the pesky bombolino

Happy Christmas: Have a fabulous time, see you in the New Year!

We painted our kitchen white this week. When we moved in it was a really harsh, acid yellow colour which we couldn't wait to get rid of.

The white is pretty bleak though and needed brightening up. So I got out a couple of Ikea frames and re-purposed them using Emily's paper dolls and some Amy Butler polka fabric, et voila!

I can post photos of what I did with this fabric now I know the recipient has received her Birthday bag!

The perfect antidote to the bah-humbug attitude of my previous post:

I generally try not to post photos of my girls, but I'm just so very proud, I've got to share this one!

I've finished two of my three aprons which made me grumpy over the old orders issue yet again. It's entirely my fault: I charged £10 for the larger one and £7.50 for the smaller. After taking into account the cost of fabric and thread (machine applique eats thread!), I'm valuing my time as being worth around £2 an hour (that's $4 to my American friends). 

Will I ever learn my lesson and either say no or ask for a reasonable sum?

Or am I doomed to sit at my machine cursing and snarling like a fiery ball of pure resentment once a year?!

My craft space has finally seen some crafting action!

I have three aprons, a blanket and a patchwork bag to complete within the next week so, as the self-pronounced, reigning Queen of Procrastination, I made a mitten garland vaguely following Disdressed's flickr tutorial.



I used a wool scarf that I accidentally felted a year or so ago and some (deliberately) felted wool scraps that I bought from Betz White earlier this year.



And, of course, some beautiful buttons. The only time I feel entirely happy using my favourite buttons is at Christmas- maybe it's because I know I'll see them again every year, or maybe the festive spirit just loosens me up a little!



Annie drew around the template and cut this one (above) out- she soon lost interest when she found that she needed to hand sew the rest though.



I like the informal simplicity of felted wool ornaments- next year I'm going to build a little stash up again (I have my eye on a couple of David's jumpers- they may have to meet with an unfortunate laundry disaster) so that I can make some of these (which I'm still thinking of a year on!).

(see more photos here if felted mittens are your thing)

When I took Eliza to play-school this morning, I found out that she's very confidently told everyone we're off on a family holiday to Disneyland (in America- no less!) next week. They were very sorry to hear this as they would have liked her to be Mary in the Nativity play.

We're not going to Disneyland (must be wishful thinking!), but if we had been planning to go I swear I would have cancelled- Mary?... It's a dream come true!!! Who says I can't satisfy my unfulfilled childhood ambitions through my offspring?!

(Buttons and fabrics bought this morning- with a spring in my step- for a pre-Christmas birthday present).

Here are some pictures of my all-new, singing, dancing, crafting space:



It also serves as a family crafting/dining/games room, so the rest of it looks like this:



It's the most popular room in our house but the only action it's seen so far is this kind of thing:



But I plan to rectify this soon with some intensive Christmas crafting.
There's so much wonderful inspiration around at the moment, I not entirely sure where to start... but we'll definitely be having a go at these, these and it wouldn't be Christmas without some of these!