I do love a morning when the postie brings absolutely no grown up post whatsoever.NO bills.NO snail mail spam.NO election leaflets.NO appointment letters.Just oodles of lovely things for me to play with:)Karen of All Things Blonde was in need of a new name for her lovely bias binding in blues. Now I'm fairly rubbish at coming up with names, but (luckily for me) the winner would be picked randomly from a hat, so I had a bash and my gorgeous new bias binding arrived in the post this morning. Thanks Karen!
I genuinely couldn't make my mind up which colours to choose so left it up to Karen to surprise me and she sent a gorgeous selection of reds. I'm particularly fond of the floral one at the bottom and Chloe has already earmarked it for a little reversible top I had planned to make for her. I think I may go the whole hog, order a few more metres of the cherry red and whip up a sun hat while I'm at it, a few metres of the lime green may sneak into my basket while I'm there ... for a skirt. A girl can never have too many skirts.In other news, the ladybirds also arrived this morning and so the big green beaded leaf has made it's way over to 100s and 1000s.
After having a featured item on Folksy, the past couple of days have been very busy over Leanne Woods Designs so it's high time I got my finger out and photographed my new range of bicycle bags, the shop seems to be getting very light on stock and I get antsy if it drops below a certain level.Time to get myself out in that sunshine, don't you think?
I must admit to having a bit of a thing for seed beads.I kind of like them ... a lot.And I buy them, lots of them, in all different colours and shapes and sizes and finishes. On the face of it there isn't any good reason for me to have so many, I make precious little in the way of jewellery, nothing at all really beyond the very rare custom order, maybe a wrap bracelet or two and I keep my mum in earrings because as much as she loves them she's forever losing them.And yet I've drawers full of tiny little glass beads. It was time to use them.
They're like the little work horses of jewellery, almost always there, playing supporting roles to bigger more impressive beads, tying everything together and they're mostly overlooked. 
Maybe that's why I like them so much, hard at work and getting very little credit. They're a bit like the wadding in the quilt, all the glory goes to the gorgeous fabric, but it just wouldn't be a quilt without the wadding.
They're fairly time consuming little things to make, usually with anywhere between 200 and 400 individual beads to sew, but I enjoy making them.They're a bit too different from what I usually make to sit comfortably in my shop, so I've opened another. So far I've been wrapped up in brooches but have plans for pendants and maybe some earrings too.
You can find them all now at 100s and 1000s on Folksy, well all apart from the leaf which is eagerly awaiting the arrival of a little ladybird.
Everyone, this is Mo.
Our newest family member is settling in quite nicely and proving to be a lovable little ball of squeaky snuggles.
Not a chicken dinner though ... sorry.The good news is that the pin has been found!!!
I honestly thought it was hidden about as well as a giggling 6 year old hiding behind a curtain that's about 8 inches short of the floor, but it was only found by two people.Still, it means that none of my lovely customers will be poked with a pin, fictional or otherwise, when they open a parcel from me.And now for the winner. From the two people who found the pin (Gill and Stephanie), Random.org picked ... [insert drum roll here] ... Gill Watson.Congratulations Gill, I'll drop you a wee email now, feel free to have a browse and choose your prize.
Oh the sick, evil, twisted irony of growing pains, I remember them well! The irony being that I always was and still to this day am a short arse and now my poor wee girl is suffering with them too. She's as much of a short arse petite as I was and yet I remember those pains being absolute agony and Chloe doesn't seem willing to let them pass as "mildly uncomfortable" either.For anyone lucky enough to be unfamiliar with growing pains, they're a pain sometimes cramp like in nature which occurs in the muscles of the legs and arms, usually in the evening or at night when the child is tired and probably already a bit grumpy, they can occur earlier in the day but often because of a fairly fast paced or "on the go" sort of day with lots going on and tons of places to be.In short they cause almost no problems during the day leaving kids to run and skip and hop and jump and play all day long and crumple in "agony" almost at the very mention of bedtime resulting in most parents (my own mum and even with 20/20 hindsight me included) thinking their kids are faking or laying it on a bit thick.It's been going on for about ten days now with it either keeping Chloe awake until almost midnight or she's fallen asleep a bit earlier than normal only to be woken out of a sleep in pain for a couple of hours at half past daft o'clock. She's not been at her most reasonable for the past couple of weeks, neither have I for that matter. I'm actually dreading the next couple of days, tomorrow her class is walking to the library in town in the morning then on Wednesday and Thursday night Chloe's in her class play. She'll need to go back to school at 7.00pm both nights, the play begins at 7.30pm and then she can go home at 8.00pm, so that's two fairly busy days considering that 8.00pm is already a good half hour past Chloe's usual bed time routine. I know she's six now and most kids stay up a bit later than that, but I've said before that this is her bedtime routine and we don't mess with it. She knows when she wants her shower and jammies and to curl up for the night. She just never has been a night owl, the kid loves her bed. I just know both nights are going to end in tears by the time we get her home and ready for bed the pains will have kicked in and it'll be a rough night for all involved. Thursday will definitely be worse than tomorrow.And speaking of her being six now, the whole lack of sleep thing meant that the poor child's birthday passed as something of a non event. She did go to soft play hell with a few friends in the afternoon but she just couldn't seem to be bothered with the whole thing and didn't want to go running around with her friends. I'm fairly certain it's the lack of sleep catching up with her, we're just hoping now to cruise into the weekend and she can go to the cinema with a friend on Saturday and have cake and popcorn.I just hope these growing pains realise Chloe isn't destined to be some great six footer and clear off sometime soon because there just isn't enough caffeine in the world:)
