moved out

fancied a bit of a change to revitalise myself a bit so I have moved my blog over to wordpress, I am still gentlytiptoe so please come and see me there!

Button Your Eyes

Tuesdays snowman must have known about this, a new film Coraline that is out this week in the US, not sure when it comes to the UK, soon I hope. After first reading about it at Craftzine blog I have spent the evening watching trailers and playing with the website and looking at the boxes they sent out to 50 different blog sites to promote the film. check it out, it looks really cool. It is stop frame animation, and has lots of crafty things, tiny knitting, sewing, circus mice, cool music including a song by They might be Giants, and of course buttons! you can download the button poster(above) and several others from their site, you can find it in one of the pictures in the sitting room of the house. I am going to frame mine and put it on the wall, its slighty creepy, but I like it.

snow day

Esme's mini snowman.

Please bear with us if you live somewhere snowy, but it doesn't happen much here, today it snowed! We made a big snowman, bigger than the children, and some mini-ones, threw lots of snowballs, and sledged down the main road, as there were no cars and the roads were snowed over. Then back into the house for homemade soup and homemade bread, and to warm up in front of a cosy log fire.

I am regretting throwing out my wellies a few weeks ago, my shoes aren't really up to snow play, being open on top and smooth underneath, which is kind of skiddy when pushing big snowman body parts and at the same time carrying a 9 month old in a sling. all good fun though, now the gloves and hats are drying out, I wonder if there will be any snow left to play in tomorrow?

paper butterflies

I have been enjoying cutting out lots of these little butterflies this past week, an instantly gratifying craft activity.


I have been using the teensiest cuticle scissors, and tracing the butterfly images from a book of insects and flowers. All the butterflies I have cut are native to western Europe. Way too chilly here for butterflies at the moment though, maybe we will have snow this weekend?

Hello again!

I guess I should first wish you a happy new year. It has been a while hasn't it. Sometimes, with 4 kids and all that, stuff gets hectic. Excuses, excuses.

Anyway, I crocheted this little hat just before christmas using a ball of lovely wool that I received in a red and pink swap from Amity a gazzilion years ago (a long time anyway). I got the pattern from this funny book of crazy hats. Strangers stop me on the street to comment on it, I think that means it is cute, thats the reason I'm hoping anyway. I went in the Pound shop this afternoon and the lady on the till said to the other assistant, look, its that baby in her sling with the hat who we saw this morning.

I'm the talk of the Pound shop.

pumpkin fun

We dont really do halloween, but I do like a pumpkin, so last Thursday we went to the pumpkin farm and chose a nice big one to carve. They were quite pricey so we all shared one and squandered the rest of our money on the other goods for sale; locally made ice cream (for the children) and hot chocolate (for the grown ups) to enjoy at the farm, and a jar of fresh honey to take away with us. There was also a walk with clues that took us into the orchard, past the henhouse, through the vinyard and back to the pumpkins. The children charged round, it was freezing but very sunny, and we had a really lovely afternoon.

autumn acorns and mice

Getting into the Autumn groove, I have been enjoying making these acorn caps over the last week or so, I am not so good at crochet really, but these are easy peasy! The children have been enjoying the Brambly hedge Autumn story. We love the detailed illustrations of the little mice houses.





(ps, the acorn cup pattern was not originally by me, I found it on whip up (I think!) but now i cant find it to put in a proper link)(link added, it was via crafty crow!)