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:

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!

June 2015 Goals

Hello!

I hope you’re all doing well 🙂 I can’t believe June is here already! Where is 2015 going??? Almost half way there already! Anyway, here is the roundup of my May goals so you can see how I did, as well as my goal setting for June – these lists seem to be growing and growing!

May Outcomes:

Once Upon a Time Sampler – In May my aim was just to fill in the square for that month and I managed that without any problems. I seem to fly through these at the beginning of each month then it gets shelved and almost forgotten until the next month comes round! It’s a shame because it is such a lovely project and I do want to dedicate more time to it to get all of the extra elements in but until the Barcelona Sunset is out of the way it will have to wait!

Barcelona Sunset – This month I wasn’t too far off my goal. I still had some of the third quarter to finish off which I did, then I wanted to complete half of the next quarter. Ideally, I wanted to get the lizard stitched in so that I just had the big grey wall at the bottom to finish off this month. I didn’t quite make it there due to illness and various other things taking up my time in May, however, I’m really pleased with what I achieved. If I hadn’t been full of cold for the last five days I would have managed to fill in that grey section that I’m working on, and I would have felt satisfied with that, but I’m prepared to let it go because I still feel rubbish!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! 

Helping Out a Friend

My friend and fellow blogger Charlotte commented about how many blog views I get earlier today. Thanks to the fantastic community within WordPress and some very loyal followers who I owe no end of thanks to, my blog has taken off beyond what I ever expected. I am incredibly thankful to my 200+ followers and everyone who has helped me get almost 17,000 views since starting my blog in April. I have made some fantastic friends through blogging and I love discovering new blogs and friends every day.

Some Halloween Fantasy to Fuel My Imagination…

I love Halloween. I always have since I was little. I loved getting dressed up, apple bobbing and the rare treat of (closely supervised) trick-or-treating. However, once you reach teen years (and beyond in my case), unless you like getting dressed up in skimpy costumes, drinking and clubbing, you’re pretty limited for Halloween activities. As this isn’t my cup of tea, I decided that a trip to the cinema was in order.

My first encounter of Silent Hill was thanks to my friend James, who forced (yes forced) me to watch the first film about four years ago. Horror films aren’t really thing and video games are about a million miles away from my list of past-times but there was something about Silent Hill that I really couldn’t shake off.