shopkeeping sunday

I hope everyone is having a good weekend?

I've spent today catching up on household chores and filling up the shops, I kinda forgot that three shops means three lots of updates!

On Thursday I signed into my online bank account to update a standing order only to discover some cheeky bu**er has spent all my money!! It's a few days ago now so I am calm and everything has been sorted out BUT can you believe the cheek of it!! The bank say it's been spent buying upgrades for an online game and apparently it's easy to do because the goods are virtual and don't need to be posted. So be warned, check your accounts and be careful who has your card number. Also be warned it takes 35 minutes to get through to the bank to cancel your card and report fraud! And it takes about 40 minutes to get through when you want to make a complaint about the time it takes to get through on the phone!! How is that customer service??? But the good news is that the bank will refund my money, it will take '7-10 working days' but I will get all my hard earned pennies back. Blinking good job too ;-)

But the best bit was when I logged on and saw my balance was zero my first thought was 'oops I did buy lots of fabric didn't I?' hahahahahahahah

I'm off to sew and will be back tomorrow xxx

Hi, I'm Sarah and I am a garage widow

John has a new garage. It's a 20 minute drive away and it has room for *gasp* twenty or so cars in it. Please understand that this is for his hobby, he too has a hobby he loves plus a normal old day job! He is very clever with old cars and takes horrid dirty smelly knackered cars and turns them into shiny beasts!! He's so clever :-)

The good side of being a garage widow is that I have around three hours after work before he comes home and that means I can sew and blog to my hearts content!!

So far this week I have completed this little pile

I'm not a super fast sewer, really i'm a good half a jobber! All these things were half done and i've just finished them off!!

Here's the next lot of half jobs waiting to be done

and the next lot...(vital sewing equipment that packet of ginger nuts!)

So you see I really am good at leaving a job half done!!!

This doesn't include making a mess. This I do well!

This is a (messy) corner of our living room which has accidentally become a temporary sewing area!!

So whilst we have light evenings you can expect me around a whole lot more. and you know what? That's the way I like it :-)

Remember this photo from the other day?

Well I'm still enjoying this summertime Christmas theme and have made a few more designs

More happy trees

A happy Christmas Elf

Christmas Cat (The next one will have a different nose)

A happy bauble

and a fabric cupcake.

I've still got a few ideas to work on and then I can get cracking and put them in the shop.

...and the winners are...

Everyone who left a comment had their name written on a piece of paper and they were folded up small and put in the pot. John was called to action and had to shake them about and draw 6 winners...and they are...

In case you can't read that the names, in the order they were drawn are ::
Lavender Bag winners :: Katyejones + Mondaloves
Linen Pieces :: Raggedroses + Caroline
Buttons :: Christy + Ali

I hope you all LOVE your freebies
Please email me your address as soon as possible :: my email address is over there on the right hand side, just scroll down till you find it!

I had a nice surprise yesterday, we went to a friends for a little drink and a chat and when I came home I discovered I have a free
Pro Account on Flickr, it transpires this sometimes happens when your ISP is a Yahoo partner, which mine is, so I have a pro account for free! The result of finding this out? I spent AGES yesterday uploading tons of photos and putting them all in order, and the result of that? A photo of one of my freebie kits was
posted here!

See you tomorrow xxx

July freebie's

This month's freebie has been running since Thursday and now it's time for me to show you what's up for grabs this month...

These are lavender bags I made as samples for someone. This design is very different to the ones he is going to stock, but I would still feel kinda weird about selling them because the products I have designed for him are exclusive to him. So they make perfect unique freebies!

Next is 2 bundles of left over linen pieces. I am a hoarder and I keep everything that's left over from past projects but my fabric shelves are full to bursting point now so these duplicates can find themselves a new home (and hopefully be stitched into a new project!)

Last of the prizes is two packs of buttons. The packaging is from the brads I ordered during the week and I have recycled it! Inside each is 3 dozen buttons in ever-popular pink colours. I use these buttons all the time and they are fab!

So now you know what is up for grabs this is the last chance to leave a comment and add your name to the drawing!

Winners will be announced TOMORROW (yep that's Monday 9th July) because I have been invited out for the evening and it's such a lovely summer evening how could I resist?

See you tomorrow, I hope are enjoying what is left of the weekend!

Beautiful Fabrics

Here are the close up pictures of the newest additions to my stash.


I ordered them from a fab fabric shop called Z and S fabrics. They were super nice when I panicked about the 'missing' parcel and they were so quick to cut and dispatch my order. Not to mention the FANTASTIC choice of fabric to buy.



I'm off to have some dinner and then I'm going to organise the freebie prizes!
Winners and pictures of their prizes will be announced tomorrow...bye for now.

I am one happy bunny!!

Remember this post about fabric?

Well have a look see what I got today....

The second installment arrived...it got held up in Customs and I needed to pay some fees to get the lady at the Post Office to hand it over to me. I'm SO relieved!

I'm supposed to be getting ready for my friend's birthday party tonight so no time to take good pictures BUT here is a sneaky peek...

I'll be back tomorrow after work with good pictures and a link to the shop, loads of you asked and I'll share tomorrow.

Don't forget it's freebie time round here, just leave a comment to enter!

super surprise lucky dip gala!

Lots to show today. I got home from work and this little lot was waiting for me

hehehehe how many parcels!!!

(still no sign of the fated fabric parcel though)

and look at the gorgeous things I have

200 black brads

Then I opened a parcel from another Sarah. I won a freebie on her
blog but look what the postman did to the card!! Tut-tut!!

I won this beautiful crocheted dish cloth

AND look at the extra present I got....yummy fabric, thanks Sarah!

I saved the parcel from my friend
Nia till last, and she has made me a fab brooch!!

Unfortunately Cecil seems to have got his hands on my presents!!

I pinned him down to take a close up but he wriggled a lot!

Thanks Nia, I love it :-)

Now for freebie news :: All you lovely regular readers out there will know that freebie day is on Thursday because that is my day off the day job BUT at the moment I'm working 6 day weeks and don't have a day off until Sunday SO freebie day this time round is a super surprise lucky dip gala ! HA! what a title!

(random photo of a Christmas Tree I made yesterday)

Leave me a comment today, Friday or Saturday and on Sunday I will draw a few names and those people will win a surprise!!

How exciting!!

gifts and shopping

Little tiny tote bags I made last night.

I made them as gift packaging for some of the ribbon I bought yesterday which is now on it's way to a friend and my sister

I've done some more shopping (warning I have done quite a bit of on-line shopping so expect a couple more posts like this!) First is some more American Crafts ribbon, intended for Christmas projects.

and my bargain find of the year....half price S.E.I. button tubes!

Hot foot it to
this shop to bag yourselves some half price buttons.....


can you believe it's time for freebie day already!
see you here tomorrow...

Ribbon from Portugal

Still no sign of the fabric parcel but I did get a parcel today containing this:

oooohhhh new ribbon.

It's designed by a very creative lady called Rosa and you can buy it here

my pictures don't do it justice so I have used one from Rosa's website:

Super cute :-) Thanks Rosa, it was delivered very fast and I absolutely love it!!

Nia: there is some coming your way (I kinda knew you'd look!!)

practise makes perfect

well, today is a practise day, definitely nothing perfect in this little pile ;-)

Christmas time and orders

phew what a day!

Today was my only day off this week and my days at work have been long and hard too.

Today I got up bright and early and was super organised and wrote a big long list of things to do!

I've finally ordered some more supplies and finished some goodies!

I managed too to have my eyes tested (everything was fine) and to stock back up on essentials like shampoo and deodorant etc.

The two photos above are orders which I have completed and are on the way to the post office tomorrow.

This next photo is just a quick snap to show my progress on my Christmas ideas. I wanted to make one of everything that will be for Christmas this year and show them all together but that may never happen, so you'll have to see them as I go along :-)

I've been working on these for a few days now and made them during the week.
I'll show you the rest when they are sewn up!

We have :: christmas frog :: christmas cupcake :: robin red :: happy reindeer :: monkey :: happy tree :: snowman + knitted hat :: yo yo and felt baubles ::

Next week I'm going to attempt a post a day! I got off to a good start last week but it all went wrong on Friday (wine, dinner and friends do not make for a punctual blogger!)

See you tomorrow....