Hello 2017!

Hello there stranger! It’s been such a long time since my last post!

I didn’t mean to stop blogging. I love my little blog and I love the community I have built up with it over the last 4 years. I’m made some amazing friends and I love looking back at old posts that have captured some wonderful memories. Somehow, life got in the way however, and we drifted apart a little. A lot of the faces have changed since we last caught up, and I’m sad to have lost touch with some of the amazing bloggers I got to know, but with the New Year I am looking forward to a new challenge and meeting some new faces.

2016 was an amazing year for me. I got to travel to San Francisco, Orlando and Seattle. I became an auntie, I changed jobs to become a Business Development Manager. I have thrown myself into voluntary work, including completing my 5th blood donation and spending my Christmas with an isolated elderly person in addition to my weekly volunteering with the Royal Voluntary Service. I also ran three 10k races for Macmillan Cancer Support. Oh, and I discovered a love for geocaching (but more on that later…)

As you can see,

2015 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 27,000 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 10 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Christmas All Through the House!

 

Author: Chris Malone

Genre: Non-Fiction, Crafts.

Published: July 2015

Pages: 48 pages

With Christmas quickly approaching, I’m sure many of us are turning our thoughts to decking the halls and putting up the tree – if you haven’t already! If you’re a crafter you know there is nothing more satisfying than hanging your own decorations each year, for you and your visitors to admire. This year, Annie’s Craft Store and Search Press have brought out the most irresistible collection of stunning quilting projects for all abilities, that you will love making and hanging year after year!

November 2015 Goals

November already! Is anyone else finding they blink and a whole month has gone? We’re getting scarily close to Christmas now! I hope you’ve all had a good few months – sorry I missed my monthly goals again in October! I was only getting round to updating my goals by the middle of the month so I decided to hold off a couple of weeks so that it lined up with the beginning of the month again! Hopefully things will get back on track now! Anyway, here is the summary of how I faired with my September goals, and the goals I am setting for the month of November. Enjoy!

September/October Outcomes:

Once Upon A Time Sampler – I had really hoped to get that banner in but I have been so off cross stitching recently…I think the Barcelona Sunset took it out of me! At the minute I am just about keeping up with the monthly designs (not that it was finished when I took the photo but it is now, I promise!) which isn’t too bad, if the banner has to be added as a late addition then so be it!

Cut Thru’ Caravan – I was really hoping to make serious progress on this over the last few months but since I lost my cross stitch mojo it’s just not got anywhere! Sadly I’ve accepted that it isn’t going to be ready in time for Christmas (it would have been a tight squeeze anyway!) so it has been put to one side for now while I focus on other Christmas gifts and I will complete it for Christmas 2016 instead!

Kawaii Halloween Swap

Hello!

Since it is Halloween tomorrow I thought I would share with you the items that I sent and received in the Kawaii Halloween Swap! This was a swap organised on Instagram a few months ago and I couldn’t resist signing up! Halloween is my favourite holiday and I cannot resist anything Kawaii so it was the perfect swap for me! Thanks to a drop up shortly after sign ups I manage to steal a last minute spot for the swap and I was thrilled! It was the first Instagram craft swap I had taken part in and it was a great experience – I’d definitely get involved in another one in the future!

Here are the items that I sent to my partner Snow:

As usual, I had planned to make loads of stuff that I didn’t have time to complete before the shipping deadline! But overall I was pleased with everything that I put together for the package and Snow really seemed to like everything which was great. I’m always anxious my partner will be disappointed with what I send!

Here is a closer look at everything I included:

Syn Free Slimming World Hunter’s Chicken and Chips Recipe

Hello!

Today I wanted to share a recipe with you for one of my favourite meals ever – Hunter’s Chicken! And what’s even better is that James has managed to come up with a recipe to make this one syn free! I’ve been doing Slimming World now since Easter and the results have been amazing! But I’ll do a full SW experience write up in a few weeks, so for now, enjoy this syn free pub classic! Let me know what you think!

Serves 2

Fancy Paperie Stationery Review

Hello!

I was recently asked to review some products for a lovely little Etsy shop called Fancy Paperie. They specialise in really wonderful quality paper good such as letter sets, postcards and greetings cards as well as a wonderful range of seasonal items.

You can see my review in the video below – let me know what you think! Oh and make sure you watch all the way to the end to receive your discount code to spend at https://www.etsy.com/shop/fancypaperie7

September 2015 Goals

Blimey, where are the weeks going??? Once again, we are in the middle of the month before my goals are going up and it’s been four weeks since my last post again! Time seems to be galloping ahead without me at the moment but I’m desperately trying to rein it in and get posts up more frequently! But for the meantime, here are the outcomes of my August goals, and the goals I have set myself for September.

August Outcomes:

Once Upon a Time Sampler – In August my aim was to get the two remaining frames stitched in as well as the design for the month and I completed this so I was thrilled that it is almost up to date! I even managed to make a tiny start on the banner at the top…can you see it? Also, a sneak peek of the September design there too – this month is Black Beauty!

Cut Thru’ Caravan – I also managed to finish the page of the Caravan pattern that I was working on! It is coming together nicely but I am starting to realise that meeting my deadline of Christmas doesn’t look likely to happen – especially with all of the other presents I still need to make!

August 2015 Goals

So sorry I’ve been MIA for a few weeks now! July turned out to be a really stressful month in the end and unfortunately something had to give to help me maintain my sanity (or what I had left of it anyway!) Blogging just wasn’t a priority for me while I had so many other things demanding my attention but luckily I now seem to be getting myself back on track. As always, while I was on my blogging summer break I have been busy with all sorts of things that I have ready to share with you! But for now, I’ll recap on those goals I set way back at the beginning of June! Plus I have risked setting some goals for the remaining two weeks of August (when did it get to the middle of August???) so we will see how I get on with those this month…

June/July Outcomes:

Once Upon a Time Sampler – This one was a success! I managed to get the frames for June and July filled in with no problems…it stitched up really quickly! I do love working on the little design each month to give me a break from my bigger projects!

Barcelona Sunset – My aim for June was to finish stitching the lizard (achieved!) and to stitch half of the wall (not achieved.) However, although I didn’t get the wall stitched in, I did make a start on the backstitch. I know, I always go on about how much I hate backstitch! But in comparison to stitching the solid grey mass of the wall, backstitch seemed favourable! I have completed three quarters of the backstich for the whole project now which is really spurring me one! So I didn’t completely achieve the goal in June, but I did beat my overall target for the project (to finish by the end of August) by finishing it at the end of July! I never thought I’d see the end of it but I am thrilled with the result!

Our Yorkshire Dales Escape!

Hello!

You might have noticed that I have been a bit quiet around here for the last few weeks and in all truth…I was ready for a holiday! Luckily, last week was my chance for a break as me and James made our way to the Yorkshire Dales for three nights to celebrate 4 years of being together.

My Grandparents used to own a static caravan in the Yorshire Dales, so every school holiday while I was growing up involved a trip there. James, however, had never been before, so I planned out a little break for us to revisit some of my favourite places.

Tuesday 23rd June:

The first day of our trip was the day of our anniversary so the ideal day to begin our trip…and the morning that I woke up with a migraine! I wasn’t happy about it but I wasn’t going to let it spoil our trip! Because of the migraine, I didn’t manage to get any photographs of our first two stops but I’ve linked up the websites instead so you can take a look if you like.

Our first stop was the furthest away, to the Wensleydale Creamery in Hawes. We didn’t spend very long here as we had a busy day ahead, but we had enough time to sample the Wensleydale cheeses that they make in the factory and pick out one each to supply our picnics for the week ahead!

From Hawes we travelled on to The Forbidden Corner, which is a completely bizarre place unlike anywhere else! James quite aptly described it as a combination of the world in Labyrinth (the 80s film with David Bowie), Wonderland and Oz. When I was younger I loved spending hours looking for all of the weird things in the guidebook! Unfortunately our visit was cut pretty short due to my migraine, but we did manage to see most of it in the hour that we were there and we will definitely make up for the short visit by going back as soon as we can!

Our next stop was where we were staying; Mason’s Campsite. I hadn’t told James where we were staying as I wanted it to be a surprise, and what a surprise it was when we turned up and he found out we were staying in this cute little VW campervan! I’m a big fan of VW campers and when I discovered that you could hire one to stay in, I knew that it was perfect for our getaway.