Evening,
Did you have a nice bank holiday? I spent mine in a field watching some of my favourite bands playing at the Reading Festival. My boyfriend and I stayed at my house instead of camping this year for a change, and it definitely made a difference. It made the whole experience seem shorter, and I did miss the camping camaraderie, but I definitely did NOT miss the mudbath from the three days of rain we had before the festival started! And being able to wake up each morning, eat properly and have a shower was blissful - and meant I had no hangovers.
On Monday I had a tiny bit of a 'spring clean'. My wellies and black boots were covered in mud, so I dumped them upstairs in the shower and let the hot water run for a few minutes while I got the broom out and swept the hallway downstairs. By the time I went back upstairs to the bathroom the steam had loosened the mud and made it a lot easier to scrub off.
I'd made a deal with my boyfriend that I would change the bed while he mopped the hallway (after I'd swept it), so while the burgers he was making were cooking, we blitzed them. Then it was time to put our feet up for an hour while we ate. We watched 100 Greatest Musicals. I've always been a musicals fan and thought I knew a fair amount, but we caught from number 43 onwards and I'd only seen about 8 of them! Must get more cultured!
After my boyfriend left I then dug out everything from under my bed, which took a while. My bed is on legs, so I have all my crafting bits and bobs under the bed. I also have lots of cardboard boxes for things that I need to keep boxes for - does anyone else keep boxes?! I never used to, but after working in customer services for three years I've learnt through other peoples mistakes, and right now I have the box for my tv, a mirror, my birthday present vanity table, an alarm clock, a necklace and earring display... I've kept them all as it will make it easier when moving back home and I haven't the heart to throw them, but in the mean time they gather dust under the bed.
I pulled them all out and dumped them on my bed, then pulled the rug from under my bed and swept it. Then I spent about 10 minutes sweeping underneath the bed as much as I could, which shamefully hasn't been done in over a year. I hate cleaning. By this time it was 9pm, so I then put everything back under the bed in a more organised way. I intend to pull my craft things out and organise them, as I have increased my storage space recently and it needs a good tidy.
Here's to a more organised end of the year! After all, tomorrow is September 1st, and the last quarter of the year!
xx
Tuesday 31 August 2010
Sunday 22 August 2010
Upcoming London Craft Fairs
Morning,
Some updates on upcoming craft fairs in the London(ish) area.
http://www.twistedthread.com/pages/exhibitions/viewExhibition.aspx?id=26
Twisted Thread's The Knitting and Stitiching Show 2010 is a huge event specialising in textiles. It's held in Alexander Palace on October 7th-10th.
http://www.bssbs.co.uk/
The second fair I found out about (that I am going to) is the Big Stamp and Scrapbooking Show which is also held in Alexander Palace on September 25th and 26th.
I'm definitely looking forward to going to the Scrapbooking fair, as I'm interested in sewing etc but haven't done any yet. There's a dressmaking course that starts in October I was interested in, but it runs for 15 weeks and means having to rearrange a lot of shifts with others in work which makes it difficult.
xx
Some updates on upcoming craft fairs in the London(ish) area.
http://www.twistedthread.com/pages/exhibitions/viewExhibition.aspx?id=26
Twisted Thread's The Knitting and Stitiching Show 2010 is a huge event specialising in textiles. It's held in Alexander Palace on October 7th-10th.
http://www.bssbs.co.uk/
The second fair I found out about (that I am going to) is the Big Stamp and Scrapbooking Show which is also held in Alexander Palace on September 25th and 26th.
I'm definitely looking forward to going to the Scrapbooking fair, as I'm interested in sewing etc but haven't done any yet. There's a dressmaking course that starts in October I was interested in, but it runs for 15 weeks and means having to rearrange a lot of shifts with others in work which makes it difficult.
xx
Wednesday 18 August 2010
Craft Haul
Evening,
Not so much a haul as 4 items, but I went into The Range tonight on my way past. I've been wanting some waterbrush pens for ages now, so I thought I'd get one while I walked past (I normally make sure I cross the road before I get to the shop!)
So here's what I picked up tonight:
The bulbs for the light in my room are really hard to find so now I know they sell them there I'm going to have to buy some more! They need small screw ones, and normally I can only find the normal (large) screw bulbs. These two were £0.95.
They didn't sell single waterbrush brush/pens, so I picked up the value pack which was £2.99.
This was in a sale basket. It's missing the 5th (bottom) pot, so was reduced from £1.99 to £1.50. I have lots of brads etc which are sitting in a flat embellishment organiser at the moment. Each time I open it I'm paranoid of spilling it from using too much force, so putting the brads in here will save that as each pot unscrews from it's neighbour.
This block of 25g of Fimo Soft clay was also in the sales basket, reduced from £1 to 50p. The 56g packs sell for £1.59 so it was a pretty good deal. I've been reading and seeing people using Fimo clay in cardmaking, so it's been on my radar for a while. And 50p is not a waste of money if I try it and decide I don't like it!
xx
Not so much a haul as 4 items, but I went into The Range tonight on my way past. I've been wanting some waterbrush pens for ages now, so I thought I'd get one while I walked past (I normally make sure I cross the road before I get to the shop!)
So here's what I picked up tonight:
The bulbs for the light in my room are really hard to find so now I know they sell them there I'm going to have to buy some more! They need small screw ones, and normally I can only find the normal (large) screw bulbs. These two were £0.95.
They didn't sell single waterbrush brush/pens, so I picked up the value pack which was £2.99.
This was in a sale basket. It's missing the 5th (bottom) pot, so was reduced from £1.99 to £1.50. I have lots of brads etc which are sitting in a flat embellishment organiser at the moment. Each time I open it I'm paranoid of spilling it from using too much force, so putting the brads in here will save that as each pot unscrews from it's neighbour.
This block of 25g of Fimo Soft clay was also in the sales basket, reduced from £1 to 50p. The 56g packs sell for £1.59 so it was a pretty good deal. I've been reading and seeing people using Fimo clay in cardmaking, so it's been on my radar for a while. And 50p is not a waste of money if I try it and decide I don't like it!
xx
Friday 13 August 2010
Ooops!
Evening!
So one thing you might notice about me is that I'm easily side-tracked. Last night I fully intended to get organised...
As it was I decided to make a calzone from scratch, and by the time I was done doing that and had eaten it was 10pm. I began watching the Matrix which I've never actually seen from the beginning and then decided it was too late to concentrate on fully. I went into my room and logged onto my laptop, specifically old Facebook and saw that my friends had all been watching shooting stars! You can see the BBC news link that inspired me here.
I got up and went upstairs (my room is downstairs) and asked the two of my house mates that were in if they wanted to go meteor hunting. They were both up for it (lucky considering it was 10.30pm) and we all got dressed and ready to go.
I took my film camera which has a bulb exposure but I knew without a tripod there was no point wasting film photographing stars. I did take some pictures of my house mates silhouette'd against the trees while walking down the river path lit up in street lights though. We'll have to see how they come out. It was quite scary walking so late at night in pitch black, but after a while we got to the nearest park and went and sat/lay down in the middle of it. There were a few others out also looking up at the sky. There were some clouds but they cleared up after 10 minutes and we could just see a huge expanse of the sky.
We got home at midnight and between us saw about 30-40 which is brilliant! I saw about 15-20, including some huge ones. They left massive 6-8 inch (my inches of the sky, not literally!) tails behind them. My house mate Mariam had never seen one before and kept missing them, so we were adamant we wouldn't leave until she'd seen one. Finally all 3 of us happened to be looking at the same spot when a huge one went from left to right over us. And all 3 of us saw it :)
It was actually a really nice thing to do. Very peaceful and relaxing (once we got there!) and it's good to have a new memory with my house mates.
Hope you get to see some too,
xx
So one thing you might notice about me is that I'm easily side-tracked. Last night I fully intended to get organised...
As it was I decided to make a calzone from scratch, and by the time I was done doing that and had eaten it was 10pm. I began watching the Matrix which I've never actually seen from the beginning and then decided it was too late to concentrate on fully. I went into my room and logged onto my laptop, specifically old Facebook and saw that my friends had all been watching shooting stars! You can see the BBC news link that inspired me here.
I got up and went upstairs (my room is downstairs) and asked the two of my house mates that were in if they wanted to go meteor hunting. They were both up for it (lucky considering it was 10.30pm) and we all got dressed and ready to go.
I took my film camera which has a bulb exposure but I knew without a tripod there was no point wasting film photographing stars. I did take some pictures of my house mates silhouette'd against the trees while walking down the river path lit up in street lights though. We'll have to see how they come out. It was quite scary walking so late at night in pitch black, but after a while we got to the nearest park and went and sat/lay down in the middle of it. There were a few others out also looking up at the sky. There were some clouds but they cleared up after 10 minutes and we could just see a huge expanse of the sky.
We got home at midnight and between us saw about 30-40 which is brilliant! I saw about 15-20, including some huge ones. They left massive 6-8 inch (my inches of the sky, not literally!) tails behind them. My house mate Mariam had never seen one before and kept missing them, so we were adamant we wouldn't leave until she'd seen one. Finally all 3 of us happened to be looking at the same spot when a huge one went from left to right over us. And all 3 of us saw it :)
It was actually a really nice thing to do. Very peaceful and relaxing (once we got there!) and it's good to have a new memory with my house mates.
Hope you get to see some too,
xx
Thursday 12 August 2010
New Storage :)
Evening,
I finally dragged myself to Argos to buy a storage tower like I've been meaning to for the last month or so. At the moment my 'storage' is putting everything I don't have room for under the bed. Unfortunately Tom broke one of the bed slats last month so before I can tell the landlord about it, I need to clear it!
It wasn't too expensive. £19.99 for a 4 drawer storage tower and 4 'free' shoe boxes. Link is here. I'll never actually put shoes in them - they are essentially large tupperware boxes - but I'd already earmarked them as storage boxes for my craft supplies. At 33cm x 20xm they are more than big enough to store peel offs, which I have more than enough of, and my Gran's collection recently boosted. Now I have an evening of tidying, sorting and clearing ahead of me!
I've been eyeing up some label makers recently, does anyone have any recommendations? I thought of getting the electronic Dymo ones, but I prefer the look of the embossed manual ones which I've heard can be tricky to use if you aren't very strong.
xx
I finally dragged myself to Argos to buy a storage tower like I've been meaning to for the last month or so. At the moment my 'storage' is putting everything I don't have room for under the bed. Unfortunately Tom broke one of the bed slats last month so before I can tell the landlord about it, I need to clear it!
It wasn't too expensive. £19.99 for a 4 drawer storage tower and 4 'free' shoe boxes. Link is here. I'll never actually put shoes in them - they are essentially large tupperware boxes - but I'd already earmarked them as storage boxes for my craft supplies. At 33cm x 20xm they are more than big enough to store peel offs, which I have more than enough of, and my Gran's collection recently boosted. Now I have an evening of tidying, sorting and clearing ahead of me!
I've been eyeing up some label makers recently, does anyone have any recommendations? I thought of getting the electronic Dymo ones, but I prefer the look of the embossed manual ones which I've heard can be tricky to use if you aren't very strong.
xx
Wednesday 11 August 2010
New Pictures
Evening,
These are some of the pictures I took on the weekend in Newquay recently. While out and about Tom and I found a bug we'd never seen before, so naturally we took lots of pictures of it! For some reason my blog doesn't like displaying HTML from Flickr so please click on the pictures to see them properly.
After some comments on Flickr I found out that it's a Six-Spot/Red Burnett Moth. It's one of the few moths that come out during the day.
A little bee to break up the monotony... :)
xx
These are some of the pictures I took on the weekend in Newquay recently. While out and about Tom and I found a bug we'd never seen before, so naturally we took lots of pictures of it! For some reason my blog doesn't like displaying HTML from Flickr so please click on the pictures to see them properly.
After some comments on Flickr I found out that it's a Six-Spot/Red Burnett Moth. It's one of the few moths that come out during the day.
A little bee to break up the monotony... :)
xx
Friday 6 August 2010
Random Tip
Morning,
I've been collecting glass jars lately for a project I have in mind. Some of them are stamped with the expiry date etc on the glass itself, instead of on the lid. It annoyed me until I realised that I have some StazOn Cleaner that I bought when I bought my StazOn ink (the ink is a permanent solvent ink that stamps onto metal, glass, ceramics etc). Getting it off would be a problem, so I bought the cleaner as well.
Job well done! It cleans my stamps, and it cleans the ink off of glass jars :)
xx
I've been collecting glass jars lately for a project I have in mind. Some of them are stamped with the expiry date etc on the glass itself, instead of on the lid. It annoyed me until I realised that I have some StazOn Cleaner that I bought when I bought my StazOn ink (the ink is a permanent solvent ink that stamps onto metal, glass, ceramics etc). Getting it off would be a problem, so I bought the cleaner as well.
Job well done! It cleans my stamps, and it cleans the ink off of glass jars :)
xx
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