It's beginning to look a lot like...

Christmas.

Yes, you too can now have that song on repeat in your head. God knows it's been swimming round mine for the last week since they put the lights up in town. But I love all the pre-Chrimbo razzamatazz. We spent about 2 hours assembling Playmobil advent calendars last night. Mmmmm...small woodland creatures, fir trees and a cute little Santa with real gripping action...funtastic.

And I'm jumping on the bandwagon too (I really should just get an Oyster Card I get on it so often...) and have put a few Christmas items in the shop.

There's a bit of a Russian Folk theme, with fir trees inspired by St. Basil's Cathedral and a Matryoshka nativity set:
*UPDATE* Sorry, the Russian dolls have now sold. I can make more to order though - contact me for details.



Which do you prefer - au naturel or red and blue? Not sure which way I'm swinging at the moment.

In other news, I was very pleased to receive the new batch of postcards I ordered in this design

...so any purchases from the shop will get a few of those included in the parcel.

Lucky

I've had some great finds from the charity shops this week...

These! Just look at them! They are making me so ridiculously happy sat on my window sill.



...this glass which is nice enough - actually it looks pretty amazing in the pictures doesn't it - but I'm planning to flatten it in the kiln (fingers crossed - these things don't always go to plan) for future use.



And this oh-so-sweet book (I think it's French originally) about a long-distance friendship between a girl and a boy, which teaches the seasons, months and days of the week along the way.



Not only that, I received my parcel from the She Draws Tea Swap...check it out - I was partnered up with an utterly wonderful girl from Baltimore who works in a tea-store! She sent me about 5 or 6 amazing kinds of tea all beautifully packaged. I felt a bit bad about the rather pedestrian offerings I sent her!

Also this week I've been busy making some Christmassy things for the shop...I'll show you when they're finished.

fun fun fun

I can't wait to get my iron out*






*not a phrase i have ever used before

Moo

I've been prattling on about a cow panel I've been working on for a few weeks now. I finished it a little while ago, but various things have prevented me from doing the big ta-daah...finally, here it is:



It's a partner for Cockerel #3 which looked like this:

The cockerel was commissioned as a wedding anniversary gift, and the recipients were so pleased with it they wanted to have a cow as well (they are cattle farmers).

I really loved designing the cow...they're such adorable creatures aren't they?

Oh, before I go, just wanted to say a massive thanks to everyone for the really fantastic feedback on my Folksy Upcycled competition entry. Thanks for taking the time to comment, or favourite or blog/tweet about it...I've been really touched and thrilled that the competition is receiving so much publicity.

We go to the playground in the wintertime.

That's a line from an old Suzanne Vega song (Freezetag) which I have always loved (and recently rediscovered thanks to finding her first album on cassette in a charidee shop recently). It's also the inspiration for my Folksy Upcycled Christmas competition entry which is being run to raise money for the Sue Ryder Care Charity. All the entries will be put in an auction to run from 7th - 13th December and all proceeds will go to this worthy cause. I'll post a link to the auction nearer the date.



Made using entirely recycled and vintage glasses, the design has echoes of 1970s children's book illustrations, and a rather large nod towards these playing cards which I blogged about before.


Have a look at it over at Folksy to find out more about how I made it.

[Cue grovelly last line of post...] If you're a Folksy member, I'd love it if you favourited it!

On my bench on Tuesday...

(ok, so I'm only 4 days behind myself now) ...was a little package with a cow panel in it to be posted to Scotland (pictures of that anon); a package with some teabags and a little Hama bead coaster to be posted to The States as part of this and the flattened glass that came out of the kiln, looking mighty fine.

Folksy Upcycled Christmas

Is it me, or has time speeded up since we turned the corner of September? No sooner have I got used to it being one month, than the next one is already half-way through. How on earth can it possibly be the 10th of November???

That's beside the point though. In fact, the point is that I have been very busy making things, and now it's late and I have no time to show you them. But here's a couple of pictures of the start of my Folksy Upcycled Christmas submission. I'm making a small panel in completely recycled and vintage glass. Well, I say vintage...it actually came from the very naff faux-Victorian kitchen units we had in this house when we first moved in (which were ripped out on about day 2) but I saved the glass because, whilst hideous in a white melamine kitchen unit, looks surprisingly cute in a stained glass panel. You'll see a picture of it soon. The gorgeous red brandy glass came from my local YMCA charity store for the princely sum of £2, and while it seemed a bit of a crime to cut it up to flatten it, it looks so spanking lovely now I have no regrets. The blue bottles are Harvey's Bristol Cream (sherry) and Blue Nun (cheapo icky German white wine for those who are not familiar with the delights that the Sister has to offer) My name is Flora, and I hang around the bottle bank waiting to mug old ladies of their recycling....