Little Cotton Rabbits

A parcel of good cheer

We've been a bit down in the dumps here what with one thing and another and Toby has been off from school again with yet another of the high temperature viruses that he seems so prone to. Hopefully he's over the worse now and maybe all of these challenges to his immune system will result in him becoming more resistant in future.

Anyway, I often find that even when things feel dismal a smile is never far away and sure enough a big one arrived yesterday in the shape of a wonderful package from Jen at Frazzy Dazzles

 

Jen makes the most wonderful softies and sweet things (you can see some in her etsy shop). She included some beautifully made hairslides in the shapes of a hedgehog, goldfish and mouse and such a tiny and cute little mouse in a bed, all of which Amy has spirited away into her room to be kept as treasures. There were also some gorgeously illustrated books for the children.

I had been coveting Jen's garden warriors and now I have a Briar and her little hen Thistle all to myself. She's going to be helping me plan out my fledgling vegetable garden - I think with a touch of her magic and a little luck things will work out just fine.

Thanks so much Jen x

more etsy goodies!

Being a knitter myself I don't often buy things that have been knitted by someone else but then it's not every day that you come across such gorgeousness as these

Beautifully knitted by Knithappens in the most fabulous yarn from Skein Queen, they are wonderful and my hands are very happy (a nice reward for all of the hard work they've been doing recently!).

PS. apologies to everyone who has emailed me in the last few weeks and not had a reply - I've got a big email backlog and hope to reply to you next week. Thanks for your patience.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

lovely pressies

Around this time of year there Amy seems to get a lot of party invitations and as I'm not keen on a deluge of plastic dolls on her birthday I always try and give her friends presents that have a use or are fun to do. I'm always on the look out for good present ideas and this year I'm really pleased to have found these which definitely tick all the boxes for me...

The most beautiful hand-carved personalised stamps from the very talented and lovely Magda at Craft Pudding. I know that Amy is thrilled with hers (she's been stamping all of her books and making cards too) and she's really excited to be giving something special to her best friends too.

RedBubble

Thanks so much to everyone who has emailed me and left comments about the calendar fiasco over at Lulu. I'm really pleased that the people who ordered a copy are pleased with their calendar but also sorry to those of you who wanted a copy and missed out. A couple of people have been kind enough to email me links to other 'print on demand' companies and after looking into a couple of different ones I've started uploading some images to Redbubble who look brilliant!

The best thing about their service is that they also offer greetings cards so since yesterday tea-time I've been busy on photoshop brushing up my rusty design skills! Luckily the photographs that my husband takes are really good quality (it helps being married to a professional photographer!) and so I've kept the designs simple. Unlike Lulu (who had insane postage prices) RedBubble are very reasonable and you can pay in a range of currencies. I'm trying to put together another calendar but some of my images need re-processing at a larger size so it's not yet ready.

I'm really pleased that I can now offer greetings cards and if anyone would like a particular image or salutation on a card (not personalised though) please let me know and I'll see if I can help.

You can check out the range of cards I've done so far here and I'll be slowly adding more over the next few weeks.

tick, tock, tick, tock...

Time is ticking on. The shops are heaving with baubles and tinsel. Little children everywhere are already on page 3 of their christmas lists. Turkeys and crates of wine are being ordered. And I am running out of time to finish this lot!

It doesn't matter how far in advance I start, it always feels like a rush to get the christmas batch of animals ready. They're almost there, now I must fly and get those needles clicking again. Happy weekend all!