Friday 29 August 2008

I am back from the craft fair and I did reasonably well considering I usually make a loss taking everything into account!

Fluro-sheep

I have many beautiful things to show you: Shepherds paper shop and purveyor of beautiful tasty paper including bible paper, recycled paper, paper made from bananas, papyrus, and of course elephant poo paper! They also sell delightful pocket notebooks for £2 and lovely leather covered sketchbooks. I am going to visit the shop tomorrow since it is just near Holborn station.

I'm off to Hobbycraft this afternoon to buy myself a sticker maker! Wahoop! I swear, the more ideas I come up with, the more money I have to spend! Heh! The sticker maker is going to help with some secret Christmas stuff that I might give you a sneak preview of soon...

Spank!

On Saturday evening I went to my friend's Hen do in Manchester, I think I travelled for about 6 hours to spend 3 hours with her! Such are the joys of living in the country! At least I got to drive the nice Grand Espace with some great music to keep me awake at 2am!

Thursday 21 August 2008

Parcel

This arrived in the post today! It's a blank journal that is starting on its travels and it has come to me first. Yeeks! The project was started by Carina and lots of other lovely ladies are playing along too!

Solveig | Jen L | Nicole | Jen R | Moi | Nicky | Miss Stacey | Jo | Jen S | Viv | Lindsey | Carina

Features features everywhere!

Goodness me!

Another little feature!

This time from Pink Pink I'm a lucky lucky girl! Go and read my post, she asked some good questions!

Wednesday 20 August 2008

Sausage and Biscuits!

crazy sausage

I went to Ikea yesterday and was amused by this, and these:

ikea biscuits

Tuesday 19 August 2008

Oh My Goshness!

I've been featured AGAIN! This time on Katie's Blog because of the We Make Christmas craft fair in the American Church on Tottenham Court Road! I'm ever ever EVER so excited for We Make Christmas - I have a couple of rad things up my sleeve for it, if my husband ever gets his finger out and prints out my prototype ;-)

I'm currently in the process of making a "flurogoddess" banner for my stall at the weekend and finishing off some little Ninja fluff-balls. They've only appeared on flickr so far in their unfinished form, but you can be sure that they will most probably be on DaWanda/etsy/Folksy when they are finished - which won't be until after the weekend.

Ninja Fluff-balls!

If you want to reserve your Ninja (with an added Shuriken by Friday...) then leave a comment or mail me!

Somebody loves you...

I do! Nana naaa nana na na n'naaaaa OoooOOOOoooh

Ok, enough of my Country and Western singing.

Today I have been featured on "Cuteable" or rather my sweet little dandelion notebook has! Hoorah!

notes

Monday 18 August 2008

Following on

but in a crafty way...

This post on refasioning a PILLOWCASE into a NIGHTIE for a full grown woman has me a little lost for words...

Friday 15 August 2008

Us wimminns and our bodies

I am currently re-reading Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters which is an American book about us 20-somethings hating our bodies and thinking that we have to be perfect and that includes our bodies. There are sad descriptions of woman after woman feeling bad for eating a cookie, spending 3 hours on a treadmill to counteract a bite of chocolate and throwing up after eating a pizza. It breaks my heart into tiny pieces and I can't fathom what it is but it also touches the "perfect girl" in me to eat less. It's bizzare.

Yesterday when I was searching through Getty Images for that picture of the note book, I'd put in the search term "too much" and I got a whole array of pictures coming back. There were some pretty disturbing ones of a stick thin model, with her ribs showing trying to saw off some "fat" from her thighs, others with her pinching some skin for the skin-fold callipers and then on the next page, at least 3 or 4 of her pictured throwing up over a toilet. There were pictures of her sitting on a toilet eating a big chocolate cake and others in the series with the empty plate and her puking. I don't know how to feel about these pictures, I think they are a disgrace and that to a certain extent they make a mockery out of a serious illness. Although it is a sign of our times that some people feel brazen enough to set up studio shots and photograph scenes depicting eating disorders, is it necessarily the right thing to do? I mean we all know that people have eating disorders, now more so than ever but is there any need to glamourise it to a certain extent. I do not need to be shown a picture of some made up model in a bikini(!) puking over a toilet to be aware of Bulimia. In fact, I wouldn't say that the girls who are Bulimic are going to be wearing their bikinis to throw up. What's up with that?

Then I was on my way to training last night, thinking about a new-ish girl who is really flippin gorgeous and is doing really well with her martial arts, she seems to be progressing really really well. Anyway I was riding along and thinking to myself that she has a really great figure, nicely curvy and she has these deep brown eyes and black curly hair, a bit like a more polished version of me (at least she makes an effort with her hair)! So we were sparring last night and she said not to hit her in the stomach, which is fine, no worries. She's got a bit of a dodgy knee at the moment, and also I overheard her say something about a bad back to Lee. Basically no concerns. In my ladies class I run her through the Orange Belt techniques and assess her and she passes with flying colours, even with bad back and bad knee. After the class I tell her that she's passed  and well done. Then she says to me, "The reason I don't want anyone touching my stomack or my back is because... (here I'm thinking she's going to say pregnant...) I've had liposuction." EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKS!

REALLY?

Really? Because I for one (and I don't say this) can't see any difference at all. Perhaps her belly is a little flatter, but still, she is still her, and still pretty gorgeous. I said, "But you have a lovely figure." and she counteracts this with the fact that she's been wearing black!!! Like that makes any difference other than when you're standing in front of the mirror! In my class I see ladies from all angles and in all posistions, I generally have an idea of people's shape and size. But she protested and said she'd been having trouble with it since the age of 12. The way she protested and the way she dismissed my compliments had echoes of myself in there. I know I have batted away compliments because I have been fat in my head rather than physically. At the moment I am a little chubbier than usual (you know baby weight, well I have house weight) but my head pretty much feels slim. When I look in the mirror at the moment it doesn't reflect what I feel, but I am working on that (just not to the point of starvation or puking or running 5 miles at dawn). I felt a little disapointed that my hope for a "normal girl" in my class turns out to be another perfect girl and a starving daughter. I felt a little bit like when Lindsay Lohan started shrinking because I had seen her in Mean Girls and gone "Phwoar!" over the fact that there was a real woman with real curves playing a teenager in a high school that would most probably be rife with eating disorders. I remember commenting to my hubs that she was gorgeous, and I remember seeing LiLo looking all lollipopped and I just felt like that was one in the eye for the "normal" girls who were just trying to be normal and not a messed-up perfect girl.

Another thought, which however unjustified it may be was, "Gosh if she's had lipo, then does that mean that I should?" I mean she's about the same size as me, same amount of curve, same hair etc.... Fortunately liposuction is something that you couldn't PAY me enough to have. I don't like the idea of diliberately injuring myself for the sake of vanity, when really the work that needs to be done would be in my head. One good thing about this is she says that it has dramatically improved her self-image. I am pleased that it has "worked" for her, but I am sad that she had to take that drastic route when perhaps a few self-help books and a good natter with a best mate would've sorted out the problems in her head. I'm also a little bit sad that I hadn't told her how gorgeous I thought she was before her surgery. Not that it would've changed anything but it might have meant a little bit more to her.

Thursday 14 August 2008

Overwhelmed

or like a kid in a candy shop depending on my mood!

My ideas are spilling over

This is almost what my ideas book looks like at the moment! I have signed up for a Christmas craft fair and most of my ideas are Christmassy ones! I've also got a couple of softies to make, one for my swap and another couple for a secret surprise wedding present in a couple of weeks time.

I have a secret something to do for a certain person's birthday coming up...

And some stuff for my bank holiday craft fair.

I'm also thinking about calendars for 2009 and I just wonder what to put on them. Wonder wonder. I need a theme! I need to start drawing!

Tonight I'm off to training, then tomorrow I will be staying late to get a start on the crafting. DH is out all Saturday so I think I will be crafting then too! I might make use of the space at work, rather than getting frustrated over the tininess of the flat. It also means that I won't have any distractions.... Huzzah!

Oh, I also got 2 huge parcels in the post this morning, lots of 58mm badge backs, so I can make bigger badges, and kids can create their own... And a big box full of envelopes that I will be using for Christmas cards and hopefully some new address cards (if we ever get a new address).

Wednesday 13 August 2008

Tuesday 12 August 2008

*yawn*

I feel like I've been hit with a sledgehammer!

I lifted weights last night after a week or two off, then I taught my littlies at kickboxing - after that I was in a pretty good mood and was quite awake for a while, but then hubby kept me up till 11:30 on the computer. It's not as if we can close the bedroom door in our little bedsit! Gah! So anyway, I woke up this morning pooped, and I tried to nap at lunchtime but then I got rained on.

Waaaaaaaaaa!

Friday 8 August 2008

Some photo lovin'

Thought I'd post you some photos from last weekend since the blog has been a little photo-lite recently.

Bride and Groom

This is my friend Jenny and her husband Mike

Men n Him

This is us! The husband is actually smiling!

Thursday 7 August 2008

Heads Up!

Ok, so I joined a UK Crafts Forum, which has proved fantastic! The people on there are really kind and knowledgeable!

Anyway, so I signed up for a swap organised by Claire's Crafty Blog. It is a ROBOT SWAP! Squeeee! I love robots and already have some robot artwork that might inspire me. I get to swap with the lovely K. who is in the process of making a denim patchwork quilt! Eeeeks!

I'm getting ready for the August Bank Holiday craft fair in Goathland - I had a stall there on Saturday and I took a whole pound! I managed to increase my takings by finding 5p on the floor! Wahoo! If anyone is popping by Goathland at the August Bank Holiday, come and say hello, and download my 10% discount voucher for bargains galore!

I'm quite excited about the back end of the year - I've got the 3rd and final wedding to attend in September, where I will be playing photographer, in October I'm going to hold a stall in Brixton again, in November I might be at Bagshot and I'm going to We Make Christmas in December and Brixton again the day after.

Wednesday 6 August 2008

Smitten


IF_smitten_061014
Originally uploaded by oneearthling
I found this on flickr, and I thought you should see it.

schweet

Ain't teh interwebs great?

Yesterday I got a private message on a craft forum I visit asking if I could make some mirrors and as of this moment in time the order is paid for, complete and in the post.

Tuesday 5 August 2008

Fleas Please

I have 150 flea bites.

They look like they are going to leave nice scars.