Did you miss me...LOL!

Thankfully this old chickens head has been re-attached and I am back to my blogging and stitching. I am so looking forward to catching up on what everyone else has been up too and ohhing and ahhing at all those new stitches and wips.
The last few weeks my time has been taking up with working and arranging DD Heathers 18th birthday. She had a wonderful day and got spoiled to pieces with gorgeous gifts from family and friends. Hope you enjoy a little peek into her day.

Pressies from Mum & Dad, including a watch and money for driving lessons.

H loves Yabba the duck from Timmy Time a childrens programme. I couldn;t resist buying one for her.

Birthday pot, I didn;t realise until wrapping that it contained these cute hearts for everyone to write wishes on them

A cute photo when H was about 3 from Gran & Papa

The cards, I just love the cupcake one

Keepsake token

The Cake & Yummy Treats

H & Benji Balloon

Blowing out the candles!

The Birthday cake was made by my Mum, she did a wonderful job and it tasted delicious. It was a great day but oh boy I can't believe I now have an 18 year old daughter and 21 year old son. My mind keeps telling me I'm much too young to have kids this age, I won;t tell you what my body thinks about it..LOL!

Now the stitchy news. I decided at long last to fill up my baskets with some of my stitchy finishes. All these finishes are from freebie designs that I completed at the beginning of the year.

Still on the basket theme I couldn;t resist buying this one last week. My lovely family are always complaining, can you believe it..that my stitching is always lying around all over the house. I thought this would be perfect to keep my current projects together. You also might have spotted it in H;s photos. I used it too make up a pressie off girly goodies. I attached the little wooden heart to pretty it up.

These are a few little designs that I have started working on. The buttons are still to be attached to the snowman piece and I need to find some buttons for the halloween one. I also noticed I forgot to stitch the cats tongue.

Oh and I almost forgot. My regular readers will know how I am always moaning about my finishing skills. Well it;s official I suck...lol.  My finish has to be the cover piece for my book "How not to finish your stitching". This was my entry to the Lizzie Kate freebie creative challenge. My idea was to make a scrapbook to show how "Friendship Grows" through our love of crafting by keeping a record off finishes, exchanges, sal, RR etc. The entrys were all wonderful and the winning piece was gorgeous but I have to say my talents just shone through with mine. It certainly wasn;t one off my better finishes but off the 53 votes I didn;t even get one...LOL!!

Well I'm off to do a bit more blog reading and stitching. Hope everyone has many happy stitches this week. Hugs!

New Stash & Stitching

Oh am I loving my post-man. In the past few weeks he has brought me the most wonderful packages of goodies. Let me start with this beautiful pillow that I won from a give-away that Carol was hosting. Her stitching and finishing are just beautiful, go check out her blog and see for yourself.

My second package was from my new exchange that I am doing with Cath and what wonderful new goodies I have to play with.  Cath couldn;t have chosen more perfect for me. How adorable is my stitched sheep and needlebook. I have never had a needlebook before it's just gorgeous and stitched so perfectly in my favourite colours. DD Heather thought my cow bag was sooo cute and tried to acquire it for herself but she was told paws off thats mine. Thank you so much Cath, I just love everything. 

My final package and oh wow what a bundle of joy was from my dear friend Erna. I knew she was sending me the Just Cross-stitch Ornament issue 2009 and I had told her knowing my luck it will probably arrive while I am preparing for Craigs birthday and I won;t have any time to look at it. Well the day before Craigs party I was run of my feet preparing stuff. I hadn't heard the post-man at the door and I was running through the living-room rushing to the loo Craig said oh Mum theres a parcel here for you.  I looked down and there is this lovely big package and I;m like oh my I really don;t have time to open this but it was just sitting there going Open me, open me please...By this time I'm about (don;t mean to offend anyone ) peeing my pants with excitment and off course I was on the way to the loo..lol. Decision made I grabbed it and run up-stairs. Now not a pretty site but there was me on the throne trying with all my might to open this parcel. I pulled, I tugged, tried biting the cellotape but OMG I could not get it open.  I;m talking to it, having a few choice words for Erna, it just wouldn;t budge. I had no option but to give up. Erna blamed the lady in the post office but I reckon she;s got a secret fetish for cellotape...lol.  After all the buzz of the week-end I finally got the chance with a big pair of scissors to open my package. I was so overwhelmed with all these beautiful goodies. I;ve never seen any Dutch or French magazines before and even though I don;t understand a word I really enjoy drooling over all the beautiful stuff inside them. I;ve now got some wonderful new fabric, beautiful threads and some cute buttons for my christmas stitching. Thank you so much Erna, your such a sweetie.

This was an extra cake that I had in the freezer from baking I did beginning of July. I iced it up last night and when I looked in the fridge this afternoon there were only two slices left. People were moaning the icing wasn;t as good as usual , don;t think it stopped them eating it though..lol.

This is my little snowman I have been working on. The freebie design has some love-hearts and stitched snowflakes but I think I might just use snowflake buttons on mine as I am eager to start another ornie. Happy stitching..Hugs! 

GIVE-AWAYS!

Another three generous stitchers Magee, Julie and Fiona are having fabulous give-aways. Please go check them out.

http://stitchingdevotee.blogspot.com/

http://crossthatleg.blogspot.com/

http://peacefulthreads.blogspot.com/

Birthdays & Stitching!

Okay fingers crossed the slideshow above has worked. As you will see last week-end my son Craig celebrated his 21st Birthday. It was a wonderful week-end full of fun and suprises. We had a party on Saturday night with family and friends and on Sunday we had a celebratory dinner at our favourite restaurant. I am so glad that Craig had such a fun time but oh boy are Mum and Dad exhausted. It has just been non-stop and we get the pleasure of doing it all again when our daughter Heather celebrates her 18th birthday in three weeks time. Not great family planning but I blame the awful winters we get in Scotland...LOL.

I didn;t quite make the deadline to finish my SAL piece for July but as it was quite a small design I was only a few days late. This little seaside lady is another freebie design and if you look closely you will see that I was in such a rush I glued one of my seashells upside down. I can;t believe it is time to stitch August already, this year is just flying in. It has been a real fun SAL though and I am looking forward to see what chart Elaine chooses next.  

Over the next year I am doing a personal exchange with Cathy this is the first package that I have sent to her. As usual the little pillow gave me a few headaches putting it together. I had to glue the trim to death to get it too stick, so it;s fall apart date may be soon..lol. Cathy was delighted with it though and thats what matters. I  had such fun putting this together and I am looking forward to our next exchange in October.

I am still playing catch-up with everything and in my next post I have some wonderful new stash from my dear friend Erna, beautiful give-away prize I won,gorgeous goodies from Cathy and with any luck a few more stitching finishes. I have started another Christmas ornie and my Lizzie Kate challenge piece. My plans will probably change but I am hoping to sit back relax and stitch this week-end. Why don;t you join me?  Hugs!

Great give-away!

Kim is having a wonderful give-away for either stitching or quilting goodies. Please go enter and say hi.