JUST NICELY BLOGGING ALONG

Hell everyone

It's raining!  Not much rain has fallen, but my garden is loving it.  Fingers crossed we get some more.  Okay, I prefer it to rain during the night, but at the moment I am grateful for any rain.

Talking of rain, I went with a couple of friends to the RHS Wisley last Monday.  Although it occasionally rained, we had a lovely day wandering around the gardens.  So surprised at how busy the car park was and how quiet the gardens were - until we went for coffee and then later for lunch!  Clearly the eateries are more than/just as popular as the gardens!  It always pleases me to see weeds growing in the Wisley flower beds - I don't feel so bad when I look at my bindweed, mares tail and other pesky weeds!

In celebration of Lewis Carroll's 150th birthday, Wisley have a display of Alice in Wonderland sculptures and this is one I particularly liked:

Now, I wonder if this could be my next pottery project.......  As always the lips would be a problem, but I have mastered noses.

I love Clematis and this is a very pretty one, Princess Diana, that is beginning to get established in a container in our garden:

Another favourite flower is this beautiful Calla Lily - we have three pots of different colours place around the pond.  One variety is almost black and when in full flower, I will photograph it - at the moment it only has one flower on it.

I got home from Wisley to the disappointing news that my application to take part in this year's Farnham Maltings Christmas Fair had not been successful.  However, onward and upward and I finished the week on a high having been accepted to take part in the two-day Packhouse Antiques Centre Christmas Night Market.

This week has been a catching up with friends week.  After Wisley Monday, met up with another friend for a quick chat and coffee on Tuesday morning and spent Friday with my sister.  In between tried to keep up-to-date with event organisation work and making stock - the good weather makes it hard to work inside, but lucky for me 'making' can be done outside.  We finished the week off with a BBQ at a friend's on Saturday - great fun and with 25 of us there, the 'Chef' did an amazing job: everything ready at the same time, nothing burnt - very impressive.  Well done Hugh.

We have a very beautiful cat that keeps visiting our garden.  Apparently he lives locally, but not too sure why he would want to be with us.  Five cats and four next door - not an ideal place for a strange cat to linger.  He has beautiful blue eyes:

Back to work now - it is still raining so I am a happy bunny.

Have a great week everyone - 'see' you soon.

Jill

WHO PULLED THE PLUG ON THE SUNSHINE?

Hi everyone

What a fabulous week it has been.  Who could have guessed that the last week of March could have resembled the first week of July (well some July’s in England that is).  Unfortunately, a bit of a blip occurred yesterday as it was rather chilly, but spring is here so surely more good weather to come, fingers crossed.  However, I am now updating my post as it was thick frost this morning when I got up!  Er, who left the freezer door open?  All change, as I am finishing off this post, the sun is shining again - but please tell me I misheard the weather forecast that there is a possibility of snow?

It has been a great week for lots of small businesses that took part and were successful in Theo Paphitis’ Small Business Sunday (#SBS) activity on Twitter.  Well done to Handmade Monday’s Wendy for being one of the stars – well deserved recognition.  It’s lovely to see all of the new pics on Twitter of winners displaying their certificate while standing next to Mr P.  Well done everyone.  I take part in the SBS tweeting every week, but know that I need to get a move on with my website to have any chance of being noticed.

Despite my week beginning with sad news about cats, it finished on a high as our vet rang us early yesterday morning to give us the good news that Jazz’s trotter problem was due to a deep-rooted infection and nothing more sinister – yippee!  Shadow is also getting more mobile and thank you everyone for your good wishes for both cats.

We have been ‘on leave’ the last few days of the week (Richard took some time off of work) and the good weather has helped us get lots of work completed in the garden – sunshine is such a motivator.  We took some time out to go to the flicks – haven’t been for ages - and saw The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel..We went to one of the afternoon shows and there were about 12 people in the cinema!  A lovely film – bound to be with such a great cast.

I am lucky to live very near to the RHS gardens at Wisley and frequently wander around the grounds with a fellow gardening friend – we have actually been locked in twice!  The same friend and I went to an evening event at Wisley about 10 days ago and as always we spent more time nattering than buying – probably not such a bad thing really, but I did buy two lots of seed potatoes.  We are off to Chelsea next month, tickets ordered and on their way to us.  A fantastic show and the highlight will always be that a few years ago Alan Titchmarsh said ‘hello’ to my friend during our visit!  Needless to say, he is her BFF and gardening guru.

As mentioned in my mid-week post, my week also included a lovely ‘win’ of a bookcase necklace and teapot earrings from Cory of Coryographies.  Cory also had some good news to share this week as her jewellery will soon be on sale in a shop in Islington.  Well done Cory, I am sure it will be a great success.  Here is a pic of my winnings – aren’t they cute?

I hope you all managed to get a chance to drop in to read Friday’s guest blogger’s post?  Caroline (Caroleecrafts) wrote a great article about the importance and value of Market Research.  If you want to join in the Friday Guest Blogger spot, it would be lovely to have your company and craft and non-craft related posts are welcome.  Get in touch on christmaspiecrafts@virginmedia.com.

I also took part in guest blogging this week on Lesley Beeton’s, Mad Woman of Shackleford blog – thank you Lesley for the invitation to be a guest blogger.  It was nice to recall the 'fun' bits of being a cat-owner.  Yes, it’s another cat story, but it’s a funny one so I hope you enjoy it and I do recommend you spend some time reading Lesley's other posts - all great reads.

We are rushing towards Handmade Monday – another week that has whizzed by.  Is it an age thing, or is the pace of life is so much faster now?  Whilst I am not quite near to completing my website ready for it to 'go live', I have been working on the different ranges to be included on said website.  One of them is decorated gift bags.  These had their first outing at the fair in Godalming I attended, and they proved to be very popular.  They are also on sale on my wall at Bourne Mill.  Within the range are single bags, bags with a matching gift card, and bags with a matching gift card and greetings card.  This is one of my favourites - the colours are lovely and the paper was a freebie wallpaper sample.

Time to go and enjoy some sunshine before it disappears, plus I have seeds to sew and weeds to pull - why is it that very little weather-wise affects the growth and spread of weeds!

As always, thank you to everyone who comments on my posts (and on my guest blogger's posts too); I love to read your comments and feedback is always welcome.  With that in mind, don't forget to visit the other bloggers taking part in Handmade Monday - I always look forward to see what goodies everyone has made each week and reading their posts

Have fun everyone - I will be back on Wednesday.

Jill

VERY EARLY SUNDAY OR JUST A LITTLE LATE WEDNESDAY POST?

Hi everyone

Certainly seems to be getting a  little colder every day - dare I say it but the skies do occasionally look as though they have some snow to be dropped on us.  Hopefully it is just my imagination.

A very busy week making stock for future events.  I attended the Wash C of E Junior School Gift & Shipping Evening on Tuesday and it was a great success.  Very well organised and very well attended too.  Well done Lorna - hope you arrange many more.

Don't forget to check out my Where Am I section.  My next event is on Saturday at Bramley - a fund-raising event for the Bramley Players.  I did this event last year and it was great.  I have also added another event to the list - I will be at the Addlestone Pre-School Christmas Fair on 3 December 2011.  This is my last event of the year, so if you live local to the school, it would be great to see you there.

As my regular Blog-followers know my blog is featured in the current issue of Popular Crafts.  The Popular Crafts website has a great forum, together with competitions and free downloads.  Have a look and join us on there for a chat about numerous things

Over the last few weeks I have tried as often as possible to take part in the Handmade By Me Thursday Blog-Hop - overloaded this week and I haven't been able to contribute.  However, do have a look at the Forum and if you are a crafter, join us and take part in the blog-hop.

Off to an Evening Event at the RHS Wisley this evening with a friend.  Nibbles and mulled wine - and of course shopping.  From previous years I know the decorations inside and outside are gorgeous, so really looking forward to this year's event.

A short post today, but will be posting on Sunday/Monday Handmade with reports on the events I have between now and then and everything else that has been going on at Christmas Pie Crafts.

Enjoy the rest of the week

Jill