Happy New Year

Happy New Year to one and all. January, my least favourite month, in spite of (or because of?) it being the month of my Birthday. Mind you I got a fancy smancy camera for my birthday so no excuses for bad pics from now on. I don't know how to use it yet, well not for the stuff I wanted it for.

I was also given a new bag for Xmas from my sort of Mother in Law. It was leopard print fun fur and I loved it but as soon as I started using it the lining started to tear and has now almost completely shredded. So thinking about bags and wishing I had a new one gave me inspiration for the first Folksy Friday of the year. So on to the pics, hope you enjoy this selection, clicking on the pics will take you to the shop. Hopefully..

 

Folksy Friday - November Nexus 18th Nov

Well here's my second November Nexus blog. I had a great theme all worked out but then some of my best pics went and got sold!! Honestly how inconsiderate, you're not supposed to sell things on Folksy...lol..

Well I managed to find a few other lovely things to add to my list

So here is the Black and White ball, think icy sparkling stars in an inky black sky.

Thats all folks, remember, support your handmade crafts, we may become an endangered species

Folksy Friday - November Nexus

Hi, well after a few months break I've decided to join this months daily listing club. It really is hard work making and posting something every day. Particulary with the day job and the nights drawing in, so its hard to photo things.

But enough of my moaning the reason I'm here now is to do a new Folksy Friday featuring my fellow Nexians...? That's not a word...but then nor is Folksians..lol

So here are some lovley items that I found while browsing and clicking on the November Nexus thread.  They are also linked by being fabric based. I'm gonna be brave and try for linking through the pic, so if this works please click on each pic to go through to the shop:

Folksy Friday

Well there I was at Westfield Stratford City, London's newest and most crowded shopping centre. We got as far as M+S when I started to feel faint and very strange. Luckily as soon as I got to the open air I felt much better. It must be the air, I did find myself wondering how they keep fresh air circulating through the whole place. (obviously badly..) When we passed Mucky Ds the smell was particularly ghastly. Anyway enough waffling, the thing I wanted to say was that we were looking for a cake tin to put the freshly made Christmas cake when my daughter remembered that we were going to get a table runner or some nice place mats or napkins for the Christmas table. That was when I started to feel ill so we never got round to looking at M+S. But of course I had forgotten Folksy, that handy resource for all things handmade, original and much better than some mass produced item from a chain store.

I've found 9 items so far and when I looked back on them I realised I wanted to feature all of them today, so I will just be showing the pics with a link to the shops. I tried getting the pics to be the links a few times ago but it didn't work very well....so pics and not much writing. Except to say this, the hand knitted and the hand crocheted table cloths, guys!! you are way undercharging for those, I know how much work must have gone into those, I would never attempt either of them, and the workmanship on these items them is just superb.

So without further ado and not in any order of preference:

 Click here for the shop above

 Click Here for the shop above.

 Click here for the shop above.

 Click here for the shop above.

 Click here for the shop above.

 Click here for the shop above.

 Click here for the shop above

 Click here for the shop above.

And click here for this shop. Happy shopping.

Folksy Friday

Just a quick post..being hassled to cook dinner. In honor of Halloween and the orange and black gloves that I''m making at the moment, here is an orange and black folksy friday..nothing specifically halloweenish but some great picks..

First an orange! When I saw the thumbnail of this  I thought it was a real one, beautifully simple yet perfect.

View this here

On to one of my favourite categories for gifts for me..hint hint..This lovely bag just jumped out at me. It would make a great knitting bag. You can visit the shop here

And the last orange which begins with z hooray for zeds and zebras. A really beautiful picture which would brighten up any room.

 View this item here

Now on to the blacks, I was looking for something unusual and this brilliant book came along. Very novel (sorry, no pun intended) at least I've never seen anything like it. This would make a lovely present for someone especially a fan of 'Black Books"...lol.

Look for the details of this item here

Finally some jewellery. These sweet delicate earrings are very tempting..no..I don't need any more jewellery..no..no..they remind me of a ginkgo leaf which is one of my favourite shapes.

If you want to buy them go here

And on to a quirky ring, my daughters love lego and funny lego jewellery.

So if anyone you know is like them you can make them happy by going to this shop

That's all for now..enjoy shopping and have a lovely weekend.

Knitting and Stitching show 2011

Well hello there. This is a belated Folksy Friday because I was at the Kniting and Stitching show from opening to closing yesterday and I was too tried to do a blog by the time I got back.

I did enjoy the show although I spent too much money!! I noticed less stalls then last year which itself had less than the year before. Also a lot less knitting and yarn stalls and lots more sewing related stalls. Sigh! I guess that's the way of fashion, I definitely feel that knitting and crochet are slipping out of fashion, I don't know where that leaves me. I love knitting and crochet and I can't sew to save my life..I shall just become an unfashionable granny making things for the ungrateful family. Not a granny yet btw. And since my oldest is only 19 I don't want to be one any day soon.

This is the only picture I took. It is a dress made from recycled black plastic bags and was made by a Central St Martins student called Montana. She is the daughter of Helda who organises the crochet meet ups I get notifications about. I haven't actually met Helda because the one time I made one of the meetups she spend the entire time trapped in a lift at her flats. I kid you not, when her friend came to the meet up and told us what happened I think we all thought she was joking at first. Montana won a prize for this. It is amazing and wonderful in reality, so sorry about the rubbish photo.

So in keeping with the spirit of the show this weeks Folksy theme is Sheep also inspired by a lovely sheep brooch that I found a week or so ago while browsing Folksy forums. I love felt and the luminous colours of this mini work of art just sing to me.

This beautiful brooch can be found here

From a felted brooch to a bead brooch. I love this simple yet very effective image, beading is one of those crafts I could never do but I have great admiration for it.

You can visit this site from here.

From beads to polymer clay, not such a big jump as many beads are made from this material. This Folksy seller used it to great effect. I love her mice which are without a doubt some of the cutest mice in the universe..and these hairy sheep are gorgeous too. Please go to her site and browse, I promise you wont be disappointed.

What does that leave, ah yes these little sheep are made by K Scott Crafts and they are charms on a bracelet, great idea beautifully executed.

Now if all that exertion has left your computer room a bit stuffy then bring a waft of sweet scents to freshen it up with this hanging sheep.

I hope all these lovely quirky funny sheep have brought a smile to your grey Saturday, I know they have to mine.

Folksy Friday

It seems ages since a did one of these, oh wait it was...lol..that explains it. I was going to go through my list of already favourited items in Folksy but I realised I couldn't tell which I'd used for a previous post..I'm still saving all those favourites. I realised that Christmas is not so very far away and if you are ordering things by post then you should already be thingking about these things..sigh, sorry to depress with the awful word but many wonderful and varied gifts can be yours for the taking from all the lovely talented Folksy folk. To find this weeks picks I've used the theme of mist as that was a theme in my new scarf that I posted today. I remember someone commenting on one of the forums about how strange the Folksy search engine was, and I noticed it again today, the last two itmes in my selection seem to have nothing to do with the word mist whatsover! Its very puzzeling why they came up in my search but nonetheless they are both interesting items so I've included them.

So on to item 1

This beautiful pendant matches my theme and colours perfectly and what a lovely name for a stone, chalcedony, just try saying it, it conjurers up lovely thoughts of romance and mystery. Please view it here

Item number 2 is also some jewellery, this time misty rose quartz, said to help with love and we all need a bit of that now and again. Click here for the site.

Now onto an actual image of a misty winters day, perfectly captured by Storm the Keep. Please click on the name to go to the site.

This next item is a gorgeous blouse, hand made and customizable, please click here to see the site.

And, last but not least, a truly delicious sounding body scrub. They've made it sound so yummy that I think I would want to eat it not wash with it..

Please visit all these lovely Folksy folk and don't forget...even now I can hear the far off tinkling of bells..oh wait that's my really annoying wind charm...lol. The body scrum can be found here