My daughter in Seoul

I do miss my daughter Jemma so much now she is living so far away in Seoul. 
She is having a wonderful time and we are in contact on skype , telephone, facebook and email, so I can't complain too much :)  


She recently started blogging about her life there, which is of course so different to Halifax and the first two years she spent in University after leaving home. 
 Even though I lived in London myself and come from Manchester originally, It is quite different to the huge City of Seoul with it's culture and people.
http://jemmasseoul.tumblr.com/


I think of her often and am so happy she is living her dream.

Midsummer Madness

A busy few weeks has meant that my blog has been somewhat neglected so I shall try my best to get back into the swing of things.  
First of all our family became official Canadian citizens on June 2nd, it has been a long and complicated process as anyone who has ever immigrated to another country will know.  We attended the swearing in ceremony just a couple of weeks after completing our knowledge of Canada test and were presented with our certificates and Citizenship cards along with 47 other new citizens from 20 different countries.  

Taken outside the
Cunard Centre where the  ceremony was held in Halifax 

 

A few days following the ceremony we bid an emotional farewell to Jemma at Halifax airport, seeing her off on her year long student exchange venture to Korea!!  

Hugs from Daddy at the airport.
Our little girl is all grown up and independent now and is loving the many wonderful new experiences that the huge city of Seoul has to offer, certainly an exciting place to be spending her 20th birthday in just a few days.  She is making lots of new friends, adapting to the local culture and customs living with a sweet host family about an hour away from the University.  In September she will move into the campus dormitories which will cut out the travelling time and be more convenient during her study months.  Yesterday she found out that she has been awarded another scholarship by the University of Seoul. We are all delighted and very proud of her.  I am loving Skype these days when we can actually see her in her little bedroom as she gives us a weekly update.  
Our house is now on the market with Property Guys, we have decided to have a go at marketing it ourselves.  We have full control of the live site which is a much more accepted way of selling these days.  We don't anticipate a quick sale, but you never know.  With Amber still in high school for another year we can't move too far away until she goes to University.  
The garden is looking lush and green, the humming birds are back of course in huge numbers now that the fledglings have hatched, it's hard to keep up with filling the two feeders outside the window.  The hydrangeas are enormous as are the hosta's and we have salad ingredients coming out of our ears in the veggie patch!!  Wonderful and definitely my favorite time of year.
Here is a link to our listing if you would like to take a peek :)
http://propertyguys.com/property/index/id/59634 

Sipping some of David's Tea !!

To remember my last visit to Halifax, staying with my daughter Jemma we took a little afternoon walk up the road to a delightful tea shop called David's Tea.  I had passed this venue by on many occasion mistakenly thinking it was just a shop selling ceramic tea pots and cups and didn't realise there were a few seats inside!!  
What a lovely surprise when we entered and discovered a wonderful choice of delicious sounding teas to choose from.  The shop was laid out so neatly with a large array of items to purchase all The menu was quite mind boggling, with names like 'Three Wishes', La la Lemon', Butterfly Jasmine' and 'Jumpy Monkey' !! The lady behind the counter was so friendly and we finally came to a decision.
Jemma chose the organic 'Creme Brulee, while I opted for the 'Mint Chocolate Rooibos'. Both proved to be good choices and were delicious.  We sat and chatted whilst sipping and watching the shoppers on Spring Garden road go by.  Before leaving I bought a bottle of Organic agave nectar, a natural liquid sweetener that looks similar to honey. I am unable to have real sugar with GSD, so it will be a nice alternative to Stevia in my drinks.  

In keeping with the tea theme I would like to share some related finds on Etsy:

This sweet teacup ring is from Jennifer's shop Bellehibou  
I added this print to my favourite items a while ago by Joojoo

Happy Mother's Day 2011

Happy Mother's Day to all you lovely Mum's out there!!
My own mum lives so far away in South Africa and I do wish I were spending the day with her of course.  However, being a mum myself with two very sweet daughters I shall no doubt be enjoying a special day at home tomorrow.  Jemma is coming home on the bus this evening and has taken Monday off work to spend some extra time with me.  Craig will be running her back into the City in the afternoon, where he also has a job interview lined up (fingers and toes crossed).  
Before I show you my own latest Etsy listing here are a couple of shout outs for some recently added items in my 'favourites'  
Thanks to my recent involvement in 'circles' I get to spot some different and new items that other etsy sellers and buyers add to their favourites and I look forward to seeing what new activity each day brings.  I am even getting added to other peoples circles so it's all good.
This shop Homestead Treasures sells beautiful hand stamped cotton trim in shabby chic and Parisian styles, I am thinking or ordering some to use as tie backs for my curtains. 

Here are my own little Mother's day gifts and sweet home made cards from Jemma and Amber - thank you girls xx

Fellow Etsy sellers...

Spending so much time recently concentrating on being creative with special request orders for Etsy buyers I have been doing a bit of browsing.  This week I found a couple of fellow sellers here in Canada and wanted to show you some of their lovely work.


I found this shop Pin Wheel Designs located in Bear River and run by Amy.   

I love her words and illustrations and wanted to share a couple of them on here.

With so many to choose from it was hard to pick my personal favourite.

Then I came across  Jackie  in Montreal, who takes such delightful photographs that would look perfect in my kitchen.

April is Sew busy :)

Too busy to write anything at the moment so here are some links to a few new items already in my shop or about to be listed  :)

 Four felted wool heart pops!

 Tiny kitten with wings (still to list)

 Tiny Unicorn 

 Little lovebirds - Wedding Cake Topper

Tiny Giraffe  

Cute little silky mini dress

Valentine's Day 2011

For all you romantics out there in blog land
"Happy Valentine's Day"  
Not a big day really in our house to be honest,  although I did get a little hand made card from Craig and a cup of tea in bed.  I am usually the one up and about at 6am putting on the kettle and stoking up the wood stove, so it was a pleasant start to the day.  
Another couple of weeks have passed by since my last posting.  Nothing very eventful this past week except visiting Jemma in Halifax, which I do enjoy.  We did our usual which consists of  chatting on her daybed, watching a movie (Tamara Drewe), a hilarious British comedy, cooking a meal together, topping up her pantry and having a little hunt around the local thrift stores. This time we popped into a fascinating Asian grocery store.  I found some delicious super crunchy sprouts that tasted delicious in my salad, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to stir fry them, I expect they would taste good that way too.  I also bought some coconut milk to add to the next Korma curry I shall concoct sometime in the near future.  Jem bought her favourite bubble tea and some extra spicy noodles for her lunch.
Coconut milk was actually one of the ingredients in the cocktail Craig and I made up last weekend when we were once again invited to Bridget and Kirk's annual cocktail competition/party.  The ingredients were to serve about 12 people and this was our recipe:

On our original trial run making up just enough for 1 drink we had some banana in the mix but it ended up looking like a brown murky sludge, so we swapped the banana for the coconut milk and crossed our fingers that it would be ok on the night.  Happily it was. We named our cocktail Oriental Express  and everyone seemed to enjoy it, even though we didn't win first prize, we did get a pretty good score all round and Craig even amused the guests with an impromptu silly speech giving a story behind the name.  
You might remember the James Bond themed one I blogged about last year?  This year the theme was 1920's gangster, think flapper or Bonnie and Clyde.  I do enjoy dressing up and with a few items I already had in my dressing up box it didn't take much to complete our outfits for the night.  I hunted down a long cigarette holder and Amber even helped by making a fake cigarette to fit in the end!  

The satin gloves and feather boa that came in very handy.

Cocktail making in progress....

Once again I shall give my shop a little necessary advertising.  Another custom order came my way for a couple of micro sized Toucans for a wedding cake (a significant special meaning between the bride and groom)  
I was also inspired by the Toucans to design a new tiny bird to add to the ever growing menagerie.  This is Charles, the rather distinguished looking Peacock.  I priced him a wee bit higher as he did take longer to make and I used more felt because of his flamboyant tail!  
I also received a delivery of wool felt in some natural shades of brown and beige, so I shall be making a few more wool animals soon.  The majority of my animals are made from Eco friendly felt at the moment, which is made from recycled plastic bottles.

Charles the Peacock!!
With love,

Romance for some in February....

Ahhh the month of February with the promise of romance, hearts and love......   
Seems like a few people are making plans for Spring weddings according to a couple of special request orders recently in my Blossom Hill Cottons Etsy shop.

This wedding cake bunting was fun to make using bright tropical colours in fuchsia pink, mandarin orange, lime green and lemon.  Two sets of fruity flags to adorn a cake or two in New York sometime soon.  

The second wedding request was to make up a couple of deer as cake toppers. My client wanted a Stag and Doe that would stand proudly and convey a sentimental special personal meaning.  
It was fun to firstly use my tiny fawn original 2" scale paper pattern as a guide, adapting it so the she would have legs (normally my fawns are sitting) and then enlarging to the required size before making the two forest friends up in different shades of brown felt with antlers on the Stag of course.  They were carefully packaged and shipped to New Jersey.

I do enjoy the little stories that go along with my creations, it makes every little snip and stitch all the more special  :)

With love

January and I am loving my new Calendar

Firstly, a rather belated Happy New Year to you all!!!


Not long left of this month, as we have been catapulted into the snowy season. 
I always look forward to opening up a nice crisp new calendar on January 1st and hanging it up in my kitchen.  This year I was rather slow off the mark as I was determined to find a calendar by Judith Glover. I had to hunt high and low to find one and it turned out to be quite a challenge.  I have had one of Judith's calendars up in my kitchen for the past 4 years. Her pretty illustrations are so uplifting and in keeping with my country farmhouse kitchen style.  The very first Note Nook calendar I had was invaluable for keeping little notes and cards as well as a few odds and ends in a handy place.  
When the end of the year came I neatly cut off the little envelopes at the bottom and continued to use them as a sort of filing system in my sewing room (a little bit of creative recycling).  
Last year I had a calendar in a different design in the form of a family organiser which also worked out well with each of us having our own column for various activities and appointments.  With Jemma away from home I was still able to keep a record of what she would be doing on various days of the week while she was studying and working in the city.  
Anyway, this year after searching in all the local book shops and calendar stalls at the malls I couldn't find a single one.  The websites weren't much help either with many in the US unwilling to ship to Canada (go figure?)  Sometimes I feel like we are living in the attic above the house where the party is going on, but without an invite (an analogy I heard recently on the radio) often very fitting with regards to the relationship between the US and Canada.  (not trying to offend any lovely Americans here) It is just a generalisation you understand.
Finally I did manage to track down a copy of Judith's Chelsea Market Note Nook    calendar on Amazon.ca.   The postage cost ended up being more than the actual calendar, due to the unnecessary enormous box with padding that it arrived in! 
I am really pleased with it, so it was worth the wait and it now hangs in it's rightful place by the window in my kitchen.

Christmas Eve with my family - it makes me so happy :)

Finally I have my family together for a nice length of time over the festive season, Jemma worked up until the 18th and Craig and I drove in to collect her on Sunday morning.   
With Christmas orders for my Etsy shop winding down I have not been as busy sewing for past few days.  I do enjoy running my shop, especially creating new things and seeing them off to new homes all over the world. The micro pets and the bookmarks and even one of the cake bunting toppers sold.  Trying to come up with new things to list can be quite hit and miss, but I decided that as quite of few of my animals end up on the top of birthday cakes I should do something a little more special with a combination of the flags and an animal of choice.  

As you can see above, the cake wasn't exactly the best style for display purposes, but it was the cake Amber chose for her Birthday -  just a simple Angel food cake from the bakery. I am going to source some fabric for a special request order for some wedding cake bunting this week in bright fruity colours, that will be fun to work on.
A new animal in my shop is this tiny wool felt lion.

Amber turned 17 on Dec 1st and celebrated a few days later with four of her best friends staying for a sleepover.  Her gift from us was a 50mm camera lens for her Canon T1I 500D, which is exactly what she wanted, although it didn't look much to us, she was thrilled.  She took a vast amount of fun pics of her friends and they all had a great time.
A fierce hurricane blew in a couple of weeks ago and left us, along with many others without power, telephone or internet for a almost two days.  Some families were out for 4 days!  The loud destructive winds blew down hundreds of trees in the valley and caused extensive damage to buildings in the area.  Our neighbours barn is now a heap of rubble. Craig and I had to 'babysit' the sump pump in the basement to prevent flooding, keeping the generator going every hour. It reminded me of the many sleepless nights when Jemma was a baby!!  

This tree fell right across our own road just a few yards away!  
Well I shall bid you all a goodnight now as it gets dark and I have just turned on the Christmas tree lights.  Wishing you all a wonderfully happy and healthy Christmas.

Christmas Preparations

Christmas is getting so close and this week I have started to feel that warm fuzzy pre-Christmas feeling.  Jem came home for the weekend having finished all her exams.  We had decided to hold off any decorating or tree finding until she was home, because it just wouldn't be right without her!   

Amber had heard from a friend of a nice family who own a special Christmas tree farm not too far from us, so we bundled up and headed up the mountain on Saturday morning. 

The snow was falling and there was quite a chilly wind blowing as we drove through the trees.  The girls jumped out of the car and after some rough measuring, chose 'the perfect tree'  Out came the man with the chain saw and chopped 'Towering Tim' down, leaving behind 'Stumpy Stan' in his place :( 
"Not to worry" said the man with the chain saw.  "The trees re-seed quite quickly and a new one will start to grow in its place".  
He then took us down to the barn where we stood and chatted with other tree purchasers while his wife made hot chocolate and we ate home made cookies specially baked with the help of their 3 young daughters.  
After a little manoeuvring in the back seat of Craig's car with J & A cramped up very close we took our tree home and spent the afternoon going through all our decorations collected over the years and hung them up, remembering when and where they were either made or bought.  Quite a challenge in itself now the girls are 17 and 19!!
We tried egg nog for the first time ever, played festive music and took a few photos of course.

Happy pre-Christmas Greetings to you all!!