A Year Of Happy 6/52

I have rarely ventured outside my front door this week but I still have things to be happy about...

Firstly, I DID venture out to the Post Office on Monday - and posted all my Christmas cards and parcels that were destined for people living further away.  It's the first time I've ever been organised enough to send them all off so early AND all at the same time.  It's also the only year when I haven't bought any stamps in advance so the total postage cost was a bit of a shock but I'm SO happy to have this done so early  :)

My cards are a lot simpler this year, but they are handmade and all identical - or as identical as a handmade Christmas cards can be!  I've had complaints before that I sometimes give cards that are very like ones I've given previously, so as I've never sent anyone a card like this before - problem is solved.  I've never done so many cards of one design but it was a great challenge and a great opportunity to apply some of the skills I learned on one of the printing workshops I attended earlier this year.  I took photos as I created these cards which I'll write about very soon.

My second Happy is another gift crossed off my Christmas present "To Do List".  Earlier this year I decided I wanted to make some pretty hair clips for my youngest niece, I even bought the clips a few months ago.  I know my niece likes sunflowers and ladybirds, luckily I had dies for both, so I made two clips...

I have a cat who hates having his photo taken - except when I'm taking photos of things other than my cat, so photobombing has become a hobby of his...

I really enjoyed making these for my niece, hopefully she will enjoy wearing them  :)

Spending so much time at home this week means I have managed to cross several items of my gift list but I've also finished an extra bear I started by accident last week.  I grabbed a bag of ready cut bear bits as I headed out to Craft Club, I thought I'd picked up the pieces for a bear I've been planning to make for our Craft Club exhibition thats happening early next year, instead I picked up bear bits for another bear with the same coloured fur but in a different combination.  Once I've created the head of a hear and sewn it's little face, it tends to look accusingly at me until it has a body and limbs!  I always make bears faster when I make them head first, so even though this was a "spare bear" I just had to finish him once he started giving me that look...

Could you have resisted that little face?  I was thinking of calling him Murray until one of my friends suggested I should name for a very special person who died this week, so this is Nelson - who is no longer spare.  He very quickly found a home with one of my friends and I'm looking forward to her coming to collect him in person in the New Year  :)

A Year of Happy - 5/52

What has made me happy this week?  Not all my Happies are craft related - the first was the simple pleasure of freshly laundered bedding.  Don't you just love crawling into a clean bed?  Despite how much I suffer after the struggle of changing the sheets and how hard I find it to get out of the bath - it really is worth going for both on the same day even if it's all I manage - sheer luxury!  :)

I also had an unusual view from my window this week, especially as I live in a first floor flat (or second floor apartment to my US friends)...

Its a relief that the rotten wood has been replaced in the gable over my bay window, so now I know my loft is properly weather tight again.  I saw the old piece of wood they removed - it fell apart as they were taking it down, so I'm even more thankful that it stood up to that awful storm we had recently.

My next Happy comes from making the effort to cook a "proper" meal for myself from scratch (with a lot of cheating)!  My online shopping came earlier this week and I'd ordered some field mushrooms as they were on special offer.  I discovered a recipe a while ago for healthy low fat stuffed mushrooms, its very simple to make, 2 Quorn sausages mashed up (I find it easier to cut them into small pieces first as my hands aren't too clever), pop them in a pan with some onion (I cheat and use frozen chopped onions - no tears!) and I also add some frozen chopped mixed peppers which aren't in the recipe but I like them.  Plus you chop the mushroom stalks and add them to the pan too.  I'm not terribly good at following recipes - I just chuck everything in together to cook, but the end result is very tasty.  I had mine as a main meal, served on a bed of rice (again I used frozen cooked rice) and drizzled with a little BBQ sauce - yummy!  And as I got 4 mushrooms in the packet, I had this for dinner twice this week, when you look at the calorie count in the recipe, it makes you even happier!  Unfortunately I don't have a photo to go with this as it was so tasty and I was very hungry  :)

Finally you get a photo of something I've made (sorry for the quality, most of today's photos were taken with my mobile phone camera)!  I've been working on my Christmas list again this week, ticking another name off the list makes me very happy!  :)  Only one thing has frustrated me this week and that is the fact that my living room carpet is like the Bermuda Triangle of crafting.  It seems like anything I drop on it instantly disappears!  I can understand that dropping about a dozen 4mm green crackled glass beads are going to be hard to spot on a green carpet (that was a couple of months ago and I never did find a single one) but last night it was a beaded hoop for a wine glass tag - so a silver plated metal hoop with silver plated crimp beads and 6mm red crackle beads, you would have thought that something would show up wouldn't you?  But no - I searched everywhere both last night and this morning when it was sunny, and nothing - sigh.  I have admitted defeat and beaded up another hoop so I can finish putting together my gift... another tick on my Christmas list!  :)

A stocking for a friend's beautiful Scottie, it has a doggie treat and a little gift for my friend tucked in the toe - that's two ticked off the list  :)

I found the perfect frame for this picture I made a few weeks ago for my cousin, so that's another tick  :)  I even managed to resist popping the bubble wrap that arrived wrapped around my first Christmas present the other day, it was just the right size to protect this  :)  :)

Here is another set of wine glass savers I made as another present.  They are less colourful than the other ones I've made, I used faceted black onyx beads for these. Another tick off the list  :)

All in all, it's been a pretty good week... even made it to Craft Club too  :)  :)  :)