My Etsy shop

So a couple of weeks ago now I decided to open an etsy shop. I am so excited about this !! Even though as yet I have not had a sale, probably doesn't help that my photo skills are naff. So I've been reading lots of top tips for taking photos which I will put into practice with my next items I put on there. However one thing I was a little sad about was that my name littlemisscrossstitch was too long for etsy so I had to come up with another name for my shop. So over on etsy I am minimisscrossstitch....so very similar to my usual name just not the same though. So far I have got 9 items on there but will slowly be adding more as I make more ! My question to any to you etsy sellers is have you got any top tips for me?
I have not been doing a great deal of crafting as I have had lots of college work to get on with, I had a presentation to do on Thursday. Which I am pleased to say I passed, it will take a couple of weeks to get the actual results but at least I know I haven't failed ! Then in two weeks times there is a one to one professional discussion which I am actually dreading !! Then a couple of weeks after that we have an EXAM ! Oh my I have not had an exam since my GCSE's which where 20 years ago, I am just a little scared about that. Although one good thing is that it is an open book exam so that makes it a little less daunting.

Well that's it for now , thank you for reading my waffling
 x

Christmas crafting

Hello,
   firstly I hope your all well. I have well and truly started on the Christmas crafting, as crafty folk know you have to prepare for Christmas early ! So here a few of my latest Christmas makes

Please excuse my wonky photos

This is one of my favourite Christmas cards that I have made so far

A nice simple Christmas card.

Gingerbread man made using a Mill Hill kit

Something not Christmas related. I am desperately trying to get Heaven and Earth Designs (HAED) Grumpy Owl by Annya Kai finished before the end of the year ! Wish me luck !!

On another note I have signed up to do a 10k Steeplechase run at the end of October. Which involves lots of obstacles and also wading through water which will obviously be really cold. I have been training by running 3 times a week and getting some hill runs in I'm not sure how else I can train for it? Any suggestions would be fantastic.

Heaven and Earth Designs HAED material pack and other stuff

Hello,
    so I have not written a blog post in forever but today is the day that I'm blogging. This is mainly because yesterday I went and collect my heaven and earth design material pack and chart that I had put on layaway back in February. So as you can imagine I am quite excited about it even though I had to pay customs charge which was made up of £13 tax and a £8 handling fee from the Royal Mail ! So here is the material pack and the chart that my excitement is all about.

 So this is the deliciously pink bubble wrap envelope that it all arrived in and which heaven and earth designs call a glamour pouch which I find very amusing.

 This is the chart that I ordered along with the material pack for it. I LOVE it and can't wait to get started on it but I am going to be a really good girl and finish one of my other projects on the go before I start on this.

 So inside of the handmade dragonfly wrapping is the 18 count material to stitch the design onto, which I have not opened as yet as I don't want to tempt myself !! Inside the little pouch was a needle threader and a cute wooden needle case absolutely adorable.

So here you can see the pre-sorted threads I am so happy I don't have to sort the threads out for this project as that is always a mammoth task in itself.

So if your tempted to buy a heaven and earth material pack I would say it is more than worth it.

As I've not written a post in such a long time you won't know that I have a plot on an allotment now which is great fun and is getting there slowly but surely. It has taken some time to get it almost up to scratch but it was an overgrown disaster when I first got it. What with working, college, child and house to look after I cannot get there as often as I wish I could. It is about a 20  min drive from my house so I have applied for one nearer to mine, about a 5 min walk down the road but the waiting list is about 3-6 years long ! So in the meantime I'll keep ploughing on with the one that I have got.

Monday I am off on my holidays with my son and my daughter. My man is staying here to look after the pets. We are only going to the Isle of Sheppey but we are looking forward to it none the less

Right well that's about it for now, take care and hopefully I won't leave it 6 months next time !

Haed Grumpy Owl and other things

So as promised here is grumpy owl's progress. This is from a couple of weeks ago when I got back from the fantastic mad haeders uk weekend. I have been working on him loads over the last few weeks and have got lots more stitches put into him. I'll put some photos of him on my next blog post where hopefully I'll have loads more done. I am determined I want to finish this guy by the end of this year!

So Friday I went and did my stint at the shop where I sell some of my cards. The shop is called Norwich Gift Emporium and it is on Lower Goat Lane in Norwich city centre. If your ever in Norwich then pop by and take a look.

There is a vast array of gifts and items in the shop which are all handmade by local people. As you can see from the photos there is such a variety such as handmade glass fish and penguins. Crocheted cactus which are very popular and lots of other bits.

  I've had a lovely craft afternoon today and have made a new batch of cards. These are for sale on my facebook page littlemisscrossstitch and will be heading into the shop at some point in the near future.

I really like how these have turned out especially with the added buttons on them! I've got so many buttons ,I just love a good button as so many of us crafty people do. So I thought I'd give a go with adding them onto my papercrafted card. Do let me know what you think.

Till next time x

Mad Haed 'ers retreat weekend

So as promised here are some photos from my lovely weekend in Crewe in Cheshire with my mum. We had a fantastic weekend!

 This was us arriving in our hotel room being very pleased that we actually made it all the way. Looking a little dishevelled but I had been driving for the last 4 ish hours.

 This is the reception in the hotel. The staff where so welcoming in the wychwood park hotel and where friendly, helpful and professional throughout our stay.

 This was our view from the room, unfortunately as it was raining when I took the photo it doesn't really do it any justice. It was a lovely view, the hotel had lovely grounds. Which my mum and myself took a lovely stroll around on the Friday when we arrived so we could stretch our legs !

 I really like this painting that was in our room. I must have watched too much White Collar on Netflix as I had to look behind it to make sure there where not secrets there.

 So this is the stitching room. There where 50 of us in there in total. So 49 of us stitching all different heaven and earth design charts. I was surprised that no-one had the same design to stitch and I think most of us had more than 1 project with us. My mum doesn't actually stitch so she spent the weekend knitting. I cannot knit even though my mum had tried to teach me countless times. I cannot get to grips with holding a knitting needle in each hand. I have also tried to teach my mum to cross stitch but she can't get the hang of it. She randomly leaves a space every so often in between each stitch.

 This is my mum enjoying her healthy bowl of muesli for breakfast on the Saturday morning.

 I however enjoyed a lovely fried breakfast, then a bowl of granola and then a crossoint !

I didn't actually take any photos of my stitching over the retreat, I was too busy stitching to think about taking photos of what I was doing. Plus I tended to leave my phone in the hotel room so I wasn't distracted by facebook and Instagram. I will take some photos before I start stitching on them again so you can see how far I have come. I took old world map and grumpy owl with me. I managed to put quite a few stitches in each over the weekend.

 Excuse my messy bed, my mum was very good and had made hers ! This was on the Sunday morning when we where packing up getting ready to vacate the room. We had to be out of our rooms by 11am but we where allowed in the stitching room until 5pm. My mum and I's intention was to stay for the carvery lunch and then leave at about 1:30. However we decided to leave after we had had breakfast at 9:30am as we had a long drive in front of us.

This was my first long drive so I was very proud of myself and the mileage I covered over the weekend so had to take a photo. I had never driven on a motorway before and the thought of it was so scary. But I managed it so feel like I can go any-where  now  ! Where will my next adventure take me ?

absoulutly no idea what to call this blog post !!

Hello, so as you can probably tell from the title I always struggle with blog post titles. I mean I have had a total blank this evening...actually most of the time I do with the title. Of course its quite easy if I am writing about a specific thing but most of the time I am just yabbering away about all kind of non-sense !!

So this one of my favourite makes from 2015 so I thought I'd share it with you. I was having a look in my different albums which I have saved on dropbox and found this photo. I loved stitching this for my son...I found the pattern for this adventure time cross stitch on good old pintrest. It still has pride of place on his bookshelf. I actually found I had another one of this frames hiding amongst my craft stuff so I may make him another one.

I really wanted to get this grumpy owl by Annya Kai and charted by heaven and earth design finished in 2015. I was doing really well with it and seemed to be making good progress. However I got to that part on a large project where you seem to be putting loads of stitches in but looks like you've done nothing. So I got frustrated with it and have put it away. I have done more on it since this photo was taken but I didn't want to get it out again just to take a up to date photo (yes I was being lazy).

However in February I am going on a heaven and earth designs stitching weekend which I am really looking forward to ! My mum is coming with me...she doesn't actually cross stitch but she knits so she will be knitting the weekend away. So I am going to take my three heaven and earth design projects with me that I currently have on the go, which is obviously grumpy owl, the other two are glimpse of a unicorn and olde world map.

On a completely different note I bought myself a fitbit zip and this week I am having a week of normal activity to see what my daily steps etc is like. I then aim to increase them and I have also started to run again. I have also been trying to be good and even said no to cake at work today !!!

Well that's it for now x x

It's been a while !!

Hello ,I cannot believe my last blog was all the way back in March !! It doesn't seem like it was that long ago but I suppose time flies when you have lots of things going on . I started a foundation degree in early years in September and of course I had to go to various meetings , interviews and then inductions for it . I'm still in a bit of dis-belief that I am actually doing a degree ....me doing a degree amazing !!
So I've had a less time for crafting but it is still a big part of my life , I need to craft. It's my escape as I'm sure many of you agree ! In November I purchased a second hand big shot machine however I have not bought any dies for it yet. So it is sat waiting to be used in the spare room. Once all the expense of Christmas and New Years is over I will purchase some dies and will do lots of experimenting with them.
Unfortunately I can't seem to add any photos as I'm on the iPad ! So next time I will use the laptop instead and will hopefully be able to add some photos
Till then x.