on adding your comments on my Pay it Forward post as they say on telly, you've got to be in it , to win it.

Busy, Busy and Award Time

Phew we've had a busy weekend. Had a fab day on Saturday went to A Day Out With Thomas which Twiglet (and Twiggy) loved, I've never seen so many happy little boys in one place it was MAGIC !

I'll blog some photos when I've uploaded them onto my PC. Been doing quite a bit of crafting this weekend too, again photos to follow.

We were then taken out for lunch by my lovely inlaws on Sunday so spent most of Sunday afternoon groaning because we were full of pasta and italian trifle !

I had a lovely surprise on Sunday, I was given a You Make My Day award by lovely Jennie at Falling Down the Rabbit Hole - thanks that is so sweet of you and you know I love your blog, go take a look see people, it's fab.

Now, I have to pass it on to 10 people - only 10, I could name hundreds. Anyhow, here goes.......

http://elfieandme.typepad.com/

http://thehomeiswheretheheartis.blogspot.com/

http://daylilylane.blogspot.com/

http://cutedesigns.blogspot.com/

http://summerbythesea.blogspot.com/

http://tassiescraftiethings.blogspot.com/

http://jo2308.typepad.com/

http://www.creativemakes.blogspot.com/

http://raggedroses.blogspot.com/

http://maxscraftcreations.blogspot.com/

Thanks to all of you for your lovely blogs. Don't forget to enter my Pay It Forward people, plenty of time left as it won't end until Friday. Good luck :)

Pay It Forward

Copyright S.Jones 2008

Ok here goes, I've been a blogger for a relatively short space of time but I love it and I really appreciate you lovely people out there, that take the time to read my ramblings and look at my crazy craft projects and leave such kind comments - Hey is this one big love in or what!!!????

So as a little thank you I'm announcing my first ever Pay It Forward.

In a nutshell leave me a comment and you may win a prize handmade by yours truly. Hmmm will that put you off I ask myself?

Anyhow, all I ask you to do is ...................

1. leave a message and an answer to my question...............

WHEN YOU WERE A CHILD WHICH FICTIONAL CHARACTER/CHARACTERS DID YOU MOST LOVE OR IDENTIFY WITH?

Easy peasy.

2. As the title of my post suggests if you're the winner Pay It Forward and spread a little happiness on to someone else, lets see how long our chain of loveliness can go !!!

The competition is limited to one entry per person. I will end the competition at 8.30pm on Friday 21st March, put all names in a hat and draw out a winner.

I will then send out your prize within a week upon receipt of your postal details.

Righto then, well here's my answer to the question, when I was very little I LOVED Hartley Hare from the 1970s childrens TV programme Pipkins (showing my age here), he was such a drama queen and think that many of my characteristics may be down to his influence :) Ialso loved Dougal from The Magic Roundabout who was a bit of a drama queen, oh dear there is a bit of a pattern here, I think I'll shut up now and hand over to you..................................................

Happy Days

Well first we have Halcyon Days and now Happy Days. Today Twiglet and I had one of those unexpectedly jolly days that just sometimes happen..........................................................

We posted some letters.

Copyright S.Jones 2008


Visited the playground.
Copyright S.Jones 2008

And most importantly poked sticks into dry stone walls. Copyright S.Jones 2008
Happy Days

As promised here are some photos of my voodoo bunny, I used a delightful pattern from Jean Greenhowes Jiffyknits, however it didn't turn out quite as I'd planned. The first photo shows the features given to it by Twiglet, looks a bit like Papa Lazarou from the comedy The League of Gentelmen.
Copyright S.Jones 2008

My attempt isn't much better, you can't actually see its features, the invisible bunny, oh well perhaps I should have stuck with the knitted play food :) Copyright S.Jones 2008
And finally. As they say on the news I will be announcing a little bit of blog candy loveliness in the next day or so, so keep checking in and watch this space.

Halcyon Days

My all time favourite TV/Video/DVD viewing has got to be Brideshead Revisited for so many reasons, the characters, the setting of Castle Howard, the gorgeous cast, the story, the costumes, I could go on. The moment I always remember is when Charles Ryder is talking about the summer he spent with Sebastian and recalls them as Halcyon Days, that phrase has stuck with me for years. On various occasions, I have thought this is one of my Halcyon Days, it didn't even have to be somewhere grand or something out of the ordinary. I remember looking through the window into my tiny back garden before we moved house and seeing a row of tiny baby vests blowing in the sunshine. I remember laughing like a drain whilst whirling round on a carousel with my dad, totally embarrasing my mum by making her wave to us when we passed by at the ripe old age of 30 - me, not her!! This is even more poignant as my dad sadly died a couple of years later.
Of course now my Halcyon Days always involve my little family.

I love this photo, it was taken at the local Sculpture Park when Twiglet had just started to toddle around with his Daddy this is one of my Halcyon Days. So now, tell me about yours?

I was going to take some photos today out in the garden you know, here comes Spring etc but 1. my camera needs recharging and I can't find the lead and 2. everytime we went outside it started to rain, so I've popped on the above photo that I took in Ireland last year of some pretty primroses instead :)

I was also going to post a photo of my very first knitted rabbit to give you a good laugh, but obviously I can't so here's a few pics of my previous craftiness, hope you like them.............
Here's a photo of an oriental folded ATC that I did for a Papercraftsunited ATC challenge. I LOVE oriental, the colours are so rich.
My first ATC incorporating shrink plastic, hey that wouldn't be an oriental theme again would it?

Now what a surprise here's some more vintage.............................
And finally, just to prove i'm not just a two trick pony, here's a cross stitch card representing my other obsession, gardening!!

Twit Twoo......................

Well we had a great Mothers Day yesterday spent on a very sunny but rather chilly Bridlington beach, we built sandcastles, collected shells, ate far too much and walked for ages. Twiglet was so tired he fell asleep on the way home, a sure sign of a good day out.

Thought I'd post a pic of a really cute owl garland that I found on the fab blog Moonstitches. It's pretty easy and soooo cute, I actually made mine by hand as I'm scared of my lovely Singer sewing machine that I was given by a very nice Freecycler. (Have you tried Freecycle? it's brilliant, we gave away loads of Japanese shrubs - I really don't like shrubs, they remind me of supermarket carparks and in return received a lovely sewing machine). Anyhow, I must get over my fears, I'm such a luddite.

Why not have a go at making one yourself, here's a link to the Tutowlrial.

http://moonstitches.typepad.com/photos/tutowlrial/index.html

Check out this competition....................

Want to win some goodies? Well then check out Sew Delish's blog, to celebrate 2000 posts she has a great competition with a brilliant prize, so go and check it out.

By the way, the above picture has absolutely nothing to do with the competition, it's a piece of art that was in a holiday cottage we stayed in last year and I love it :-)

To paraphrase Brucie - Didn't I do well ?????

Hope you all had a great Mothers Day. As I said before we're having mine tomorrow but I still managed a lovely breakfast in bed and hurriedly opened pressies and cards before work on Sunday. I did do well, as well as a glue gun - yay !!! I received a Hello Kitty pencil case (deep down inside I am still a 10 year old girl and LOVE Miffy and Hello Kitty), a groovy purse a lovely book called I Love My Mummy and my bestest present ever, my very first letter from my little boy. I opened it just before I had to dash out to work and I'm so soppy it made me cry so I had to redo my make up sigh.....................................



Here's a piccy of the little bag I made my mum, it was going to be a cushion initially, then lavendar bags and ended up as a small bag, can you tell I'm the indecisive type? I used the bluebell design from an issue of Cross Stitch Crazy - I love that mag and always want to do every single thing in it, but decided Mum probably wouldn't fancy the dinosaur mobile and plumped for this instead, I was right :)










I love these gorgeous pendants I bought for my Mum and Mother In Law, they were very lucky as when they arrived in the post I was sorely tempted to keep them. The one I bought for my mum is from a lovely ebayer and is a shard of Ming pottery, may well have to buy one of these for me, is that dreadful? The second one is one that I bought for my MIL from a very talented lady on Etsy called Betty at AnnLeahDesigns, her stuff is so gorgeous. (note to self, stop spending so much time drooling over the pretty things on Etsy) - surely it's not just me that does this.