Resolutions

I don't usually make resolutions because I'm not very good at keeping them, but this year so many of my friends were making 14 resolutions for 2014 that I thought I would have a go at making some too.

I wanted to use a Dungeness photo here and this was the only one I could find on my computer, it's not the most exciting photo of the place, which is beautiful, desolate and surreal, but maybe appropriate for today's theme of looking back and looking forward...

Now we're nearly a month into the New Year, I thought I'd share my list and how I'm doing so far...

1. Try to make at least one bear a month - I don't know about you but I've been feeling really flat this month and struggling to get going with my crafting after the big push to complete Christmas presents in time, but I may just manage to finish my current bear by the end of the month so I might be on track for this one  :)
2. Rehome the last of Sue's things - it will soon be a year since my friend died but I still have a couple of things to deliver.  I just need to recontact the people concerned and make a bit more effort on this one.
3. Visit Wildwood - a proper visit this time, and I promise to take my camera and share some photos with you.  It's such a special place, well worth a visit  :)
4. A photo day in Dungeness - another great place to visit, I've been promising myself a return visit for about two years, so it's about time I got around to it!
5. Stop lending (giving) son money!  This is a hard one as he's one of the most disorganised people on the planet, but he needs to learn to stand on his own two feet and keep helping him out isn't doing much for my finances.  Tough love is VERY hard and I've broken this one already, but I'm slowly getting better at it.
6. Try to go to the pool more often - I was never a confident swimmer and these days I can rarely even bring myself to let go of the rail!  I go to a very warm pool just a few miles away when I do go, but haven't been well enough so far this year, so complete fail on this one so far  :(
7. Be more organised - I've managed on the whole to keep on top of a couple of target tasks, so I'm going to count this one as a success  :)
8. Try a new craft - hopefully this will be another success as I'm booked on a one morning workshop this weekend  :)
9. Tackle the paperwork pile - well I've started, and even taken a bag full of shredded paper for recycling so another success  :)
10. Declutter - I've done a bit of decluttering recently with the help of Freegle, so I'm going to count this one as a success.  :)
11. Go to bed earlier and try to get up earlier - hmmm... I've been sleeping so badly that I think I'll call this one a work in progress.
12. Make more effort to keep in touch with family and friends - I think this will have to count as a work in progress too as I've already missed sending a couple of birthday cards  :/
13. Join in a craft blog swap - I'm actually working on this one!  I'm registered with a swap, I have a swap partner and I've even gathered together some items I've made so this one should be a success!  :)
14. Eat more healthily - this is obviously a long term goal and ignoring today's rather haphazard diet, I have been working on this one.  It's my birthday this week so I'm not going to get stressed if friends or family feed me a chocolate muffin or a Crunchie bar (guilty on both counts) but on the whole I've been doing quite well at cutting down on unhealthy snacks and have so far lost around 6 lbs  :)

So on the whole I've been doing quite well I think so I don't think my resolutions are going to be a complete disaster.  Maybe this year I've been more realistic with my tasks?  Looking at the list, I seem to have set a range of long and short-term goals, some of which I don't need to tackle straight away and I'm not giving myself a hard time over any slips.  It will be interesting to take another look at the list at the end of the year to see how I feel about my list then.  I wonder if I'll be able to say I succeeded with all my tasks?

Jaffa - My Awesome Friend!

I know I haven't posted for a while, my son gave me a virus for Christmas and it took me a while to recover.  I haven't been crafting much lately either, but hopefully I'll get back to crafting AND blogging very soon.  This post is a little different, I'm not writing it because I want sympathy, but as a celebration for the life of a wonderful cat who I loved dearly.

I first met Jaffa as I walked my son home from his first day at school.  My son was always rather obsessed by cats and wanted to make friends with every cat he met, unfortunately in those early days of our relationship with Jaffa, he wasn't too impressed with our attempts at getting to know him - in fact it would be no exaggeration to say he hated us and probably every other human in existence!

One thing we did notice on our daily walks past his house was that his food bowl was kept in the front garden and that sometimes when it rained the dish would fill with water and stay that way for a couple of days, so we started buying cat food and throwing it for our ungrateful new friend from a distance because he would hiss, spit and strike out if you got too close.  One day, a couple of years on, I noticed that Jaffa had one of his front legs trapped under his collar and he was struggling frantically to free himself.  I tried to help him but couldn't do it alone, so I knocked on his owner's door.  Luckily someone was home and between us we managed to take the collar off and that was when I learned our little furry friend/fiend was called Jaffa.  He seemed to be warming to us a little after that, so my son suggested I should try to stroke him - I waited till his mouth was full of cat biscuits before I tried and thankfully survived unscathed.

After that, both Jaffa and I became braver and I think we both used to look forward to our daily meetings.  Sometimes after dropping my son off at school, I would sit on the pavement and Jaffa would climb onto my lap for a cuddle.  This went on for several more years until one day, he just wasn't there anymore!  We were so worried that something had happened to him but then we met one of Jaffa's neighbour's in town who told us that he was now living at a local cat sanctuary.  Well as you can imagine, both my son and I wanted to go and see how our little furry friend was doing.  I didn't drive back then, but one of our neighbours offered to drive us over and I don't know who was the happiest - him or us - and I'm sure you've guessed by now that within two days, Jaffa had moved into our home.

The top right photo above was taken on the day he moved in, in fact it was taken within the first hour that he was under our roof.  When he arrived and was taken out of the travel box, he gave us a sniff, he stalked from room to room to get his bearings (or maybe just to be nosey), then he jumped onto the sofa, into the seat nearest the radiator (it was February) and as you can see, he made himself right at home!

I worried a lot in the early days that he wouldn't settle into living indoors after so many years outside, but he never wanted to go outside again.  The one and only time I took him downstairs onto our courtyard, he climbed onto my lap as I sat on the outside step and he was trembling so much that I quickly took him back indoors again and apart from the very regular vet trips in the last year of his life, he remained indoors for the rest of his life.

We had almost five wonderful years together before he journeyed across the Rainbow Bridge.  He was my constant companion whenever I was home, like a small furry shadow.  He was completely food obsessed, you can see him begging for a piece of chicken in the middle right photo; and see him drinking from his preferred water bowl in the bottom left photo - I tried everything I could think of to stop that particular habit, even tried giving him bottled water, but nothing worked, it was just one of his little quirks.  The top right photo shows him on top of the fridge, I have a very small kitchen and the fridge has to sit on the worktop as I have a freezer that lives where a fridge should be.  He only ever climbed on top of the fridge that one time - it had taken him ages to figure out how, he once did the same with the television too and sat himself carefully among the cat ornaments I kept there.

These days I share my home with another awesome cat, he's very different in looks and character from Jaffa for which I'm grateful.  I love Marley dearly, but there was just something about Jaffa that I still miss to this day - six years and three days after losing him!

After he died, I couldn't bear the thought of just walking away, so I asked for his ashes to be returned.  I would have liked to have buried them in a nice sunny spot but I don't have a garden, so his ashes are still with me.  Maybe one day I'll have a little garden where he can be laid to rest.

I would say to anyone who is thinking about getting a pet, check out your local animal rescue centre.  The connection you can develop with a rescued animal is amazing.  I've grown up with cats and dogs, we were never without pets when I was a child, but the best relationships I've ever had with any pet has always been with those who have been rescued.  I probably would never have considered taking on an eleven year old cat if I hadn't known him before he needed a new home but I'll never regret taking Jaffa into my home, he was such a gentleman  :) and I would definitely consider taking on an older cat again in the future.  Everyone loves kittens, but older cats need love too and if you find room in your heart and your home for an older cat, I found the rewards were definitely worth it and I hope you do too.

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  :)  :)  :)

A Year of Happy - 4/52

Well I haven't ventured out much this week, the weather has been mostly cold, wet and miserable but its been quite a good week for ticking a few people off my Christmas present list which I'm very happy about.

When I decided I would like to hand craft all my presents this year, I didn't take into consideration just how much time and energy it would take, so as time is passing, I have cheated and bought a few presents but I'm happy that I've also made use of some of the crafting materials I have on hand and this week I've enjoyed the challenge of turning some of them into gifts.  So all my happies for this week are crafting related...

My first happy is that I finished my Secret Santa gift this week!  Obviously I can't give you any details about this one right now as it might spoil the surprise if my SS recipient sees it, but there was a great sense of achievement when it was done.  You might also notice I had another little play with my question mark illustration on Photoshop during the week too - I wanted to make it look a bit more interesting.

My second happy is a pair of cushions I've made for my eldest niece and nephew who recently bought a house between them as a way onto the housing ladder.  They have a mid-grey sofa with green piping so I've made these out of a piece of fabric I bought earlier this year.  The fabric design sometimes makes me think of a coastal scene and at other times it makes me think of Venice - either way, I knew I wanted to decorate the cushions with "bunting".  I bought half a yard/metre if this fabric, which was enough for two cushion fronts but not the backs, luckily the strip I cut off the top of the fabric, was wide enough to decorate the back...

I used a simple pillowcase construction and attached the strip to the edge of the top flap, the rest of the back was cut from a large piece of cream cotton I bought I few years ago and never used.  The "bunting" is made from the cream fabric too, I wanted to keep it plain so it didn't distract from the lovely green fabric.  I was also incredibly lucky with how the back strip worked out - just enough to be able to place the buildings at the top and some boats at the bottom.

I did the stitching with a mid-grey cotton which will hopefully match with the sofa.  I'd never done machine applique before - it was a little scary but I'm pleased with how it turned out.  One last photo...

My last Happy is a bag I've made for a friend of mine - she loves environmentally friendly shopping bags.  She's also a quilter so the bag needed to be really well made...

I used some more of the cream fabric and added a border of a pretty birdie fabric which I used as inspiration for the machine applique I used on the front.  This shape wasn't as easy to sew around and it wasn't as easy to see what I was doing as the colours were so similar.  The handles are reinforced with webbing and sewn in about 5 times on each end, while the side seams are double sewn so all the raw edges are hidden (I have no idea what that type of seam is called).  The bag itself is made from a single piece of fabric which will hopefully make the bag stronger and give my friend a reasonable amount of use out of it.

Hopefully I haven't spoiled any surprises here as I'm reasonably confident that my niece, nephew and friend don't read my blog.  If any of them come across this before Christmas Day, then please accept my apologies, but I was just so happy with what I've made this week that I really wanted to share  :)

A Year of Happy - 3/52

It's that time of the week when I think of three things that have made me happy in the last week...

The first is that I've made progress on my Secret Santa.  The first part of my gift is reasonably straight forward and is now completed.  The second part will take me into a more unknown territory of crafting but I've been out today and bought the supplies I'm going to need and I always love a good crafting challenge.  Obviously I can't show you a photo of what I've done so far in case my Secret Santa recipient should see this, so the only way I can illustrate this "happy" is like this...

My second "happy" was spending time with friends on Wednesday.  I'm finding that I'm struggling so much with my health lately that I spend a lot of time on my own at home. This month Craft Club, which runs fortnightly, fell on the same day as Fibro Group, which runs monthly.  I rather stupidly decided I could manage to attend both.  Fibro Group was fine, I really enjoyed it and went home determined to have a proper rest for a few hours before heading out again for Craft Club. Unfortunately, relaxing is something I'm not very good at, no matter how tired I am!  We'd decided to only spend an hour at Craft Club which I also really enjoyed, despite feeling pretty rough by the end and feeling even worse for the rest of the night I did make progress on my current crafting project thanks to some assistance from my friend Clare from "Summerhouse by the Sea", I think I'd have really struggled with what I was doing without an extra pair of hands!

My third "happy" was the relief of remembering I had a spare bear stashed away that was just perfect as a gift for a friend's daughter's birthday present.  Hard to believe that "E" is now 16!!!  Where does the time go?  E is often one of the first people to like teddy photos I post on Facebook so I'd asked my friend what colours her daughter liked.  I was a little worried about being able to complete a bear in time until I remembered my spare bear, named Pixie Belle.  Unfortunately I didn't make it to the party as I wasn't well again, so Pixie Belle is still here for the moment waiting for a meet up with my friend, hopefully one day this week.  I shall have to try and make a couple more spare bears at some point.

Pixie Belle is a little larger than my regular bears - she's around 4 inches tall.  I had to make her bigger to fit the hat I bought at a Hugglets bear fair a few years ago.  I added the charm to the end of the hat as I think reaching 16 is special and worth remembering.  I was told that E's favourite colour is purple, so E and Pixie look like they're meant for each other!  :)

Wishing you all a very happy week.

A Year of Happy - 2/52

Already a late with my second week of 3 happy things - will have to try and keep up a bit better or it might take me more than a year to get through it!

Number 1:

My first happy thing for this week has to be finishing Clarabelle, my 101st bear - this is a biggie for this week as I've been struggling to make her since July!  I don't know whether the push to get to my 100th bear overworked my hands or just left me feeling completely burned out, but I suspect it was a combination of the two things that has left me struggling with "crafter's block" for a while now - finishing little Clarabelle has felt like a real achievement and she's already on her way to a friend who I think has waiting long enough for her new little beary friend!  I'd originally planned for this to be a housewarming gift but as she moved back in August, its more like an early Christmas present now!  LOL

Number 2:

My second good thing is taking a little longer to appreciate... its a certificate from my university - an acknowledgement for the work I've already put in on my degree - its a good thing, I know it is, but making the decision not to go back and finish this year was a hard one to make, but it was also the right one because I know I wasn't healthy enough to go back.  Receiving the certificate felt very final even though I still have the option to go back and finish whenever I'm ready.  However I know that once I've had a little bit of time to get used to the idea, I will be happy about my certificate, it represents four years of hard work that were also happy years of meeting new friends, learning new skills and being pushed out of my comfort zone to achieve more than I ever thought I could.

Number 3:

My third happy thing is much smaller - I went swimming the other day... when I say swimming, I actually mean I went to a pool, not my local one as the water's too cold for my joints, but another one nearby thats much warmer.  I was never much good at swimming as a kid but have since completely lost confidence and usually keep a death grip on the railing at the edge of the pool, but this time I managed to let go for short periods of time as long as my feet were touching the bottom of the pool, so I felt pretty good about my trip even though I suffered a lot of pain afterwards for going.  But even better than that was being able to wash my hair under the showers there, feels so much nicer than when I have to wash it at home laying down in the bath - such a little thing - soft, clean, properly rinsed hair but it's the highlight of my week!

Thought I'd finish with a photo of Bo Bear in her swimming costume, she was my first bear of 2013.