Meet Antoinette...

I've spent the last few days in a little bunny kingdom, creating Antoinette. She will start out on an adventure tomorrow together with Andre, headed for a new life togther in Scotland.

In other news, my Kitty bead arrived from the very talented Jaq at A String of Beads and I have had another layout published in this months Scrapbook Inspirations.

Overwhelmed...

I have been overwhelmed by the good wishes, compliments and kindness of my online friends this week. Thankyou to everyone who has posted a link to my bunnies on their blogs, you have certainly raised my spirits this week and given me confidence in my self and my own abilities.

As you can see in my previous post some of the bunnies have left to make a home elsewhere and I have been asked to make some special orders too. Thankyou everyone.

After giving into Jaq's beads last week I have now completely lost the shred of willpower I had to resist buying more Dolly Beads and there is a new one winging it's way to me hopefully for the weekend:

New Homes Required...

I have had some interest in possibly selling some of my bunny creations. I don't really want to get into bunny mass production, but this week I have made a few to 'test the water' so to speak, to see if there is a market for them before investing in more fabric and materials. If they prove popular I will investigate more 'buyer - friendly' solutions for selling them but at the moment they are available on my blog, payment by cheque only.

All bunnies are approx 25 inches tall and are handmade using 100% cotton fabric and superior synthetic filling. I use a pattern by Melly & Me, two fantastic designers from Australia. Prices are £18 plus £2 for postage and packing, parcels will be posted using Royal Mail 'Signed For' service.

Please leave a message with the name of the bunny you would like to purchase together with your email or blog address or you can send an email to: andreagourley@hotmail.co.uk and I will contact you.

I may also consider making 'special orders' by request, contact me if you would like more information.

Adrienne has flown the nest to make a new home elsewhere!
Andre has flown the nest to make a new home elsewhere!
Flossy has flown the nest - or rather burrow! to find a new home elsewhere
Marguerite has flown the nest to make a new home elsewhere!

I'm a Dolly girl!

After months and months of dilly-dallying and stalking of the website I have finally given in to all that is temptation and bought my first dolly bead from the fabulous A String of Beads. Here she is, she should be with me next week - can't wait!

A Lazy Sunday Morning...

I'm still in my pyjamas, considering the options for filling the day.

I've just added some more links in the side panel down there ------------->. When I was blog hopping the other night I came across some lovely blogs by very talented peeps from the other side of the world.

Melly & Me was where I found the pattern for Flossy from yesterdays post.

I was completely inspired to go to the shop and buy some wool and some knitting needles after looking at the Little Cotton Rabbits blog and last night my Mam gave me a crash course in knitting and by bed time I had made two rabbit legs, tonight we are doing her body so check back later in the week!

Check out Betz White's blog, I really loved the colours in her felted Easter eggs (just scroll down a bit). I made felt when I was at uni but it was never anything like that!

There are a few other too Cupcakes for Clara, Domesticali and Sweet Pea

I bought a bunch of daffodils when I was in M&S during the week, they are sitting on my windowsill brightening my room. I have never seen daffodils like these before, they have lots and lots of petals and are so puffy and fluffy. Apologies for the bad photograph, I should of taken them off the windowsill before I took their photograph!

Meet Flossy

The pattern by Melly & Me that I mentioned a few posts ago arrived yesterday afternoon and I have been busy creating with my sewing machine. Now that she is finished I have decided to put her up on the wall in my scraproom. My desk runs the width of the room under the window so she can hang at one side and hopefully next week I can make her a bunnyfriend to hang on the other side. I bought some lovely pale denim and small floral pale denim cotton in John Lewis this morning so he shall have dungarees fit for a king!

Fridays Adventures...

Today we had a day out at Alnwick Gardens. The weather was supposed to be sunny and warm - just right for a picnic. Well, it didn't go to plan as the weather was NOT warm and sunny. Instead it was misty, damp and freezing cold. I made Mam take a picture out of the car window as we were driving up the A1 and even at 11:45 when we arrived the temperature was only 8 degrees.

We enjoyed wandering around all of the fountains and I got a very wet coat and jeans because I wasn't concentrating on where I was going and was looking through my camera instead.

The treehouse was lovely, we really wanted to have afternoon tea in the restaurant but they weren't serving until much later so we made do with a chocolate muffin in the car.

Mam was a real wuss and didn't want to walk across the bridges so she took photographs of me bouncing along them instead.

Yesterdays creations...

Orange

Purple

I found these buckets in IKEA a couple of days ago, I thought they'd make great presents with the addition of a few ribbons and some embellishments, not this one though, it's for my scraproom. At the moment it is holding all the gorgeous fabric that I bought yesterday from Ring-A-Rosie

Inspired...

It all started last night when I was blog hopping (as you do at 1:00AM when you really should be in bed!) and I came across this blog called Melly & Me, oh my goodness have you seen what these clever girls can do with a few pieces of fabric and a sewing machine????? I had to stay up even later so that I could take a closer look at all of their creations, and then I discovered that they sell patterns. There is a UK shop selling their patterns and as I type there is a pattern to make these delightful little bunnies hop hop hopping its way to me (with a little bit of help from Karen with the whole paypal thing). So then I decided thast I really needed to drive over to my favourite fabric shoppie Ring-A-Rosie to buy some lovely fabric to make their dresses and dungaroos.

Whilst I was there I saw a little hand knitted ballerina bunny rabbit in the window and so I got the pattern for that too. I can't knit but after finding this blog I am just going to have to learn how to!
I finished my latest set of ATCs, this time purple. I'll try and photograph them tomorrow as I just ran out of time today. After my visit to the fabric shop I went to visit my friend and her gorgeous 3 week old baby son and spent the rest of the afternoon baby worshipping.

Tonight I called in at Borders looking for something to read but nothing jumped off the shelves at me. Perhaps I'll find something at the weekend when I'm out and about.

Tomorrow we're off for an adventure at the Alnwick Garden and we're having a picnic - I love picnic weather!

More ATCs

My scraproom looks like a button factory, I think I have more on the floor than in the jars! It must be the sunshine giving me inspiration for these ATCs as it is glorious weather here, just perfect for the Easter Holiday.

I have traded nearly all of yesterdays, there are 2 left if anyone is interested, 1 green, 1 blue.

ATCs

Yesterday whilst I was mooching through my stash I made some ATCs (Artist Trading Cards). It was the buttons that I needed to play with, after making pretty patterns on my desk I thought I should actually use them to create with and these were the outcome.

Changing my banner...

Yes, I know that I've changed my banner more times this week than I have worn clean socks (which by the way I change everyday) but I have been playing in Photoshop, continuing my quest to learn more than just the basic of basic-ness. Sue asked me how you add a banner to a blog and it's really easy as long as you follow the instructions carefully. My friend Clare has very good instructions on her blog which are very straightforward. Have a look there Sue, you'll need to create a banner either by crafting it and then scanning and cropping to the correct size or by doing it in your photo editing software. I use Photoshop Elements 5. Hope this helps, I'll be checking on you mind so you'd better get a move on!!

Meet Ruby...

Ruby Red, the latest addition to my scrap room. I can't remember how long it is since I made the last 'Angels from the North' but it is a long time. Anyway, she will hang on the wall at the side of the window and keep watch over my desk as I work.

Holiday Monday...

Spent walking in the park in the sunshine. There is a plant nursery at the entrance to the park car park but whenever we go it's always closed as it is usually evening time. Today it was open so we went in for a little lookie, I didn't know that it is staffed and run by volunteers of the Gateshead Allotment Society. We had taken no money with us so we'll have to go back as they had lots of plants we would like for our garden. One of them was this pink plant, I have no idea what it's called, Mam did tell me but I have forgotten.

We had a lovley walk in the park and it was nice to see it being used by families for riding bikes and trikes, playing ball games, walking dogs, eating picnics, sailing boats on the lake and generally spending time outdoors.

Happy Easter Sunday

The sun is shining here and a good day looks promising. We're having a big family meal this evening, roast turkey and all trimings rather like a Christmas feast without the crackers!

I have a chocolate egg to munch later and plans for lots of crafting to be done. Last night I made chocolate nest buns (cupcakes) and have already eaten one this morning for my breakfast!!

A bit of inspiration for a Saturday morning...

This morning I've crossed off another thing on my list of things to do - update the links to the blogs I read down the side there --------->

It didn't take long to do but I hate doing admin type tasks, I could never work in an office I would be far too depressed. Don't worry, I'm the same at school - I have a drawer labelled 'filing' and when it gets so full that I can't squeeze anything extra in I'm meant to file it all but in reality I tend to just start another one. The girls I work with made me spend a whole afternoon before the Easter holidays emptying and filing the whole caboodle - very depressing. Anyway, I have digressed.

So who has been added to the list? The very talented Heather whose blog I visit everyday and think that you should too, Suzanne Torr who is one of the most fantastic scrappers that I know of and the only one of my online friends that I have actually met in real life and she is just a fabulous person and is through to the TOP 5 OF MM IDOL!!!!! I added a few digi blogs too that I seem to visit regularly and some textile/fabric blogs that I also visit to feast my eyes on their gorgeous creations and piles of rather colourful fabric.

Felt flowers...

I've had a few questions about the felt flowers and the tags from a previous post (the glass jars full of chocolate nibbles). I made the felt flowers using my daisy sizzix die and some hand sewing and a few buttons from my huge stash of buttons. The tags were just leftovers with a Heidi Swapp ghost letter anchored by running it through the sewing machine. Hope this answers the questions.

I used them on this layout:

I used them together with a huge pink artificial flower that I took apart to use on a card.

Pictures from the zoo